USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 25
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Ninegret had no kinship with the Narragansett sachems. Ilis sister Quiapen, however, was the wife of Mexham, the son of Canoniens. (So says Updike, but Arnold says Ninegret claimed the tract but his "nephew Pessions denied his right thereto."
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Pessiens and Miantonomi were nephews of Canoniens, father of Mexham. Ninegret was therefore the brother-in-law of the consin of these princes and not the uncle of Pessicus. ) The tract of Misquamient, which was incorporated as Westerly, the fifth town of the Rhode Island colony in 1669, embraced the greater part of the territory of the eastern Niantics including their best trading and fishing station and the Pawcatuck ford.
After the death of Miantonomi in 1643, Ninegret seems to have been admitted to a share in the rule of the confederated tribes of the Narragansetts and Nianties. In 1647, when the New England commissioners demanded the appearance of Pes- siens at Boston to demand the payment of the indemnity of wampum forcibly imposed upon them in 1645, Ninegret was sent in his stead and was held hostage until his messenger went home for an amount on account of the same and engaged to pay the remainder. He protested against the payment of tribute to the English, to whom the Narragansetts owed nothing. While in Boston on this visit, Ninegret's portrait was taken. An en- graving of this picture, which is owned by the Winthrop family, is to be found in Drake's "History of Boston" and also in Denison's " Westerly and its Witnesses."
In 1653 the council of Massachusetts sent messengers to ques- tion the sachems of the Narragansetts as to their intention to ally with the Dutch (in the war between England and Holland then raging), directing their queries to Pessiens, Ninegret and Mexham, as chief sachems, and again on hearing of the attack of the Narragansetts on the Long Island Indians. In 1654, war having again broken ont between the Narragansetts and the Long Island Indians, the United Colonies summoned Ninegret to Hartford. He answered that the enemy had slain the son of a sachem and sixty of his tribe. "If your governor's son were slain and several other men, would you ask counsel of another nation how and when to right yourselves?" He refused to go to Hartford and asked " to be let alone."
Roger Williams, in a letter to the general court of Massa- chusetts in 1654, throws the blame of this Indian quarrel on the Long Island tribe. " The cause and root of all the present mis- chief is the pride of two barbarians, Ascassassotic, the Long Island sachem, and Ninegret of the Narragansetts. The former is proud and foolish ; the latter is proud and fierce. I have not seen him these many years, yet from their sober men I hear he
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pleads. First-that Ascassassacotic, a very inferior sachem bearing himself [relying] upon the English hath slain three or four of his people, and since that sent him challenges and dar- ings to fight and mend [avenge] himself. 2 He, Ninegret, con- sulted by solemn messengers with the chief of the English Governors, Major Endicott, then Governor of the Massachu- setts, who sent him an implicit consent to right himself, upon which they all plead that the English have just occasion of dis- pleasure. 3 after he had taken revenge upon the Long Is- landers and brought away fourteen captives divers of their chief women, yet he restored them all again upon the mediation and desire of the English. 4 after this peace made the Long Is- landers, pretending to visit Ninegret on Block Island, slanght- ered of his Narragansetts near thirty persons at midnight, two of them of great note, especially Wepiteammoe's son, to whom Ninegret was uncle. 5 In the prosecution of this war, although he had drawn down the Islanders to his assistance, yet upon protestation of the English against his proceedings, he retreated and dissolved the army." It seems that the Connecticut colony had taken the Long Island Indians under their protection, in reference to which Roger Williams continues, "1 1 know it is said the Long Islanders are subjects ; but I have heard this greatly questioned, and indeed I question whether any Indians in this country remaining barbarous and pagan may, with truth and honor, be called the English Subjects. 2 But grant them subjects, what capacity hath their late massacre of the Narragansetts, with whom they had made peace, without the English consent, though still under the English name, put them into ?"
Notwithstanding this appeal which, as it was written on the 5th of October, probably reached its destination too late, the commissioners of the United Colonies despatched Major Wil- lard against Ninegret with a force of two hundred and seventy- four foot and forty horse. Ninegret retreated to a swamp on the 9th of October. and the troops returned to Hartford with- out success toward the close of the month. The commissioners at Hartford were greatly angered, but Massachusetts no doubt in consideration of Roger Williams' appeal, interfered, and the war went no further. Ninegret had a fort, but it was no de- fense against the English troops. The swamp is supposed to be the cedar swamp in Westerly, near Burden's pond. The Nian-
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tie fort was originally built as a protection against the Pequots. It stood or Fort neck, about eighty rods southwest of Cross mills. The land had steep banks on the south side, and projected into Pawaget pond (sometimes called Ninegret's pond), an arm of which runs northerly. The fort was close on the beach, square and about three-quarters of an acre in extent. It had three bastions twenty feet square at the three angles. The main entrance was near the pond at the south corner, where there was no bastion.
The sale of the Niantic country in 1660 to Vanghan and the Newport company has been noticed. In 1659, in defiance of a law of Rhode Island, John Winthrop, governor of Massachu- setts, and others purchased from Coginaquam, sagamore or sachem of Narragansett, the northern neck of Wyapumscott, on the mainland about Narragansett ( Wickford). In 1660 the final outrage was committed by the commissioners of the United Colonies on the unfortunate people. An armed force was sent into the territory, and under pretense of wrongs done the Mo- hegans, their allies, which the Narragansett sachems denied, a heavy fine was laid, and they were compelled to mortgage their entire country for the payment of five hundred and ninety-five fathoms within four months. In October, 1660, Sucquansh (grandson of Canonicus), Ninegret, Scuttup and Wegnakaumnt, alias Gideon Chief, sachems of the Narragansetts, for them- selves and their tribe, mortgaged by deed all the lands in their country, commonly known and called by the name of Narra- gansett country and Cowesett country, on condition they should pay the fine of six hundred fathoms merchantable wampum peage to the United Colonies. Six months was named for re- demption. Atherton paid the fine. The Indians were unable to redeem the land, and in the spring of 1662 the sachems made formal delivery of the land. The narrow strait in which the successor of Canonieus was at this time, appears from the order of the general court of May, 1661, to the recorder to issue a writ to arrest "Susquans, the Indian Sachem," and bring him before the court of trials in an action for debt of thirty pounds.
Reading the history of these atrocious proceedings, it is some comfort to remember that Rhode Island was not one of the United Colonies, and had her hands full defending her own rights against her grasping neighbors, without taking up the canse of the Indians. In 1644, harrassed and disheartened by
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the conflicting claims to jurisdiction, Pessicus and Canonicus made submission to King Charles I., saying that they could " not yield over themselves to any that are subjects themselves in any case, having been the chief sachems or Princes succes- sively of the country time out of mind." When, in 1663, on receiving the charter from Charles the Second, the commis- sioners notified " the Indian Kings viz Quissuckquansh (grand- son of Canoniens) and Nineganet (sachem of the Nigantocott country; this of course is Ninegret, ) that the king in his patent had taken the said Sachems and all the Narragansett Indians into his gracious protection as subjects to himself, the sachems thanked his majesty for his gracious relief in releasing their lands from their forced purchasers and mortgages of their lands by some of the other Colonies."
They seem still to have had hopes of redress, but his gracious majesty was otherwise employed in the gay days of the restora- tion, and too busy with the fair dames at Whitehall to listen to the complaints of his loyal subjects of "King's Province," as the Narragansett and Niantic countries were now styled, even had they reached his ears. He was too headless of his own inter- ests to care for those of others. For some years nothing more is heard of Ninegret. Shorn of the authority which he had shared with Pessiens, and overruled if not excluded from the council of the Narragansetts by the authority of Canonchet, the son of Miantonomi, Ninegret probably " sulked in his tent " literally. In 1675, when the genius of Philip of Pokanoket attempted to gather the tribes for a stand for wigwams and country, Nine- gret and his Niantie followers stood aloof. When, after the first outbreak, Captain Hutchinson, commissioner from Massa- chusetts, marched arms in hand to Petaquamscott con Narrow river in South Kingstown) and forced a treaty upon the Narra- gansetts, Ninegret was one of the six subscribing sachems (Canonchet, Canoniens, Matatoag, Ninegret and Pnmham, and Maquns, sister of Ninegret, squaw sachem of the Narragansetts). Church's narrative does not mention Ninegret. Drake, who annotated the narrative, mentions him as one of the six, saying that " he did not join with the rest in the war." The "rest," although they had given hostages, all turned against the Eng- lish in the course of the campaign. What hostages they gave and whom Ninegret- gave up for his good faith are not men- tioned. Perhaps in this may be found the reason for his re-
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serve. Drake adds in another note that the war lasted "until the Narragansetts were all driven out of the country except Vinegret." Easton makes no mention of him in his narrative. But Arnold, in his recital, says that on the execution of Canon- chet at Stonington, in which all the Indian allies of the English took part, " the Niantics, who under Ninegret had joined the English, burned his body." This may have been. however, without Ninegret's knowledge or consent. Arnold cites no an- thority for his statement. Tucker says, " the whites purchased Ninegret's neutrality during the Indian war of 1675, and for this treachery to his paramount sovereign and his race the ' Tribe Land' in Charlestown was allotted to him and his heirs forever as the price of his treason;" but the same writer rather illogically adds, "The Ninegret tribe never were the real Narra- gansetts, whose name they bear. It is a libel on their glory and their graves for him to have assumed it. Not one drop of the blood of Canonicus, Miautonomi or Canonchet ever coursed in the veins of a sachem who could sit neuter in his wigwam and hear the guns and see the conflagration ascending from the fortress that was exterminating their nation forever." Yet Drake tells us that Maquus, the old queen of Narragansett and sister of Ninegret, was with the Narragansett party surrounded by Major Talcott in the cedar swamp near Warwick in July, 1676, and taken with the rest was put to sword, and this Arnold confirms.
On the death of Canonchet in April, 1676, the sceptre of the allied Narragansett and Niantic tribes devolved upon Ninegret. It may more properly be said that with Canonchet the sover- eignty of the Narragansetts ended and their independent tribal organization also. It is a tribute to their power that the Niantics, who alone remained standing after the dread catastrophe, merged their name in that of the Great Bay tribe. Ninegret died soon after the war, leaving his tribe in possession of such lands as were left to them after the Misquamicut cession, they neither having been taken away from him nor confirmed to him by the English as far as can be learned. He was simply not driven out.
He was buried in the burial place of the Ninegrets, the re- mains of which are still to be seen on Fort neck. Ninegret had two wives. By one he had a daughter; by the other a son, Ninegret, and two daughters. Weecounkhass, the first daugh-
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ter by the first wife, succeeded him. She was crowned at Che- munganock, now known as Shumancanne (Charlestown). True to their old policy the Connectient authorities who, from the time of the Pequot war, had claimed jurisdiction over and en- deavored to plant their settlers in the Niantic country, had at- tempted to set up Catopeci, a Pequot Indian, as joint sachem with the hereditary sovereign. True also to the old policy of the Nianties and Narragansetts, the injured princess, who in the document styles herself " Weconnkhass, the queen of the Ni- hantiek Country in the King's Province in New England, with the consent of her Counsell," petitioned the king to leave the jurisdiction of the country, as it ever had been, in the hands of Rhode Island. The question of jurisdiction over King's Prov- ince was finally decided in favor of Rhode Island in 1687.
Weecounkhass on her death was succeeded by her half brother, Ninegret. In 1708 a committee of the general assem- bly was appointed to agree with Ninegret "what may be a suf- fieient competence of land for him and his people to live upon," and to view the state of the land. In 1709 they reported a great deal of land very poor and some very good, and also that Nine- gret had executed a quit claim deed to all Indian lands what- ever, except a tract or reservation of sixty-four square miles. In 1717, on the petition of Ninegret (the second), the assembly assumed the care of the Indians' lands and appointed overseers to lease them for the benefit of the tribe and to dispossess tres- passers. In 1718 a memorial was addressed to the assembly in behalf of Asqnasnthuks, granddaughter of Miantonomi, setting forth her claim to the Narragansett lands. The claim was dis- proved at the next session and the title shown to have come to the present Niantic sachem from old Ninegret as "survivor of and joint tenant of the sachemdom with Casuckqunee" (Pes- sicus), brother and successor of Miantonomi, after his murder by Uncas.
Ninegret's will was dated in 1716 17 and he died about 1722, leaving two sons, Charles Augustus Ninegret and George Au- gustus Ninegret. Charles Augustus succeeded as sachem. At his request certain of his lands in Westerly were granted as a site for a meeting house. In 1734 twenty acres of this land were laid out and deeded for the use of the Church of England in Westerly. Charles Augustus, dying, left an infant son, Charles, " who was acknowledged as Sachem by a portion of
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the tribe but the greater part adhered to George Augustus, his unele, as being of pure royal blood." The dispute ended with the death of the child. George received the royal belt in 1735. On his death he left a widow and three children : Thomas, George and Esther. In Updike's history of the Narragansett church there is a minute : " September 6, Thursday, 1759. The bans of marriage being duly published in the church of St. Panl's in Narragansett, no objection being made John Anthony, an Indian man, was married to Sarah George, an Indian woman, the Dowager Queen of George Augustus Ninegret, deceased, by Dr. MeSparran."
Thomas Ninegret, better known as " King Tom," was born in 1736 and succeeded his father in 1746. He was then ten years old and was sent to England where he received a common school edneation. On his return from England he brought the plans of a building which was set up and in which, known as the sachem house, he lived and died. In 1750 the Indian church was planted. In 1759 Thomas Ninegret petitioned for the re- peal of the law forbidding the purchase of Indian lands, which was framed and passed in their interest, and permission was given to him and all other Indians to dispose of their lands without restriction. This aet was repealed on petition of the tribe in 1763, and Ninegret consenting to execute a deed for the sachem lands, a committee was appointed to set them off, but the tribe could not agree as to what lands should be set off. In 1765 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent over a teacher with books to the Narragansetts, and Ninegret petitioned the society to establish a free school, in quite a touching letter. King Tom, though heavy and fat, idle and not over temperate, was fond of learning and religion. In 1767 he was required by the assembly to execute a deed for the school house lot in Charlestown to the colony and to settle his accounts and to pay his debts by sale of his personal estate and lands if not ade- qnate. The tribe, aggrieved by this proceeding, on the advice of Sir William Johnson sent an agent to England to lay the matter before the king. King Tom died in 1769 or 1770. Upon his death the sachem house was sold and a large part of the tribe lands to pay his debts, after which, in 1773, the remainder was secured to the tribe by act of the assembly beyond contin- gency of debt.
King Tom's wife and only son left him some time before his
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death and went to the west. The son dying before the father and George Augustus being also dead, the sovereignty passed to their sister, Esther, who married Thomas Sachem and was crowned queen in 1770. Quite interesting details have come down to us as to the ceremony. The rock on which she stood is still pointed ont. It is about three feet above ground and twelve rods north of King Tom's mansion-Sachem House, An eye witness of the coronation gave an account of it abont 1840 to Mr. Updike of Westerly. - " I saw her crowned over seventy years ago. She was elevated on a large rock so that the people might see her; the Council surrounded her. There were present about twenty Indian soldiers with guns. They marched her to the rock. The Indian nearest to the royal blood in presence of her counsellors put the crown on her head. It was made of cloth covered with blue and white peage. When the crown was put on the soldiers fired a royal salute and hinzzaed in the Indian tongue. The ceremony was imposing and everything was conducted with great order. Then the soldiers waited on her to the house and fired salutes. There were five hundred natives present besides others."
Queen Esther left one son, George, who was crowned after her death. He was killed when about twenty-two years old by the falling of a tree which was being felled. He was the last of the Ninegrets, and the last king of the tribe. His death was in 1827, according to Drake (Notes on Church's Narrative).
MASSASOIT, or Ousamequin, sachem of the Wampanoags, was the earliest of the sachems of whom there is record in the history of the New England settlements. In March, 1621, three months after the landing of the Pilgrims in Plymonth bay, they were visited by an Indian, Samoset, from the coast of Maine, who had learned some English from the fishermen who visited the coast. He informed the whites that they were in the region of the Wampanoags, whose territory extended to the Narragansett bay. A few days later Samoset brought in another Indian, one Squantum (or Tisquantum), a native of Pa- tuxet (or Plymouth), the place in which they now were. This savage was one of those who had been carried off to England by one of the sea captains, and also spoke English. Al. hour later he was followed by Massasoit. An interview was held at which Squantum acted as interpreter, and a treaty of alliance was made between the settlers and the Wampanoags.
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which was maintained unbroken for fifty-four years. Massasoit ' had already some knowledge of English power from Squantum, his subject, and from a visit made to him by Captain Dermer, an English captain, who, coasting from Maine to Virginia in 1615, in an open pinnaee, had fallen in with Squantum, whom he knew, and had been taken by him to the headquarters of his chief at Pokanoket.
The territory of the Wampanoags extended from Cape Cod to Narragansett bay, and by some (Miller's King Philip and the Wampanoags) is supposed to have included the islands in the bay. The Indian plague of 1616 had been particularly fatal to this tribe, and they had fallen under the dominion and become tributary to the Narragansetts, who had taken to themselves the islands before the coming of the English. There are sup- posed to have been four large Indian villages of the Wampa- noags on the neck, a peninsula which projects into Narragan- sett bay ; one at Montop, the name of which was later changed to Mount Hope; another at the head of the cove; a third at Kiekamnt, the back river ; and a fourth at Sowams or Sowam- set. The Indian remains at all these places show that it was cultivated and thickly inhabited. The sachems had their resi- dences at Metacom in Montop bay, and at Pokanoket or Sowams.
In the summer of 1621 Governor Bradford sent a deputation of the Plymouth colony to return Massasoit's visit : Edward Winslow, Stephen Hopkins, and Squantum as a guide. They were received by Massasoit at Pokanoket, and found him almost destitute of provisions, save a partridge and a few fish. In 1623, word coming to Plymouth that Massasoit was " sick and like to die," Winslow was sent to visit him. He reached Pokanoket in time to resene him, and so won the gratitude of the sachem that he said, "Now I see the English are my friends and love me ; and whilst I live I will never forget this kindness they have shown me." And in fact at this interview he gave the English warning of a plot of Massachusetts Indians against the white settlements.
Intercourse soon grew between the bay settlements and Mon- top, and as early as 1632 the Plymouth settlers had a trading post at Sowams, which they held to be the garden of their patent. Here there is a living spring of water known as Mas- stsoit's spring. The trading post is supposed to have been at
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Phobe's neck, on the Barrington side of the Swanzey river. Massasoit at this time is believed to have been about forty years of age. "The King," says the earliest account of him. "is a portly man in his best years, grave of countenance, spare of speech." It is known that he made repeated visits to Ply- month, as indeed was needful, he having placed himself and his tribe under the protection of the Plymouth government. He is said to have taken the name of Ousamequin when he started on his war against the Narragansetts in 1630, an expedition, the result of which was apparently his freedom from tributary subjection, but of which there remains no account. Moreover, the Indians in the immediate neighborhood of the Plymonth settlements recognized his tribal jurisdiction. The distance from Plymonth to Montop is about thirty miles, and the Indian trail soon became the route of daily travel.
It was while on these visits to his white friends that Massa- soit became known to Roger Williams, who arrived in Boston in 1630, and no doubt also to John Eliot who came to New England the next year. Both of these men were ministers of the gospel and admirable lingnists, one having been educated at the University of Oxford and the other at that of Cambridge. Alike deeply concerned for the conversion of the natives, they alike from the time of their arrival mingled with them and sought by converse to learn their tongue. Of their thorough knowledge of the dialects there is proof in " A Key into the Language of America; or a Help to the Language of the Natives in that part of America called New England," by Roger Wil- Jiams, published at London in 1643, and in John Eliot's gram- mar and translation of the Bible into the Indian language. The facility which Williams early acquired was of great service to himself personally and to his friend Massasoit, for whom he acted as interpreter at his meetings with the English anthori- ties. Young Governor Henry Vane, during his short stay in New England, 1635-37, and Governor John Winthrop, in his term of office, both before Vane's coming and after his departure, and Edward Winslow, governor of Plymouth, were Williams' friends and alike interested with him in the establishment of peaceful relations with the Indians and their conversion to Christianity. Indeed one of the objects set forth in the charter of the Massachusetts colony was the conversion of the natives; and Winslow was the immediate canse of the founding of the
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