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506 The Narragansett Dawn (1935–1936) Perhaps one of New England’s most interesting tribal publications, the Narragansett Dawn may have been the first indigenous periodical in the northeast. It was published monthly between June 1935 and September 1936. The editor was Princess Red Wing, an artist and founder of the new Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum, which still serves as a tribal cultural center in Exeter, Rhode Island.³ In the wake of Interior Secretary John Collier’s 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, Red Wing’s first editorial proclaimed a “New Deal” for the Indian. Tribal members contributed poetry, essays, oral history recollections, recipes, and local news. Few copies of the magazine remain outside of private collections (including that of the Tomaquag Museum), but the University of Rhode Island’s library recently made a digitized version of all issues available on its website. Editorial (May 1935) No white person can read the heart of the Indian as can a son or a daughter of the Red Man’s own race. Judge these pages from the Red Man’s views. These columns come not from the experienced pens of journalists, but from the hearts and firesides of Narragansett Indians, who have not forgotten the faith of their forefathers. Today we open for our public of all races, “the great unwritten book of the Narragansett, sent down from father to son,” portraying from time to time, many old stories, folk laws, ideals, principles, and traditions, which we hold as a sacred heritage. We have called this monthly booklet, The Narragansett Dawn because we are watching for the “sunrise of better times” in the “New Deal” with our fellow countrymen. To-day is our memorial dawn, when every true hearted, red blooded, Narragansett stands together on the hilltop of hope, and stretches forth his hands towards the sunrise, for— “We face east at sunrise, and west at sundown; Each hill has its memory holy, Each valley its historic lore The Narragansett Dawn 507 Each enobled by our heroes Who worked in the good days of yore.” Since those “days of yore” we have passed thru a long night—for nearly sixty years, the Narragansett Spirit has lain dormant, while civilization advanced on their old hunting ground. The August meetings at the Indian Church in Charlestown, R. I., each year, have been the only star that has twinkled in and out, during this time. It was back in 1880 that our Indian lands were sold by a council of five men, who had hoped to prove themselves , the only surviving Narragansetts. But Narragansetts came from as far west as Wisconsin to prove their tribal blood. Rhode Island’s General Assembly made a survey, recognized and paid about three hundred of these Narragansett Indians for their land, made them citizens of the U.S. and recorded the tribe as extinguished. It seems, they were, or they went to sleep. But you cannot keep a real man down forever. All the recording in the country can not change the blood or wipe it out. Rhode Island had three hundred, in 1880, of full blood, half blood, and quarter blood Narragansetts , the remnants of that once powerful tribe, who since that time have continued to live and to multiply upon their ancestral territory. They it is, who have kept the faith; for many live today, who in 1880 received their $15.43, as their share of Indian land in Rhode Island. The stories of these allotments are in many cases very amusing. Some have banked that $15 for all these years. Many were children. Many have children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. We find many have not married out of the Narragansett blood, and have never lived out of Narragansett territory. Some retained farms and homesteads in southern R. I., paid their duties and taxes, and still live upon land that has never been occupied by white men or black men. In our recent investigation, we found one grandfather with fourteen grandchildren, another with forty-one descendents, my Mother has twentyone at her family gatherings, while another has twenty-one grandchildren and one great grandson, bearing the name of four well known old Narragansett families, whose forebears lived where he was born. We also found in old town records that the old full blood families have married and inter-married until nearly everyone of Indian blood in historic South County of our state is related by blood or marriage. In our young tribal organization we have registered two hundred and...

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