5бо
The Green Bag,
of Great Britain. The views of the parties of different interests have been much at vari ance for many years, causing a disturbed state of feeling in the tribe. In January, 1879, the president of the Indian council, with certain other members of the Narragansett tribe, living on their reservation in the town of Charlestown, in the southwest part of the State, petitioned the House of Representatives for the ap pointment of a commission to investigate their affairs in respect to the encroachments of the whites upon the tribal lands; and whether it were better to continue their existence as a tribe, or to discontinue this and become citizens; and to consider the most equitable manner of disposing of the land belonging to said tribe, etc.; and that the commission report to the next January session of the general assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The commission was appointed accord ingly. Its first session was held in Charlestown on July 30, 1879, and was well attended by the Indians. The commission learned that there was not an Indian of pure blood in the tribe, those present showing every shade from white to black. As was well known, the Narragansetts had adopted single individuals and families of Pequots and other neighboring tribes, and even whole com munities, as the Aquidnecks of the Wampanoag tribe, and the Niantics, and had even admitted white persons and negroes. The Narragansett reservation, as bounded in 1709, was eight miles square (sixty-four square miles) less than one-half of which was, at the time of the first hearing by the com mission, in possession of the tribe. Nearly every head of a family within the reservation lives upon individual property, inherited or held by deed, the latter paying three-quar ters tax. This land and Fort Neck—the common land of the tribe—comprise the best of the specially reserved Indian lands. The common tribal land •was said to consist of about fifteen hundred acres. At the first hearing, in reply to a question
of the commission, the president of the coun cil of the Narragansetts, an Indian, said: "... Now we have a reservation five rods wide, from Pavvcatuck to the Indian ford on Pawcatuck river; and in order for you to get at the truth and to learn the truth, I will begin at 1827. That will give the citi zens of Rhode Island fifty years from their independence for you to find if they have any land that goes any nearer [to the salt water] than five rods from high-water mark; and high-water mark was placed in Governor Fenner's time where the September gale was [i. e., where the tide reached at that time]; and I can carry you to walls that were built [to that line]; and every fisherman of South Kingston [which embraced "Fort Neck"] knows where that is on George Congdon's farm,—a cove that used to be called Cong don's cove, and everywhere where there was a wall built on the seaside, it left this five rods, which was for the privilege of pitching our tents, and fishing to procure a living. . . "Well, it is generally questioned sometimes, by some people, to know how we came into possession of this land [the unenclosed shore land], whether or no the State gave it to us, or whether or no Congress gave it to us. That paper will show you how we got pos session of this land. At this point the speaker passed to the chairman of the commission a document by which Nenegrate, chief sachem of the Nar ragansett country in 1708, resigned to the governor and company of Her Majesty's colony of Rhode Island, and their successors all his right and title in the vacant lands within the jurisdiction of said colony, with the privileges therein contained or apper taining, but making a reservation whose bounds the document describes. The president of the council declared that the "vacant lands" referred to 'by Nenegrate were traced upon a map made by the Eng lish, "which map was accepted by the hon ored assembly sitting at Newport, the first Wednesday of May, 1708. The document presented was signed by the said sachem on
