THE TOWN OF BRISTOL IN RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS “I know histhry isn’t thrue, Hinnissy, because it ain’t like what I see ivry day in Halsted Street. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that’ll show me th’ people fightin’, gettin’ dhrunk, makin’ love, gettin’ married, owin’ th’ grocery man an’ bein’ without hard coal, I’ll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befur.” — Dunne, Finley Peter, OBSERVATIONS BY MR. DOOLEY, New York, 1902 HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND 1590 Ousamequin Yellow Feather, who would become the Massasoit of his people the Wampanoag, was born in the 1 village of Pokanoket near present-day Bristol, Rhode Island. This group of people were considered to be “Those of the Dawn” because –living as they were along the seaboard– they had gone the farthest in the direction of the sunrise. 1. Massasoit is not a personal name but a title, translating roughly as “Sachem of the Sachems,” as in “Shahanshah.” Like most native American men of the period, he had a number of personal names. Among these were Ousamequin or “Yellow Feather,” and Wasamegin. The above may arguably be –and may forever remain– the only statue erected by Massachusetts in honor of a politician from Rhode Island! 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND 1642 At Québec, Father Jean de Brébeuf was entrusted with the care of the native Americans at the reservation at Sillery. Another Jesuit, Father Isaac Jogues, was captured in an ambush. After being kept around as a slave for some time in an Iroquois village, he would be tortured and murdered and in 1646 his head would be impaled on the village’s palisade. As a comparison situation to what has happened in regard to the memory of the martyred Metacom, we place on record here that there is now a marble statue at the scene of this historic crime against a white man, in Auriesville, New York, a spot which wants to be known as the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs. 4 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND The memento mori statue at the site depicts Father Jogues, already missing parts of two fingers to the torture of the Iroquois, in the act of carving the name of Jesus into a tree. There is of course no comparable memento mori at Mount Hope, reflecting the dismemberment of Metacom in 1676, neither because this native religious leader would omit to carve the name of Jesus into a tree, nor because he fails to qualify as an authentic martyr — but because he utterly flunks our test of skin color. No proper commemorative plaque marks the spot in Salem at which that red martyr’s head was impaled. MARTYRDOM THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS After Fathers Isaac Jogues and Bressani had been captured during effort to reach the Huron country, Father Jean de Brébeuf was appointed to make a 3d attempt. He succeeded. With him on this journey were Fathers Noel Chabanel and Garreau, both of whom would afterward be murdered. They reached St. Mary’s on the Wye, which was the central station of the Huron Mission. 1646 A Jesuit, Father Isaac Jogues, who had been captured in 1642 in an ambush, who had been being held by the Iroquois as a slave, was at this point tortured and murdered, and his head was impaled on the palisade of the village. As a comparison situation to what has happened in regard to the memory of the martyred Metacom, we place on record here that there is now a marble statue at the scene of this historic crime against a white man, in Auriesville, New York, a spot which wants to be known as the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs. The memento mori statue at the site depicts Father Jogues, already missing parts of two fingers to the torture of the Iroquois, in the act of carving the name of Jesus into a tree. There is of course no comparable memento mori at Mount Hope, reflecting the dismemberment of Metacom in 1676, neither because this native religious leader would omit to carve the name of Jesus into a tree, nor because he fails to qualify as an authentic martyr — but because he utterly flunks our primary test, which is that of skin color. MARTYRDOM THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS 1649 William Withington took half a share in the vessel Beginning, which sailed from Rhode Island via Barbados to the Guinea coast of Africa, then back via Barbados and Antigua to Boston. What sort of cargo had this vessel conveyed from the Guinea coast to the West Indies islands? In the absence of records, we are obliged to suspect that it had been black slaves. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: The rigorous climate of New England, the character of her settlers, and their pronounced political views gave slavery an even slighter basis here than in the Middle colonies. The significance of New England in the African slave- trade does not therefore lie in the fact that she early discountenanced the system of slavery and stopped importation; but rather in the fact that her citizens, being the traders of 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND the New World, early took part in the carrying slave-trade and furnished slaves to the other colonies. An inquiry, therefore, into the efforts of the New England colonies to suppress the slave-trade would fall naturally into two parts: first, and chiefly, an investigation of the efforts to stop the participation of citizens in the carrying slave-trade; secondly, an examination of the efforts made to banish the slave-trade from New England soil. (Over the following two centuries, about half the American participation in the international slave trade would be sailing out of the harbors of 1st Newport and then Bristol — order of magnitude, that’s about 1,000 out of about 2,000 middle passages.) “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND 1667 Swansea (Swanzy) was established, much closer than any English settlement had been to Metacom’s own village at Mount Hope. The English were hostile to Phillip’s agenda to raise herds of pigs (for instance, they had told him to get his pigs the hell off of Pig Island in the Narragansett Bay, where they as well as he were keeping pigs in order to preserve them safe against forest predators); however, as James D. Drake has commented on his page 66, “The Indians in the region were openly angry with their English neighbors, 2 probably because livestock owned by the English were allowed to trespass on native land.” “History is better than prophecy. In fact, history ‘is’ prophecy. And history says that whenever a weak and ignorant people possess a thing which a strong and enlightened people want, it must be yielded up.” — Mark Twain 2. Drake bases this guess on the work of Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England” (William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 51, October 1994). 8 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND Metacom was again summoned to Plymouth Town, as had already occurred during 1664, to provide reassurances against their fear that he was plotting to war upon the English. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” It was in this period that Deliverance Smith was born. Although we know that eventually John Smith of Plymouth and Dartmouth would come to be the father a total of thirteen children and although the initial five, Hassadiah, John, Josiah, Eliazer, and Hezekiah, were definitely born to his 1st wife, Friend Deborah Howland Smith, and although the will would make it clear that Hannah, Sarah, and Deborah had been born to the 2d wife, Friend Ruhamah Kirby Smith — about Judah, Gershom, Deliverance, Mehitable, and Eliashib we can only infer that they would also pertain to this 2d Quaker woman, Ruhamah. As to how it was that a 2d Quaker wife was bearing children for this man across the water in Dartmouth while in Plymouth his 1st Quaker wife seems still to have been very much alive, and as to the details of the eventual relocation of this Smith family from Plymouth to Dartmouth, the genealogical record has preferred to remain silent. We notice a reticence in assigning the years of birth to the various children, as if these details would inform us of certain life patterns of which it would be better for the world at large to remain ignorant. We only know that this child, Deliverance, became a Friend. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 9 HDT WHAT? INDEX BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND 1668 Plymouth decreed that there was to be no “buying or receiving from the Indians any lands that appertain unto Mount hope, or Cawsumsett necke.” On this basis, we may infer that “Mount Hope” was the English name for the land which –either on account of the sharpness of the edges of the rocks in the vicinity, or on account of the usefulness of the rocks in the vicinity as whetstones for the sharpening of metal knifeblades– to the natives was known as Cawsumsett. BRISTOL RHODE ISLAND This was, is “King Philip’s Seat” at Mount Hope: 10 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith