Native Villages of Rhode Island

Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.*

RIHS invites Dr. Paul Robinson, Principal State Archaeologist at the RI Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, to report on Native American sites now under investigation in Narragansett and Cumberland. Dr. Robinson will interpret findings from recent research on village settlements from the pre-contact period, and discuss what it tells us about relations between local Indian people and colonial settlers in the years before King Philip’s War (1675-1676).

This talk follows a December lecture by visiting scholar Christine M. DeLucia, on the aftermath of King Philip’s War, which stimulated a lively discussion and elicited some unanswered questions about local sites under investigation today.

With the hope of learning more, we have turned to local expert Dr. Paul Robinson, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Rhode Island College and author of several authoritative papers on Native relations in Rhode Island, including “A Narragansett History form 1000 B.P. to the Present,” “The Wampum Trade in 17th-century Narragansett Country,” and “The Struggle Within: The Indian Debate in Seventeenth-century Narragansett Country.”

Join us for “An Archaeology: Village Life in the Narragansett Country up to 1680”, Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 6:30 pm, at the Rhode Island Historical Society, 110 Benevolent Street. The program is free and open to the public. For more information, or to R.S.V.P., contact Natasha: (401) 273-8107 x12 or libprograms@rihs.org

*The plate, an engraving by Theodor Debry based on a watercolor by John White, is from “The Tovvne of Secota,” from Thomas Hariot, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, Frankfurt, 1590. Secota was a Native village similar to a Rhode Island village Dr. Robinson will discuss.