Chapter V: The Narragansett Indians

VISIT TO BOSTON.

The Narragansett Indians were one of the largest, if not the very largest, tribe in New England, at the time of the arrival of the Puritans; and they were especially friendly to the settlers. They lived along the coast, from Stonington to Point Judith, on Narragansett Bay. "They consisted," says Hutchinson, "of several lesser principalities, but all united under one general ruler, called the Chief Sachem, to whom all others owed some kind of fealty or subjection." The Nianticks were considered as a branch of the Narragansetts, having very likely been conquered by them, and brought under their subjection.

A letter of Roger Williams, who was intimate with, and a strong friend of, the Narragansett Indians, says they were "the settlers' fast friends, had been true in all the Pequot wars, were the means of the coming in of the Mohegans, never had shed English blood, and many settlers had had experience of the love and desire of peace which prevailed among them."

In October, 1636, after the murder of Mr. Oldham, Gov. Vane invited their sachem, Miantonomo, to visit Boston, which he soon after did, bringing with him another sachem, two sons of Canonicus, and about twenty men. The governor sent twenty musketeers to Roxbury to meet them and escort them into town. The sachems and their council dined together in the same room with the governor and his ministers. After dinner a friendly treaty was made with Miantonomo, and signed by the parties; and, although at this time the English thought the Indians did not understand it, they kept it faithfully; but the English, who were afterwards instrumental in the death of Miantonomo, did not. The Indians were subsequently escorted out of town, "and dismissed with a volley of shot;" and the famous Roger Williams was appointed to explain the treaty to the Indians.

In this treaty, Canonicus, who was the chief sachem of the tribe, and is said to have been "a just man, and a friend of the English," was represented by Miantonomo, his nephew, whom Canonicus, on account of his age, had caused to assume the government. The deputation that Gov. Vane sent to the Narragansetts in the matter of the murder of Mr. Oldham, speak of Canonicus "as a sachem of much state, great command over his men, and much wisdom in his answers and the carriage of the whole treaty; clearing himself and his neighbors of the murder, and offering assistance for revenge of it." Johnson represents Miantonomo "as a sterne, severe man, of great stature and a cruel nature, causing all his nobility and such as were his attendants to tremble at his speech."

INDIAN ART.--CURIOUS MARRIAGE.

The Narragansetts not only coined money (wampumpeag), but manufactured pendants and bracelets,--using shells, we presume, for these purposes. They also made tobacco-pipes, some blue and some white, out of stone, and furnished earthen vessels and pots for cookery and other domestic uses,--so that they had several approximations, in these respects, to civilization and art, not so distinctly manifested by other tribes. They had, in fact, commercial relations with other people and distant nations, and, it seems, were sometimes sneered at on account of their disinclination for war,--preferring other service.

There is evidence, also, that they considered themselves--in some respects, at least--superior to other Indians; and this is illustrated by a very curious piece of history, said to be "the only tradition of any sort from the ancestors of our first Indians." It seems that the oldest Indians among the Narragansetts reported to the English, on their first arrival, "that they had in former times a sachem called Tashtassuck, who was incomparably greater than any in the whole land in power and state." This great sachem--who, it would seem, had the power to elevate, and, in some respects, enlighten his race--had only two children, a son and daughter; and, not being able to match them according to their dignity, he joined them together in matrimony, and they had four sons, of whom Canonicus, who was chief sachem when the English arrived, was the eldest. There is no reason to doubt that the marriage was a happy one, agreeable to the parties, satisfactory to the parent, and certainly famous in its progeny.

INTERMARRIAGE AMONG THE EGYPTIANS.

This probably is the only record of such a marriage in this country. The form of family marriage, however, it is a matter of history, was common among the Egyptians, and probably has been practised more or less among all the savage nations of the earth. Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, on the death of her father, was married, according to his will, to Ptolemy XII., his eldest son, and ascended the throne; both being minors, Pompey was appointed their guardian. In the wars which followed, her husband was drowned, and she then married her second brother, Ptolemy (Necteros), a child seven years old. Afterwards she became the mistress of Caesar, and subsequently poisoned her boy-husband, when at the age of fourteen, because he claimed his share of the Egyptian crown. So that, in fact, she made war against her first husband, and poisoned her second,--a result very different from that recorded of the Narragansett intermarriage.

MURDER OF MIANTONOMO.

In a subsequent Indian war, 1643,--brought about, it is said, by Connecticut, between the Narragansetts and the Mohegans,--Miantonomo, by some strange accident, fell into the hands of Uncas, who, for fear of retaliation, instead of taking his life, sent him to Hartford. The Connecticut people, in their turn, sent him to Boston, to be judged by the Commissioners of the United Colonies; and these commissioners, "although they had no jurisdiction in the case, nor any just ground of complaint against the sachem," came to the conclusion "that Uncas would not be safe if he were suffered to live." Drake says, "Strange as it may seem, it was with the advice of the Elders of the Churches" (Winthrop says five of the most judicious elders) that it was determined Uncas might put Miantonomo to death,--a piece of barbarism and injustice hardly matched by any conduct of the Indians. He was taken back to Uncas "with a guard of English soldiers," and Uncas readily undertook the execution of his victim. When he arrived at a place appointed, a brother of Uncas "clave his head with a hatchet." "Thus inhumanly and unjustly perished the greatest Indian chief of whom any account is found in New England's annals." Canonicus, it is said, was greatly affected by the death of his nephew, in whom he always had the utmost confidence, and regarded him with the fondness of a father. Canonicus died in 1647. After the death of Miantonomo, the Narragansetts were never on very good terms with the English, who had suspected them once or twice unjustly. Hutchinson says, "The Narragansetts are said to have kept to the treaty until the Pequods were destroyed, and then they grew insolent and treacherous." It certainly appears that they were not well used by the English settlers, and it is not surprising that they should grow "insolent and treacherous;" for the treachery appears to have been first against them.