Before Roger Williams set foot in the New World, the Narragansett farmed corn and squash, hunted beaver and deer, and harvested clams and oysters throughout what would become Rhode Island. They also obtained wealth in the form of wampum, a carved shell that was used as currency along the eastern coast. As tensions with the English rose, the Narragansett leaders fought to maintain autonomy. While the elder Sachem Canonicus lived long enough to welcome both Verrazzano and Williams, his nephew Miatonomo was executed for his attempts to preserve their way of life and circumvent English control. Historian Robert A. Geake explores the captivating story of these Native Rhode Islanders as he chronicles a history of the Narragansett from their early European encounters to the tribes return to sovereignty in the 20th Century.

Robert A. Geake is a local historian and author whose previous books include A History of the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island: Keepers of the Bay, from The History Press, and A Toll, a Tavern and a Farm, printed for the Pawtucket Preservation Society. Mr. Geake is an associate of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University and a member of the Rhode Island Historical Society. He has lived for nearly thirty years in the farmhouse that James Pidge built in 1860, just above his tavern on the Post Road, and Mr. Geake is the home-brewer of "Old Pidge Ales."