Narragansett Indians

Narragansett Indians,
Algonquian tribe, now extinct, which formerly occupied Rhode Island and Long Island. They were induced by Roger Williams, whose study of the tribe is contained in his Key into the Language of America (1643), to assist the colonists in the Pequot War. During King Philip's War they were suspected of treachery, and in an engagement of 1675, known as the “Swamp Fight,” the tribe was virtually annihilated. The Narragansett figure in Cooper's The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish.