USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 2
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In the fifteen years between the voyage of Aubert and the expedition of Verazzano in 1523, there was nothing except the ex- pedition of the fishermen and one Baron de Lery to keep France a competitor in the race for the new possessions. The attempt made by Baron de Lery was not one of ex- ploration, however, but one of colonization. He endeavored to found a colony on Sable Island, but without success and for many years the island was occupied solely by the cattle and pigs which he brought and their descendants.
In 1523, Europe was disturbed by a war between Francis I of France, and Charles V of Spain. Inasmuch as the latter had established regular trade and communica- tion between his newly discovered lands in America and Spain, Francis I sought to harass his enemy by preying on the ships which brought the spoils of the West Indies to the Spanish ports. He commissioned Verazzano for the work because of the latter's great ability as a navigator. Veraz- zano quickly justified his sovereign's choice for he managed to fall in with a ship which
Cortes was sending to Charles V. This he captured and sent as a present to the King of France. The value of the vessel and its cargo amounted to a million and one-half dollars, the most of it being made up of the treasure spoils from Montezuma's palace. With the capture of this ship the eyes of the French king were at last opened to the enormous resources which Spain controlled in the new land. He acknowledged that further delay in joining the great tide of European exploration and conquest would be disastrous for France.
It is amusing to note that he immediately dispatched a letter to Charles V asking why he was left out when the world was divided between Spain and Portugal. He inquired if Father Adam had left a last will and testament designating these two as his sole heirs. Inasmuch as no answer came to his jovial inquiry, he decided to send Veraz- zano to the West Indies to make explora- tions for France.
This famous navigator was born in about 1480, being about ten years of age when Columbus made his great voyage of discov- ery. Although his family was of noble ex- traction and of Italian blood, Giovanni did not remain to enjoy the ancestral lands near Florence, Italy, but took to the sea at an early age. He gained his first expe- rience in navigation in the Mediterranean, making trading voyages to Egypt and Syria, and in 1505 joined the maritime service of France.
The commission which Francis I gave Verazzano, in 1523, directed him not only to discover lands which contained gold and precious stones but to look also for a through passage to Cathay (China). At the start of the voyage there were four ships. However a severe storm was totally dis- astrous to two of these vessels, and the other two were forced to put in to Brittany. When the two damaged ships had been re- paired, Verazzano made a cruise southward along the coast of Spain; but by the time he reached the Portuguese island of Ma- deira he had decided to make the voyage to America with just one ship, the Delfina.
Sailing from Madeira, on January 17, 1524, he had with him fifty men, provisions sufficient for eight months, arms, a supply of munitions, and a store of naval supplies. In twenty-five days he had sailed westward
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eight hundred leagues, encountering one terrific storm, but otherwise proceeding quietly and easily. Changing his course slightly northward, he covered four hun- dred leagues more before sighting land. The spot where he first dropped anchor be- fore sailing northward up the Atlantic coast was near Wilmington, North Caro- lina.
In the account which he rendered to the King of France upon his return to that na- tion he constantly mentions the lack of harbors along the new coast, which neces- sitated the sending of a small boat to shore, whenever the members of the crew wished to barter with the natives. The absence of harbors did not appear to endanger naviga- tion for nearly everywhere along the coast the water was deep enough to anchor the ship a short distance from the shore.
Verazzano stopped at the mouth of the Hudson to barter with the natives, but finally proceeded onward to what are now Block Island, Newport, and Narragansett Bay. This region seemed to have pleased him more than any other which he visited. He found the harbors excellent and was greeted by many small boats full of natives who circled his ship, uttering strange cries. Having first won the friendship of these Indian inhabitants by throwing trinkets to them, Verazzano got them to come on board. Both the men and women were the finest
specimens of natives he had seen. They were extremely good-tempered and generous, and not only helped Verazzano to pilot his ship to a safe anchorage but guided him about the surrounding country and supplied him with all the provisions he needed. The ex- plorer was also impressed greatly with the fertility of the country. He found plains adapted to any sort of cultivation, luxuri- ous trees, some bearing fruit and nuts, and great numbers of deer and other wild ani- mals. Especially did he notice the wild grapes which grew in abundance when partly cultivated by the Indians. In this he was much like the Vikings who had reveled in their discovery of the grapes of this section in 1001.
When, after a stay of fourteen days in this pleasant region, Verazzano turned back toward Europe, having only gone a few leagues farther northward from Rhode Island, he spoke in glowing terms of the glorious section of the new land which we know was Rhode Island. Despite the fact that he did not discover a northwest pass- age to China, he believed that there was one for he concluded that North America was a group of islands and not a continent. He did not live to achieve more glory and knowledge as an explorer, for on his second voyage to America he was captured by the Spaniards and taken to Colmenar, Spain, where he was hung as a pirate in 1527.
A PREDECESSOR OF ROGER WILLIAMS
H ISTORIANS, writing of Rhode Island, are sometimes prone to forget that there was a white settler in Rhode Island terri- tory before the advent of either Roger Wil- liams in the north, or William Coddington in the south. Yet this settler has given a name to a valley, a river, a town, and a canal. William Blackstone, an eccentric religious recluse, had lived a whole year at Study Hill in the vicinity of what is now known as Cumberland, before Roger Wil- liams, in 1636, and William Coddington, in 1637, with their respective bands of follow- ers, came from the Massachusetts Colony to settle in the wilderness, one at the head
and the other at the mouth of Narragansett Bay. Nor did the coming of these two groups of settlers at all affect the status of their pre- decessor. Once settled at Study Hill, he fairly rooted himself to the spot as if to follow in part the example of his apple trees. But he did make occasional pilgrim- ages to Boston and to Providence, journey- ing to the former settlement with a predom- inance of personal motives but to the latter with only the highest spirit of altruism. Though he was by nature (being in advance of his time) a voluntary recluse, he did not become feeble in intelligence or lax in ideals, but remained an astute philosopher and tolerant clergyman.
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Nothing is known of William Black- stone's early life in England. Even the date of his birth has been lost in the shadow of the more famous Sir William Blackstone of legal fame who may or may not have been a blood relation. The first records of this earliest Rhode Island settler are those which state that he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Emanuel College, Cam- bridge, in 1617 and his Master of Arts de- gree in 1621. Just when or how he came to New England (called then New Virginia) is not known but the year of his arrival in America has been estimated as 1625. He settled first in Boston on what was then called Shawmut Point. The area included that now known as Beacon Hill and extend- ed along the south side of the Charles River. Blackstone lived here alone through 1629.
However, in 1630, Winthrop and his group of colonists arrived from England and established themselves on the north side of the Charles at a spot where Charles- ton is now located. But when many of the little Colony fell sick because of a lack of pure water, Blackstone crossed the river and invited them to make their homes with- in his territory where there were several large and untainted springs. It must have been with a good deal of surprise that these new settlers from England greeted this hos- pitable stranger, for they hardly expected to find another of their kind already estab- lished in the land they had supposed to be an absolute wilderness. But while William Blackstone had also left England to escape the tyranny of the potentates of the English Church, he was not at odds with the original principles of the English Episcopal Church. He still wore, in America, his English clergyman's costume and for that reason gave offense to the Puritans who later came to Boston. There is a tradition that Win- throp and his party at first had planned to oust Blackstone from his territory at Shaw- mut on the pretext of having a grant to the land from the king. Blackstone replied to their contention: "The king asserteth sov- ereignty over this New Virginia in respect that John and Sebastian Cabot sailed along the coast without ever landing at any place; and if the quality of sovereignty can sub- sist upon the substratum of mere inspection, surely the quality of property can subsist upon that of actual occupancy which is my
claim." Whether Blacktone made such a statement or not, the words are character- istic of both his ingenious logic and his in- dependence. At least, in 1634, the members of the Boston Colony finally paid him six shillings apiece for his rights to the land, although he retained six acres for his own use. On this bit of land he had his home where he raised apples and roses brought over from England. Surrounding the house was his park, now Boston Common, and here he used to walk in the afternoons.
Although Blackstone remained in the Boston Colony for five years, he finally had to leave, not because of any open outbreak with the colonists but because he would not join with them. He was literally frozen out, though he is never mentioned harshly in the records. According to Cotton Mather, Blackstone said: "I came from England because I did not like the lord- bishops, but I cannot join with you because I would not be under the lord-brethren."
Blackstone saw that there was intoler- ance both within and without the church, and wished to follow his sequestered life of contemplation and study. In 1635, he in- vested his small capital in cattle, and dressed in his "canonicall Coate" and carry- ing his beloved books, set out through the wilderness with but one companion, a ser- vant, named Abbot, from whom Abbot's Run in Cumberland takes its name.
He finally came to a place which the Indians called Wawepoonseag. Here he settled in a territory which was without a white inhabitant. In what was then a part of Rehoboth but is now Cumberland, near Lonsdale, he built a home. It was located at the foot of a three-terraced hill. On the second terrace he dug a well, and at the top built a shelter which he used as a study. Consequently the hill became known as Study Hill. He further named the section "Attleborough Gore." Always a lover of gardens and orchards, he here planted fresh shoots from his Boston apple trees and slips from his English rosebushes.
As a recluse he pursued his philoso- phical bent thoroughly. He had a very large library for the times, consisting of 86 volumes. The books, as well as his own philosophical writings, were destroyed when the Indians burned his home during their uprising after his death in 1675.
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He had no trouble with the Indians during his whole lifetime of eighty years. At his death there were 160 inhabitants in the vicinity of Study Hill, and it is supposed that he used to preach for their church serv- ices. But, in the main, Blackstone remained absolutely alone in regard to church afflia- tions, and it is probably for that reason that he is neglected in many histories. His motto always was "tolerance" in the real sense of the word, and even Roger Williams could not measure against him in that respect. A singular man, he might, under different circumstances, have been a great leader in New England. Ahead of his time, he would probably have been a close friend of Bishop Berkley, another deep philosopher.
Blackstone, despite his eccentricities as a recluse, did not remain single all his life. He frequently made journeys to Boston, riding on a bull, and finally won the hand of Sarah Stevenson, the widow of John Stevenson. In 1659, they were married by Governor Endicott, Blackstone preferring a magistrate to a minister of the Boston Church to which he would not join. Mrs. Stevenson already had one son named John, and when she gave the name John to the son of her second marriage, she caused much later confusion of records. John Stevenson, Blackstone's stepson, was given 50 acres of Blackstone's 200 acre farm at Study Hill after the latter's death. The other son, John Blackstone, became some- what dissipated for a while, squandering his heritage of land, but he finally settled down to a respectable life in Branford, Connecti- cut, where his descendants acquired a high place in public esteem. There is an unsub-
stantiated report that a grandson of Black- stone was killed at the seige of Louisburg.
Mrs. Blackstone died in 1673, two years before her husband, and both were buried at the foot of Study Hill. The personal estate of Blackstone was meager, being but forty pounds. He had never acquired a great amount of money, but his simple tastes and his mental tranquillity were never disturbed by a lean larder.
Stephen Hopkins, writing for the Provi- dence Gazette, said: "Mr. Blackstone used frequently to come to Providence to preach the Gospel." This, however, was when he was quite old. He could not walk easily and rode a bull on these journeys. Though a radical in the eyes of many of the old, he was much beloved by the children to whom he used to bring sweet apples, the first they had ever seen, from his orchard at Study Hill. Governor Hopkins, again writing of Blackstone, in 1765, said: "Many of the trees which he planted about 150 years ago are still pretty, thrifty fruitbearing trees."
This, then, is the story of William Black- stone, the first white inhabitant of Boston, and later of Rhode Island. A keen thinker, a true apostle of the highest religion, of rugged character and unflinching purpose, he maintained his ideals in the face of obstacles to which a weaker man might have succumbed. A truly great man of God, despite his eccentricities, he may well be proudly hailed by Rhode Island as her first settler. A friend of Roger Williams, of the Massachusetts magistrates, and of the In- dian chieftains, Massasoit and Miantanomi, he held to his inspired conception of toler- ance unto his death.
INDIAN CURRENCY
LL the gold and silver that men have fought, cheated, sweat, and died to obtain since time immemorial has not al- ways had the power to win new slaves. The early explorers who followed Columbus to the new world might have brought all the wealth of Greece or Rome or golden Sar- markand with them and found it useless in dealing with a great Aztec civilization. To the Aztecs gold and silver were only excel-
lent materials from which to fashion ex- quisite objects of jewelry and art, and of these their supply was plentiful. Their coveted form of wealth was supplied by nature herself in the role of mintmaster, for their whole monetary standard was based upon one of her most convenient and durable products-the cocoa bean. And long after various metals had become com- mon as currency, chocolate made from
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cocoa beans, still formed the main stand- ard of value. Only in Peru, that mine of wealth for European plunderers, had the precious metals come into complete usage.
Farther north, in the other more forbid- ding and less-civilized American continent, early European settlers found even less use for the gold and silver that had always meant power. Whether they wished or not, they had to turn first to simple trading in dealings with the native Indians, and often, even among themselves. England, from the time of Elizabeth, was not allowing monetary wealth to slip out of the British Isles and be wasted and lost in the Ameri- can wildernesses. And so various mediums of a fair convenience, such as skins, guns and powder, cloth, and strong liquors, formed the basis of exchange, just as in our western pioneer days, when money was scarce though not belittled, whiskey in bar- rels passed, unopened, through many hands and paid many debts. So many com- modities have at one time or another served in the capacity of money during the history of this country that it would be both im- possible and useless to list them. But of all these there was one which came the nearest to the form of actual money and which was widely used, both by the Indians along the whole Atlantic Coast and by the settlers as well, and that was wampum, or shell currency.
In dealing with the red men gold and silver would have been worse than useless. Their eyes found no avaricious pleasure in the gleam of these metals to compare with that they received from beholding or pos- sessing the bits of bright colored shell which formed both their ornaments and their currency. The use of small pieces of shell in the making of ornaments, such as girdles, bracelets, belts and tobacco pouches, and in the decoration of their headresses and clothing came first. And of the former, the wampum tobacco pouch of King Philip is a rich example. But out of this first usage came the gradual transition which established wampum as Indian currency.
So convenient a medium of exchange was quickly adopted by all the settlers along the Atlantic Coast and used exten- sively among themselves. And not only did the Europeans accept the use of wam-
pum, but with characteristic commercial aggressiveness they attempted to manufac- ture a counterfeit variety out of glass. Back in 1608, Captain John Smith of the James- town Colony supervised a factory which began to turn out this product, and, in 1621, another factory under Captain Wil- liam Norton started a brief career in the manufacture of artificial wampum. Both enterprises failed, however, their only re- sult being to lower the value of all wampum.
Roger Williams gives a good description of the wampum used by Rhode Island In- dians in his "Key to the Language of the Narragansetts," written in 1643: "Their owne is of two sorts; one white, which they make of the stem or stocke of the Peri- wincle, which they call Meteauhock, when the shell is broken off: and of this sort six of their small beads (which they make with holes to string the bracelets) are current with the English for a peny.
"The second is black, including the blew, which is made of the shell of a fish which some English call Hens, Poquauhock, and of this three make an English peny.
"They live upon the sea side, generally make of it, and as many make as will.
"The Indians bring downe all their sorts of furs, which they take in the Countrey, both to the Indians and to the English for this Indian money : this money the English, French, and Dutch, trade to the Indians, six hundred miles in severall parts (North and South from New England) for their furres, and whatsoever they stand in need of from them: as Corne, Venison, etc."
Such wampum we may see today among the Indian relics in museums. It was chiefly made from the shells of clams, quahogs, and periwinkles and was then fashioned (although with some variations) into beads about a quarter of an inch long and slightly less that in diameter. The fragile portions of the shells were broken off and the beads ground out of the thicker part, the holes being drilled with a piece of flint rotated in the hands. Water was used to keep the shells cool while this process was going on, thus preventing cracking. They were drilled from both sides and finally rubbed to a high polish and strung.
It was the Dutch commander, De Rosiers, who introduced wampum as currency to
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the members of the Plymouth Colony in 1627, and Governor Bradford records this in his history as follows: "But that which turned most to their (the colonists) profite, in time, was an entrance into the trade of Wampampeake; for they bought 50£ worth of it ... and strange it was to see the great allteration it made in a few years among the Indeans themselves; for all the Indeans of these parts and the Massachusetts had none or very little of it, but the sachems, and some spetiall persons that wore a little of it for ornaments ... Neither did the English of this plantation, or any other in the land, till now that they had knowledge of it from the Dutch, so much as to know what it was, much less that it was a com- moditie of that worth and valew . . But after it thus grew to be a commoditie in these parts, these Indeans fell into it allso, and to learn how to make it .. . and it hath now continued a current commoditie about this twenty years ... In the mean- time it makes the Indeans of these parts rich and power-full and also prowd thereby."
Governor Bradford saw in the new cur- rency a danger as well as an advantage and thought the possession of much of it would ruin many as much as gold. But so important had it become by 1640 that the Colony had to give it official recognition. Accordingly it was ordered that "white wampampege shall pass at 4 a penny and blewe at 2 a penny and not above 12 d at a time," and, later, that "wampampege shall pass current at 6 a penny for any sume under 10 L sterling for debts here- after to be made."
For a long while the English made a very good thing out of wampum but first tobacco, in Virginia, and later silver, com- ing into the English colonies of New Eng-
land from commerce with other European countries, began to displace the Indian currency. Yet, among the Indians them- selves, it retained to the last all of its high value. It was generally worn in belts and girdles, a necessary amount being sliced off with a knife whenever a trade was made. For doweries given to the parents of Indian brides, wampum was usually used to the amount of five or six fathoms, although the daughter of a Great Sachem could command a price of ten fathoms. When strung, wampum was always counted by the fathom, such an amount being worth six English shillings. As its use spread it was not uncommon to find it accepted by Indian tribes some six hundred miles inland from the coast.
Although wampum is the name by which the settlers of early days knew all this picturesque currency, the name among the Indians signified "white" and applied only to the higher valued beads made from the white shells of the periwinkle. They called the black, made from the shells of qua- hogs, suckauhock.
Probably no other primitive currency has quite the same intangible essence of the romantic as wampum, which served the two-fold purpose of ornament and neces- sity. In those times an Indian carried his whole wealth with him whenever he was in full regalia, the girdles, bracelets, and belts of the colored shells adding a distinc- tive richness to his skin clothing. But, there once more, we can hardly recapture its full significance as a part of the Indian costume, even though aided by pictures and museum relics, much less imagine its ac- ceptance by European settlers as currency. It is just one more thing that was a distinct part of the Indian himself and with him has long faded from our consciousness.
ANNE HUTCHINSON
THOUGH we have before us the conven- L tional picture of woman throughout history guarding the fireside, shielding her children, nevertheless there were many Joans and Ruths to whom little space is de- voted in books of history. Even since 1620 there have been many women who did more
than lend moral support to the kaleido- scopic events which have succeeded one an- other since that date on this side of the Atlantic. One of these most clearly typified, in her day, the independent, forceful and dominant woman who has, in this present century, given the nation, the State, the city,
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the town and the country-seat contributions of leadership, wisdom and intelligent co- operation, all of which have helped bring about greater prosperity, greater happiness and greater hope for the future.
This woman influenced events and their turnings not only in our own State, but in the infant nation during the very beginnings of American history-her name was Anne Hutchinson, a true forerunner of the nine- teenth century women who threw open the calls and professions to their sex.
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