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."