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 50
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
suck traders. This is the brook which gives the name (Stoney Brook) to the harbor of Wickford. It was the chief mart of Indian trade on the Narragansett waters.
Roger Williams was a frequent visitor here. His letters to John Winthrop. Jr., governor of Connecticut, of June, 1675, are dated from " Mr. Richard Smith's " and from " Mr. Smith's at Nahigonsik." And the records of the colony show that the appointed place of meeting of the authorities of Rhode Island and New Hampshire to settle the claims to territory in 1683 was " Mr. Richard Smith's at Narragansett."
Abont 1657, says Callender, several gentlemen on the island (Rhode Island) and elsewhere made a considerable purchase, called the Petaquamscot purchase. This tract is a strip of land running east from Narragansett Pier in South Kingstown dne west to Charlestown. It is known that Rhode Island men settled here before 1661, at which time there was a hot dispute as to the ownership of the land between the governments of Plymouth and the Providence Plantations. It was at the Petaquamscot settlement, at the mouth of the river, that the Connecticut detachment of General Winslow's expedition ex- pected to find shelter on their march to join the main body moving from Smith's garrison honse to the northward. The Petaqnamscot settlement was incorporated as Kingstown in 1674.
In 1660 William Vaughan and other Newport men purchased of Socho, a Niantic chief, the tract of Misquamicut, the neck of land on the east side of Pawcatuck river, and a set- tlement was made here which took the name of Westerly on its incorporation, in 1669. About this tract there was trouble between the Connecticut government and the King's Province (as the Narragansett country was called after their submission), Connectient claiming it as her share of the Pequot conquest, careless alike of the fact that the Narragansetts claimed juris- diction to the river, and that her warriors had aided in the Pequot defeat.
In addition to these three chief trading stations, in which Indian products were the chief articles of barter and Indian wampum peage the sole currency, the island of Manisses or Block island, which fronts the roadstead of Narragansett bay, must be named, for though not as important as the other ports, it lay in the way of traffic between the inhabitants of
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Massachusetts Bay and Plymonth coast with the New Haven colony and the settlements on Long Island, both English and Dutch. It was here that Oldham was wounded in 1633 by the savage Pequots, who then held the island. In 1672 this is- land was incorporated as New Shoreham.
The English found the Narragansetts a thriving, industrions people, combining agriculture and manufactures, fishing, hunt- ing and fowling, with a certain address in the arts of ornament. From the prolific soil they raised Indian corn. their staple food, in great abundance and used in various forms of preparation, fresh, pounded and dried. Beans and squash were plentiful; acorns and chestnuts they dried; from walnuts they took oil; fruits grew in profusion: strawberries, whortleberries and cur- rants. The sea swarmed with fish, large and small, the rocks on the shore with cormorants, the beaches were thick with clams and other shell fish. The ponds were at seasons covered with geese, ducks and innumerable wild fowl, the woods were full of turkeys, pigeons and smaller birds, all of which the Indians snared or killed with bow and arrow. The deer they drove in great parties, encircling and gathering them to a place of slaughter. Their manufactures were rude but well adapted to their purposes. Their earthen vessels were shapely, their tools convenient, and their stone pipes and bracelets not without grace of form. The recent discovery (1878) of an Indian pottery factory shows the extent of this industry. It was found in a large cave of soft limestone in the town of Cranston on the west of the bay-unfinished and broken plates were scattered about the ground. Their tools were chisels and hammers made of a hard stone found in the hills near by. There had previously been found a factory near Providence, in a ledge of steatite or soapstone rock, the only formation of this character, it is said, east of the Alleghanies, unless there be one as stated near Rich- mond. The Indians dug around the pots and hollowed them out.
Abundantly supplied themselves, the Indians carried their surplus wherever they might hope for a market, sometimes to a distance of forty to fifty miles. They were keen at a bargain, suspicious of deceit and true themselves. In addition to these various industries they were the chief makers or coiners of wampum-peage, the currency of the country when the English arrived and for a long period after the first settlement. Wam-
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pum-peage was of two kinds; the white made of the stock of the periwinkle shell and the black from the shell of the quahawg or round clam, about twice the value of the white. The eye of this shell was ground smooth, polished and drilled. Strung to- gether, they were worn as necklaces, armlets or bracelets, or blended into figures as ornaments. When used as money they were strung in fathoms. A string of three hundred and sixty white beads made a fathom. A fathom of black was worth twice that of the white. There was no limitation in its make nor any license required from the prince or local sachem. This currency was current among the Indian tribes for six hundred miles in the interior and also with the English, French and Dutch, who made it a legal tender. Defective pieces injured the value of the fathom and were not taken by the Indians. That there was counterfeit peage appears by the order of the assembly in 1647 that any false peage offered for goods by In- dians and warranted so should be confiscated. The value at the first coming of the English was for the white six for a penny; the black three for a penny. A string of white beads or fathom was worth five shillings sterling; of black ten shillings sterling. With the fall in the value of beaver skins in England caused by the spread of the fur trade, the value of wampum was ten shil- lings the fathom. The cause of the decline was beyond the financial understanding of the natives. These values changed, for in 1649 the Rhode Island colony passed a law that no person should take any black peage of the Indians but at four a penny: under pain of forfeiture, half to the informer, half to the state, and in 1658, "seeing that peage is fallen to so low a rate it is ordered that all fines shall be accounted and paid in peage at eight per penny white and in other pay equivalent thereto ; " and in 1662 it is ordered that " upon the consideration that peage is fallen to so low a rate and it cannot be judged that it is but a commodity and that it is unreasonable that it should be forced upon any man, therefore all fines, &c., shall be accounted and paid in current pay according to merchants pay and all former laws stand repealed." Current pay was sterling or New England coin. Shillings and sixpences were coined in Massa- chusetts in 1652-thirty shillings equal to twenty-two shillings and sixpence sterling. Rhode Island was the last of the colo- nies to give up the use of wampum. The records are full of in- stances of the use of peage in matters of consequence.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
In 1637 Canonicus and Miantonomi received forty fathoms of wampum from Coddington and his friends for Aquidneck is- land and other privileges and Wanamatravemit, the sachem of the island, five fathoms for his consent thereto; and in 1639, Wammenatoni, five fathoms in satisfaction of any and all other titles. In 1642 Miantonomi and Pumham, the local sachem, re- ceived one hundred and forty-four fathoms for the entire tract of Shawomet, or Warwick, and in 1645 the fine imposed on Pes- sicus by New England for making war on his enemies without their consent, amounted to two thousand fathoms, to secure which they mortgaged the entire Narragansett country.
Of a true trading spirit, the Narragansetts were eager pur- chasers of the tools, little articles of ornament and especially of the fire arms, of which they quickly learned the use; and the wampum paid was the most convenient medium for the purchase of furs at any of the trading posts from the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, and served to raise the nature of the trade to a higher plane than that of common barter; but it is to be observed that the transfers of title to land were generally ac- companied by gifts of some kind-clothing, tools or ornaments- in addition to or in lien of wampum consideration. There is no means of ascertaining the value of this Indian trade, but it no doubt entered largely into the daily life of the colony.
In 1638, the year of the Portsmouth settlement on Aquidneck island, three of the freemen, Mr. Coggeshall, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Dyre, the clerk of the company, were appointed for the venison trade with the Indians, and were forbidden to give them above three half pence a ponnd in way of trade, the same to be sold by the truck masters for two pence a pound. In 1640 the trade with the Indians was made free by law at Newport to all men, and the same year also it was ordered that Indian corn should "goe at four shillings a bushel between man and man in all payments for debts from that day forward, provided it be merchantable."
The same year it was ordered by the general assembly that "all the Sea Banks are free for fishing to the towne of New- port." The importance of the fishing trade was early seen by Roger Williams, who had from Canoniens a gift of Chibachu- wesa or Prudence island in the bay " because of the store of fish." This island he divided with Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. It was suited for double occupation. being in
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shape, as Williams queerly describes, "spectacle-wise." Fish were no doubt dried here for winter use and export.
That the Narragansett Indians pushed their trade among the Dutch and French appears from the ordinance in 1647 forbid- ding any trade by the Dutch, French or other alliants or even any Englishman to trade or barter with the Indians within the jurisdiction of the colony on pain of forfeiture of ship and goods. The Dutch governor was to be notified, and to secure obedience Newport was ordered to take into their custody the trading house or honses of the Narragansett bay; Portsmouth to take in Prudence island, and Pawtuxet to make its choice be- tween Providence, Portsmouth or Newport.
Arnold in his history of Rhode Island gives some idea of the prices which ruled in the colony at different times. Those of 1664 are taken from the rates at which the several articles were valued in the collection of the tax upon the towns to provide money to pay the expenses of their London agent: in colonial currency wheat at four and six pence per bushel, peas at three and six pence, pork at three pounds ten shil- lings the barrel. In 1670, summary means being again taken to send agents to England, a compulsory tax was laid on the following scale of market values : Pork three pence ; butter six pence ; wool one shilling ; peas three shillings and six pence a bushel ; wheat five shillings ; Indian corn three shil- lings ; oats two shillings and three pence. Forty shillings of New England currency was then equal to thirty shillings ster- ling. New England shillings silver were taken for two shil- lings value in produce. This was before Philip's war, which was by far the most disturbing incident in Rhode Island history ; after its close, in 1678, a tax was laid which showed the effects. Fresh pork was valued at two pence a pound, salted pork fifty shillings the barrel, fresh beef twelve shillings the hundred weight, packed beef in barrels thirty shillings a hundred, peas and barley malt two shillings and six pence a bushel, corn and barley two shillings, washed wool six pence a pound, and good firkin butter five pence. "Most of the tax was paid in wool, the price of which was reduced to five cents." While this great change in the price of staples occurred, the relative value of English and colonial money remained un- changed.
An insufficiency of information is found when search is made
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into the foreign trade of Newport before 1700; indeed until the issue of the first newspaper. We know that when Roger Williams and John Clarke went to England on the matter of the charter that they sailed from Boston in November, 1651, and we have no doubt that when Coddington went thither on his errand in 1649 with his daughter, and sailed in January, that it was from the same port. That there was some direct trade with the Barbadoes is certain. Mr. William Coddington was engaged in shipping horses to that point from Newport in 1658. Quakers came direct to Newport from that port the same year. George Fox arrived in 1672. In 1666 such trouble was found in obtaining exchange on England to remit to John Clarke, the colony's agent in London, that a committee was raised to send a venture to Barbadoes by which to procure the needed bills from that colony-sufficient proof that commerce was at a low ebb at this period. The answer of Rhode Island, May 8th, 1680, to the board of trade and plantations to the questions touching commerce are selected and given in full:
"To the eighth we answer that with respect to other nations that the French being seated at Canada and up the Bay of Fundy are a very considerable number, as we judge about two thousand, but as for the Indians they are generally cut off by the late war that were inhabiting our collony.
" To the ninth we answer, that as for foreigners and Indians we have no commerce with, but as for our neighboring English we have and shall endeavor to keep a good correspondency with them.
"To the eleventh, we answer that our principal town for trade in our collony is the Towne of Newport, that the general- ity of our building is of timber, and generally small.
" To the thirteenth, that we have several good harbors in the colony of very good depth and soundings, navigable for any shipping.
" To the fourteenth, that the principal matters that are ex- ported amongst us is Horses and provisions, and the goods chiefly imported is a small quantity of Barbadoes goods for supply of our families.
" To the sixteenth, we answer that we have several men that deal in buying and selling, although they can not properly be called merchants, and for planters that there are about live hundred, and about five hundred men besides.
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"To the seventeenth, that we have had few or none either of English, Scots, Irish or foreigners, only a few blacks, imported. '
"To the eighteenth, that there may be of whites and blacks about two hundred born in a year.
"To the nineteenth, that for marriages we have abont fifty in a year.
" To the twentieth, that for burials the seven years last past according to computation amounts to four hundred and fifty- five.
"To the twenty-first, that as for merchants we have none, but the most of our colony live comfortably by improving the wil- derness.
'To the twenty-second, that we have no shipping belonging to our country, but only a few sloops.
"To the twenty-third, that the great obstruction concerning trade is the want of Merchants and men of considerable Estates amongst us.
"To the twenty-fourth, we answer that a fishing trade might. prove very beneficial provided, according to the former article, there were men of considerable Estates amongst us, and willing to propagate it.
" To the twenty-fifth, that as for goods exported and import- ed, which is very little, there is no customs imposed."
The interference by travelling traders or peddlers with the set- tled business of the colony had so increased in 1698 that a law was passed for their government. It reads : " Whereas divers transient persons and trading strangers are continually coming into all parts of this colony with a quantity of sundry sorts of goods and commodities, retailing the same from house to house in chambers, warehouses and other places, for some time and then going away to another place, gathering up quantities of ready money and carrying it off, and who pay little or no ac- knowledgment to the government or scote or lote, nor are at those charges the freemen and inhabitants that trade are at, who also trust the inhabitants and yearly take off considerable quantities of the produce of the colony in part of pay, which the other transient traders do not; but carry off the ready money to the damage not only of the traders but of the govern- ment and inhabitants in general. And not only so, but some of the transient traders, taking up quantities of goods of the merchants of Boston. &c., come here and vend them at low rates
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and then run away and never pay said merchants, as several hath done; all which is and will be of very ill consequence to the government and inhabitants if not redressed. For the pre- vention of which inconvenience and in direct way of trade, and that the government may receive some proportional consid - eration from them as well as from the inhabitants and freemen, be it enacted that from and after the publication of this act no person whatsoever (not admitted an inhabitant or freeman ac- cording to the laws of this colony) shall be permitted to retail any commodity either in shop, warehouse, chamber, vessel or any other place in any town of this colony before said person has entered his name with an invoice of the particular species and value of said goods he intends to retail, with the clerk of said town, npon the penalty of forfeiture of all said goods and commodities that shall be found in his enstody, one third to the informer, one third to the governor and one third to the town. And for every ten pounds value of said goods en- tered and sold he shall pay to the town clerk five shillings money which said money and invoice shall be produced at the next Town Council in order to pay said money into the Town Treasury for the use of the poor and mending of high- ways and bridges. And further that no merchant, factor or any person whatsoever that shall bring on shore any goods into any town of this colony, not admitted an inhabitant or freeman as aforesaid, he shall not have liberty to expose any of said goods by wholesale before he enter his name with an invoice of his goods with the Town Clerk upon the penalty aforesaid." Power was given to assess the same not exceeding twenty shil- lings on the hundred pounds. Some exceptions were made for the fairs allowed by act of assembly, but always under condi- tion that articles brought to fairs should not be transported to any other town or the trader be allowed to trade in the town itself where the fair is held after " the fairs are passed."
For further protection of the home business it was enacted in 1701 that " wherever there are several persons that are traders from foreign parts that doth come to trade in this colony with several sorts of merchandise to the great detriment of such merchants as live here and are settled and have their residence now here, all such merchants so coming or others whatsoever that doth reside in the Colony for the term of one month shall be liable to all such rates and duties that shall be raised on
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their persons and goods as others of his majesty's subjects of this Colony is or may be at, &c." Thus, while the liberal in- stitutions of the colony opened wide its doors to attract the stranger, a contracted economic legislation stood at the gate to take toll from them or warn them away.
While Rhode Island was thus engaged in regulating trade as among themselves, the British government was endeavoring to bring the entire commerce of all the colonies into harmonious relations with each other and subordination to itself. This was to be effected by an enforcement of the provisions of the famous navigation act; an act the objects of which were to force the entire import and export trade of the colonies into English bottoms to the exclusion of the Dutch and to secure to England the monopoly of the American market. It was passed by the parliament of the commonwealth in 1651, and, with some changes in form, by the king's parliament (Charles II.) again in 1660. It was far reaching in its purpose and scope. Its author builded better than he knew. It crippled the maritime power of Holland in its rigid enforcement. It aroused a resistance which was the germ of American independence. An order to enforce its provisions and that of the plantation aet, which was of kindred nature but special application, was issued from White- hall in November, 1680. In March, 1681. the governor and council made ordinance which was published by beat of drum in New- port in April of the same year and confirmed in May, 1682, by the assembly, establishing " a public office to be known by the name of a naval office." Here masters of vessels were required to make entry and give bonds as required by act of parliament. Fees were prescribed for entrance and discharge. The arrival and departure of vessels above twenty tons and the regulation of seamen while in port had been the subject of legislation in 1679. The governor was to have a "just knowledge of their designe " when sailing.
The colonies chafed under other restrictive provisions and even under this necessary regulation. To the complaints of the board of trade Governor Easton replied, in 1694, that it was the want of forts in the bay that made the enforcement of the navi- gation laws difficult-an answer which these gentlemen probably valued at its worth. Disregard and breach of the law had 80 exasperated the government in England that a royal letter was issued in 1697 threatening the colonies with a withdrawal of
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their charters if they were continued. The establishment of courts of admiralty under English rule was an effective measure to reach one class of offense-that against the law of nations.
SLAVE TRADE .- Little or nothing more than has been related regarding the commerce of Newport until the close of the sev- enteenth century is to be found except the arrival in 1696 of a
vessel direct from the coast of Africa, with a cargo of slaves. She brought forty-seven negroes, fourteen of whom were sold
in the colony at thirty to thirty-five pounds each, and the re- mainder sent overland to Boston where the vessel was owned. There had existed in England three trading companies to Af- rica. The first, incorporated in the reign of Elizabeth, was suc- ceeded by the Company of Royal Adventurers, chartered in 1662, which in turn sold out to the Royal African company, chartered in 1672.
Parliament opened the trade to all merchants June 24th, 1698, for a term of fourteen years. The act of parliament opening the trade stated that it was "for the well supplying of the plantations and colonies with sufficient numbers of negroes at reasonable prices," and was followed by a circular from the board of trade and plantations to all the English colonies in America to ascertain the condition of the trade. The reply of Rhode Island stated that only one vessel (as above stated) liad ever arrived direct and that two years before the passage of the act. In 1700 three slavers, owned in the Barbadoes, sailed from Newport for the coast of Africa. Before that time the supply had come from Barbadoes. From twenty to thirty slaves was the average annual supply and from twenty to thirty pounds their average price. The report said further that the trade was lim- ited by the dislike of the Rhode Island planters for these negroes by reason of their turbulent and unruly tempers "and to the inclination of the people in general to employ white per- sons before negroes ;" yet in 1708 the census of the colony showed that the " few blacks" reported in 1680 had increased by birth and importation to 426 black servants, while the total number of freemen was hardly over a thousand and the num- ber of white servants only forty-six; and already in 1703 negroes and Indians alike were forbidden to walk the streets of Newport after nine o'clock at night without a certificate that they were on their master's business.
With the opening of the eighteenth century began the history
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of Rhode Island commerce and commercial prosperity. It is very common to theorize on the charms of the sea and the de- lights of seafaring men, but if history be searched it will be found that the proportion of those who have gone upon the Atlantic willingly is a small one in the large number, and that it increases in ratio to the difficulties of obtaining a living on shore. So long as there was land in the island of Rhode Island not already taken up in small farms the youth preferred to set- tle upon and cultivate it and become freemen like their fathers.
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