The Valley Breeze

Commission will spend $37 K to study mysterious Nipsachuck area

Official says it won't solve burial ground controversy

By ETHAN SHOREY, Valley Breeze Staff Writer

NORTH SMITHFIELD - An initiative of historic proportions could get under way here soon thanks to a gift from the National Park Service.

While the historic significance of battles fought in 17th century Rhode Island has long been established, say representatives for the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, little is known by modern historians of the exact details or of the relationships between the people involved.

In an effort to create a more cohesive version of this state's history, starting in North Smithfield, RIHPHC officials have announced they will use a $37,320 award from the American Battlefield Protection Program for a ground-breaking "research and planning" study of the "Nipsachuck" battlefields from the time of the bloody King Philip's War in 1675 and 1676.

The work will be done in conjunction with the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office, representing one of several tribes that have laid claim to the land in question as an area of historical significance.

But while local officials have pushed for such a comprehensive study to determine whether controversial rock mounds found in the area are indeed centuries-old Indian burial grounds as they have suggested, RIHPHC officials say their work will not conclude one way or another.

Residents have claimed that rock piles found in the Nipsachuck Swamp area off Route 7 are likely ancient Indian and Colonial burial grounds, but experts for a housing developer, Narragansett Improvement, have said the rock piles are the result of land clearing by Colonial-era farmers.

The controversy has been roiling since 2001 as attorneys for the town have sought to block Narragansett Improvement's 122-home residential development on more than 200 acres of land.

"This (study) is just a little more validation that this is not nonsense on the behalf of the town," said town attorney Patrick Dougherty.

Representatives for the RIHPHC are declining to enter the fray, saying that the study will not determine one way or another on the controversy.

"This study is not about the town's discussions with the developer," said Edward Sanderson, executive director of the RIHPHC.

What the long-sought research project will accomplish, said Sanderson, is it will "create a map" of a region that covers hundreds of square acres "based on archeological and historical research."

"Just as a historian, the 17th century is really something we don't fully understand," said Sanderson. "The relationships between different places in Rhode Island are going to look a lot different when we're all done with this."

"I don't know if we even know what land areas we're interested in yet," Sanderson continued. "We don't even know why Indians were in Nipsachuck in the first place. Why is this the place where Narragansetts and Europeans had a violent clash?"

After the RIHPHC pieces together fragmentary archeological evidence, oral histories, and conducts military terrain analysis, representatives may decide to conduct excavations at a future date, said Sanderson, but he would not say whether those excavations would be for the purpose of uncovering burial grounds.

North Smithfield town historian Irene Nebiker told The Valley Breeze she agrees that a study in the southwest corner of town and crossing the border into Smithfield would be a monumental achievement no matter how the burial ground controversy turns out.

"If this study can take place, it should be an extremely interesting and valuable part of not only town history but national history," said Nebiker, who, in 1974, studied the Nipsachuck area as part of her master's thesis on the historical geography of North Smithfield.

The Nipsachuck Swamp area is thought by historians to have been inhabited at various times by Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag Indians

Some historians believe nearly seven out of eight native Americans and as many as six out of 13 English settlers were killed in one of the bloodiest wars in Americann history, one that pitted Indians against colonists and other native American allies.

In recent years, Wampanoag leaders have taken the role of spiritual caretakers in the Nipsachuck area. "Nipsachuck," they say, is a word that's lost its meaning over time. The Nipsachuck territory, centered on Nipsachuck Hill and Swamp in North Smithfield and Smithfield, was the location of two important battles in the war, according to a news release from the RIHPHC.

The first battle occurred shortly after the beginning of the war, as Colonial and Mohegan Indian forces pursued and fought the Wampanoag leader Philip and the Pocasset Tribe's Saunk Squaw (Woman Chief) Weetamoo and their soldiers at Nipsachuck.

Modern day historians have criticized the militia for not defeating Philip and ending the war there, instead letting it drag on for another year with thousands of casualties resulting.

The second battle occurred just days before the war ended. By that time, Colonial officers had adapted their battle tactics to swamp warfare as Connecticut and Mohegan Indian soldiers attacked, killed or took prisoner a large group of Narragansetts, led by the elderly Saunk Squaw Quiapin. The second battle, according to historians, all but ended Narragansett resistance.

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