The story of the Whisperer is a lot like the other monster stories Grama Delia shared with me. I call her Grama Delia, but she is actually the sister of my dad’s grandmother. In the Narragansett way, she calls me not great-niece but granddaughter. She knows all our old Indian tales about skeletons and giants and huge birds that carry people off to eat them. Scary, but they also teach something. In our old stories, monsters only destroy those who have done lots of bad things or are so foolish that they haven’t learned the lessons of survival.

Grama Delia told me other stories too. Stories about our history and about people like the great sachem Canonchet. In 1675 the English declared war on the Narragansetts, even though most of our people didn’t want to fight. Most took refuge in an island fort deep in the Great Swamp. There was a hidden trail of solid ground and stepping stones under water through a swamp that would suck down anyone who took a wrong step. Only the Narragansetts knew that hidden trail. But there was a frost the night before the English attacked. It turned the swamp into solid ground that the soldiers could cross. There was a terrible massacre. Hundreds of our people died in the Great Swamp battle. Some were men, but even more were women and children.

That wasn’t the end of it, though. Instead of surrendering, Canonchet fought the English. Most of his family had died in the Great Swamp. In fact, it’s been said in some history books that all his family perished there. Of course that’s not true, or I wouldn’t be telling you this story because my family—Grama Delia and my dad and me—are among his descendants. There aren’t many of us, but we have kept the blood of Canonchet alive. He gathered the few Narragansett warriors who were left and they sought revenge. They fought a guerilla war, attacking and destroying the English towns of Warwick and Seekon and Rehobath, and then they came to Providence.

“Right back there by the Providence River,” Grama Delia told me, “is where Roger Williams came walking out to ask them to spare his town. But Canonchet shook his head. ‘I am sorry, friend Roger,’ Canonchet said. ‘Your town too must be destroyed.’ But he allowed Roger Williams and his people safe passage out before they burned nearly all of the houses that made up Providence then.”

A few weeks later, in April, Canonchet was taken captive by the Mohegan allies of the English. His last words were “I like it well. I shall die before my heart is soft or before I have said anything unworthy of myself.” Then they killed him.