Narragansett Indians' Teepee

Native American Genealogy
The Chief's Page
Narragansett Language

Index to this page:
A History of the Narragansetts
Descendants of Chief Canonicus
Chief Massasoit history
Chief Canonicus History

A History of
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
In Narragansett
Rhode Island
by Wilkins Updike
Boston: Printed & Published by D.B. Updike
The Merrymount Press
1907

Chapter X p. 252, 253

“Canonicus was the Grand Sachem of the Narragansetts, when the whites settled
at Plymouth. History gives no account of his predecessors. It commences with him. He
died in 1647. Miantenomi was his nephew, son of his brother Mascus. Canonicus, in his
advanced age, admitted Miantenomi into the government, and they administered the
sachemdom jointly. In the war between the Narragansetts and Mohegans, in 1643,
Miantenomi was captured by Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegans, and executed.
Pessecus, the brother of Miantenomi, was then admitted sachem with Canonicus. He was
put to death by the Mohawks, in 1776. (I think that was a misprint & should read 1676)
“Canonchet, the son of the brave but unfortunate Miantenomi, was the last
sachem of the race. He commanded the Indians at the Great Swamp Fight, in 1675. This
battle exterminated the Narragansetts as a nation. He was captured near the Blackstone
river, after the war, and executed for the crime of defending his country and refusing to
surrender the territories of his ancestors by a treaty of peace. It was glory enough for a
nation to have expired with such a chief. The coolness, fortitude, and heroism of his fall
stands without a parallel in ancient or modern times. He was offered life, upon the
condition that he would treat for the submission of his subjects; his untamed spirit
indignantly rejected the ignominious proposition. When the sentence was announced to
him that then he must die, he said, “I like it well, that I shall die before my heart grows
soft, or that I have said anything unworthy of myself.” The splendid dignity of his fall
extorted from one of the prejudiced historians of the times the sentiment, “That acting as
if by a Pythagorean metempsychosis, some old Roman ghost has possessed the body of
this Western Pagan like an Attilius Regulus.” Thus ended the last chief of the
Narragansetts, and with Canonchet the nation was extinguished forever.
“Ninegret was the sachem of the Niantics, or the Westerly Tribe, and since the
division of that town, now styled the Charlestown Tribe. Ninegret was tributary to
Canonicus, Miantenomi and his successors. He was only collaterally related to the
family of Canonicus, Quaiapen, Ninegret’s sister, having married Maxanno, the son of
Canonicus. The whites purchased Ninegret’s neutrality during the Indian war of 1675,
and for this treachery to his paramount sovereign and his race, the “Tribe Land” in
Charlestown was allotted to him and his heirs forever, as the price of the treason. The
Ninegret Tribe never were the real Narragansetts, whose name they bear. It is a libel on
their glory and their graves for him to have assumed it. Not one drop of the blood of
Canonicus, Miantenomi or Canonchet, ever coursed in the veins of a sachem who could
sit neuter in his wigwam and hear the guns and see the conflagration ascending from the
fortress that was exterminating their nation forever.”

pp. 8, 9, 10, 11

“The Narragansetts subsisted by hunting, fishing and, partially, by agriculture.
Their lands, for eight or ten miles distant from the sea-shore, were cleared of wood, and
on these prairies they raised Indian corn in abundance and furnished the early settlers of
Plymouth and Massachusetts with large quantities for subsistence. They were a strong,
generous and brave race. They were always more civil and courteous to the English than
any of the other Indians. Their kind and hospitable treatment of the emigrants to Rhode
Island and the welcome they gave our persecuted ancestors should endear their name to
us all.
“The Narragansetts, as to civilization, were far in advance of their neighbours.
Hutchinson* says that “they were the most curious coiners of Wampumpeag and supplied
other nations with their pendants and bracelets and, also, with tobacco pipes of stone,
some blue and some white. They furnished the earthen vessels and pots for cookery and
other domestic uses.
“They were considered a commercial people and not only began a trade with the
English for goods for their own consumption, but soon learned to supply other distant
nations, at advanced prices, and to receive beaver and other furs in exchange, upon which
they made a profit also. Various articles of their skillful workmanship have been found
from time to time, such as stone axes, tomahawks, mortars, pestles, pipes, arrowheads,
peag,” &c. (*History of Massachusetts Bay, i. 458)
“Respecting their reputation for integrity and good morals, Mr. Williams, after a
residence of six years among them and a close and intimate acquaintance with them,
observes: “I could never discern that excess of scandalous sins among them, which
Europe aboundeth with. Drunkenness and gluttony, they know not what sins they be, and
though they have not so much to restrain them as the English have, yet a man never hears
of such crimes among them as robberies, murders, adulteries,” &c. (Key: Pub. Narr.
Club, Providence, 1866, i. 121)
“The government of the Narraganssetts appears to have been a patriarchal
despotism. On the arrival of the English, there were two chief sachems, Canonicus and
Miantinomi, and under them several subordinate ones. The different small tribes, under
the separate sub-sachems, composed the great Narragansett nation. The succession to
chief authority was generally preserved in the same family. The sub-sachems occupied
the soil and were moved from it at the will and pleasure of their chiefs.
“That the Narragansetts had an exalted estimation of their superiority over other
tribes is demonstrated by the following tradition mentioned by Hutchinson: “In the early
times of this nation, some of the English inhabitants learned from the old Indians, that
they had, previous to their arrival, a sachem, Tashtassuck, and their encomiums upon his
wisdom and valour were much the same as the Delawares reported of their Chief
Sachem, Tammany; that, since, there had not been his equal, &c. Tashtassuck had but
two children, a son and a daughter, those he joined in marriage, because he could find
none worthy of them out of his family. The product of this marriage was four sons, of
whom Canonicus was the oldest.”
“With regard to their religious belief, Mr. Williams observes that they have a
tradition, that to the southwest the gods chiefly dwell and thither the souls of all good
men and women go. Their principal god seems to have been Kautantowit, or the
southwest god. But they have many other objects of worship. They call the soul
Cowwewonick, “derived from Cowwene, to sleep, because (say they) it works and
operates while the body sleeps...They believe that the souls of men and women go to
Cautantouwit his House...Murderers, thieves and lyars, their Souls (say they) wander
restless abroad.
“They have it from their Fathers, that Kautantowwit made one man and one
woman of a stone, which disliking, he broke them in pieces, and made another man and
woman of a Tree, which were the Fountains of all mankind.” (Key: Pub. Narr. Club,
Providence, 1866 i. 116)
“The Narragansetts soon became debased and corrupted, after their intercourse
with the whites, by intemperance, &c.; and many of the vices with which our forefathers
have charged the Indians, they never would have known, but for their intercourse with
the whites.
“The name of the Narragansett Country became circumscribed as Canonicus and
Miantinomi sold off their territory. After the sale of Providence to Williams, the island
of Rhode Island to Coddington and Shawomet or old Warwick to Gorton and their
respective associates, those territories virtually ceased to be called Narragansett. After
East Greenwich was conveyed (to the forty-eight grantees) and erected into a township in
1677, the name of Narragansett was circumscribed to the limits of the present county of
Washington, bounding northerly on Hunt’s river and the south line of the county of Kent.
“The first settlement in the state was by Roger Williams, at Providence, in 1636;
the others were by Coddington, at Portsmouth, in 1638; by Richard Smith, at Wickford,
in Narragansett, in 1639, and by Gorton, in Warwick, in 1642-3. That Smith’s was the
third settlement, and before Gorton’s, Roger Williams says, in his testimony in favour of
Smith’s title to the Wickford land, sworn to July 21, 1679, where he declares, “y Mr.
Richard Smith Sen., who for his conscience to God left faire Posessions in Gloster Shire
and adventured with his Relations and Estate to N. Engl. and was a most acceptable
Inhabitant and prime leading man in Taunton in Plymouth Colony: For his conscience
sake (many differences arising) he left Taunton and came to the Nahiggonsik Countrey
where by God’s mercy and the fav of ye Nahiggonsik Sachems he broke the Ice (at his
great Charge and Hazards) ....”

Descendants of Tashtassuck*

1 Tashtassuck*
. +?

Having found no suitable mates for his son or daughter, he married them.

Brother & sister .....2 [2] Wessonsuoum* b: Bef. 1520 in Connecticut
+[1] Keshechoo* b: Abt. 1525 in Connecticut m: Abt. 1560 in of, Connecticut

1 Chief * Canonicus 1562 - 1647 b: 1562 in of, Cape Cod, Massachusetts d: June 04, 1647 in of, Massachusetts
. +Indian* Abt 1565 - b: Abt 1565 in Narragansett, Washington, Rhode Island m: Abt 1555 in of, Cape Cod, Barnstable, Massachusetts
........ 2 Princess * of Canonicus b: in Cape Cod, Barnstable, Massachusetts d: in of, Barnstable, Massachusetts
............ +Chief Sachem * Ihyannough 1565 - 1622 b: 1565 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts d: 1622 in of, Barnstable, Massachusetts
................... 3 John * Hyanno 1595 - b: 1595 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts d: in Cape Cod, Massachusetts
....................... +Mary * No-Pee Abt 1600 - b: Abt 1600 in Gay Head, Massachusetts d: in Cape Cod, Barnstable, Massachusetts m: in Massachusetts
.............................. 4 John Hyanno Abt 1620 - Aft 1661 b: Abt 1620 in Cummaquid, Barnstable, Massachusetts d: Aft 1661
.............................. 4 Mary * Hyanno 1625 - b: 1625 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts d: in Barnstable, Massachusetts
.................................. +Austin * (Augustine) Bearse 1618 - 1686 b: 1618 in Longstock, Hampshire, England d: 1686 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts m: 1639 in Mattacheevillage, Barnstable, Massachusetts
......................................... 5 Mary Bearse 1640 - b: August 16, 1640 in Chr Barnstable B
......................................... 5 Martha Bearse 1642 - b: May 06, 1642 in Chr Barnstable B
......................................... 5 Priscilla * Bearse 1643/44 - 1712 b: March 10, 1643/44 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts d: March 30, 1712 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts
............................................. +John * Hall 1638 - 1710 b: May 13, 1638 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts d: October 14, 1710 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts m: 1660 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts
......................................... 5 Sarah Bearse 1646 - b: March 28, 1646 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
............................................. +John Hamblin m: August 1667 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
......................................... 5 Abigail Bearse 1647 - 1670 b: December 18, 1647 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
............................................. +Allen Nichols m: April 12, 1670
......................................... 5 Hannah Bearse 1649 - b: November 16, 1649 in Chr Barnstable B
......................................... 5 Joseph Bearse 1650/51 - 1727/28 b: January 25, 1650/51 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts d: January 27, 1727/28 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
............................................. +Martha Taylor 1650 - 1728 b: abt 1650 d: January 27, 1727/28 m: December 03, 1676 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
......................................... 5 Hester Bearse 1653 - b: October 02, 1653 in Chr Barnstable B
......................................... 5 Lydia Bearse 1655 - b: September 30, 1655 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
......................................... 5 Rebecca Bearse 1657 - b: September 26, 1657 in Barnstable Barn.
............................................. +William Hunter m: February 17, 1670/71
......................................... 5 James Bearse 1660 - 1728 b: July 31, 1660 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts d: October 07, 1728 in Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts
............................................. +Expiernce Howland m: 1684 in Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts
........ 2 Maxanno(Indian)
............ +Quaiapen(Indian of Niantic Tribe)

MASSASOIT

Massasoit (1580?-1661), Native American chief of the Wampanoag who governed the
greater part of what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Shortly after the arrival of
the Pilgrims in America, Massasoit and Governor John Carver of Plymouth Colony
signed the earliest recorded treaty in New England. The treaty established a mutual peace
between Massasoit's people and the Pilgrims. In 1621 the Pilgrims invited Massasoit and
some of his people to the first celebration of Thanksgiving Day.
Massasoit's eldest son, Wamsutta, became sachem, or chief, upon his father's death in
1661. Peace with the Pilgrims lasted until Wamsutta was succeeded by his brother Philip,
also called Metacomet. Philip formally renewed the treaties established by his father, but
in 1675, after the Pilgrims had made increasing demands for Native American land,
Philip led an uprising against the settlers in a conflict now referred to as King Philip's
War.


"Massasoit," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation.
Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

Chief Canonicus

Taken from Colonial Rhode Island: A History by Sydney V. James;
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; 1975

Pages 7 & 8:

Clearly in 1636 there was no sparsity of inhabitants near Narragansett Bay to lure European
immigrants. Quite the opposite, the region had an uncommonly dense Indian population. So it is
necessary to fathom the sachem's reasons for letting in newcomers. On the Wampanoag side
the thinking is easy to deduce. Ousamequin first let Williams occupy the frontier against the
rivals, then granted land that his tribe claimed but no longer controlled. It is harder to puzzle out
the calculations of Miantonomi and Canonicus, the wise and canny leaders of the Narragansetts,
who actually made room for the first four Rhode Island towns.

The Narragansett sachems quickly perceived the threat lurking in English colonization. They
promptly showed their resentment when their hereditary enemy found an unforeseen ally in
Plymouth. They became deeply alarmed when the Puritans began to pour in during the 1630's.
Then it became necessary to define relations with the foreigners. Traditional Indian diplomacy
failed; the outlanders did not know the protocol. Painfully, sometimes with the aid of Roger
Williams, the Narragansetts reached a shaky understanding with Massachusetts. This was
possible because both sides, for a few years, feared the Indians farther west, especially the
Pequots and their cousins the Mohegans. The Puritans and Narragansetts in 1636 were
maneuvering toward the agreement that allied them briefly in war against the Pequots the next
year. Danger on the west made it useful for Canonicus and Miantonomi to improve their safety
on the east.

Accordingly, when Roger Williams sought permission to occupy land at the head of the bay,
the two sachems gave him a generous tract. He had previously won the confidence of
Canonicus and Miantonomi (and Ousamequin too), probably during his trading expeditions to
the bay a few years earlier. He learned their language, both to carry on business and to preach
Christianity, and as a result became useful in diplomacy. Installed at Providence, he began to
act as intermediary between Massachusetts and the Narragansett sachems. He served both
parties well, especially during the Pequot War, but afterwards Narragansetts were ceaselessly
plotting against the colonists. His honest efforts, however, earned the sachems' gratitude over
and over.

Canonicus and Miantonomi rewarded Williams, most richly in the years when his services
brought success, by giving land on their eastern borders to English settlers. Having given him
the site of Providence, they gave Prudence Island to him and Governor John Winthrop of
Massachusetts, perhaps in the hope of strengthening the ephemeral alliance. Then at Williams'
prompting they gave Aquidneck to the followers of Anne Hutchinson and later still provided him
with a place for a trading post on the west side of the bay. (Williams always gave lavish gifts to
the sachems in return, probably in keeping with their customs, but he surely was correct in his
claims that their esteem for him made them willing to grant the land.) By these donations the
chiefs secured access to trade with the English and set up a barrier of Europeans against the
Wampanoags. Within a few years the Narragansetts solidified the buffer zone by selling territory
(claimed by the Wampanoags) to other newcomers who created settlements south of
Providence. Thus it is quite realistic to think of the colony of Rhode Island as in part a product of
Narragansett Indian policy.


Page 65:

One further element should be mentioned in accounting for the survival of government under
the patent of 1644: the sudden scramble for land west of Narragansett Bay, with Rhode Islanders
hurrying to head off outsiders with stronger backing. Even though the Indians remained
numerous, they were beleaguered from outside and weakened from within by disputes over the
succession to Canonicus and Miantonomi, both dead by 1647.


Page 81:

The troubles of the Narragansetts stemmed from the suspicions of Massachusetts and the
squabbling over the succession to the principal sachems' positions after the deaths of
Miantonomi and Canonicus. Massachusetts' fears revived after the brief suspension during the
Pequot War, inaugurating an ever-widening conflict between the Narragansetts and the United
Colonies (New England minus Rhode Island) in alliance with the Mohegans. These partners
captured and executed Miantonomi; a Mohegan wielded the hatchet that "clave his head."
Canonicus died a few years later in 1647.

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