LECTURE.

HISTORY OF THE SUBJECTION AND EXTERMINATION OF THE NARRAGANSETS.

THE subject of Indian history,* considered in its broadest sense, is a theme far too comprehensive to be even glanced at in the brief discourse called for by the present occasion. The history of the aboriginal race of the western world, has already drawn largely upon the learned and laborious researches of modern times-volumes upon volumes have been written, and still the subject remains unexhausted, and is probably inexhaustible. A race which, marked by nearly the general outline of character, once peopled the long and broad extent of the two Americas-a race, divided into a great number of nations, speaking a variety of languages, or dialects of the same language, and these still subdivided into a multitude of petty tribes or clans, with each its peculiar traditions, manners, customs, habits, and state of society, presents a subject which opens indeed a vast field for the speculations of the philosopher and the researches of the antiquary; but the very circumstance of its vastness imposes upon the author of an occasional discourse the necessity of selecting some very limited portion of its almost boundless variety.

I shall select that portion of aboriginal history which belongs to that tribe or nation which constituted the centre of Indian power in New England at the landing of the Whites at Plymouth. Nay, having determined where that centre was, I shall limit this discourse to a mere history of the subjection and final extermination of the people which formed it. They have had no historian, and we will endeavor to impart something of novelty to our design, by viewing the events which brought about this result from aboriginal ground, with an aboriginal eye, and with something of the feelings which such a view is calculated to inspire.

*

Aboriginal history was the subject assigned to the author.

If we consider Indian society as one state or condition of life brought into collision with White society, another and antagonist state or condition of life, it will, I think, clearly appear, that the centre of Indian power, or the firmest point of resistance, was the people called the Narragansets. For it is not by arms alone that a people resists change, but by its whole character-its habits and institutions, moral, religious, and political.

Some few years previous to the arrival of the Whites, the Narraganset people were without a rival or equal among the tribes of the cast. If we adopt their own traditions, (and what other authority can we have?) Tashtapack, the ancestor of Canonicus, was a mighty conqueror, a sachem of vast dominion, and without an equal in pomp and splendor of state. He was too proud to match his two children, a son and daughter, with the children of the subordinate sachems, who came to his sachimuacommock, or palace, bending under the burthen of their tributes. To avoid such degradation, the son and daughter were joined in wedlock; and from them sprang several sons. Of these, Canonicus, their chief sachem when the English came, was the eldest. Whether this tradition be true or false, it is conclusive, from the currency which it gained with the people, that they believed that their immediate progenitors were possessed of all the power and dominion which the tradition attributed to them. And this belief is amply borne out and justified by the known actual condition of the Narragansets immediately preceding the landing of the Whites. At that time no eastern tribe could compare with them, either for the extent of their jurisdiction, the number of their warriors, the compactness of their population, the firmness and wisdom of their government, or the industry of their people. Passing over, for the present, the question of their influence over the Wampanoags, the Massachusetts, and tribes about the Cape, their chiefs had full and undoubted jurisdiction over the inhabitants of a tract of country, extending from the region of the Nipmucks, now Oxford, (Massachusetts,) on the north, southerly to the ocean, including Manisses, (or Block Island,) and a part of Long Island. It began on the east with Seekonk river and the eastern shores of Narraganset bay, and extended westward, including the islands, to the borders of the Pequot and Mohegan tribes, and those of the river Indians, of which tribes the two first dwelt on the banks of the river now called the Thames, and the latter on the margin of the Connecticut. The general name of Narragansets seems to be often applied in history to all the inhabitants of this long tract of country; but they were divided

into several petty tribes, with each its under-sachem and local name; and this appellation, in its original and restricted sense, belonged only to that tribe which dwelt on the southwestern shores of the bay. This was the chief tribe, or the most distinguished of all the tribes of which the nation was composed, and the sachem, or ruler of this tribe, was consequently the grand sachem of the nation. This broad tract was not a mere forest, occupied by roving hunters; it was diversified with towns, villages, and cultivated fields. Agriculture had made considerable progress, and historians mention, without surprise, an occasional gratuity made to a single individual, out of their surplus produce, of one thousand bushels of corn. Their chiefs could call into the field five thousand warriors, and their population was so dense that one, in travelling a space of twenty miles, would pass a dozen towns or villages, consisting of from twenty to two hundred or more houses. They thus drew their bread from the earth by cultivation, whilst the forests abounded with game, and the waters with fishes. They were further advanced in the arts than any other aboriginal nation of the north. They excelled in the manufacture of earthenware, in forming tools and implements, wrought from stone, for mechanical purposes, and in constructng canoes-some of them for the purpose of naval warfare, and of a size sufficient to contain thirty or forty warriors. They excelled in making belts and girdles for ornament, and in the manufacture of wampum-beads wrought from shells, and used for the purposes of personal decoration. Its general use, as an ornament, made it answer all the purposes of a coin, throughout the sea coast, and for five or six hundred miles in the forest westward. They were, therefore, relatively, a rich as well as a powerful people. This gave them an additional importance in the eyes of the surrounding tribes. Even the terrible Mohawks, the Romans of aboriginal America, esteemed them as brothers and equals, and, in any great emergency, were ever ready with their aid. Their reputation among others, justly increased their own estimation of themselves, and consequently their attachment to their country.

As to their government, to call it a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or democracy, would only serve to mislead the mind. Under the general supervision of a grand sachem, aided by his undersachems, it vibrated from one extreme to the other. If the grand sachem was a great and powerful chief, he was absolute-his will was law, especially in all sudden emergencies. If he wanted a great reputation, or if the occasion was of great and general interest, such as declaring war, concluding peace, or ratifying treaties, he never failed

to call together the grand council of the nation; and at such times nothing was concluded to which the people could not be brought by gentle persuasion. They had not merely an order of sachems at the head of which was the grand sachem, but they had an order of priests and prophets, by whom the superstitious feelings of the people were brought into alliance with their natural love of country. I cannot however, now dwell at any length on these subjects, and I only here point at them for the purpose of indicating the ties which gave this people their unity, and increased their capacity for endurance and resistence.

I will now proceed to point out the relations in which the neighboring tribes stood to the Narragansets. The Pequots, who occupied the territory which now constitutes the townships of Groton and New London, were the only tribes which, previous to the arrival of the Whites, were not overawed or controled by the Narragansets' power. The Pequots are said to have been originally an inland tribe. About thirty or forty years before the landing at Plymouth, from one of those causes which sometimes suddenly infuses unwonted energy into barbarous nations, they poured down from their western solitudes, making progress eastward by exterminating or vanquishing one tribe after another-passing from conquest to conquest, until the Narraganset nation opposed a barrier to their course. They then paused in their career of victory, and sate themselves down on the banks of the river, which took their name, and from their rude fortifications, carried on an implacable war with the people that had given the first check to their arms. A part of the Nipmuck, and nearly all the Connecticut tribes, had yielded to their violence, and become their tributaries; but the Narragansets repelled their insolence, and firmly maintained their independence. But here, for the present, we must leave them, merely adding that they continued their hostilities unto the time they were exterminated by the Whites.

The relations of the Narragansets to the tribes on the northern border seem to have been entirely pacific. The Nipmucks were a vanquished people-a part of them were the tributaries of the Wampanoags, a part of the Pequots, and the residue were either the allies or subjects of the Narragansets themselves.

The partiality of early historians for Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags, seems to have rendered the relation in which the Narragansets stood to the eastern Indians something equivocal. They have chosen to represent Massasoit as at the head of a confederacy of all those tribes, and as the great enemy and rival of Canonicus him

self. But on this point we are bound to take the confessions of Massasoit himself, as attested by Roger Williams: "After I had obtained this place," says Williams, in a deposition quoted by Backus, "now called Providence, of Canonicus and Miantonomi, (the chief of the Narraganset sachems,) Ousamequin (the other name of Massasoit) laid his claim to this place also. This forced me to repair to the Narraganset sachems aforesaid, who declared that Ousamequin was their subject, and had solemnly, himself in person and ten more, (doubtless his under-sachems,) subjected himself and his lands unto them at Narraganset, only now he seemed to revolt from his loyalty under shelter of the English at Plymouth. This I declared from the Narraganset sachems to Ousamequin, who, without any stick, acknowledged to be true that he had so submitted, as the Narraganset sachems had affirmed; that he was not subdued by war, which himself and his father had maintained against the Narragansets; but God, said he, subdued us by a plague, which swept away my people, and forced me to yield."

This tells the whole story. The plague, to which Massasoit alludes, is that which immediately preceded the landing at Plymouth. Massasoit, previous to this, might be, and doubtless was, at the head of an independent confederacy of ten or more tribes, represented by the ten men who accompanied him; but the Narragansets, who were untouched by the prevailing pestilence, had seized the favorable moment, and extended their conquests over their eastern enemies, and they now held them as their subjects or tributaries.

With regard to the Massachusetts tribes-I mean those immediately beyond the old Plymouth colony-they also were subject or tributary to the Narragansets. Both Sagamore John, and Chickatabot (the sachem of the Neponset tribe) obeyed the summons of Canonicus, and followed Miantonomi to wage battle with the Pequots. Nor can it be supposed that the tribes about Cape Cod, and those of the neighboring islands, were not in some degree subject to them. They had been the allies or tributaries of Massasoit, and his submission to Canonicus must have left them more or less subject to the dominant power. They were a numerous people. They had been but slightly touched by the great pestilence, which had depopulated Patuxet and the country adjacent to it.

If this view of the relations of these tribes be correct, it follows, that before the landing, the Narragansets constituted the nucleusthe centre or basis of a great association of clans, more or less dependent upon them, extending through nearly the whole of Massa