Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 9

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 9

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The colonials, except the Connecticut contingent, which had been withdrawn, lay at Wickford for more than a month. Provisions were received by water, and the wounded were sent to Aquidneck. Negotiations for terms were opened by Canonchet, although his disdain in rejecting overtures later suggested that he was either fencing for time or trying to find out through his messengers the actual strength of the colonial troops. The latter raided Pom- ham's village in Warwick and burned the wigwams, but found no Indians. Ninigret and Pessacus favored peace, but Canonchet was obdurate, declaring that he would rather die than become a slave to the English. Later in January reinforcements from Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts reached Wickford, and soon thereafter the army, by this time numbering 1400, marched out again, pursuing the Narragansetts, who retreated steadily, raiding and burning as they went to clear the country of provisions. The "hunger march" proceeded through Rhode Island northwestward to Woodstock, Connecticut, and thence into Massachu- setts. The retreat of Canonchet was masterful and worthy of a Greene or Kutuzoff. Had the colonists persisted, no doubt they would have been drawn away from their towns into the wild Indian country toward which Canonchet was headed, and destroyed there. Abandoning the pursuit, the colonial army, save a small garrison stationed at Marlboro, was disbanded.

Canonchet and his Narragansetts joined the Wampanoags and other fugitive Indians in the valley of the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts. Near Northfield on March 9, 1676, Canonchet and Philip met for the first time during the war, in solemn conclave with other sachems ; and there plans were made for continuing the war, including the planting of the valley between Northfield and Deerfield as a source of food supplies. Meanwhile there had been no abatement of Indian activity. Lancaster, Medfield, Weymouth, Northampton, Springfield, Chelmsford, Gorton, Sudbury and Marlboro, all in Massachusetts, were attacked. Warwick, Rhode Island, was burned. Captain Wadsworth and fifty men, marching to the relief of Sudbury, were slain to the last man. Captain Pearce and fifty soldiers were sur- rounded by Canonchet and his band near Pawtucket Falls; only a few escaped. Nine men captured were led to the swamp since known as Nine Men's Misery and tortured and killed. The location is on the grounds of the Trappist monastery in Cumberland. The circumstances of his capture a few days later cleared Canonchet of the charge of torturing prisoners. Reho- both was attacked on March 28, and Providence was burned on March 29 or 30. Two places in Providence had been fortified, and Roger Williams, then seventy-seven years of age and holding a captain's commission as defender, went out to parley with the Indians. The latter declined to listen to persuasion for peace even from Roger Williams. "As for you, brother Williams," they said, "you are a good man ; you have been kind to us many years; not a hair of your head shall be touched." It is recorded that Philip, also, before the opening of hos- tilities, charged his followers not to harm certain of the colonists who had been particularly friendly with his father or his family.

NORTH KINGTOWN TOWN HALL, WICKFORD

WICKFORD LIGHT, WICKFORD

RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS

Canonchet's purpose in visiting Rhode Island was the quest of seed corn for spring planting, pursuant to the plan of the sachems to make the Connecticut Valley an Indian granary. Within a month after the conference with Philip he was dead. A few days after the encounter with Captain Pearce, he and a few of his followers were surprised near Study Hill, the home of the late William Blackstone, by a superior force of Connecticut troops with scouts of the Mohicans, Pequots and Niantics, including Oneco, son of Uncas. Canonchet appears to have been cut off from the main body of his followers, and sought to escape. He was recognized by pursuing Indians as he discarded blanket, silver-trimmed coat and royal belt. Attempting to cross the river, he slipped and fell into the water, and was drawn out a captive. Offered his life as the price for persuading the Narragansetts to abandon the war, he refused to make peace; when sentenced to death he said he "liked it well that he should die before his heart was soft or he had spoken words unworthy of himself." He was executed near Stonington. According to tradition he requested that Oneco kill him, being an Indian prince of equal rank. That was not to be, however. The Pequots shot him; the Mohicans cut off his head and quartered his body; the Niantics burned his quarters over a fire, and sent the head to the council at Hartford, as "a token of love and fidelity."

Elsewhere the war went on unabated. The Indians made frequent attacks in unexpected places; occasionally the colonists undertook to carry the war to the Indians. An expedi- tion of the latter sort raided the Narragansett territory, killing and capturing Indians, and destroying their villages. On July 2, 1676, an Indian camp at Nachek was raided; the loca- tion of Nachek, seven or eight miles from Providence, sometimes erroneously associated with 'Natick in Warwick, was probably in Smithfield. Philip had returned to the neighborhood of Mount Hope, and there was tracked down by Captain Church, and shot to death on August 12, 1676, by a renegade Indian. Like Canonchet his body was violated. An Indian beheaded it and quartered it. The head was exhibited on a gibbet at Plymouth for twenty years. One hand was sent to Boston as a trophy. The other hand was given to Alderman, the Indian who had shot Philip. The quartered body was hung on four trees. Anawan, chief counsellor of Philip, was captured by Captain Church and shot at Plymouth. Quinapan, second in command to Canonchet, and his brother were shot, following sentence to death. Pomham died fighting, July 25, near Dedham.

Rhode Island as a colony, excluded from the New England confederation, had had no part in King Philip's War. The colonial government for the time being was controlled by Quakers, and they have been criticised by some writers as neglectful, in their opposition to war, in not making provision for garrisons and fortifications in Providence and Warwick. As it was, many of the Rhode Island settlers withdrew to the Island of Rhode Island as a refuge, and the loss of life was not large. The property loss was staggering. Practically every house between Providence and Stonington had been destroyed, and fields had been laid waste. In other colonies an attempt at recoupment of losses was made by sale of Indian captives as slaves. Hundreds of Indians were shipped to West Indian plantations. The lat- ter included the immediate family of Philip and his son, Metacom, who was sold as a slave in the West Indies. In March, 1676, the Rhode Island General Assembly enacted a statute "that no Indian in this colony be a slave, but only to pay their debts, or for their bringing up, or custody they have received, or to perform covenant as if they had been countrymen and taken in war." Captive Indians were bound out to service for periods of years depending upon the age of the Indian; the proceeds of the sales of contracts of this sort were divided among the townspeople to offset damage to property incurred during the war. Connecticut claimed the Narragansett territory by right of conquest thus opening a new and disturbing phase of intercolonial relations .*

*Chapter V.

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

DISINTEGRATION OF NARRAGANSETTS-The power of the Narragansett Indians was broken in King Philip's War. There never was a successor to Canonchet. The royal line of Canonicus and Miantonomah had been extinguished. The Narragansett braves, the virile men of the tribe, had followed Canonchet on the long trek in the winter of 1675-1676 from Rhode Island to the valley of the Connecticut River, most of them never more to revisit the homeland of their ancestors in the Narragansett territory. Some, no doubt, remained with the western Massachusetts Indian tribes and were adopted according to the Indian custom. Many fell in battle, or died from exposure, famine or camp diseases. Many were hunted down by colonial soldiers and their renegade Indian allies-Mohicans, Pequots and Niantics, and some also of Narragansett, Wampanoag and Nipmunk, who deserted rather than "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Of the Narragansett Indians who did not follow Canonchet most were old men, women and children. These were treated harshly by the punitive expeditions sent by Connecticut into the Narragansett territory to scour it for Indians, to harass the Indian inhabitants, to ravage the villages, to destroy crops and thus to prevent its use as a base of supplies for continuing the war. The remnant of the Narragan- sett tribe left at home and not destroyed eventually found sanctuary and adoption in Nini- gret's tribe of Niantics, who thus became heirs of the Narragansetts. Canonchet and his Narragansett warriors had chosen "to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them." "Give me liberty or give me death" meant no more to Patrick Henry than to Canonchet. He and his braves had chosen death in preference to slavery and the degradation of Indian life in close contact with civilization.

A new phase of relations with the Indians opened in 1708, when the Rhode Island Gen- eral Assembly appointed a committee to negotiate with Ninigret,* the recognized sachem of the remaining Rhode Island Indians, as to "what may be a sufficient competence of land for him and his people to live upon." In March of the following year the committee reported an agreement with Ninigret establishing an Indian reservation of approximately sixty-four square miles in the town of Charlestown, and a quitclaim deed to the colony, under date of March 29, 1709, of all other Indian lands. Four years later the General Assembly declared sales of land from the Indian reservation null and void as contrary to the purpose of estab- lishing the reservation as a perpetual home for the Indian tribe. The statute affected all sales, whether voluntary or judicial sales on execution for debt, thus guarantying undisturbed possession. Subsequent legislation, from time to time, authorized leases of Indian lands, the rents to be applied to the repayment of money loaned to the sachem from the colony treasury, and in 1731 sale of certain parcels of land was authorized. The general nature of the legis- lation indicated that the colony had assumed an economic guardianship for the Indians and their property, the policy of forbidding sales or authorizing sales being adjustable as expe- diency for the time being suggested. During the reign of "King Tom" the statute forbidding alienation was repealed ; much of the Indian holdings were sold outright, and a large number of the Indians emigrated to New York. Among those who "went west" were "King Tom's" wife and his only son. At the death of "King Tom," 1769-1770, more Indian lands were sold to pay his debts. On request of the Indians the General Assembly in 1773 forbade fur- ther sales of land, and exempted the Indian lands from sales on execution to pay debts. In 1779 the General Assembly further forbade leases for long terms of years with whole rent payment in advance, a device invented to procure practical alienation without violating the statute.

The royal belt of wampum, symbol of the Sachem, continued with Ninigret's descend- ants. Thomas Ninigret, better known as "King Tom," was born in 1736, and became Sachem in July, 1746. Sent to England by the tribe, he received a common school education there, and on his return built the dwelling known as the Sachem house, in which he lived until his

* A descendant of the Ninigret mentioned in preceding paragraphs.

RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS

death. The house was sold to pay "King Tom's" debts, as his estate was settled. In 1750 the Indian Christian church was established, and in 1764 the English Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel sent a teacher to the tribe. Queen Esther, who succeded "King Tom," was crowned on a large flat rock near the Sachem house; her son George, last Sachem of the royal line, was crushed to death accidentally when a tree fell upon him. With the death of George the monarchy ended, and the Indian tribe was reorganized practically as a republic, with a president and council of four, all of whom were elected annually by the tribe. This occurred during the Revolutionary War, while Rhode Island was fighting to preserve its own republican government and to establish the independence declared on May 4, 1776. The election of president and council occurred annually on the first Tuesday in March after 1792, when the date was regulated by statute.

Later relations with the Indians indicated a steady advancing dependency. In 1792 the General Assembly made provision for the election by the tribe of a treasurer for the Indian tribe; the office was discontinued in 1818. Thereafter the Indian problem was frequently before the General Assembly, as the latter was asked, from time to time, to authorize sales of specific parcels of land, or to strengthen the statutes intended to maintain the reservation, which was steadily decreasing. In 1838 the state established a public school for the Indians, which it maintained thereafter at state expense until the tribal relation was dissolved by statute in 1880. In 1840 the General Assembly established the office of Commissioner of the Indian Tribe; the commissioner was legally a public guardian of the Indians and a public administrator of their property.

Meanwhile the tribe had steadily dwindled, as Indians left the Rhode Island reservation to emigrate to western states, or as other Indians left the reservation and renounced the tribal relation to become citizens of the United States. The condition of the remnant remain- ing on the reservation was tending to become intolerable. In an advisory opinion* as to the constitutionality of legislation dealing with the Indians the Supreme Court of Rhode Island summarized parts of reports on the condition of the Indian tribe made by committees appointed by the General Assembly in 1852 and 1880 as follows : "For at least thirty years," prior to 1880, "it was apparent that the Narragansett tribe had become extinct in all but name. Its members had even ceased to be red men, for their complexions had been darkened by the plentiful infusion of negro blood, or bleached by the admixture of blood from Cau- casian veins. From the report of a committee referred to in the Indian commissioner's report of 1858 we learn that in 1833 the whole number, of all grades and conditions, residing in Charlestown at that time, was 199. Of this number only seven were of genuine Narragansett blood ; fourteen were about half blood; 158 were of other grades, less than half; and twenty were foreigners having no connection with the tribe except by marriage or other promiscuous intercourse. All of the whole blood were aged females ; most of the half blood were females ; and the 158 of less than half blood were, in the opinion of the committee, of probably more than three-fourths of the African negro race. From fifty to eighty, partially of Narragansett extraction, were supposed to be absent. The Commissioner of the Indian tribe in his report to the General Assembly at the January session, 1858, says: 'The whole number of all grades residing in Charlestown at the present time is 147. Of this number fifteen are foreigners, eleven of them being connected with the tribe by marriage and four by illicit intercourse. Of the whole number, there is not an Indian of full blood remaining; only two of three-fourths, and nine of half-blood. The 121 of less than half blood are of mixed grades of Indian, negro and white. Of the number absent, claiming connection with the tribe, I have no means of knowing. Some estimate them from 150 to 200.'"

In a special report made by the Commissioner in 1859, he said: "Of the whole number of persons belonging to the tribe, 122, twenty-eight can read and not write, forty can read and write, leaving fifty-four who can neither read nor write."

*The Narragansett Indians, 20 R. I., 713.

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

So early as 1852 it was suggested that the "time must soon come when the public good would require that the members of the Narragansett Indian tribe should be placed on the same footing as other citizens of the state," and noted that "the objection made by the tribe to being subject to the same laws as the whites is that they should be soon traded out of their property, and they should be left poor and dependent upon the whites for support." In 1857 the Commissioner reported: "It is believed that there are many of the tribe who would be willing, and some, indeed, anxious to be put on the same footing, as to property, with white citizens." In 1866 a legislative committee, after investigation, reported that "the tribe was not yet ready to agree" to a measure for withdrawing state guardianship and settlement of tribal affairs. In 1879 the president, council and other members of the tribe petitioned for an investigation. In the following year the General Assembly authorized purchase of the remaining common tribal lands for $5000, and dissolved the tribal relation. It should be noted and understood that this legislation referred exclusively to land still held by the Indians in common ownership, principally wood and forest land; by far the most of arable land and land suitable for dwellings was held at that time by individual owners under deeds asserting title in fee simple and confirmed by undisturbed possession for periods longer than the statu- tory requirement. The $5000 was divided equally amongst 324 persons, each receiving $15.43! The explanation of the large number of distributees is that it included members of the tribe not living on the reservation. The commission in charge of the distribution mar- velled at the large number of persons who claimed kinship with the Indians with the purpose of sharing the $5000. The land acquired by the state was sold subsequently at public auction in parcels to suit purchasers, the proceeds being $1,604.72. It is evident that the price paid by the state to the Indians was more than generous. The sale of lands and the dissolution of the tribe subsequently were sustained as constitutional by the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in an advisory opinion .*

The report of the commission which conducted the final settlement with the tribe con- cluded with these words: "This relation which has existed for nearly 250 years is now terminated, and the name of the Narragansett tribe now passes from the statute books of the state. No portion of its past legislation does Rhode Island cherish more, and upon no page of its history does it point with greater pride than upon its dealings with the Narragansett Indians. The debt of gratitude that it owed for the protection and assistance which it had early received, the state has amply repaid by the protection and care which it has bestowed upon the descendants of its benefactors. Mindful of these historic associations, your com- missioners have endeavored faithfully to perform the duties which your honorable body assigned them, and to deal with all questions submitted to them in such a manner that there may be nothing to reflect discredit on our state, and that Rhode Island may look back here- after with the same satisfaction upon the termination of its relations with the tribe with which it regards the long course of its dealings with the Narragansett Indians."

At old Fort Ninigret, at Fort Neck in the town of Charlestown, a monumental boulder suitably marked has been erected by the state of Rhode Island as a "memorial of the Narra- gansett and Niantic Indians, the Unwavering Friends and Allies of Our Fathers." The loca- tion of the Narragansett fort in the great swamp, scene of the Great Swamp Fight of December 19, 1675, is marked by a granite shaft. The royal burial ground of the Narra- gansett tribe, in Charlestown, one mile north of Cross's Mills, was purchased by the state of Rhode Island in 1878, and the mound containing the remains of kings, queens and other members of the royal Indian family was surrounded by a post-and-rail fence and marked by a tablet, with this inscription :

This tablet is erected, and this spot of ground enclosed by the state of Rhode Island, to mark the place which Indian tradition identifies 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.

*The Narragansett Indians, 20 R. I., 713.

RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS

Twenty colonists, killed in the Great Swamp Fight, were buried by Ninigret and Indians close to the battlefield. Forty wounded who died on the retreat to Wickford or at Wickford were buried near Wickford. Their graves are marked by a memorial tablet. The scene of Pearce's fight with Canonchet is marked, and a monument has been placed at Nine Men's Misery, near the Trappist Monastery in Cumberland. Massasoit's spring in Warren is site of a memorial to the noble Wampanoag, and a monument on Mount Hope is dedicated to Metacom, King Philip.

CHAPTER V. RELATIONS WITH MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT.

ILLIAM BLACKSTONE sold his home and left Boston for the wilderness of the Blackstone Valley to escape the tyranny of the lord brethren, as he styled the magistrates-ministers of Massachusetts. Roger Williams was persecuted because of his advocacy of soul liberty, subjected to inquisition because of sus- picion, formally banished from Massachusetts by the General Court for advo- cating his opinions and asking others to judge the validity of them, and escaped ignominious transportation back to England only because he anticipated arrest by earlier departure for the wilderness in the midst of a New England winter. He was warned away from the remote western frontier of the Plymouth colony, lest his presence there, even by tacit suf- ferance of the Pilgrims, offend the Massachusetts magistrates-ministers. Anne Hutchinson was tried by the General Court for heresy, banished as a corrupter of the people, excom- municated from the church, and left the latter while the minister from the pulpit pronounced a curse upon her. Of her adherents two were expelled from membership in the General Court, several were banished, others were disfranchised, and more were ordered to deliver up their arms and ammunition in spite of the fact that they lived in communities not pro- tected by police and constantly menaced by wild animals and by an aboriginal population that might rise at any time to avenge the abuses heaped upon it by the same magistrates-ministers.

When John Clarke arrived in Boston he found Massachusetts rent with discord, seething with passion, turbulent with quarrels, darkened by suspicion, almost on the verge of frenzied madness; and John Clarke, staunch advocate of freedom of religion, thought and speech, wondered because he could not understand how men and women in places remote from the centres of civilization and face to face with a wilderness were not able to abide each other's presence because of differences of opinion. John Clarke joined the Hutchinson party seced- ing from Boston, because the atmosphere was stifling there for one who loved freedom and who had confidence in the common man. Gorton must have sensed the situation in Massa- chusetts, keen judge that he was of the superficialities of men and leveler of pretensions; his evil star was his utter unwillingness to curb an impetuous temper that drove him to extremes in controversy. Nor did he remain long at Plymouth before he experienced the narrowness of Pilgrims, though they were far more generous and vastly less intolerant than the Puritans. Thomas Hooker's petition for removal from Massachusetts was urged in the first instance because land was not available in sufficient quantity ; he did not tarry when more land was offered. It is true that in the controversy with Roger Williams Hooker entered the debate on the side of the magistrates-ministers, but his subsequent career and mighty influence in fashioning the Connecticut commonwealth mark him as not of the same type as the Massa- chusetts Puritans. The theocratic association of church and state established in Massachu- setts never was introduced in Connecticut. Instead, Connecticut under Hooker moved steadfastly in the direction of democracy.

Some time between 1626 and 1630 three young English clergymen, graduates of Cam- bridge University, made a journey together to and from Sempringham, Lincolnshire, Eng- land. They were Roger Williams, later of Rhode Island; Thomas Hooker, later of Con- necticut, and John Cotton, later of Massachusetts. "John Cotton," wrote Walter F. Angell,* "came to the then recently established colony of Massachusetts and speedily converted its

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 9

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716