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A New Edition of One of the Most Important Cultural Artifacts of European and Indigenous American Contact
Roger Williams’s Key into the Language of America, first published in 1643, is one of the most important artifacts of early Indigenous American culture. In it, Williams recorded the day-to-day experience of the Narragansett people of Rhode Island in their own words, the first documentation of an American Indian language in English. Williams’s Key can be read at many levels because of its historical, literary, political, and religious significance. Its greatest value, though, is its intimate portrait of the Narragansett and their linguistic neighbors in the early years of European colonial settlement, before disease, dislocation, warfare—in particular, King Philip’s War—and colonial interference had diminished their population and power in the region. An extraordinary achievement, Williams’s Key gives us a contemporary account of Narragansett family life, of their sociability and skill in business, their dress, foodways, and the farming, fishing, and hunting that formed the basis of their sustenance practices. 
This new Tomaquag Museum edition includes for the first time cultural commentary provided by the Narragansett Tribe as well as modern linguistic information provided by a leading authority in the study of American Indian languages. 
The Tomaquag Museum, located in Exeter, Rhode Island, is an Indigenous nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing the culture, arts, and history of the Narragansett and other tribal communities of southern New England.

Known as the “Black” Regiment, the Story of the First Continental Army Unit Composed of African American and Native American Enlisted Men
In December 1777, the Continental army was encamped at Valley Forge and faced weeks of cold and hunger, as well as the prospect of many troops leaving as their terms expired in the coming months. If the winter were especially cruel, large numbers of soldiers would face death or contemplate desertion. Plans were made to enlist more men, but as the states struggled to fill quotas for enlistment, Rhode Island general James Mitchell Varnum proposed the historic plan that a regiment of slaves might be recruited from his own state, the smallest in the union, but holding the largest population of slaves in New England. The commander-in-chief’s approval of the plan would set in motion the forming of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. The “black regiment,” as it came to be known, was composed of indentured servants, Narragansett Indians, and former slaves. This was not without controversy. While some in the Rhode Island Assembly and in other states railed that enlisting slaves would give the enemy the impression that not enough white men could be raised to fight the British, owners of large estates gladly offered their slaves and servants, both black and white, in lieu of a son or family member enlisting. The regiment fought with distinction at the battle of Rhode Island, and once joined with the 2nd Rhode Island before the siege of Yorktown in 1781, it became the first integrated battalion in the nation’s history. In From Slaves to Soldiers: The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution, historian Robert A. Geake tells the important story of the “black regiment” from the causes that led to its formation, its acts of heroism and misfortune, as well as the legacy left by those men who enlisted to earn their freedom.