Narragansett
The Narragansett tribe, or more accurately Nahahiganseck Sovereign Nation, are a Native American Tribe who controlled the area surrounding Narragansett Bay in present-day Rhode Island, and also portions of Connecticut, and eastern Massachusetts. The Nahahiganseck culture has existed in the region for thousands of years, trading extensively, and the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island is named after them. According to tribal rolls there are approximately 2,400 members of the Narragansett Tribe today.
The museum of the Nahahiganseck is the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, RI. The school for the Nahahiganseck children is the Nuweetooun School at the same museum.
The word "Narragansett" means, literally, "at the small, narrow point," or "the people of the small, narrow point." Some members still speak the original Algonquian language although it had died out and was only partially reclaimed from books in the early 20th century. In the 17th century, Roger Williams, a co-founder of Rhode Island, learned the tribe's language, documenting it in his 1643 publication A Key Into the Language of America. Williams gave the tribe's name as "Nanhigganeuck," of which "Narragansett" seems to be an English corruption. A number of loan words have been absorbed into the English language from Narragansett and other closely related languages such as Wampanoag and Massachusett; such words include Quahog, Papoose, powwow, Squash, and Succotash.
Many members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island (the official name used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs circa 2003) reside on or near the Narragansett Indian Tribe reservation (population 60, according to the 2000 U.S. Census), land held in trust by the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and located in the Town of Charlestown, Rhode Island.
On July 14, 2003 Rhode Island state police raided a tribe-run smoke shop on the Charlestown reservation, the culmination of an ongoing dispute between the tribe and state over the tribe's right to sell tax-free cigarettes. In 2005 the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals declared the police action a violation of the tribe's sovereignty.
See:
- Massasoit, sachem of the Pokanoket and Wampanoag tribes.
- King Philip's War fought by English colonists again sachem Metacomet.