USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Westerly > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 2
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Charlestown > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 2
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Hopkinton > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 2
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Richmond > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 2
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CHAPTER XLIX.
REFORMS. - The tide of progress - Power of principles - Political advances - Ideas of brotherhood - Abolition of slavery - Lingering prejudices - Scenes in the Union House - Trials of abolitionists - The temperance reform - Old customs - Experiences - Enlightenment - Steps of the reform - Spirit of brotherly love - Advances of education - Agitation of rights of females - Revival of 1868 - New measures - Agitations - Fruits - Young Men's Christian Association - Episcopal agitation PAGES 302-307
CHAPTER L.
REVIEW AND OBSERVATIONS. - Caveat - Bird's-eye view of times, customs, wars, achievements, changes - Facts and figures of the great progress - The secret of the changes - The great lesson taught PAGES 308-314
WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
WHO does not prize the pages of plain, impartial annals? A profit as well as a pleasure is experienced in tracing the footsteps of our deserving fathers, and noting the control of Divine Provi- dence in all the affairs of men. Debtors to the past, we would study and acknowledge our obligation. Peculiarly interesting and impressive must it be for the people of New England to go back by the light of faithful history to the period when all the land was a pagan wilderness, and carefully study the life of the aborigines, and the steps and struggles of those who first brought civilization to these shores. Wonderful changes and transformations have been witnessed during the last two hundred years. Numerous and pow- erful agencies have here been employed by the Supreme Ruler in working out great social problems, and creating the large, free, price- less institutions now intrusted to our hands. We are what we are mainly by the law of inheritance. We are building upon the foundations laid by others. We are reaping harvests in fields that other hands have sown. And the debt we owe to the past should be paid in part, at least, by a generous endeavor to register and place in historical position and security the names and labors of our deserving ancestors, - a service due to our fathers, to ourselves, and to our children.
And let it be understood that we do not profess to write complete history, but simply to present a part of those humble annals from which the real historian finally elaborates his noble work. It is comprehended, doubtless, that not simply, nor chiefly, the names and acts of men, their modes of living, their wealth and titles, their wars and victories, constitute a people's history; but rather the ideas they wield, the principles they adopt and embody in their acts,
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WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
and which, surviving all men, live to multiply their power in the ages following. Still distant is the day in which the history of Rhode Island can be fairly written. Through many and severe struggles the principles that took root on these shores from Roger Williams have won their victories and spread their way till now they are becoming the glory of a continent. How fitting, therefore, it is that, at least, the principal events of every town in this small but potent colony - this seed-field of great principles - should receive careful and permanent record. The present effort is an attempt to do some justice to a single township. .
CHAPTER II.
THE ABORIGINES.
SCENES and events of the weightiest historical interest have occurred upon our New England shores. These happily, of late, are receiving from the historian and the moralist something of the studious attention and delineation they deserve. Here, in the Occi- dent, realities have more than rivaled the wildest fictions of the Orient. Here may be found new and unequaled subjects for phi- losophy and for tragic and lyric song.
Through ages unrecorded, stretching back .beyond the dimmest traditions, our land lay enwrapped in clouds, hidden alike from the vision and the imagination of the civilized world. A problem was being solved in this great solitude. Divine Providence was com. pleting a great demonstration.
At least so far as the eastern portion of the continent, and espe- cially New England, was concerned, a dense cloud hung over the land- and great darkness covered the people. We anxiously aim to pene- trate this darkness. The unmeasured, mysterious ocean rolled upon the rocky coast ; hoary forests mantled mountains and valleys; tameless beasts prowled over the hills. No rivers were bridged ; no roads were opened; no cities or towns were founded. The smoke of the frail wigwam curled up intermittently from partial clearings in the glens and by the river banks. Bark canoes descended the shaded rivers, and crept stealthily along the dangerous shores. The swarthy, half-clad, unstable, warring, pagan tribes that held the land and roamed over it, had no literature, and no monuments to tell of the life of their fathers. Here once more, and on a grand scale, on the fairest natural theatre, the boasted light of nature was tested, and found wholly insufficient for man's illumination. Man's native strength was inadequate to man's elevation. Ages of natural, un- biased freedom only added to the wild man's darkness, bewilder- ment, weakness, and moral decay. This story, could we read it all, . though painfully tragic, would be fraught with the highest interest and most impressive instruction. By philosophers and teachers the great lesson has been only too much disregarded.
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WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
We are now to treat of the aborigines who held the southwestern portion of Rhode Island, the region known by the Indians as Mis- quamicut, now occupied by the townships of Westerly, Hopkinton, Charlestown, and Richmond, - the original limits of the Town of. Westerly. Here, as elsewhere, the natives were wild and semi- nomadic, with habitations scarcely superior to those of the bear and the beaver. Each tribe was a kind of independent, hereditary monarchy, occupying, at least temporarily, a certain tract of country subdivided among the tribal clans. Such tracts were held merely for hunting, fishing, and rude planting in favorable localities. The red men knew nothing of personal property in lands; all was held in common ; only sachems, sagamores, and chiefs could receive or bestow titles to lands. Usually the possession of lands rested upon the arbitrament of the bow and spear. The Indian's personal estate consisted of his garments, implements for war and hunting, and his- ornaments. War was the chief employment and the highest glory of the men. The women were as beasts of burden and slaves.
The tribes that, first and last, claimed jurisdiction over this region, were three, - the Niantics, the Pequots, and the Narragan- setts.
1. The Niantics. - Before the ruthless Pequots reached this region from their old home in New York, the Niantics occupied the coast from Weecapaug, now in Charlestown, to the Connecticut River, their domain reaching back into the country for twenty-five or thirty miles, perhaps farther. This was long before Europeans visited these shores. Tradition represents the Niantics as a com- paratively mild and quiet tribe. At length the powerful and sate- less Pequots, making their descent from near the head of the Hudson River, seized the most of the Niantic domain, and well-nigh crushed the old Niantic tribe. Decimated and robbed, only remnants of the ancient host remained. To the first Europeans these were known as the Eastern Niantics and Western Niantics. The Eastern remnant held the region of Misquamicut ; the Western remnant occupied a tract between New London and the Connecticut River, - afterwards Lymc.
The Eastern Niantics, in their weakened and exposed state, con- federated with the old and famous Narragansett tribe, with whom they ever after remained as tributaries, till the fall of Philip and the death of their last sachem, Canonchet. Their proper bounds extended from Pawcatuck River to Weecapaug on the coast, and reached back into the forests about thirty miles. Their stronghold or fort was near Weecapaug. Their sachems or kings were the cele- brated Ninigrets.
2. The Pequots. - These are said to have come originally from the head waters of the Hudson. They supplanted the old Niantic tribe, and were the most warlike tribe in New England. Their
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THE ABORIGINES.
bows and battle-axes were a terror in all the land. Acting upon the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, they claimed even the region of Misquamicut, and hence aimed to expel the Eastern Niantics. The disputed territory was the theatre of invasions and struggles. The Pequots were met by the united Narragansetts and Niantics. In 1632 (April) the Pequots, in a fierce struggle with the Narragansetts, " extended their territory ten miles east of the Paw- catuck." This claim was continued after the first settlement of whites in this region, and was the occasion of the disputed boundaries between the colonies. Beginning with the oldest traditions, the Pequot kings were, Tamaquashad, Muckquntdowa, Woipeguand, Wopigwooit, followed by Sassacus, who was known to the first whites, and who held the throne when Major John Mason and his hero band dealt to the tribe its death-blow in 1637. Gookin thinks that this tribe at one time could number four thousand men of battle. We judge the estimate to be somewhat too large.
3. The Narragansetts. - This famous tribe, anciently holding jurisdiction over the most of the present State of Rhode Island, able, in their palmy days, under Canonicus and Miantonomi, to call to the field about four thousand warriors, had rule over Misquami- cut only through their allies or confederates, the Niantics. By this coalition, however, the sceptre of the Narragansetts virtually ex- tended to the Pawcatuck. By our annalists, and in all our general histories, the Narragansetts and the Niantics have been treated as one and the same nation. Indeed, after the "great swamp fight " in Kingstown, in 1675, which virtually closed King Philip's war, and utterly broke the sceptre of the Narragansetts as well, the tribes were substantially consolidated, and ever afterwards treated as one people by the colonists. Hence the remnant of the two tribes, now lingering on their reservation of lands in Charlestown, though on Niantic soil and embracing the Niantics, is commonly spoken of as the Narragansett tribe. The Niantics stood aloof from Philip's conspiracy, and therefore suffered but little in the bloody campaign. The Indians on the reservation from the first were largely Niantics, and their name should have been retained.
There were two other tribes more or less connected with this region of country.
(a.) The Manisses. - These were the inhabitants of Manisses, or Block Island. Our first knowledge of these seems to present them under the sceptre, or at least as allies, of the Niantics, whose fortunes they usually shared. At one time they fell under the yoke of the Pequots, but shortly regained their liberty, and returned to the protection of the confederated Narragansetts and Niantics. This was necessarily a small tribe, and never renowned for their exploits.
(b.) The Montauks. - This tribe possessed the east end of Me-
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WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
toac, or Long Island. They were concerned with the Manisses and Niantics chiefly by predatory incursions. They, too, for a time were subject to the grasping Pequots, but finally broke the yoke. Their notable sachem was Wyandance. With this king, through his sub- sachem, or chief, called Ascassassatic, the Niantic king Ninigret had a war in 1664. The Montauks had killed some of the Niantics. Ninigret achieved some retaliation. Wyandance then inflicted a blow upon Ninigret's men on Block Island, where the chiefs had agreed on a friendly visit. Of this feud, Roger Williams says, " The cause and root of all the present mischief is the pride of the two barbarians, Ascassassatic, the Long Island sachem, and Nini- gret, of the Narragansetts : the former is proud and foolish; the latter is proud and fierce." In this struggle, Ninigret was the vic- tor. The first settlers of Connecticut presumed to take the Long Island Indians under their protection, and sent messengers to Nini- gret to demand peace. Ninigret answered, "The Long Island In- dians began the war, killed one of my sachem's sons, and sixty men. If your governor's son were slain and several other men, would you ask counsel of another nation how and when to right yourself?" Against Ninigret was sent a force of two hundred and seventy foot and forty horse, under Major Willard. As Ninigret secured himself and his men in a swamp, after the Indian custom, the expedition was unsuccessful. Ninigret had a fort, but it was unsuited to meet the assault of English forces and arms. The swampy pastures referred to were doubtless the cedar swamp near Burden's Pond in Westerly.
We add a further word of this first Ninigret known to the colonists. He was reported to be of Pequot origin, and was ever true to his pagan training. Possibly on account of his Pequot blood, but more probably from his dread of the Pequot power, he was at first reluctant to render assistance to Major John Mason in his. expedition of 1637 against the Pequot stronghold on Pequot Hill. From the letters of Roger Williams (Mass. Hist. Col., Vol. VI, fourth series), it appears that Ninigret had an alias, - this was Juanemo, by which title he is repeatedly mentioned. Mr. Williams speaks of him as " one of the chiefe sachems," a " chiefe souldier," and "a notable instrument " among the natives. His portrait, which was secured during a visit to Boston in 1647, is in possession of the Winthrop family, and an engraving from this may be found in Drake's History of Boston, and will also be found, to the great satisfaction of our readers, as the frontispiece to our volume. He haughtily resisted all the impressions of European civilization ; and when asked to favor the preaching of Christianity among his people, he coolly replied that it would be better to preach it among the English till they brought forth its good fruits.
We may here properly mention some of the Indian feuds and battles that belong to the history of Misquamicut, though unable
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THE ABORIGINES.
in some cases to furnish exact dates. Indeed, the different tribes were continually warring with each other, the most trivial matter being sufficient to kindle the flame of hostility.
On the occasion of an annual inter-tribal feast of the Montauks and Manisses, the latter being the hosts, the former took deep offence that eels had not been furnished according to ancient custom, and falling upon their hosts, inflicted a fearful slaughter.
The manner in which the once numerous Montauks were reduced to the humiliating necessity of seeking the protection of the planters of Connecticut, has been transmitted to us by tradition. In the bitter feud existing between Wyandance and Ninigret, both tribes made preparations for aggressive movements. On both sides secrecy was coupled with energy. Each tribe intended to secure a victory by surprise. It so occurred that both forces started for attack on the same night, a still moonlight night of Indian summer. The savage fleets of log canoes were silently, swiftly speeding their way across the foot of the Sound. The moon was high and clear in the southwest, and its beams were hence so reflected by the glassy waters that the Niantic braves discovered the approaching Montauk fleet, while themselves remained unseen. Instantly Ninigret ordered his force to silently and speedily fall back to their own shore near Watch Hill, where, hauling their canoes from the beach into con- cealed positions, they posted themselves in ambush over the sedgy and bushy banks to await the enemy. On came the invading host, all unconscious that the reflected moonbeams were revealing their motions and the place of their landing. Hushed and hopeful they struck the beach, hauled their fleet above the tide-marks, and were about to form in order for their march and marauding. The Nian- tics now rose and rushed upon the invaders like a tempest. The savage work was short and sanguinary. Scarce a remnant of the Montauk host escaped. But Ninigret did not relinquish his con- templated invasion. Following up his success, he embarked for Metoac, where, finding the tribe of Wyandance unprepared and powerless, he greatly weakened them by slaughter and devastation. He returned with much booty, especially wampum, and shells to be carved into wampum, for Montauk was regarded as an El Dorado.
We have noticed that for a time the Manisses were under the Pequot sceptre. During this period, tradition informs us of a war between them and the Narragansetts, in the progress of which a princess of the Narragansetts or Niantics was taken prisoner and transported to the island. She was redeemable at a great price. The manner of her redemption linked the event with the history of the whites. Thomas Stanton, the celebrated Indian interpreter, by leave of the Connecticut colony, had set up a trading-house near the ford of the Pawcatuck to obtain furs and skins of the natives. He had a large quantity of Indian money. The price demanded for
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WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
the redemption of the captured princess was so great that the natives were obliged to apply to Mr. Stanton for wampum. For the requisite fathoms of this coin the Indian authorities gave to Mr. Stanton a tract of land now in the township of Charlestown. The captive was ransomed and brought home from Manisses with great ceremony and rejoicing. Upon his lands thus obtained, Mr. Stanton settled ; at least, his third son, Joseph, from whom the Rhode Island branch of that family are said to have descended. The event of the capture must have been not far from 1655.
With great care and distinctness tradition has preserved the fact,. though not the date and full particulars, of a sanguinary contest of Indian clans at the Shannock ford and falls (now Shannock Mills). It is thought that the fight grew out of a disputed monopoly of the fishing privilege at the falls. The battle was hot and bloody. The field of strife was on the south side of the river, a short distance be- low the falls. The spot is still readily pointed out, as the plow, even at the present time, occasionally turns up the fragments of barbs and bones and other memorials of the slaughtered.
There has also come down to us traditionally the outline of a dark Indian tragedy that occurred on the western border of Mis- quamicut (now Westerly), before it was settled by the colonists, though it is reported that some of the Connecticut settlers assisted in the strife. War was being waged between the Pequots and the Narragansetts, kindled probably from the claim set up by the Pequots to lands east of the Pawcatuck. The Pequots were over- powered and routed. They retreated to the ford of the Pawcatuck, hotly disputing the ground as they fell back. While fording the stream, one of their chiefs, or captains, named Cookruffin, was over- mastered, and fell into the hands of his enemies. His quiver was exhausted ; his tomahawk was lost; his naked, war-scarred arms were insufficient for his protection. The victors, in the heat of their savage blood, ordered him bound to a giant oak near at hand, on the west bank of the river (near the present site of the Pawcatuck Bank), and proceeded to execute him by making him a target for their barbarous missiles. It is reported that he was bound to the tree by a man named Frink, from whence has come the saying, "Bound as Frink bound the Indian." The gory tree was standing near the close of the last century, but in a state of decay. Not im- probably this tragic event belongs to the war in which the famous chief, Sosoa, or Sassawwaw, a renegade Pequot, promoted by Mian- tonomi, acted the conspicuous part for which he has been celebrated, and in consideration of which Miantonomi and Ninigret awarded to him the title or deed of Misquamicut, which title he afterwards transferred to Westerly's first settlers.
Of this chief Sosoa, Roger Williams, in a letter to Governor Winthrop, written in 1637, mentions that he deserted the Pequots,
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THE ABORIGINES.
his native tribe, and became Miantonomi's "special darling, and a kind of Generall of his forces." He first " turned to the Narrhiggan- sicks, and againe pretends a returne to the Pequots." Mr. Williams speaks more fully in his Key to the Indian Language, page 51: "I know the man yet living who in time of warre (1636) pretended to fall from his campe to the enemie, proffered his service in the front with them against his own Armie from whence he had revolted. Hee propounded such plausible advantages that he drew them out to battell, himself keeping in the front; but on a sudden, shot their chiefe Leader and Captaine, and being shot, in a trice fecht off his head, and returned immediately to his own again from whom in pre- tence (though with this treacherous intention) hee had revolted." We have elsewhere sketched the career of this notable pagan war- rior in a lyric.
Some mention should be made of the inner life and inspirations of these pagan red men. Life is the product of thoughts and pur- poses. Both character and conduct in a people are the fruit of their faith. By a fixed law of our nature, we are gradually and inevitably transformed into the image of the objects which we worship. Given a people's divinities, we may readily delineate their essential char- acter.
Of the religion of the aborigines of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, their intimate friend, in a letter under date of Feb. 28, 1638 (new style), says, "They have plenty of gods or divine powers : the Sun, Moone, Fire, Water, Earth, the Deere, the Beare, &c. . . .
I brought home lately from the Narrhiggansicks [Narragansetts] the names of thirty-eight of their gods, -all they could remember." They made no images ; their divinities were ghosts; they were ex- treme spiritualists. Every element and material and object had its ruling spirit, - called a " god" or "manitou." These divinities seemed ever passionate and engaged in war with each other; hence the passionate and warlike character of the worshipers. They adored, not intelligence and virtue, but power and revenge.
Every person was believed to be under the influence of some spirit, good or evil, - that is, weak or strong, - to further the person's desires. These spirits or manitous inhabited different material forms, or dwelt at times in the air. The symbolic signatures em- ployed by sachems and chiefs in signing public decds, represented in many cases the forms inhabited by their guardian or inspiring spirits ; these were bows, arrows, birds, fishes, beasts, reptiles, and the like.
Yet the Indians had their superior gods, -one of good, and one of evil. They held a tradition that their chief divinity, Kautanto- wit, made the first human pair from a stone; but, being displeased with them, destroyed them, and made a second pair from a tree, from which last pair all mankind have descended. Such tradition
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WESTERLY AND ITS WITNESSES.
seems to contain an allusion to Eden and the flood. The story not unlikely was brought by their fathers from Asia.
Roger Williams says, " They had many strange relations of one Wetucks, a man that wrought great miracles amongst them, and walked upon the waters, &c., with some kind of broken resemblance to the Sonne of God." They believed that Kantantowit resided far away to the southwest, in the land of soft winds, summer warmth, perennial fruits, and prolific hunting grounds. The highest hope of the Indian, at his death, was that he might safely reach Kautanto- wit's sunny fields. But they held that the grossly wicked, cowards, liars, thieves, murderers, and traitors would forever wander in regions of coldness, barrenness, and darkness.
The two great divinities among the Pequots were Kitchtau, the author of good, and Hobamocho, the author of evil. It is reported that on great and urgent occasions they offered human sacrifices. The report should have the favor of a doubt. It is not known that they had altars capable of such a use. It is not at all probable that such sacrifices were ever offered on the soil of Misquamicut or within the bounds of Rhode Island.
A sacred tradition was cherished relative to the origin of Indian corn, their staple product, upon which they mainly depended in win- ter. They reported that this grain was a direct gift to their fore- fathers from the Great Spirit, who also instructed them in the proper method of its culture. Possibly this may explain their religious feasts in the times of green earing and of harvest.
We have mentioned that the natives were extreme spiritualists. They seem even to have held to a threefold nature in man, - the flesh, which at death returns to the earth ; the pure spirit, which at death passes immediately to the state of rewards ; and a semi-animal soul, that lingers for a time with the body after the pure soul has left it. The evidence of this latter notion is still found in their graves. We have lately found by the side of a human skeleton a rude earthen vase containing bones of birds, fishes, shells of oysters, scallops, and other indications that food was supplied to the spirit that, in their belief, lingered for a time with the fleshly form. When this departed, the body went to decay.
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