USA > Rhode Island > The lands of Rhode Island : as they were known to Caunounicus and Miantunnomu when Roger Williams came in 1636 : an Indian map of the principal locations known to the Nahigansets, and elaborate historical notes > Part 11
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My own opinion is that the word has been developed from the word Opponenauhock, which is given by Roger Williams in his Key to the Indian Language, p. 139, Narr. Club. Ed., and means, Mr. Williams says, "oyster."
AS-COC-A-NOX-SUCK. (17)
This name is given in a deed at page 36, Early Rec. v. I, to "the place called, etc." The land was in Warwick, and not far from the Pawtuxet village. In this form we have not before had it; but a name is given by Parsons in his Indian Names of Places, thus "Acokesit," which he says was a river, and he further says the late Chief Justice Brayton thought it was the same river as the "Acoaxet." Parsons gives the name of a river "Akoaxet" in Little Compton ; and he gives the name "Cokesit" as belonging to a place of Indian worship also in Little Compton. This was a common practice among the Indians of giving the same name to similar places, althoughi in different parts of the country. This locality was not covered until 1667 by the English purchasers.
125
ABSALONA-ANAQUATUCKET.
ABSALONA. (4)
This hill was named probably from a famous Indian counsellor, whose name appears in several Documents, and is written Absolone. Fone's Records, 166, 7, 8.)
AMATACONET. (6)
A turnpike, was projected north from the town of Providence along the Pawtucket river. It was since known as the Louisquisset (Loquassuck), and it was to go to this Indian locality about ten miles from Providence.
ANTAGHANTIC.
Parsons derived this name from ( Land Titles, v. 2, p. 324) now among the State archives. He locates it "three miles west of Provi- dence tide water shore, and about the west side of Neutaconcanut hill near the river." This is inexplicable. It is doubtless the locality Ashanduck on the Indian map (9) formed by a bend in Pocasset brook and which bend formed a neck.
ASIAWOQUE.
A form of spelling Ashawaug, the name of a River in the Niantic country.
ANAQUATUCKET. (22)
Is the name given to a part of its length. to a river, or small stream in East Greenwich. It is written Annocotuckett and An- nogatucket, and in many other ways. In Tiverton (34) there is a pond and a stream, Anaquacut. It appears to have been the custom among the Indians to give several different names to rivers at the
I26
ASPANANSUCK.
same time. This I have illustrated under the title following "The Blackstone River."
ASPANANSUCK. (23)
It is the Indian name of the place where Wawaloam dictated her deposition concerning the lands of Mishquamicut, now Westerly (28), given Sosoa, a Niantic Sachem, for service in battle against the Pequots done for Miantinomi, before the coming of the English. The Deposition was written 25th June, 1661. It was first printed in Potter's Early History of Narragansett, 1835 (p. 248). Wawa- loam was the Queen of the Great Sachem Miantinomi. Aspanan- suck, or Hakewamepinke, was doubtless an Indian village (23) at what we now know as Exeter Hill. It is upon the same range of rocky hills, of which the Queen's Fort, almost directly east, is the extreme point.
Concerning this Indian Queen no writer has left us any personal description ; not even with positive certainty out of what tribe she came ; but she could not have been a Narragansett, for the "l" in her name does not exist in the dialect of the Narragansetts. The late Chief Justice Job Durfee says: "I think it is somewhere said that the Narragansett chief married the daughter of Sequasson- (Durfee's Works, p. 228). It is not easy to verify this statement. but it can be brought pretty near to a verification. John Winthrop, under the date 1643, says that Uncas and Sequasson fell to war with each other, and that Miantinomi, "being allied to Sequasson," took his side in the fight. In another place Winthrop speaks of Sequasson as being a kinsman of Miantinomi ( Hist. New Eng. v. 2, p. 156-7). There is another mention of this alliance in the Record of the Com- missioners of the United Colonies of New England, holden at Bos- tone the seaventh of September, 1643. "After this, some attempts were made to poyson Vncus and as is reported to take away his life by sorcery. That being discouered, some of Sequasson's company, an Indian Sagamore, allyed to and an intimate confederate with Myantinomo, shott at Vncus as he was going down Conectacutt river with a arrow or two." ( Hazard's Hist. Coll. v. 2, p. S). Other
I27
WAWALOAM, WIFE OF MIANTINOMI.
authorities upon this alliance might be quoted, but since all are drawn from these two sources, others are not needed. To Mr. Trumbull of Connecticut only will we refer: He says "Sequasson was a Sachem upon Connecticut river" (Hist. Conn. vol. I, p. 130).
There is an expression in one of Mr. Wiliams's Letters (Narr. Club, v. 6, p. 86) which goes not on all fours with this Sequasson aliance ; this is the paragraph :
"Accordingly, I have been since to Narragansett and find Mian- tinomi willing to go to Connecticut by the time limited, the end of next month; only first, he desired to know Mr. Governor's ( Win- throp's ) mind; secondly, in case his father-in-law, Canonicus, his brother, whom I saw near death with above a thousand men mourn- ing and praying about him, in case he recover, otherwise it is unlaw- ful for them, as they conceive, to go far from home till towards midsummer."
Miantinomi was himself a son of a brother of Canonicus, to wit, Mascus, hence Wawaloam would have been either a sister or a cousin ; but she was neither ; she came from some other tribe, without doubt the Nipmucks. No attempt will be made to explain the letter, but we will accept the Sequasson alliance.
Thus it would seem that Wawaloam came possibly from that country along the banks of the Connecticut river, or possibly from the northwestern corner of what is now Rhode Island ; that she was obtained by Miantinomi of her father, Sequasson, at a heavy ransom, in accordance with the Indian custom, married to him, and thus became Queen of the Narragansetts. That she was a person of much consequence there is no question. "A Sachem will not take any to wife but such an one as is equal to him in birth" ( Winslow's Good News, London, 1624: Young's Chronicles. 361).
In 1632, Wawaloam accompanied her husband in a journey of state to Boston, where they were entertained by Governor Winthrop at his own house. It was in August ; a retinue accompanied them : they attended Divine service during their stay, and on their departure a salute .with musketry was given them ( Winthrop's Hist. New England, v. I, p. 103).
Roger Williams in a letter written to Gov. Winthrop of the Massa- chusetts Colony, said to have been written on the 9th May. 1639.
I28
A GREAT PRINCE AND HIS QUEEN.
says, "Miantinomi's wife sends the basket, a present to your dear companion, Mrs. Winthrop" (Narr. Club, 6, p. 133). There was another journey of state made by Miantinomi, accompanied by Wawaloam. It extended from Wickford, as we now call it, but it was Cawcawmsqussick then, to Hartford and back. It was an affair of great political interest, and it throws a light upon Indian affairs which is without a parallel in New England history. Roger Wil- liams has sent it along down to us.
It was in September, 1638, that Roger Williams accepted the invitation given him by Miantinomi to go with him to Hartford to act as his friend and negotiator in the matter of a treaty then desired by both the English and the Indians. Williams has given two ac- counts of this journey. The first is in the Key to the Indian Lan- guage (Narr. Club ed. p. 201), thus : "I once travelled in a place · conceived to be dangerous, with a great Prince ( Miantinomi) and his Queen (Wawaloam) and her children (Canonchet, or Nanun- tenoo, and a younger son), in company with a Guard of neere two hundred : twentie or thirtie fires were made every night for the Guard, the Prince, and Queen in the midst, and Sentinells by course, as exact as in Europe ; and when we travelled through a place where ambushes were suspected to lie, a special Guard, like uinto a Life- Guard compassed, some neerer, some farther off, the King and Queen, myself and some English with me." Mr. Williams wrote this in 1643, while on his first voyage to England. In a letter written by him at the time ( 1638) to John Wnithrop, Governor of Massa- chusetts, he had previously written concerning the journey (Narr. Club, v. 6, p. 120) : "I went up to Connecticut with Miantunnomu, who had a Guard of upwards a hundred and fifty men and many Sachems, and his wife ( Wawaloam) and children with him ; by the way lodging from his home three nights in the woods." Informa- tion reached this marching column that the Mohegans and Pequots "lay in way and wait to stop Miantunnomue's passage to the Con- necticut and divers of them threatened to boil him in a kettle : these tidings being many ways confirmed, Mr. Scott ( Richard), a Suffolk man, and Mr. Cope ( Edward) advised our stop and turn back ; unto which I also advised the whole company to prevent bloodshed, re- solving to get up to Connecticut (Hartford) by water ; but Mian-
·
129
HAKEWAMEPINKE
tunnomu and his council resolved, being then about fifty miles, half way, on our journey, that not a man should turn back, resolving rather all to die; keeping strict watch by night, and in dangerous places, a guard by day about the Sachems, Miantunnomu and his wife (Wawaloam ) who kept the path, myself and company always first, and on either side of the path forty or fifty men to prevent sudden surprises,-this was their Indian march." In another place (Indian Key, page 101) Mr. Williams again speaks concerning the march : "I once travelled with neere 200, who had word of neere 700 enemies in the way, yet generally they all resolved that it was a shame to feare and goe back."
Among the documents relating to the acquisition from the Indians of the lands contiguous to Westerly, which are given by Potter in his "Early History of Narragansett," at page 248, is an affidavit signed by Wawaloam. It bears date 25th June, 1661. It declares that she ( Wawaloam) was the wife of the deceased Sachem Mian- tinomi. In this document this Indian woman tells how the lands in question were taken from the Pequots by her "husband" Mian- tinomi, and his uncle Canonicus, long before the English had any wars with the Pequots ; and Wawaloam further affirms that Mianti- nomi gave this tract to Socho "for service done for us." When Wawaloam signed this document she was at a place called by the Indians Aspanansuck, or sometimes Hakewamepinke, which Parsons in his "Indian Names of Places" says is "supposed to be at Exeter Hill, on the Ten Rod road."
Wawaloam in her affirmation speaks of the "service done for us" by Socho. This service has also been described by Roger Williams in these words: "I know the man yet living who in time of warre pretended to fall from his owne campe to the enemie, proffered his service in the front with them against his own armie from whence he had revolted ; he propounded such plausible advantages that he drew them out to battell, himself keeping in the front; but on a sudden shot their Chief Leader and Captaine, and being shot, in a trice fecht off his head, and returned immediately to his own againe from whom in pretence, though with treacherous intention he had revolted : his act was false and treacherous, yet herein appears polisie. stoutness and activitie," etc. (Key to Indian Language, Narr. Club.
.
1
130
PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE IN MIANTINOMI.
p. 79). That this refers to Socho is proved by reference to a letter written by Williams ( Narr. Club, v. 6, p. 39). "Sassawwaw turned to the Narragansetts and again pretends a return to the Pequots, gets them forth the last year against the Narragansetts, and spying advantage, slew the Chief Pequot Captain and whips off his head. and so again to the Narragansetts : these treacheries exceed Machia- velli's." This Sassawwaw "was a Pequot, also Miontunnomue's darling" (Williams's Letter, Narragansett Club, v. 6, p. 38). Socho signed a deed thus, Sosoa ( Potter's Narragansett, p. 243), and this document was at the time referred to as Socho"'s (same book, same page). He was also known as Sassawwaw (Trumbull's Notes to . Williams's Indian Key, page 79).
Concerning Miantinomi, the early history of Rhode Island has a good many things, but in this paper I propose touching only his social, or family, or purely personal affairs, and wherein also, only his wife, Wawaloam, and his children come. As to the personal appearance of this great Sachem, Hubbard ( Hist. New England, page 446) says: "This Miantinomi was a very good personage, of tall stature, subtil, and cunning in his contrivements, as well as haughty in his designs." The Narragansetts were "therein animated by the haughty spirit and aspiring mind of one Miantinomi, the heir apparent of all the Narragansett people ( more than 30,000 gathered about Wickford and the contiguous country, as Mr. Williams has told us,) after the decease of the old Sachem Canonicus, that was his uncle." Upon occasion Governor Winthrop speaks well of him- here is one: "Messengers were sent to him concerning complaints made against him : he carried them apart into the woods, taking only one of his chief men with him, and gave them very rational answers to all their propositions" ( Hist. New Eng. v. 2, p. 97). Subse- quently, Miantinomi visited Governor Winthrop at Boston. Win- throp says : : "In all his answers he was very deliberate and showed good understanding in the principles of justice and equity, and in- genuity withal." ( Hist. New Eng. v. 2, p. 98.) When Miantinomi was born we do not know, but when he died we know, and how : he was murdered by order of the Massachusetts Government under the advice of the Massachusetts clergymen, in 1643.
Not long since the writer asked a scholar learned in defining the
I31
THE RELIGIOUS MOUNDS OF THE INDIANS.
meaning of Indian words, to define Wawaloam. He replied: "I think the name is from Wa-wa, 'round about,' and aloam, 'he flies,' hence a descriptive term for the swallow. She must have been, as you say, from a tribe other than the Narragansett; perhaps the Nipmuc. This is my interpretation, providing this is the only form to be found." A doubt evidently arose in the mind of my corre- spondent, for five days later he asked me to make no use of his definition until I heard further from him. It is eight years since that time, and I have heard nothing, but I have myself learned some- thing. There is an Indian locality, Wawalona, in (4) the present town of Glocester, a territory then belonging to the Nipmuc lands. The similarity of the names suggests at once a common origin which may yet help my correspondent. Notwithstanding the remark of Mr. Drake (Book of the Indians 2, 64), that Sequasson was a Sachem under Miantinomi, all the evidence points to him as of the Nipmucs, and hence the probability of a locality named in honor of his daughter within the tribal lands.
When or where Wawaloam died we do not know; the last we know of her was the document referred to in this paper, of June, 1661. Within the dominions over which Wawaloam exercised Indian jurisdiction, is the present town of Exeter, R. I. ; and within that town lies a farm once owned by the late William M. Bailey. Being often there a visitor with Mr. Bailey, the writer told him the story of Wawaloam. Mr. Bailey selected a small pyramidal rock of red granite, in form, a good representation of a Narragansett "two fire" house, and had cut upon this inscription :
TO THE MEMORY OF WAWALOAM. WIFE OF MINTINOMI, 1661.
Not far from this Rock in Memory of Wawaloam, on these same lands, are two earth mounds side by side. They are most interest- ing from two points of view. They were the works of the waters in pre-historic times ; and second, these were closely connected with the religious beliefs of the Narragansetts. It is not a matter of evidence, I cannot prove it ; but it is more in the nature of probabili- ties ; listen to me a moment while I tell you, why I think, that which I think. The greatest of authorities in these matters is Roger Wil.
I32
WILLIAM BLACKSTONE'S RIVER.
liams; he tells us that the great Deity of the Narragansetts was Kautantowwit. I spell it with a K, in spite of the Historical Society, because Williams did. This Deity was the Great Southwest God of the Indian, as Williams tells us, "to whose house all soules goe, and from whom came their corn and beans." May I not then let my imagination believe that from these curious mounds Miantinomi, whose tribe dwelt hereabouts, invoked the blessings of Kautantowwit upon the labors of his people, for all about him were the fields of Indian corn ?
It is not many years since Mr. Whittier, the sweetest singer among American poets, gave us the Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, the most realistic of imaginative pictures of the Colonial social life in New England in 1678. The scene of a portion of this narrative is the "Narragansett Countrie" and "about twenty miles from Mr. Williams' Towne of Providence, a place of noe small note." Here dwelt the brother of Margaret Smith, and here while on a visit, Margaret saw an Indian Sachem perform his devotions, which she thus describes : "The Sachem struck across the field to a little cleared spot on the side of the hill ; my brother bidding me note his action ; I saw him stoop down on his knees, with his head to the ground, for some space of time, then getting up, he stretched out his hands towards the Southwest, as if imploring some-one whom I could not see." This interesting estate is now the property of Stephen O. Metcalf of the city of Providence.
THE BLACKSTONE RIVER.
(3, 6, 14)
The Indian method of giving names to rivers seems to have been that of calling them by the names already given to the locality through which they ran. Thus at the same period the Blackstone, as it is now known, was called the Seaconk; the Pawtucket ; the Senechataconet ; there were other names still further up the stream. Upon the names let us dwell a moment. Mr. Richardson, in his His- tory of Woonsocket (page 26), says: "It (the river) has been called the Seekonk: the Narragansett ; the Patucket : the Neetmock; the Nipmuck ; the Great ; the Senechtaconet ; and finally the Blackstone ;
I33
BASSOKUTAQUAGUE.
it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that this latter name came into general use. In the recently published Harris Papers is a document written by William Harris, 12th August, 1676, in which this stream is mentioned as "blackstones River." Mr. Black- stone had died then a few months before this letter was written. It is a curious instance of the development, or growth, of names of places ( Harris Papers, 171). The name "Great river" seems to be found in the land transfers founded upon the General Court of Mas- sachusetts, which body had jurisdiction from 1667 to 1746. But in the Providence Records the river was called "the Pantuckett" in 1646, and so continued to be called, in these Records, and in the Laws down to about 1830. In 1787, and again in 1809, the General Assem- bly in granting a lottery, called it the "Pawtucket"; Mr. Pease, in his Gasetteer of Rhode Island, 1819, speaks of it as the "Pawtucket" : Mr. Lockwood, on his map of Rhode Island, 1819, gives it many names, thus, from Fox Point to Pawtucket, "the Seekonk"; from Pawtucket to (perhaps) Blackstone, "Blackstone" river; from Woonsocket to Chepachet, "Branch" river. In this nomenclature, Mr. Lockwood followed Harris's Map of Rhode Island, 1795. In 1854, Mr. Walling made his map of Rhode Island, in which he gave the names, "Seekonk, or Pawtucket," from Fox Point to Pawtucket ; "the Blackstone" as far as Woonsocket, and "Branch river" to Che- pachet. So that the name "Blackstone," as applied to the entire stream, did not come into general use until a quite recent period, and it came in gradually.
BASSOKUTOQUAGE. (23)
It was here that Scuttape, a son of Meika and Quaiapen, dwelt. He was a Chief Sachem under his father, who was then ( 1658) Chief Sachem of the Narragansetts. The precise locality of the place cannot be determined. The Chronicle merely placing it in Narragansett. I have placed it near his mother's dwelling place. and not far south from it. (Drake Old Indian Chronicle.)
.
-
134
BALY'S BUTS AND BAILIE'S COVES.
BLY'S PURCHASE. (24)
For an account of this purchase ; the parties ; scope ; time, etc., see Potter's Early Hist. Narrang., 1835, p. 216; date 3rd June, 1709. It was not a purchase from the Indians, but from the Colony, and of lands which came into possession of the Colony by the Indian war 01 1676.
BALY'S BUTS AND BAILIE'S COVES.
These names are not Indian. Nevertheless, a note concerning them may not be without interest. They occur in the Providence Early Records (v. 1, 18, 84), and mark bounds in two deeds, be- tween Englishmen ; the times were 1661-1667. The Deed of 1661 (Early Rec. 1, 84) refers to "the Lower Bailie's Cove" as being a bound to land originally belonging to John Greene, an inhabitant of Warwick. The Deed of 1667 refers to "the cartway to Baly's buts on the north and bounded upon the Comons of the town (of Provi- dence) on the west and south" ( Early Rec. 1, 18). These references fix the locations as being very different. One was in Providence, the other in Warwick. In the town of Providence, in 1657, there is a record of lots layed out at Baylifes cove. In the town of Provi- dence there are two records concerning "two Bayleys coves," writ- ten again in the same document "Two Bayleiffes coues," and again "Bayliffes". These entries throw confusion upon the exact loca- tions of the cove, or coves, for there were certainly two of them. It will be observed by reference to the text, and the index to volume one of the Providence Early Records, that the spellings are not alike. "Balys" must be a person's name ; and must be in the pos- sessive case, and hence a man. Buts, whatever it was, was in the plural form; there must have been at least two. We have no knowledge of a man named Baly, or Baily, or Bailey owning land either in Providence or in Warwick.
There was one Richard Bayly made Free of Newport in 1669. He became at once Secretary to the Governor's Council. Benedict Arnold was the Governor. In 1670 Baily was a member of a
135
CHEPACHET.
special commission sent by the Governor and Council to Conecticot. In 1671 he was elected General Attorney, but declined accepting the position. In 1676 he was one of a commission to appoint "watches and wards" on the island, Rhode Island; it was the time of the great Indian war. In that year he was an executor of John Clark's will. In 1677 he with Peleg Sanford were "desired and chosen to be the agents of this Colony to goe for England" ( Col. Rec. 2, 580). In May, 1678, Richard Bailey, as the name was then written, was dead (Col. Rec. 3, 5). This man was very active in the Colony, 1669-1678, less than ten years. But I cannot connect him with these things in Providence. He could not have been a Freeman or landholder here in 1657, when Bayleys Cores are first mentioned.
The lands near Bailey's Cove, if in Warwick, were near the Francis estate at Spring Green. The lands near Baly's Buts, or Bailey's Cove, in Providence, were situated on what was then known as Providence Neck. This "Neck" was that part of Providence now largely covered by Swan Point Cemetery and the Butler Hospital estate.
The meaning of the word "buts" in these records is uncertain : and the origin, or application, or meaning of the word "balys" is not less uncertain. The present English word "but", or "butts", means the outer extremity, or bound of a locality. The word "but" in Wright's Provincial Dictionary, a book which covers the literature of the age, of which I am writing, gives twenty (20) different meanings to the word. Among them these: "A flounder or plaice": "a small piece of ground"; "the outer room of a house", as for instance a back kitchen ; "a hassock," defined by Mr. Wright as "a tuft of rushes". It has been suggested that the "buts" of trees were meant, being constantly used for bounds in those early days. For further reference see the name Capanaganset, following in these sketches, also the name Passeconuquis.
CHEPACHET.
(I)
This is the Indian name of a village now in the town of Burrill-
136
CHACHAPACASSET.
ville. The earliest definition of which I have present knowledge is that given by Henry B. Anthony in his poetical political squibs printed in the Manufacturers' and Farmers' Journal in two parts, January 9th and February 9th, 1843. Mr. Anthony said: "Che- pi-chuck is the original Indian name, of which Chepachet is a cor- ruption. It signifies Devil's Bag. The question will naturally arise, if Chepachet be the Devil's bag, why he did not pull the strings of it when the heroes of Acote's hill were assembled. He will never have another such chance" ( Dorriad and Great Slocum Dinner, ed. 1870, p. 23). This silly nonsense was taken earnestly by Dr. Usher Parsons in his "Indian Names" (1861, p. II). Dr. Parson's gives Chepatset as a variation in spelling, and then follows Mr. Anthony's joke. "It means Devil's Bag. A bag, or wallet, was found here, probably dropped by some hunter, and as no one could tell who, an Indian said it was the Devil. Hence Chepac, devil, and chack, bag, now converted into Chepachet". Trumbull, in his "Indian Names", under the word "Chippachooag", our map (26), gives the word Chepachet as being the name of a river, and a village, in Rhode Island. He says it denotes a "place of Separation, that is, where a stream divides." In another place, Trumbull defines the word as meaning a place of division, or the fork of Branch river ("Potter's Early Hist. Narr., 411). What can "a place of seperation" mean with reference to a village? or what can it mean as "a place of separation" when the Chepachet river unites with Branch river? Two streams flowing in the same direction unite. But for utter stupidity both in research and in reason, the work of Parson is the very first. If Roger Williams is an authority, no Indian knew the Englishman's Devil. There is no word Chepuck in the Narragan- sett meaning Devil. Nor would any Indian have suggested that a bag, which had been found, having no known owner, must have been lost by the Devil. The Indian knew no Devil. The story of the finding of a bag is mere nonsense. How could so silly a thing have been preserved in history two centuries ?
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