By John Dower

In celebration of Black History Month and the launch of our blog, the Cocumscussoc Review, it seems appropriate for one of our first articles to go back to the beginning of the history of the people of African descent that lived and toiled at Smith’s Castle. However, we quickly are faced with a question- When did Blacks first live at Cocumscussoc? Historians recognize Richard Smith Sr. as the first Englishman to acquire an extensive estate in Narragansett Country. He is also acknowledged to have been the first of the Narragansett Planters. Nevertheless, we know little surrounding this “emergence” of Cocumscussoc as a plantation, “a major agricultural enterprise” utilizing enslaved labor, which would eventually comprise a tract of land some three miles wide and nine miles long.[i]

We know with certainty, thanks to the will of Richard Smith Jr., that he owned eight enslaved people in 1692, but we know very little of them other than the adults were named Ebed Melich, Caesar, and Sarah. It is also known that Caesar and Sarah were the parents of the five unnamed children that appear in the will. While the will of Richard Smith Jr. provides concrete evidence of people of African ancestry living at Cocumscussoc by 1692, it does little to establish the arrival time of the first Blacks at the great house on Mill Cove. Clearly, the eight enslaved individuals in the will had not just arrived at Smith's Castle in 1692. But when did they appear, or were they even the first Blacks in the Smith household? To attempt to answer that question, we must investigate the life of Richard Smith Sr. to see if we can find some answers.

Richard Smith Sr. arrived at Cocumscussoc sometime in the late 1630s by way of England, Taunton, and Portsmouth; and set up a trading operation with the Narragansett people alongside his associate and fellow Englishman, Roger Williams. Neither man lived permanently at Cocumscussoc at this time (both employing overseers tasked with running the day-to-day trading operations). Williams continued to make Providence his permanent residence, and Smith made his way to a Dutch-sponsored settlement on Long Island after initially living in Portsmouth. This early connection to the Dutch by Smith Sr. will prove crucial in understanding the role of Blacks in the history of Smith's Castle. Shortly after settling in 1642 at Mespath, now modern-day Queens, Smith and his neighbors were attacked by the Wappinger tribe and sought refuge in the larger Dutch settlement on the island of Manhattan. On Manhattan, Smith would form relationships with the Dutch that undoubtedly influenced the rise of plantation slavery in the Narragansett Country of Rhode Island and led to the first people of African descent at Cocumscussoc.[ii]

For the six or so years that Smith and his family lived in New Amsterdam, the name given to Manhattan by the Dutch, Richard Sr. became more involved with the Dutch West India Company. Almost immediately, Smith was accepted into the company's inner circle, holding various offices of trust within the Dutch trading operation. From New Amsterdam, the patriarch of the Smith family was able to strengthen his trading opportunities for his post at Cocumscussoc, and at the same time learn about the expanding trade possibilities the Dutch had cultivated in the West Indies, especially with Barbados. During this same period, the elder Smith acquired a son-in-law when his daughter Catherine married a Dutchman that held a lofty position in the Dutch West India Company. Gysbert op den Dyke (later anglicized to Gilbert Updike) served on various councils for the company and was also the commander of Fort Good Hope (current day Hartford, Connecticut). By the time Updike married into the Smith family, he was already well acquainted with slavery. [iii]

Interestingly, the Dutch West India Company had first brought enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam in 1626 and continued to expand their interests in slave trading in the following decades. By 1664 company ships carried as many as 300 enslaved people per voyage into New Amsterdam. Gilbert Updike is in Connecticut records for having been involved in the "accidental" death of his "black boy" in 1639, so we know with certainty that Updike was personally involved with slavery on some level. We have no direct evidence that Updike was still involved in slavery when he married into the Smith family; however, in the years following his marriage to Catherine, the Dutch West India Company became increasingly entangled in the business of slavery.[iv]

The story of the Dutch West India Company very closely parallels the story of trade at Cocumscussoc during this period of the 1640s. Around 1640 the focus of the Dutch was on turning a quick profit dealing in beaver pelts and lumber. Not coincidentally, this was in the same wheelhouse of Richard Smith Sr. as he also traded with the Narragansett for pelts and had easy access to lumber as well. However, by the later part of the 1640s, beaver were becoming less plentiful due to over-trapping and restrictions on trading guns with the Indigenous people who supplied the pelts. No guns meant no beaver pelts. The Dutch began to promote agriculture over the fur trade, except they had one obstacle- a lack of a consistent labor force in their colony to work large farms necessary to be profitable. The obvious answer for the Dutch was to emulate the plantation operations they were supporting in Barbados. The Dutch West India Company was already deeply immersed in the slave trade, so promoting a plantation economy for their settlements was not unfamiliar to them.[v]

For the better part of a decade, Richard Smith Sr. had been straddling two worlds, the Dutch colonialists and the English colonialists. He had been surprisingly successful at balancing his life within the two factions. Undoubtedly, Smith had seen the changes taking place around him by the late 1640s as trade in the previously lucrative fur market was in the early stages of decline. At the same time, the English were putting themselves in a position to take control over New Netherlands. Smith would have had a front-row seat in New Amsterdam to the Dutch transformation toward settlements based on plantation economies and the utilization of an enslaved labor force. Another situation was developing in Barbados during this same period. Every square mile on the island was being used to grow sugarcane, which meant that the planters of Barbados needed to import food to feed their growing workforce and other staples such as lumber and livestock. Colonists in Barbados pleaded with English authorities to lessen trade restrictions to no avail. So, the Dutch, who had long been involved in trade with Barbados and, in fact, had provided most of the enslaved Africans that worked the sugarcane fields, kept trade channels open. Richard Smith Sr. could not have avoided the changing economy when he made a pivotal decision sometime around 1648.[vi]

When Richard Smith Sr. moved his family from New Amsterdam to Cocumscussoc sometime before 1650, it was a decision that was certainly not made lightly. Leaving the highly successful settlement on Manhattan to make a permanent residence at a trading post in Narragansett Country seems like a risky proposition at best. Perhaps the balancing act of being an Englishman in a Dutch colony was becoming too complicated. However, Richard Smith Jr. remained in New Amsterdam for another decade to assist his father in trade operations from the company offices while learning the ropes of trading with Barbados. Smith Sr. had long been a person to take chances to better himself financially, and this appears the case with a move to Cocumscussoc. The fact that he had been witnessing firsthand the rise of the plantation economy among the Dutch when fur trading was in flux cannot be ignored. Smith already had the necessary land to establish an agriculture operation and would soon be acquiring more property, as well as livestock. All that would be needed would be the labor to put a plantation in business.[vii]

It is worth mentioning that in 1652, Rhode Island enacted the first ban on slavery in the colonies. The act stated- “Whereas there is a common course practised amongst Englishmen" to purchase enslaved people of African descent for free labor, and the government should therefore control it. The legislators set the length of servitude for Blacks and whites at a maximum of ten years or the enslaved’s twenty-fourth birthday. As we now know, the act was never enforced. Nevertheless, it seems that slavery was prevalent enough that some officials in Rhode Island felt it necessary to regulate the institution. Was Smith Sr. one of the Englishmen that caught the attention of the legislators when he made Cocumscussoc his final home?[viii]

While it seems possible that Richard Smith Sr.’s permanent return to Rhode Island could have involved the practice of slavery based on his association with the Dutch while in New Amsterdam, we still have no documentation to support that premise. Within ten years of Smith’s return to Cocumscussoc, his son-in-law Gilbert Updike shows up at Cocumscussoc with his children following the death of his wife. We know that some twenty years prior, Updike had owned a young, enslaved man. Did Gilbert Updike introduce slavery to Smith’s Castle when he arrived in the late 1650s? During the 1650s, the Dutch increased the allotment of enslaved people from Africa and Barbados imported into New Amsterdam. Those associated with the Dutch West India Company were given priority to purchase enslaved workers when they arrived in the colonies, especially the “seasoned” laborers from Barbados. However, we still have no concrete evidence that the Smiths were involved in anything more than some continued trade with the Narragansett and the appearance of some agricultural enterprise, but not yet a plantation-based on enslaved labor.[ix]

Inventory from Daniel Updike’s 1757 will listing nineteen enslaved people.

Sometime in the early 1660s, Richard Smith Jr. left New Amsterdam to join his father at Cocumscussoc. If the elder Smith had witnessed the blossoming of plantations imitating those in Barbados based on an enslaved workforce, the younger Smith had seen plantation economies go into full bloom during his extra decade on Manhattan. By this time, trading in furs was indeed on its way out, and agricultural ventures were on the rise. During this period, the Smiths had also been fortunate enough to expand their landholdings, a strong indicator of what they believed would surely lead to their future success in Rhode Island. When Richard Smith Sr. died in 1666, there was still no concrete evidence in his will or otherwise that he had owned enslaved people. If the Smiths had been involved in slavery by 1666, a likely scenario suggested by Smith’s Castle historian Robert Geake is that Smith Jr. had been making trips to Barbados prior to his move to Rhode Island, where he would have acquired the first enslaved people to work at Cocumscussoc. Interestingly, the younger Smith had another brother-in-law, Thomas Newton, married to his sister Joan, who had moved to Barbados. Smith Jr. seemed to have the business of slavery all around him.[x]

By 1665 the younger Richard Smith had a close relationship with John Winthrop Jr., governor of nearby Connecticut. Over the next several years, Smith discusses several topics associated with the slave trade with Winthrop, a known enslaver, but stops short of mentioning his ownership of human beings. These conversations are suggestive of someone who at the time would have thought of slavery as a relatively common occurrence in their life. Winthrop was also very involved in trade with Barbados, having a brother that was a planter and slaveholder residing on the island. Smith mentions his direct involvement in trade with Barbados and being unable to find a buyer for one of Winthrop's enslaved servants. We know that Smith Jr. lived among people who owned, imported, and traded in enslaved people for over two decades. However, we still do not have documentation proving the exact time when the younger Smith had become a slave owner himself.[xi]

A closer inspection of the will of Richard Smith Jr. may shed some additional light on the first enslaved people of African descent making their appearance at Cocumscussoc. One important aspect of Smith Jr.’s will was his intent when the will was written in 1690 to free two enslaved adults, Caesar and Sarah, upon his death. In addition, he wanted the couple to be given 100 acres of land. It was also Smith's wish that Caesar and Sarah's five children were be given their freedom when they reached 30 years of age. Ebed Melich was also to be given his freedom upon turning 30 years old. The stipulations for Caesar and Sarah indicate that the couple had been with Smith Jr. for some time, and the owner had developed a relationship of sorts with the enslaved couple. It also seems more likely than not that the children were born during Caesar and Sarah's time at Cocumscussoc, instead of Smith acquiring them as an entire family group.[xii]

The other enslaved adult at Smith’s Castle, Ebed Melich, would seemingly not have been part of the Smith household for very long as his freedom is put off until he reaches thirty. The apparent reason for Ebeb (a Biblical name meaning servant) having a surname is that he was owned by someone named Melich prior to being owned by Smith Jr. Melich is a name with various spellings, many of which were associated with the Dutch or Germans in the seventeenth century, not coincidently the two groups that comprised the early Dutch West India Company’s settlements in the New Netherlands. Smith Jr. had unlimited access to enslaved people at the time, so the purchase of Ebed points possibly to someone with unique skills.

Other puzzling questions arise concerning the will of Richard Smith Jr. Were the eight enslaved people listed in his will the only Blacks at Cocumscussoc at the time of Smith Jr.’s death? If so, how would a plantation economy at Cocumscussoc thrive with only three enslaved adults, all of whom were about to gain their freedom? A logical explanation can be found with the arrival of the Updikes at Smith’s Castle sometime around 1659 when Gilbert brought his wife and seven children there to live. Richard Smith’s wife, Joan, is thought to have died before that time, and their daughter Catherine, wife of Gilbert Updike, was deceased prior to 1664 when Smith Sr.’s will was written. It would not be out of the question for Gilbert Updike to have brought enslaved servants with him to assist in a household of seven children lacking in adult women. In fact, Roger Williams mentions in 1679 that Richard Smith Sr. did indeed have "servants," a word that was often synonymous with enslaved in the seventeenth century but could also pertain to white indentured servants.[xiii]

When Richard Smith Sr. passed on in 1666, he left the main house and the majority of his land holdings to his son Richard Smith Jr. He did, however, leave one-quarter of a newly acquired tract of land, as well as one-quarter of his livestock to his Updike grandchildren. Certainly, the eldest male, twenty-three-year-old Lodowick, would have been the principal benefactor of this bequest. Smith Jr. and his wife Esther never had children, so Lodowick became heir to Cocumscussoc. It seems doubtful that the enterprising, young Updike would have ignored the opportunity to begin emulating the agricultural operations he witnessed growing up in the New Netherlands. So, in the next thirty years, as he embraced the plantation business, it is very likely that Lodowick had long been assembling his own enslaved labor force at Cocumscussoc. While Richard Smith Jr. died owning only the eight enslaved people listed in his will, an adult Lodowick could have very easily been the owner of record for the many additional laborers needed to make Cocumscussoc the plantation it had become by 1692. The younger Updike had been around slavery his entire life and was vitally aware of the economic advantages enslaved workers would provide.[xiv]

When Richard Smith Jr. died in 1692, he was considered one of the wealthiest men in New England. The wealth and immense land holdings at Cocumscussoc were not, by then, the product of trading in furs, which had undoubtedly ended by King Philips War, and had been in decline prior to that period. When testifying on Smith Jr.'s behalf involving a land dispute in 1779, Roger Williams stated that the younger Smith "hath kept possess of his father's howsing, lands, and medoes, with great emprovement; also by his great cost and industrie.” The Great House, known as Smith's Castle, was completed at that point after the original home was destroyed by fire. Williams was describing something much more significant than the trading post that had operated there decades before. For over a century, enslaved labor would continue to transform the landscape of Cocumscussoc into what at one time was one of the most successful agricultural operations in New England.[xv]

While slavery in New England and at Cocumscussoc never rivaled what was seen in the South, it was unfortunately common in Narragansett Country and other pockets of New England. Documentation on slavery at Cocumscussoc during the first half of the eighteenth century, much like the years before 1692, is all but nonexistent. In Daniel Updike's will of 1757, we find nineteen enslaved people listed. Just prior to the American Revolution in a Rhode Island census, eleven of the twenty-two members of the Lodowick Updike (grandson of the first Lodowick) household are Black. The last recorded enslaved Blacks at Smith’s Castle can be found in the 1800 census, which lists two “Slaves” in the household of Lodowick Updike. In close proximity to Smith’s Castle is a long-forgotten cemetery for the enslaved that goes back to the 1700s. Estimates of the number of people interred at the site have been as high as 81 and perhaps many more, indicating the significant number of enslaved at Cocumscussoc and other nearby farms held by the family.[xvi]

Unfortunately, we may never know when the first people of African descent stepped foot on the ground at Cocumscussoc. The multiple Dutch and Barbados connections to slavery in the seventeenth century cannot be ignored. Possibly Richard Smith Sr. owned some enslaved servants or farm laborers prior to his death; however, none appeared in his will. Therefore, a reasonable estimate for the first enslaved Blacks at Cocumscussoc would be sometime in the 1660s when Richard Smith Jr. and Lodowick Updike moved to Smith's Castle permanently. We know with certainty that dozens of enslaved Blacks labored at Cocumscussoc for well over one hundred years and contributed significantly to the economic success of the first plantation in Narragansett Country. An argument can easily be made that if not for the sustained activity of people of African descent at Smith's Castle, which led to a onetime highly prosperous plantation, the 344-year-old historic great house would not be with us today. While we know but a few of the names of the enslaved Blacks that labored at Cocumscussoc, they all deserve recognition for giving us the gift of Smith’s Castle. The Great House, known as Smith's Castle, remains one of the oldest existing plantation houses in New England and the United States.

[i] Miller, William Davis, The Narragansett Planters, The Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1933, v 43, part 1, p 54. Woodward, Carl R., Plantation in Yankeeland, p. 25.

[ii] Updike, Daniel Berkeley, Richard Smith: First English Settler of the Narragansett Country, p. 14.

[iii] Ibid, p. 15.

[iv] McManus, Edgar J. A History of Negro of Negro Slavery in New York, p. 4. Opdyck, Charles Wilson and Opdyck, Leonard Ekstein, The Op Dyck Geneology, p. 48.

[v] Ibid, p. 7.

[vi] Koot, Christian J., A “Dangerous Principle”: Free Trade Discourses in Barbados and the English Leeward Islands, 1650-1689, Early American Studies, Spring 2007, v 5, number 1, p. 134.

[vii] Cranston, G. Timothy with Neil Dunay, We Were Here Too: Selected Stories of Black History in North Kingstown, pp. 65-66.

[viii] Rhode Island State Archives, Proceedings of the General Assembly, v 1, pp. 24-25.

[ix] McManus, p. 6.

[x] Cranston, p. 66.

[xi] Updike, pp. 87, 90-91, 94, 107.

[xii] Opdyck, p. 82.

[xiii] Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, v 3, p. 166.

[xiv] Opdyck, pp. 79-80.

[xv] Collections of the Rhode Island…, p. 167.

[xvi] Opdyck, p.106. Cranston, p. 87. Bartlett, John Russell, Census of the Inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, p. 83.