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 26
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (1649).
When Roger Williams was banished from Massachusets in November, 1635, as a disturber of the peace both of the church and the commonwealth, the first cause of offense named was the teaching of an erroneous yet not religions opinion, viz., that the natives were the true owners of the land and the settlers gained no rights to it by patent from the king. This of course was an agreeable recommendation to the natives. It was natural therefore that when, to avoid the warrant that was to put him on board a vessel about to leave for England, Williams fled in the middle of January to the wilderness, leaving his wife and children behind, he should have gone directly to Massasoit; moreover he was privately advised by his friend Winthrop "to steer his course to the Narragansett Bay and Indians for many high and heavenly public ends, "and particularly because of the " freeness of the place from any English claims or patents." Wil- liams made his journey through the winter snows from Salem, an exposure from which he had not recovered thirty years later. He was accompanied by five companions; one of these was a Dorchester miller, like himself banished for " erroneous opin- ions." another a poor destitute creature, a third poor young fellow and two lads. At Montop Williams was warmly received by Massasoit and granted a tract of land on the eastern bank of the Seekonk river near what is called now Cove Mills. See- konk is now Rehoboth. "Here," says Williams, " I first pitched and began to build and plant, but I received a letter from my ancient friend Mr. Winslow, then Governor of Plymonth, pro- fessing his own and others' love and respect to me yet lovingly advising me since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds and they were loth to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water; and then he said I had the country free before me and we might be as free as themselves and we should be loving neighbors together." From this it is clear that the eastern authorities considered the bounds of their patent and of the Wampanoag jurisdiction under their protection to be the eastern shore of the Narragansett waters. "As good as ban- ished from Plymouth as from the Massachusetts," by this gentle advice, Williams, about two months after beginning his planta- tion at Seekonk, took his canoe and with his five companions dropped down the stream to a slate rock on the west shore of
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the stream, at its continence with the head waters of the bay, where he was hailed by some Narragansett Indians and landing. was pleasantly greeted. Again embarking, he passed around the headlands and canoed up the river on the west side of the peninsula to the month of the Mooshassic and chose for the seat of his new plantation the slope of the hill which rises from the stream, and gave to it the name of Providence. This was with- out question in the jurisdiction of the Narragansetts, but it would seem that this country had also belonged to the Wam- panoags, for Williams himself says that " some time after the Plymouth great Sachem Onsamequin (Massasoit) upon occasion affirmed that Providence was his land and therefore Plymouth's land." To this Bradford, the governor of Plymouth, and also an old friend of Williams, answered that even if the claim proved true Williams should not be molested again.
Williams early gained the favor of Canoniens and Miauto- nomi, the Narragansett sachems, and at the request of Governor Vane of Massachusetts visited them at their headquarters on Conanicut island and negotiated the league against the Pequots. Within two months of his settlement at Providence he was be- come their chief adviser. In return they had freely granted to him the lands and meadows where his plantation lay, between the two streams at the confluent point of which Providence lies. No doubt this dispute about the land was " the great contest between the three Sachems (to wit, Canonions and Mi- antonomi were against Ousamequin on Plymouth side)," in regard to which Williams, from whom this is quoted, "was forced to travel between them three to pacify, to satisfy all their and their dependants' spirits of my honest intentions to live peaceably by them."
It is not at all probable that there was any armed contention or bloody feud between the Narragansetts and the Wampan- oags at the time Williams settled. In the same declaration Williams says that Ousamequin "consented freely, being also well gratified by mne to the Governor Winthrops' and my en- joyment of Prudence yea of Providence itself," etc. In fact the land neighboring on Providence to the north, and perhaps that on which Providence stood, had belonged to the Cowesets who, after the defection of Massasoit, were gradually falling away from their tribal allegiance and, with their northern neighbors, the Nipmucks, subjecting to the Massachusetts col-
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ony. Indeed a few years later, in 1646, when the Narragansett power had greatly weakened, we find the Providence settlers buying the "right which Ousamequin pretendeth to a parcel of land" between their bounds at Pawtucket and an Indian plantation northwest from thence called Loquasqnscit (Smith- field, at the lime quarries), although they claim that they had the right of feeding and grazing cattle there by their grant from the Narragansetts before they had "released him (Ousame- quin) of his subjection," which gives evidence of a formal con- tract to his withdrawal from tributary subordination.
The name of Ousamequin first appears in the Rhode Island records in connection with the first of these transactions. In 1637 there appears annexed to the deed to Coddington and his associates of the island of Aquidneck, a memorandum of a con- sent to them by Onsamequin for a gratuity of five fathoms of wampum of the use of any grass or trees on the mainland on the Powakaseck (Pocasset) side. This by his Plymouth pro- tection was strictly in Wampanoag territory. In 1646, in the matter of the Indian plantation just mentioned, he was in troub- le with the town of Providence. They had paid him in coats and hoes and wampum, which he asked, but over night he changed his mind. On the report of Roger Williams and others he was, however, compelled to adhere to the "fair and righteous bargain." Being outside of the Rhode Island juris- diction, Ousamequin's name rarely appears in the history that concerns it, only we may notice that with ten of his men he had permission from the town of Portsmouth, in 1644, to take ten deer on the island of Aquidneck, within the liberty of that town ; but the deer were to be taken to Portsmouth, there to be viewed, and neither Ousamequin nor any of his men were to carry any deer or skins off from the island except at that time, and they were to depart off from the island within five days.
Massasoit and his Wampanoags had no part in the wars be- tween the Narragansetts and the Mohegans which were the indirect canse of the ruin of the Rhode Island tribe. It was not the policy of the Massachusetts government to allow their Indian neighbors to go on the war path. The chief, now ad- vancing in years, lived quietly at his favorite seats. He had a large family: his wife, two brothers, Quadequmet and Akkan- poin, three sons and a daughter whose name is not known. His
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oldest son was Wamsutta, sometimes called Mooanum, his sec- ond Pometacnm, Metacom, both of whom figure in history; and a third Sunconewhew. Wamsutta and Metacomet were better known by their English names of Alexander and Philip, by which, according to some authorities, they were called as early as 1656, but which as others hold were given to them after the princes of Macedonia, when they went np to Plymouth court in 1662.
Wamsutta, or Alexander, the eldest of the sons of Massasoit, was admitted to a part in the government of the Wampanoags before 1657. In that year he was the cause of a dispute be- tween the Plymouth and Rhode Island colonies in his sale of a little Island in Narragansett bay to Richard Smith, Jr., the son and successor of the old trader of the Narragansett. The colony of Rhode Island had always exercised jurisdiction over this island. In 1638 the town of Portsmouth granted permis- sion to mow its grass to one of their people, and no counter claim seems to have been set up until this sale, which, as Richard Smith always leaned toward Plymonth, was no doubt one of their practical attempts to help Massachusetts to gain a foothold on Narragansett bay. After the purchase by Smith the anthorities of Plymouth colony wrote to Rhode Island claiming jurisdiction. The letter was answered and commis- sioners appointed on both sides to settle the matter, but from the fact that private instructions were given to their commis- sioners by the Rhode Island assembly, there is little doubt that they were resolved in no event to surrender jurisdiction in any of the waters of their bay. In 1659 Smith attempted to take forcible possession, but was firmly met and the matter was finally decided as of right in favor of Rhode Island.
In this matter Wamsutta played the part Plymonth desired. Indeed, as the power of the Narragansetts waned, the lower sachems reasserted their authority. Not only did Pumham, the subordinate Narragansett sachem of Shawomet, refuse to leave Warwick neck, which the chief sachems sold to Gorton and Holden, but still another claimant sprung up to the same land in the person of Nawwushawsuch, " who lived with Ous- amequin." In 1656 Rhode Island daily looked for hostilities in consequence of this fend. Roger Williams sought in vain to settle this dispnte, as well as the difficulties made by some of the Pawtuxet families who had subjected themselves to Massa
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
chusetts' jurisdiction before Rhode Island had its charter. Such was the state of affairs when old Massasoit died, toward the close of the year 1661, at the age of about eighty years, faith- ful at the close as he had been from the day when he made the first Indian treaty of amity with the Pilgrim fathers. Yet, though he had on more than one occasion saved the weak set- tlers from disaster, if not utter ruin, he had not escaped with- out suspicion and indignity, and had gradually seen his own power, notwithstanding his release from Narragansett domina- tion, weakened over his own tribe and their subordinate allies. To him, as to all with whom the Indians came in contact, the touch of the white man's hand was death. At the first cele- bration of "Forefather's day " at Plymouth in 1769, one of the regular toasts of the dinner was, "To the memory of Mas- sasoit, our first and best friend and ally of the natives." It may be here remarked that this chief always appears on the Masssachusetts records as Massasoit, on those of Rhode Island as Onsamequin.
WAMSUTTA Of Sepaaqnet-Alexander, the eldest son of Mas- sasoit, succeeded his father as chief sachem, but from what is known of his character and his brother, it is not probable that either of them shared their father's attachment to the English, or at least were willing as thoroughly as he to conform their policy to that of the Massachusetts or Plymouth governments. His first act was in direct antagonism to Massachusetts policy. This was a deed to the town of Providence in 1662 of a tract of land west of the Seekonk river which Massasoit had claimed, as in the case of the Loquasquscit lands in the old Coweset jurisdiction. This sale of lands which the eastern colonies itched to possess, to the heretics of Providence, was as deadly a sin in the eyes of Plymouth and Massachusetts as the sale of Shawomet to the pestilent Gorton, and it is a striking coinci- dence that in each case this presumption on the part of the In- dians to choose the purchasers of their territory was the chief, if not the only reason for their death.
Wamsutta had also strengthened the power of his tribe by his marriage with Wetamoo, squaw sachem of the Pocassets, who ruled the country which fronted westerly on the western waters of Narragansett bay, facing Mount Hope and Rhode Is- land in their entire length. Accused by " some of Boston" of contriving mischief against the English, and that he had so-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
licited the Narragansetts to engage with him in his designed rebellion, Alexander was ordered by Governor Prince of Ply- month colony to appear before the next general court. Not answering the summons, but it is said continuing to visit the Narragansetts, Major Winslow was sent with a force to bring him up. He was surprised at a hunting station, and only sur- rendered at the point of the pistol. He was taken prisoner, followed by a train of eighty warriors and women. Halting on the way at Winslow's house at Marshfield, Alexander fell ill. It is said of him that the day was very hot, but that he would not ride Winslow's horse because there was none for his squaw to ride. To ill to go further, he was allowed to return, on his promise to send his son as a hostage for his appearance at the next court. He is said to have "died before he got half way home;" some say of "fatigue, rage and heat," but there were suspicions of crime in his death. John Easton, in his " Rela- tion of the Indyan Warr," written at the time, relates that Philip and his warriors charged "that their king's brother when he was king came miserably to dy by being forced to Court as they judge poysoned." His death, which his wife, Wetamoo, as well as his brother, ascribed to fonl means, was without doubt the determining cause of King Philip's rising, and of the terrible struggle which still bears the name of Philip's war.
END OF THE NARRAGANSETTS .- In the winter of 1678-9, the Indian council of live Narragansetts and others of the tribe by the president of the council, Gideon L. Ammons, petitioned the general assembly of Rhode Island to name a committee " to in- vestigate their affairs in reference to the encroachment of the whites upon the tribal lands, and whether it was better to con- tinue the tribe as a tribe or enfranchise them." Public hear- ings were had and testimony taken, some of which were at the Indian meeting house in Charlestown, a township in the Mis- quamicut region in the southwestern part of the state, and orig- inally a part of the town of Westerly, incorporated as the lifth town of the colony by freemen of Newport in 1669. The report of the committee is authority for the following statement.
After the death of George Ninegret, no king of the Narra- gansetts was ever crowned and the tribe was ever after gov. erned by an annually elected governor or president and a coun- cil of four members. When the Indian council was established
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
is not known. It was in existence in October, 1770. Since 1707, however, the tribe and the reservation of lands have been virtually under the jurisdiction of the colony and state, as the Indian kings and their councils, although holding directly from the English crown, as of the King's Province, have always har- monized with the colony and state authority. They claim to be allied by treaty with the state and to enjoy certain privi- leges and protection by virtue of their subjection, accepted by the English king and their grants of territory.
They held an election day in March and a religions meeting in August of each year. An act for regulating the affairs of the Narragansett tribe of Indians in this state passed by the legis- lature of Rhode Island in February, 1792, prescribed the method of election, All the males of the said tribe of twenty- one years of age, born of an Indian woman belonging to the tribe, or begotten by an Indian man belonging thereto or of any other than a negro woman, was entitled to vote at all meetings; the conncil to be elected at the school house, their accustomed place of meeting, in March, by a majority of votes.
The Indian church was planted in 1750, in the reign of King Tom, as their sachem, Thomas Ninegret, was called. In 1847, according to Updike, " there was not an Indian of the whole blood remaining in the tribe." Their character as well as their blood had changed by their mingling with whites and negroes. In 1833 a committee reported that there were one hundred and ninety-nine of the tribe residing in Charlestown and fifty were supposed to be absent. In 1858 they enrolled one hundred and thirty-eight members. In 1879 the tribe numbered one hun- dred and thirty-three, of whom fifty-eight were males and sey- enty-live females. They maintained their poor and supported public worship, and the state paid the expenses of the school. Be- sides the original reservation, which contained abont sixty-four square miles, in 1858 about two thousand acres of their tribal lands were held by individual members of their tribe as their separate estate. In 1879 they owned in all about three thousand acres in the center of the town of Charlestown.
In 1880, the Narragansetts having consented to a dissolution of the tribe, the Indian council made a deed to the state for the entire reservation except the meeting house and lot and a right of way to it as long as it should be used as a place of public worship. The sum of five thousand dolars was agreed upon as
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the price, and the purchase money was divided among three hundred and twenty-four persons admitted to be members of the tribe, the individual share of each being fifteen dollars and fifty-three cents. It is curious to note in the list of the tribe not an Indian name unless that of Noka is found. The words of Denison are now true to the letter in all their force.
Of the old pride and power of the Indian kings and war- riors only their mouldering sepulchres remain. The royal burying ground of the most ancient date is located in Charles- town, about a mile north of Cross' mills, on a piece of pleasant table land near fifteen feet above the surrounding high ground. The spot commands a beautiful view of the adjacent country and the sea. Royal graves were privileged above others. On this plateau, in a mound one hundred feet long, thirty feet wide and three feet high, and in the spaces around it, are the remains of the kings, queens, members of the royal family and chiefs of the Narragansett nation. Some of the graves are evi- dently very ancient. In 1878 the general assembly of Rhode Island, having received a deed of half an acre of this plateau, set up a post and rail fence five feet high which encloses a plot twenty feet by one hundred, including the greater part of the graves, and also a tablet of marble thus inscribed: " This tablet is erected and this spot of ground enclosed by the state of Rhode Island to mark the place which Indian tradition iden- tifies as the Royal burying ground of the Narragansett tribe, and in recognition of the kindness and hospitality of this once powerful nation to the founders of this state."
CHAPTER V. NEWPORT IN THE COLONIAL WARS.
BY JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS.
Privateering from Rhode Island .- War with the Dutch, 1652-3 .- Privateers and Pirates, 1653-90 .- War with France, King William's War. 1689-98 .- Depre- dations by Privateers .- Queen Anne's War, 1702-13 .- The Old French War, 1754-61 .- War of the American Revolution, 1775-83 .- Rhode Island in its Political Relations, 1763-74 .- Stamp Act Congress .- Non-Importation Agree- ment.
A LTHOUGH the treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which closed the thirty years' war between France and Sweden, the victorious powers and the House of Austria, assured the inde- pendence of the Netherlands as one of its great results, and gave a temporary peace to Europe on land, the depredations of the maritime powers upon each other by no means ceased. Priva- teers still roamed the seas with their commissions. Spanish galleons, with the treasures of the Indies, still crossed the ocean at fixed periods, and were too rich a prize to be lightly aban- doned. England, under the reign of James I. and Charles 1., was neutral in the continental struggle. The great revolution kept her too busy at home to meddle in foreign war ; but her ad- venturous sea-faring men took letters of marque from France and probably from Spain also. At first the colonies had too much to do at home in their plantations and little coasting trade to think much of foreign plunder. The time soon came when it was a chief source of occupation and fortune.
In the early part of 1649 a prize, captured from the Dutch, though at what date does not appear from the letter of Roger Williams to John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut, which relates the incident, was bought by Captain Clarke, of Newport. It had probably been brought into this port by some adventurous Englishman. Trouble was threatened by Stuyvesant, the gov- ernor of New Amsterdam, who claimed that the capture was
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
"contrary to the peace with Spain." This attitude of the Dutch gave alarm because of the purchase by one of their number of Dutch island, at the month of the bay ; a purchase which fell through later. The peace with Spain was the treaty of West- phalia.
In the spring of 1650, as is also learned from a letter of Roger Williams to John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut, the records of the Rhode Island colony being silent on the subject, one Bluefield brought a prize into Newport, and some Frenchmen who came with him, probably his companions in the expedition, "bought a frigate of Captain Clarke [of Newport] to go out upon their voyage to West Indies." The vessel was the Dutch prize pur- chased the year before. To this the English residents demurred, fearing that they would practice their trade upon this coast. There was at this time great uncertainty as to the state of affairs abroad. King Charles had been beheaded. Prince Charles, proclaimed king in Scotland, had found it necessary to leave the Hague and his Orange kinsmen and friends to take refuge in Paris. The last vessel from Bristol had brought word of great divisions in England itself and "a fresh report of wars with France," from the court of which an armed attempt at restoration of the monarchy was feared. There is no informa- tion as to the nation from which the Frenchmen, " flesht with blood," as Williams describes, took the prize they brought in. nor yet whether they were permitted to take out the ship they purchased ; but in the absence of contrary order on the records it is probable. But they could have taken no commission from Newport, as England was at peace with all the contracting powers of the treaty of Westphalia.
The "crowning mercy" of Worcester, and the flight from England of Prince Charles, after that disastrous and decisive bat- tle, left the parliament free to pacify the country and engage its forces in foreign affairs. A war abroad has always been a favorite mode of securing peace at home. The prosperous col- onies and great wealth of the Dutch decided Cromwell to turn a deaf ear to those of the parliament, who were urging a close confederacy with the Holland states. Among these was Sir Henry Vane, the old friend of Roger Williams, and after a man- ner an early patron of the Rhode Island colony. The famons "Act of navigation " was aimed directly at the Dutch, who had almost a monopoly of the carrying trade of the world. Not
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
content with this war of enactment, the parliament issued letters of reprisal to sundry English merchantmen who complained of Dutch ill-treatment, and numbers of Dutch vessels were taken and brought in as prizes, The states-general replied by equip- ping a large fleet, and a collision, accidental or premeditated, in the road of Dover with the English fleet, not satisfactorily ex- plained, brought on war, the formal declaration of which was made by parliament in 1652. The orders of the council of state to the colonies to prepare for defense found Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations in schism, the former separated from the mainland by the commission to Coddington. The latter claimed the authority over the colony by reason of their holding to the old charter which the commission abrogated.
Assemblies were held at Providence and Newport the same day-May 17th, 1653 ; the commissioners of the colony, as the deputies from Providence and Warwick styled themselves, re- ceiving and considering a letter from the town of Newport, written in March, notifying them that for " present security" they had taken measures for forts and arms and mustering of the militia. The reason for this hesitaney must be sought, no doubt, in the influence of Roger Williams, then in England, as the agent of Providence and Warwick, to secure the confirma- tion of the old charter. Williams was the guest of Sir Henry Vane at his home, Bellean, in Lincolnshire, and it is known that Vane was opposed to St. John's policy of war with the Dutch, and no doubt hoped that the colonies might be kept clear of entanglement. However this may be, the colony commissioners, on receiving the letter, passed an order restrictive rather than menacing in tone. After recognizing the authority of the council of state, they forbid further export of provisions from the colony for supply of the Dutch, direct that each plantation (or town) take measures for its own " safety defence," and finally expressly require that "in the name of the commonwealth of England that no man within the limits of this colony presume to take vessels or goods from the Dutch, as being anthorized by this colony, without orders and directions from a General Court of Commissioners, upon such a penalty as the nature of his facts shall require by the judgment of his peers"-and it was further ordered that all writs and warrants shall be issued forth in the name of the Commonwealth of England."
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