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DOING THE RIGHT THING by Dr. Richard Kazarian

          During a time when Americans are reassessing the symbolic meaning of longstanding public monuments, the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island is unexpectedly encountering its own moment of reckoning.  What makes this particular instance so compelling is that it is not a statue from the distant past, but rather a newly-sculpted monument that is ready to be elevated atop a waiting pedestal.  After nearly five years of planning, the entire process has been put on hold in order to take a hard look at a chapter in our history that has been deliberately whitewashed.  But history has a way of catching up to the truth and before this monument could ever be lowered into place, in good conscience, Pawtucket finds itself having to confront its most deeply held family secrets, no matter how disturbing they turn out to be.

          This entire episode begins in the most unlikely of ways.  A small group of devoted citizens partnered with local government, to create a wonderful little urban park along the city’s deeply revered historic waterfront.  For those familiar with Pawtucket’s ongoing efforts to resurrect its once prosperous inner core, the positive impact of a small, well-designed project, such as this one, can be considerable.  The best of intentions, however, were not going to prevent an inevitable collision with the sharp edge of historical reality.  All of the fury came with the fateful decision to select a relatively obscure historical figure for veneration and a statue, William Blackstone, after whom the river itself and the valley it runs through are named.  In fact, Blackstone is viewed as the city’s founder and one of Rhode Island’s first white settlers. Not once along the way did project organizers ever imagine that by awaking the memory of a largely forgotten man dating all the way back to the early 17^th century, they would unearth long hidden truths that would call into question whether or not this was the right time and the right person to be celebrating with a monument.

          Although we know far less about Blackstone than we do Roger Williams, his lifelong brethren in neighboring Providence, we do know that his pathway from England transplanted to the Massachusetts colony at the center of Puritan life, was fairly typical for the time.  Trained as a minister by the Church of England, and a descendent of an aristocratic family, Blackstone arrived in Boston in 1628, where he is remembered as a pioneering stalwart.  His name is memorialized on the Boston Common and his image at the Boston Athenaeum sits proudly among a pantheon of Massachusetts notables.  Over time, Blackstone objected to the increased restrictions that came with a rapid influx of new English arrivals, leading him to seek refuge to the south, in Rhode Island, where he built a stately home he named “Study Hall”.  Blackstone was said to possess the largest personal library of the era, which reinforced his elevated status in the state’s religious and civic life.  With all of this historical distinction in place, you can begin to understand why it was that Pawtucket thought that Blackstone was a safe choice and well-deserving of special recognition.  

          But there is more to the story, much more.  Our assessment of Blackstone and with those he arrived, takes a sharp turn once we realize the devastating impact their presence would have on the indigenous people who long occupied the space that was about to be abruptly and forcefully penetrated.  Blackstone and his fellow Englishmen had not entered a vacuum when they arrived in Rhode Island. Instead, there was a vast and diversified network of native tribes spread across the entire region and beyond.  America’s selective memory, only recalls the single promising moment of first contact, when it appeared possible that there could be a future of mutual respect and cooperation.  But the reality is that over the course of Blackstone’s lifetime, the native populations that resided in Rhode Island for millennia, were violently eliminated.  English settlers came holding the belief that they were racially superior and that the indigenous people they encountered were sub-human. From the start, what became stunningly clear, is that any form of resistance would not be tolerated.  Blackstone and his fellow settlers viewed themselves as a chosen people, fully entitled to the land and to the resources that they desired.

          The sad fact is that the Pawtucket story begins with acts of extreme brutality.  Historians have documented the systemic controls exerted over the indigenous population who were increasingly subjected to violence and forced removal.  The particulars are painful to detail but the reality is that a once pristine land became the scene of extreme brutality: instances of rape torched villages, and the threat of enslavement.  All those professed claims of ’fair trade’ and ’honest treatise’ between the English and their native hosts, turn out not to be true.  It all appears as a deceptive fabrication, a cover-up preventing us from truly knowing what happened here so long ago.  This is precisely where project organizers lost their way.  They accepted a sanitized version of the past which has the effect of separating, in essence, Blackstone from a broader historical context, thereby bearing no responsibility for all the destruction his presence unleashed.  This is why Pawtucket now finds itself, no matter how long it has taken, with the solemn responsibility of having to tell its full story for the first time, unvarnished and raw.  We are weakened and left vulnerable as a city, if we fail to acknowledge the most difficult aspects of our past and learn the lessons that come with it.

          The climax of the ever-increasing struggle of native Americans to defend their independence came to a vicious conclusion in the form of a widespread rebellion referred to as ‘King Phillip’s War’.  Many Rhode Islanders have a somewhat vague recollection of this catastrophic event, oftentimes confused by the fact that King Phillip was himself native.  His actual name was Metacom, the youngest son of the legendary Chief Massasoit.  

          The disillusionment of a young generation of native leaders no longer willing to accept the promise that they would be dealt with honestly and fairly led to a concerted effort at uniting independent tribes into a single coherent force powerful enough to challenge English dominance.  The war would be waged in nearly every corner of Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts, before it spilled into the rest of New England and major portions of New York State.  Violent conflict stormed up the bay.  The Great Swamp in South County was the location of extremely bloody skirmishes before violence spread north, leading to the complete destruction of Warwick while major portions of Providence were destroyed by fire.  Roger Williams himself, often portrayed as a genuine and trusted friend of the state’s native populations, especially the powerful Narragansetts, who watched helplessly as his east side home burned to the ground.  Aquidneck Island, Bristol, Warren, Tiverton, Little Compton, as well as Seekonk and Swansea, across the river in Massachusetts, were all locations where King Phillip and his allies attempted to right the wrong that had been committed against them.  Among the areas targeted in Pawtucket and Central Falls were the iron foundries which were responsible for creating the weapons used against the native tribes.  The reality was, however, that the English settlers enjoyed overwhelming advantages that allowed them to ultimately withstand the assault.  The war itself lasted well over a year, leaving no doubt as to who had the power and might to control the future.  King Phillip himself was ultimately captured and his severed head was attached to a wooden spike and paraded back to that precise location where his father first offered refuge to wary English settlers.  King Phillip’s War shattered permanently any prospect for the future of peaceful coexistence.  

          It is worth considering how modern scholarship characterizes the King Phillip’s War: in that it provides us at least a partial explanation as to why it has taken this long to come to terms with our own history, only to discover that an entire branch of the Rhode Island family had been completely left out of the story.  Historians struggle to explain how a conflict this significant, this widespread, and this early in our nation’s history was so thoroughly and easily forgotten.  After all, no single event in all of the colonial period seems to reveal more about how race would become a determining feature in American life for centuries to come.  The other peculiar aspect of the King Phillip’s War that scholars ponder was how difficult it was in reality to fully extinguish the memory of such a horrific occurrence.  We learn, for example, that the renowned silversmith and revolutionary War hero, Paul Revere, well over a century after the fact, created multiple images of King Phillip.  And as it turns out, the Haffenreffer Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, has in its possession several renderings of the war’s leader, ranging from demented savage to proud and unyielding warrior.  In the early 19^th century, New England intellectuals would return to the atrocities committed against the American Indian by questioning the morality of those responsible for the massacre, and wondering why it was that King Phillip wasn’t seen as a genuine American patriot, courageously defending his land, his people and way of life.  These scattered efforts at truth telling, bordering on an admission of guilt, were not going to deter from future policies aimed at the destruction and removal of native people across the continent.  Conflict may have come to an early end in New England, but what occurred in our own backyard was just the beginning of what would become officially sanctioned United States policies aimed at the permanent subjugation of native people.

          So, what should we take from this gruesome tale and how does it alter our impression of our family history, and even more specifically, what does it mean to the debut of the new statue of Blackstone?  There are difficult questions coming our way, and how we answer them is going to be critical.  What, for example, are we telling future visitors of the site when they ask the simplest of questions, such as how to get to Blackstone’s beloved ‘Study Hall’?  My concern is that we are going to have trouble responding easily, given that his home and his treasured library were totally destroyed by King Phillip’s warriors less than three days after Blackstone’s death.  It is going to be complicated but one thing is certain.  The days of turning a blind eye are over.  We will be richer for it.  Our collective identity will be expanded.  The opportunity presents itself to correct a historic wrong by filling in the missing pieces of our family story.  Much has been destroyed but there Is still a chance to restore and expand upon our family portrait.  To achieve this goal, we will also have to see our Pawtucket history through native eyes.  There is much to learn, and one day we may come to appreciate how the fate of our vanquished ancestors offered a tragic warning of difficulties to come.  What makes it so critical, that we get this right, is that it could finally open the door for a much more thorough and encompassing appraisal of our largely-overlooked historical journey.  Our current moment of reflection must be viewed as an essential first step, pointing toward a more inclusive appraisal of our past. 

          There are those who will undoubtedly question the decision to pause the project and likely judge it as a needless complication.  After all, isn’t this just an innocent nod to a quirky relative from ancient times, not really to be taken seriously or associated in any way with any serious wrongdoing?  The notion that Blackstone bears no actual responsibility and was just a harmless character unaware of what was taking place around him will unintentionally be reinforced by the sculpture’s creator who decided to portray his subject in a totally hagiographic manner.  The statue is composed of folklorish elements, showing Blackstone quizzically seated upon his beloved ox, book in highlighted hand, deep in study, absent-minded and unaware of his signature apples falling from an open satchel.  Despite its artistic merit, what the sculpture will not provide is a deeper understanding of what actually happened in Pawtucket during the course of his lifetime.  It will also not reveal what he may have witnessed and what he may have contributed to.  The irony of his personal letters being destroyed by King Phillip’s warriors only adds to the difficulty of knowing why it was that he, in particular, was the deliberate target of those seeking revenge.  It is a lot to ask of a single piece of sculpture, but it alone will never be able to convey the full story of what we need to know before we feel comfortable with the decision to celebrate someone, it turns out, whom we never really knew.  There is just no way that we can minimize the importance of the moment, by deceiving ourselves into believing that no one will ever notice or care.  At the very least, it seems as if this new park should include native American representation as an attempt to balance the story and underscore our multi-racial origins.  Blackstone alone fails to tell the full story and – intended or not – perpetuates a tired myth.  There is room on the site and there is time on the calendar to get things right.  There is really just one way that the city can properly reconcile its dilemma, and that is by making it visually evident that Blackstone alone does not fully represent who we are and where we came from.

          So, what appeared at first glance to be a small local matter involving a largely unknown historic figure, turns out to be of far greater significance.  Most Rhode Islanders consider Pawtucket’s beginnings having to do with the Slater Mill in the late 18^th century and the advent of cotton textiles.  But the reality is that our family’s story actually begins nearly a century and a half earlier and is recorded on the very first pages of American colonial history.  We are in a unique position to observe close up how it was that race would define not only our Pawtucket story but also the story of the nation.  In recent time, Americans have come to learn the historical significance of the year 1619, which marks the date of the very first African slaves imported into Virginia.  It has been rightly said that this unholy act constitutes America’s ‘original sin’.  To this we have the solemn duty to add that at this very same moment in time, here in Pawtucket, we witnessed what amounted to acts of racial genocide committed against our native people.  We are left today having to contemplate whether or not what happened here was any less an ‘original sin’.  

Richard Kazarian
January 25, 2021