Two mighty chiefs, one cautious, wise, and old,
One young and strong, and terrible in fight,
All Narraganset and Coweset hold;
One lodge they build—one council fire they light.
In a deposition of Williams, dated the 18th June, 1682, he says, that it was the general and constant declaration that the father of Canonicus had three sons—that Canonicus was his heir—that his youngest brother’s son, whose name was Miantonomi, was his marshal, or executioner, and did nothing without his consent.
Five thousand warriors give their arrows flight.
This is the number at which Williams estimates them. Calendar says they were a numerous, rich, and powerful people, and though they were, by some, said to have been less fierce and warlike than the Pequots, yet it appears that they had, before the English came, not only increased their numbers by receiving many who fled to them from the devouring sickness or plague in other parts of the land, but they had enlarged their territories, both on the eastern and western boundaries. Their numbers must have diminished rapidly, as Hutchinson estimates their warriors in 1675 at two thousand; this estimate, however, might not embrace those tribes which were subject to, or dependant on them, when Williams entered the country. They seem to have been a people greatly in advance of their neighbors. They excelled in the manufacture of Wampumpeag, and supplied other nations with it—also with pendants, bracelets, tobacco pipes of stone, and pots for cookery. After the arrival of the whites, they traded with them for their goods, and supplied other tribes with them at an advance.
Dark rolling Seekonk does their realm divide