USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
1 Venus Mercatoria. Linneus.
2 Morton's Memorial, Ap. p. 388.
VOL. 1-6
82
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. some making only bows, some arrows, some dishes, while III. some hunted and others fished, and those on the seashore 1622. made wampum, collecting the shells in summer to coin them in winter. They were shrewd at a bargain and would try all markets, taking their wares forty or fifty miles or more to secure a good price, and being ever sus- picious of attempts to deceive them it required great pru- dence and integrity in dealing with them. They eagerly sought European trinkets, mirrors, knives, tools and fire- arms. The latter it was forbidden by law to sell to them, but through the French and Dutch, and from unprinci- pled English they obtained them.1 The habit of beg- ging, which in their primitive state was unknown among them, they soon contracted after the English came, and were very troublesome in that way. True to the maxim that " flatterers always want something," they would pre- face their petition with some adulation of the wealth, the wisdom, or the valor of the English. They were fond of running in debt, and those who trusted them usually lost both their goods and their customer. These habits, to- gether with drunkenness and gluttony, to none of which were they previously addicted, were acquired by contact with Europeans. Still there were many fair and honora- ble traders among them who scorned alike to beg or to deceive.
Among their primitive virtues punctuality was promi- nent. The exactness with which they kept a promise in- volving attention to time was remarkable, and they were slow to receive excuses from any who failed in this re- spect. They measured time accurately by the sun by day and by the moon or stars by night, and divided their year into thirteen lunar months. They had an intuitive sense of justice, were prompt to award it, and quick to retaliate where it was withheld. If a robbery occurred between different tribes the offended party demanded jus-
1 This was one of the chief complaints against Morton of Mt. Wollaston.
83
INDIAN COUNCILS.
tice, and if recompense were refused resort to reprisals CHAP. was had, yet care was taken not to seize more than a just III. compensation for the loss sustained. A strict regard to 1622. public opinion controlled the action of their sachems, whose authority, although hereditary and absolute, was rarely exerted, in important affairs, in opposition to the popular will. Punishments, whether capital or only corporal, were usually inflicted by the sachem, although sometimes, when a public execution might endanger the peace of the tribe, the sachem would send one of his chief warriors secretly to behead an obnoxious person.
Their love of news amounted to a passion. Their civilized successors do not peruse the teeming columns of the daily press with more avidity than the red man wel- comed to the council fire or the wigwam the bearer of some novel intelligence. Upon these occasions they would all sit round in a circle, two or three deep, each man with his pipe, while amid profound silence the news was told, or a consultation was held, the orator speaking for an hour or more with earnest language and impas- sioned gesture. Eloquence was a native gift with these rude sons of the forest, and exerted as powerful an influ- once upon their deliberations as ever it did on the Gre- cian stage, or in the Roman forum. Their mode of col- lecting an audience, especially when the news was of great importance, such as a declaration of war, was to send swift messengers to rouse the country, and at every town to which the runner came a fresh messenger was sent to the next town, until the last, coming near the royal residence, shouted often, every man who heard it taking up the shout, and all assembled quickly at the council place. The speed of these runners was extraor- dinary, owing to constant training at races, and having their limbs anointed from infancy. They have been known to run from eighty to a hundred miles in a sum- mer day, and back again in two days. The farm labor
4
84
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. and domestic drudgery was performed entirely by the wo- III. men, except on the breaking up of new ground, when the whole neighborhood, men and women, would unite in the task. The women planted, tilled and harvested the crops with little or no aid from the men, dried the corn, beat it and prepared it for food. They made all the domestic utensils of earthenware, and would carry incredible bur- dens of provisions, mats, and a child besides, on their backs. The tobacco plant alone was cultivated by the men. This they used for the toothache, to which they were very subject, and as a stimulant, prizing it as highly as do their civilized successors.
Their staple article of food was Indian corn pounded to meal and parched, which they mixed with a little wa- ter. A spoonful of this preparation, with an equal quan- tity of water, would suffice for a meal. A small basket of it would support a man for many days. It was easily taken on long journeys, slung to the back or carried in a leathern girdle about the loins. Of the unparched meal they made a pottage called " nassaump," whence the En- glish name " samp," the same which in New England is now called hasty pudding or mush. Chestnuts they dried and preserved the year round as a luxury. Acorns also were used when there was a scarcity of corn, or for a va- riety. They extracted the oil from walnuts and used it in cooking and also for anointing their persons. Straw- berries were very abundant, and during the season they lived almost wholly upon a delicious bread made by bruis- ing them in a mortar and mixing them with meal. Whortleberries and currants were dried and kept the year round ; beaten to powder and mixed with their parched meal they made a favorite kind of cake. Sum- mer or bush squashes, of which the Indian name was askuta-squash, and beans, which next to corn was their principal dependence, were much used. The sea and the forest supplied them with an abundance of animal food.
1622. ceo)
85
INDIAN WIGWAMS.
Their venison and other meats were dried in the sun and CHAP. smoked for winter use, as were some varieties of fish. III. But of all their different sorts of food none were more 1622. highly esteemed than clams. In all seasons of the year, at low tide, the women dug for them on the sea-shore. The natural juices of this shellfish served them in place of salt as a seasoning for their broth, their nassaump and their bread, while the tenderness and delicacy of the flesh have preserved its popularity to this day, amid all the culinary devices of an advanced civilization. Whales, sometimes sixty feet in length, were often cast up on the shores, and being cut in pieces were sent far and near as a most palatable present.
Their wigwams were made with long poles, usually set in a circle and drawn nearly together at the upper end, leaving a hole at the top to serve the double pur- pose of a window and chimney. This part was the work of the men. The covering and lining was done by the women. The summer houses were covered with birch or chestnut bark finely dressed ; the winter ones with thick mats woven by the women. The interior was lined with mats fancifully embroidered. A house of sixteen fect diameter would accommodate two families. Some of the houses were oblong, and were designated by the number of fires that could be made in them. The entrance was closed by a hanging mat, although sometimes a door was made of bark. They rarely fastened their wigwams, ex- cept when about to leave the town, in which case the last one secured it on the inside by a cord and got out at the chimney. It was a universal custom, which all the In- dians strictly observed, to have small detached houses where the women dwelt secluded during the term of their monthly sickness, and no male ever entered these wig- wams.1 Their household furniture consisted of large
1 It is very remarkable that, of all other nations of whom we have any knowledge, the Jews alone held to this singular custom.
86
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. III. hemp sacks, baskets, mats and earthenware, the products of female industry. They often removed their houses, in 1622. summer and winter, and for convenience in hunting, or for their agricultural labors, and always when a death oc- curred among them. The mats were easily transported, so that setting new poles was the only labor attending a removal, and a few hours sufficed to accomplish the whole. Of their houses erected for public purposes we have al- ready written. They were larger and often more loosely constructed than their wigwams. The great council house of the Narragansets was fifty feet in diameter.
In personal appearance the Indians were very erect, with firm, compact bodies, high cheek bones, hazel eyes, straight black hair and light copper-colored complexion. They painted their faces, chiefly with a red pigment prepared from clay or the bark of the pine tree, the women for ornament, and the men, in war, to appear more terrible to their enemies. During the period of mourning, as before related, they besmeared their faces with soot or lampblack, and refrained from painting for decoration.
The Indian languages were remarkably rich and co- pious, regular in their inflections, and susceptible of com- binations beyond almost any other known tongue. The native languages of North America have been reduced to four classes : 1, the Karalit, of the Esquimaux ; 2, the Delaware, of the East ; 3, the Iroquois, of the West, and 4, the Floridian, of the Gulf regions. They were divided into numerous dialects, of which those of New England were considered as varieties of the Delaware. The lan- guage of the Narragansets, to which Roger Williams' Key is devoted, was spoken, with more or less of idiomatic variation, over a region of country extending north and south from Rhode Island about six hundred miles.
Such was the condition of the aborigines of Rhode Island when a new and discordant element was engrafted
87
MURDER OF OLDHAM AND OTHERS.
on their social and political system by the advent of the English. Massasoit was the first to recognize the im- portance of this new element, and by formal treaty, to enlist the English upon his side, in throwing off the yoke of the Narragansets ; a treaty which his tribe preserved inviolate for more than half a century, and was only ruptured when the fiery spirit of Philip of Pokanoket, the younger son of Massasoit, could no longer brook the wrong and outrage heaped upon him by the whites. The Nar- ragansets viewed with a jealous eye this dangerous alli- ance, and threatened the English with hostilities ; but the bold attitude of the colonists averted the danger.
The Pequots, the ancient enemies of the Narragansets, perhaps emboldened by the partial defection of the east- ern Indians, and by the fact that Miantinomi, the younger sachem of the Narragansets, was in his minority, em- braced every opportunity to make war against them. Block Island and Montauk fell into their hands, and the Pequot conquest was extended ten miles east of Pawcatuck river. But a fatal disaster was soon to over- 1632. whelm the Pequot tribe and to efface their name from off the earth. A number of murders had been committed in which it was proved that they had participated, either directly or by affording shelter to the perpetrators. One Captain Stone and his entire crew of ten men, in a ship from Virginia, trading on the Connecticut river, were murdered while asleep, and during a few months suc- 1633. ceeding the death of Oldham some twenty more were tortured and killed on Connecticut river. The murder 1636. July. of John Oldham was the immediate cause of the Pequot war. He was a daring trader with the Indians, and was perhaps the first Englishman who contemplated settling in Rhode Island. So highly was he esteemed by the In- dians that Chibacuwese, afterwards sold to Gov. Win- throp and Roger Williams and called Prudence Island, was freely offered to him as an inducement to establish
CHAP. III. 1621. March 22.
1622. Jan.
88
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. III.
1636.
himself among them. Oldham, with two English boys and two Narraganset Indians, had been upon a trading voyage to the Connecticut river ; on his return, touching at Block Island, he was murdered and his companions carried off. John Gallup, who was also returning from the river in a small vessel, seeing Oldham's boat full of Indians near the island, bore up for it. The Indians made sail for the main land, but Gallup gallantly pur- sued them and, after a sharp contest, boarded the craft, driving most of the enemy into the sea. The mangled corpse of Oldham was found on board. His companions and most of the goods had already been taken away.
The news of this outrage reaching Boston caused great excitement. In a few days a deputation, including the two Indians who were with Oldham, arrived from Canon- icus with a letter from Roger Williams to Gov. Vane, concerning the tragedy, and soon afterwards the two boys were safely returned to their homes, with another letter from Mr. Williams, stating that Miantinomi had sent an expedition to Block Island to recover the boys and the property, and to avenge the murder of Oldham. An embassy accompanied by Catshamekin, sachem of the Massachusetts, as interpreter, was sent to Canonicus to treat with him on the subject of the murder. Upon their return they reported " good success in their business," and that " they observed in the sachem much state, great command over his men, and marvellous wisdom in his answers and in the carriage of the whole treaty, clearing himself and his neighbors of the murder, and offering as- sistance for revenge of it, yet upon very safe and wary conditions." It was proved that some of the Narragan- set sachems had been in the plot, but that their chiefs, Canonicus and Miantinomi, were not concerned in it.
Aug. 8. 13.
An expedition, consisting of ninety volunteers, under command of John Endicott, was forthwith equipped to demand satisfaction of the Indians. They embarked in
July 20. 26. 30
89
ATTACK ON THE PEQUOTS.
three pinnaces, with orders to take Block Island, and CHAP. III. thence to proceed to the Pequot country to secure the murderers of Captain Stone, to obtain indemnity for the 1636. crime, and hostages for the future good conduct of the Aug. 25. Pequots. After a short skirmish they landed on the isl- and, where they remained two days, and having burnt the wigwams and staved the canoes, they left for the Connecticut river. At Saybrook they received a rein- forcement of twenty men and sailed for the Pequot har- bor, at the mouth of Thames river. Sassacus, the chief sachem, was absent at Long Island. A skirmish ensued, in which some of the Indians were killed, their town was burned, and the next day the wigwams on the opposite side of the river were destroyed, and the canoes broken up, after which the expedition returned in safety to Bos- ton without the loss of a man. By this affair the Pequots Sept. 14. had fourteen killed and forty wounded, and were greatly exasperated. The policy of this hostile expedition has been severely condemned by Lieut. Gardiner, commander of Fort Saybrook, in his history of the war. Had the instructions to Endicott limited his powers to the Oldham matter, the settlers of Connecticut might not have suf- fered so much from the fury of the Indians. The gov- ernor of Plymouth remonstrated with the Massachusetts authorities for having needlessly provoked a war.
But the mischief was already done. The Pequots were thoroughly roused, and wreaked their vengeance, in the ensuing winter, upon the defenceless inhabitants of Connecticut. They also sent ambassadors to the Narra- gansets, with whom they had been in perpetual enmity, offering to bury the hatchet, and proposing a league with them and the Mohegans to effect the utter destruction of the English, and thereby to avert the calamity which they foresaw must soon annihilate the Indian race. It was a perilous hour for New England when the envoys of Sassacus opened their negotiations with the assembled
. 90
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. court of their ancient foe, the wary and thoughtful Ca- III. nonicus. Right was on the side of the Pequots-the right 1636. to the lordship of the soil, in which the rapid encroach- ment of the whites must soon restrict them. National existence depended upon a prompt and united effort to extirpate the race whose moral superiority was already asserted in reducing the aboriginal princes of the eastern tribes to a state of vassalage. Life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness, the same considerations which in the next century were urged as the inalienable rights of man, in the struggle with the mother country, were as clearly understood by the Indians, and were no less dear to them than to their enemies, while to these arguments there was , the added bitterness of a conflict of races. Every in- ducement that could be brought to bear upon the case was skilfully employed by the Pequot emissaries to attain their end. The decision was one that involved results equally momentous to the Indians and the English, and already the truthful eloquence of the Pequots seemed about to prevail in the wavering council of the Narragan- sets.
·Oct.
At this imminent crisis Roger Williams appeared among them. He was the only man in New England who could avert the impending evil. His own life, and that of the few who were with him, was secure in the love of the Narragansets. Still, though smarting under the injuries of recent oppression, he threw himself be- tween his own persecutors and their relentless foes. At the risk of his life, from the Pequot tomahawks and the perils of the way, he sought the wigwam of Canonicus, and accomplished, what a high authority has pronounced " the most intrepid and most successful achievement of the whole war ; an action as perilous in its execution as it was fortunate in its issue."' At the earnest request of the Boston magistrates, now seriously alarmed at the
1 1 Bancroft, 398.
-
.
91
WILLIAMS'S MISSION TO THE NARRAGANSETS.
aspect of affairs, Williams undertook this dangerous mis- CHAP. sion. His own words can best describe the nature and IH. 1636. result of his labors :-
" Upon letters received from the Governor and Coun- cil at Boston, requesting me to use my utmost and speed- iest endeavors to break and hinder the league labored for by the Pequots and Mohegans against the English, (ex- cusing the not sending of company and supplies by the haste of the business,) the Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hand, and scarce acquainting my wife, to ship myself alone, in a poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind, with great seas, every minute in hazard of life, to the sachem's house. Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequot ambassadors, whose hands and arms, me- thought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, mur- dered and massacred by them on Connecticut river, and from whom I could not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also. God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break to pieces the Pequots' nego- tiation and design ; and to make and finish, by many trav- els and charges, the English league with the Narragan- sets and Mohegans against the Pequots."?
1 Letter to Maj. Mason. It is a singular fact that Winthrop alone, of all the old writers upon this war, makes any mention of the part performed by Roger Williams in averting a fatal catastrophe. Had not the weil-laid plan of the Pequots been frustrated by the influence of Williams, the result of this earliest American war of extermination would, according to all human cal- culation, have been reversed. Yet none of the Massachusetts historians, be- fore the present day, have had the candor to admit the fact. We can exense the military writers, Mason, Underhill, Vincent and Gardiner, for the omis- sion, as they aim chiefly to describe the active hostilities in which themselves bore a part ; but that Morton, Hubbard, Johnson, Mather, IIutchinson, and others, who give a more or less detailed account of the negotiations connected with the war, should omit all mention of the debt of gratitude they owed to the founder of Rhode Island upon that occasion, is somewhat remarkable. Even the liberal Prince in his preface to Mason's history simply says, " An agency from the Massachusetts colony to the Narragansets happily preserved their staggering friendship ;" leaving us to apply the remark either to the deputation sent on
92
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. III. 1636. Oct. 21. 22.
1637. April 1.
Upon the conclusion of this all-important negotiation, Miantinomi, being sent for by Gov. Vane, went to Boston, together with two sons of Canonicus, another sachem, and nearly twenty attendants. He was received with military honors, and the preliminaries of a treaty being at once agreed upon, it was formally concluded the next day, when the Indians were dismissed in the same man- ner. It was a treaty of amity, and of alliance, offensive and defensive against the Pequots ; and, because the In- dians could not perfectly comprehend all the articles, it was agreed that a copy should be sent to Mr. Williams, who could best interpret it. This management was hon- orable alike to Mr. Williams and to the government of Massachusetts. It showed the confidence which both the contracting parties placed in the good faith of their in- terpreter, and it attests the integrity of the Puritans that they should submit an instrument of such importance to the scrutiny of so strenuous an advocate of Indian rights.
The Pequots, foiled in their attempt, both with the Narragansets and the Mohegans, rashly resolved to pros- ecute the war unaided. The garrison of Fort Saybrook was constantly alarmed by their menaces. Capt. Under- hill, with twenty men, was sent to the relief. The massa- cre at Weathersfield, where six were killed and seven taken prisoners and tortured, followed by another slaugh-
April 23.
the 8th August, (which Johnson, one of the above-named writers, seems to have accompanied, and Williams did not,) or to the later and more dangerous mis- sion in October, undertaken by Williams alone, whose name, in either case, is not even mentioned. There is a maxim of Rochefoucault, which is verified in this instance ; " Il n'est pas si dangereuse de faire du mal a la plupart des hommes, que de leur faire trop de bien." Gov. Winthrop and some of his council, in view of the signal services rendered by Mr. Williams throughout the war, moved in the General Court, that he be recalled from banishment and honored by some high mark of favor. The silence of the court records upon the question is significant. But ample, though tardy, justice has since been rendered to the memory of Williams by a son of Massachusetts. The elegant historian of the United States has more than atoned for the want of magnanimity in his literary predecessors, by the generous spirit displayed in the ninth chapter of his eloquent work.
93
DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.
ter of nine persons, and the capture of two young girls, CHAP. decided the infant colony of Connecticut to declare war III. without delay. Three small towns, Hartford, Windsor 1637. and Weathersfield, which had been organized scarcely a May. 1. year, and contained in all much less than two hundred men, formed the whole colony of Connecticut. The Pe- quots could muster nearly a thousand warriors, and had two fortified villages, one on the Mystic river, near the sea, and the other but a few miles distant, where Sassa- cus, the chief sachem, dwelt. A force of ninety men, under Capt. John Mason, was immediately despatched to the scene of conflict, accompanied by Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, with about sixty of his warriors. All 10. doubts of the fidelity of these savage allies, who preceded the main body to Fort Saybrook, were speedily dispelled. The Mohegans vanquished a party of Pequots near the fort, and brought in the scalps of the slain as trophies of their prowess. From Saybrook, Mason, being reinforced by Capt. Underhill, sent home twenty of his troops, while 15. the main body sailed for Narraganset bay, designing to surprise the Pequots in the rear. The forces reached a 19. harbor near Wickford on Saturday, passed the Sabbath in religious exercises, were detained two days more on board their vessels by a northwest gale, and then after two days of severe march across the country, and being joined by a strong force of the Narragansets, they en- camped on Thursday night near Fort Mystic.
The Pequots spent their last night in carousal, exult- ing over the English, who they supposed, from seeing the vessels sail by some days before, had abandoned the at- tack. Their songs were distinctly heard at the English outposts until midnight. At daybreak the English, in two divisions, assaulted the fort. The Indian allies, ex- cept Uncas and one other, remained behind through fear of their redoubtable foc. The Pequots were buried in pro- found slumber. The crash of musketry roused them to
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.