Narragansett people
The Narragansett people are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe, headquartered in Rhode Island. Their Narragansett language belongs to the Algonquian language family.
The tribe was nearly landless for most of the 20th century but acquired land in 1991 and petitioned the Department of the Interior to take the land into trust on their behalf. This would have made the newly acquired land officially recognized as part of the Narragansett Indian reservation, taking it out from under Rhode Island's legal authority. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the request in their lawsuit Carcieri v. Salazar, declaring that tribes which had achieved federal recognition since the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act did not have standing to have newly acquired lands taken into federal trust and removed from state control.
Name and origin
The name Narragansett has been translated as "people of the little points and bays" and " of the Small Point". Linguist James Hammond Trumbull wrote that naiag or naiyag means a corner or angle in the Algonquian languages, so that the prefix nai is found in the names of many points of land on the sea coast and rivers of New England. The word nai-ig-an-set, according to Trumbull, signifies "the territory about the point", and nai-ig-an-eog means "the people of the point".Narragansetts were first written about in the 17th century, and their name was spelled in many different ways, including Nanohigganset, Nanhyganset, Nanhiggonsick, Nanhigonset, Nanihiggonsicks, Nanhiggonsicks, Narriganset, Narrogonset, and Nahigonsicks.
Image:Roger Williams and Narragansetts.jpg|thumb|Roger Williams and the Narragansetts, a 19th-century engraving after a painting by A. H. Wray
Roger Williams learned the tribe's language and wrote A Key into the Language of America in 1643. In that book, Williams gave the tribe's name as Nanhigganeuck though later he used the spelling Nahigonset. He traced the source of the word Narragansett to a geographical location:
Being inquisitive of what root the title or denomination Nahigonset should come I heard that Nahigonsset was so named from a little island, between Puttaquomscut and Mishquomacuk on the sea and fresh water side. I went on purpose to see it, and about the place called Sugar Loaf Hill I saw it and was within a pole of it , but could not learn why it was called Nahigonset.
Berkeley anthropologist William Simmons, who specialized in the Narragansett people, confirms Williams's view but wrote that the precise location of the place seen by Williams could not be determined.
But in fact, Roger Williams's statement does enable a fairly precise localization: He states that the place was "a little island, between Puttaquomscut and Mishquomacuk on the sea and fresh water side", and that it was near Sugar Loaf Hill. This means it was between the Pettaquamscutt river to the east and the present town of Westerly to the west and to the north of Point Judith Pond.
This suggests that the original Narragansett homeland was identified by 17th-century Natives as being a little island located near the northern edge of Point Judith Pond, possibly Harbor Island or one of the smaller islands there.
Language
The tribe historically spoke the Narragansett language, a member of the Algonquian languages family. The Narragansetts spoke a "Y-dialect", similar enough to the "N-dialects" of the Massachusett and Wampanoag to be mutually intelligible. Other Y-dialects include the Shinnecock and Pequot languages spoken historically by tribes on Long Island and in Connecticut, respectively.The Narragansett language became almost entirely extinct during the 20th century. The tribe has begun language revival efforts, based on early 20th-century books and manuscripts, and new teaching programs.
American English has absorbed a number of loan words from Narragansett and other closely related languages, such as Wampanoag and Massachusett. Such words include quahog, moose, papoose, powwow, squash, and succotash.
History
The Narragansetts were one of the leading tribes of New England, controlling the west of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island and portions of Connecticut and eastern Massachusetts, from the Providence River on the northeast to the Pawcatuck River on the southwest. The first European contact was in 1524 when explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano visited Narragansett Bay.Between 1616 and 1619, infectious diseases killed thousands of Algonquians in coastal areas south of Rhode Island. The Narragansetts were the most powerful tribe in the southern area of the region when the English colonists arrived in 1620, and they had not been affected by the epidemics. Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags to the east allied with the colonists at Plymouth Colony as a way to protect the Wampanoags from Narragansett attacks. In the fall of 1621, the Narragansetts sent a sheaf of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin to Plymouth Colony as a threatening challenge, but Plymouth governor William Bradford sent the snakeskin back filled with gunpowder and bullets. The Narragansetts understood the message and did not attack them.
European settlement in the Narragansett territory did not begin until 1635; in 1636, Roger Williams acquired land from Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi and established Providence Plantations. Williams was brought to the top of Sugarloaf Hill in nearby Wakefield when treating with the Narragansett tribe. They pointed toward this large settlement and told him that it was called Nanihigonset. This site is now believed to be the center of the Narragansett geography, where they coalesced as a tribe and began to extend their dominion over the neighboring tribes at different points in history.
Pequot War
During the Pequot War of 1637, the Narragansetts allied with the New England colonists. However, the brutality of the colonists in the Mystic massacre shocked the Narragansetts, who returned home in disgust. After the Pequots were defeated, the colonists gave captives to their allies the Narragansetts and the Mohegans.The Narragansetts later had conflict with the Mohegans over control of the conquered Pequot land. In 1643, Miantonomi led the Narragansetts in an invasion of eastern Connecticut, where they planned to subdue the Mohegans and their leader Uncas. Miantonomi had an estimated 1,000 men under his command. The Narragansett forces fell apart, and Miantonomi was captured. The Mohegans then took Miantonomi to Hartford to turn him in for his execution, to which they were in favor but did not want blood on their hands, so they returned him to the Mohegans for his demise. While travelling back in the forests of northern Connecticut, Uncas's brother slew Miantonomi by bludgeoning him on the head with a club. The following year, Narragansett war leader Pessicus renewed the war with the Mohegans, and the number of Narragansett allies grew.
The Mohegans were on the verge of defeat when the colonists came and saved them, sending troops to defend the Mohegan fort at Shantok. The colonists then threatened to invade Narragansett territory, so Canonicus and his son Mixanno signed a peace treaty. The peace lasted for the next 30 years.
King Philip's War
Christian missionaries began to convert tribal members, and as many Indians feared that they would lose their traditions to assimilation with colonial culture, the colonists' push for religious conversion collided with Indian resistance. In 1675, John Sassamon, a converted "Praying Indian", was found bludgeoned to death in a pond. The facts were never settled concerning Sassamon's death, but historians accept that Wampanoag sachem Metacomet may have ordered his execution because Sassamon cooperated with colonial authorities. Three Wampanoag men were arrested, convicted, and hanged for Sassamon's death.Metacomet subsequently declared war on the colonists and started King Philip's War. He escaped an attempt to trap him in the Plymouth Colony, and the uprising spread throughout Massachusetts as other bands joined the fight, such as the Nipmuc. The Indians wanted to expel the colonists from New England. They waged successful attacks on settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but Rhode Island was spared at the beginning, as the Narragansetts remained officially neutral.
However, the leaders of the United Colonies accused the Narragansetts of harboring Wampanoag refugees. They made a preemptive attack on the Narragansett palisade fortress on December 19, 1675, in a battle that became known as the Great Swamp Fight. Hundreds of Narragansett non-combatants died in the attack and burning of the fort, including women and children, but nearly all of the warriors escaped. In January 1676, colonist Joshua Tefft was hanged, drawn, and quartered by colonial forces at Smith's Castle in Wickford, Rhode Island for having fought on the side of the Narragansetts during the Great Swamp Fight.
The Indians retaliated for the massacre in a widespread spring offensive beginning in February 1676, in which they destroyed all Colonial settlements on the western side of Narragansett Bay. The settlement of Providence Plantations was burned on March 27, 1676, destroying Roger Williams's house, among others. Other Indian groups destroyed many towns throughout New England, and even raided outlying settlements near Boston. However, disease, starvation, battle losses, and the lack of gunpowder caused the Indian effort to collapse by the end of March.
Troops from Connecticut, composed of colonists and their Mohegan allies, swept into Rhode Island and killed substantial numbers of the now-weakened Narragansetts. A force of Mohegans and Connecticut militia captured Narragansett sachem Canonchet a few days after the destruction of Providence Plantations, while a force of Plymouth militia and Wampanoags hunted down Metacomet. He was shot and killed, ending the war in southern New England, although it dragged on for another two years in Maine.
After the war, the colonists sold some surviving Narragansetts into slavery and shipped them to the Caribbean; others became indentured servants in Rhode Island. The surviving Narragansetts merged with local tribes, particularly the Eastern Niantics. During colonial and later times, tribe members intermarried with colonists and Africans. Their spouses and children were taken into the tribe, enabling them to keep a tribal and cultural identity.