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Site of ‘Great Swamp Massacre’ returned to Narragansett Indian Tribe The site where English colonists massacred hundreds of Narragansett Indians more than 345 years ago has officially been returned to the tribe in a land transfer that’s being described as monumental. By Alex Nunes
On a Saturday morning in October, a small group of Narragansett Indian Tribe members gathered deep in the woods of South Kingstown at a monument commemorating what’s believed to be the site of the “Great Swamp Massacre.” They lit three fires representing the past, present and future, and recognized the return of five acres of sacred land from the Rhode Island Historical Society.
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SORhodeIsland.com • December 2021
Cassius Spears Jr., first councilman of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, recalled his experience coming to the site since childhood. “Every time I’ve come up here, there’s been sorrow in my heart,” Spears said. “But today when I come here, this is the start where I can start feeling an opportunity for healing.” The Great Swamp Massacre occurred during King Philip’s War in December of
1675, when about 1,000 English colonists attacked a Narragansett stronghold, killing an estimated 650 Indian men, women and children, and taking 300 more captive. In 1906, the Hazard family gave the land to the Rhode Island Historical Society. “We agreed to protect it; we agreed to steward it,” Historical Society Executive Director Morgan Grefe said at Saturday’s
Photo by Alex Nunes
Narragansett Indian Tribe Medicine Man and Historic Preservation Officer John Brown, left, and Chief Sachem Anthony Dean Stanton, right, at Saturday’s ceremony.
