Editing Block Island (section)

==History==
===Before 1637===

Block Island was formed by the same receding glaciers that formed the [[Outer Lands]] of [[Cape Cod]], [[the Hamptons]], [[Martha's Vineyard]], and [[Nantucket]] during the end of the last ice age thousands of years ago.<ref>{{cite web|author=History |url=http://www.blockislandinfo.com/island-information/history |title=History |publisher=Blockislandinfo.com |access-date=2021-03-12}}</ref>

[[File:Wpdms aq block 1614.jpg|thumbnail|right|200px|On this 1614 map, Block Island is named "Adrianbloxeyland".]]
The [[Niantic people]]<ref>The Niantic people eventually merged with the [[Narragansett people]].</ref> called the island "Manisses" (meaning "[[Manitou]]'s Little Island"),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode-island/2015/08/31/since-denali-got-its-real-name-back-should-block-island-next/gUDjWThDIEhLdcilSQIIeO/story.html|title=Since Denali got its real name back, should Block Island be next?|date=31 August 2015}}</ref> or just "Little Island".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/69564/Block-Island#ref=ref946944|title=Block Island - island, Rhode Island, United States|date=22 August 2023 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.providenceri.com/narragansettbay/the_islands.html Providence, RI : The Islands] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100410195620/http://providenceri.com/NarragansettBay/the_islands.html |date=2010-04-10}}</ref> Archaeological sites indicate that these people lived largely by hunting deer, catching fish and shellfish, and growing corn, beans, and squash, presumably with the [[Three Sisters (agriculture)|Three Sisters]] technique. They migrated from forest to coastal areas to take advantage of seasonal resources.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/nativeamericans/niantic.htm|title=The Pages of Shades : Native Americans|access-date=2010-02-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100926092635/http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/nativeamericans/niantic.htm|archive-date=2010-09-26|url-status=dead}}</ref> One modern researcher has theorized that indigenous groups may have established a settlement as early as 500 BC,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.blockislandtimes.com/article/first-winters-what-archeologists-have-found/13119|title=The first winters: what archeologists have found}}</ref> although there is no consensus on that idea.

[[Giovanni da Verrazzano]] sighted the island in 1524 and named it "Claudia" in honor of [[Claude of France|Claude, Duchess of Brittany]], queen consort of France and the wife of Francis I. However, several contemporaneous maps identified the same island as "Luisa", after [[Louise of Savoy]], the Queen Mother of France and the mother of Francis I. Verrazano's ship log stated that the island was  "full of hilles, covered with trees, well-peopled for we saw fires all along the coaste." Almost 100 years later, Dutch explorer Adriaen Block charted the island in 1614; he simply named it for himself,<ref name=RILIB>[http://www.sec.state.ri.us/library/bookmarks/gotitsname Rhode Island Office of the Secretary of State] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912135949/http://www.sec.state.ri.us/library/bookmarks/gotitsname/ |date=2008-09-12 }}; ''Rhode Island Office of the Secretary of State''; retrieved on October 23, 2007.</ref> and this was the name that stuck.

===Pequot War===
{{further|Pequot War}}
[[File:Colonists on block.png|thumbnail|left|Former [[Massachusetts Bay Colony|Massachusetts]] Governor [[John Endicott]] attacking the [[Niantic (tribe)|Niantics]] on Block Island in the summer of 1637]]
The growing tensions among the tribes of the region in this time caused the Niantics to split into two divisions: the Western Niantics, who allied with the Pequots and Mohegans, and the Eastern Niantics, who allied with the [[Narragansett (tribe)|Narragansetts]].

In 1632, indigenous people (likely Western Niantics associated with the Pequots)<ref>See Wm. Bradford, ''Of Plimouth Plantation'' and ''Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth''</ref> killed colonial traders John Stone and Walter Norton, and the Pequots of eastern Connecticut were blamed. A Pequot delegation presented magistrates in Boston with two bushels of wampum and a bundle of sticks representing the number of beavers and otters with which they would compensate the colonists for the deaths. They sought peace with the colonies and also requested help establishing concord with the Narragansetts, who bordered them to the east. The colonial authorities, in turn, demanded the people responsible for killing Stone and Norton, a promise not to interfere with colonial settlement in Connecticut, and 400 fathoms of [[wampum]] and the pelts of 40 beavers and 30 otters.<ref name="environmentsandsocieties.ucdavis.edu">{{cite web|url=http://environmentsandsocieties.ucdavis.edu/files/2011/11/Pastore-ES-11.6.20135.pdf |title=Pastore |publisher=environmentsandsocieties.ucdavis.edu |date=2011 |access-date=2021-03-12}}</ref><ref name="Pastore, Christopher pp.1-5">Pastore, Christopher. ''Between Land and Sea: Narragansett Bay and the Transformation of the New England Coast'' pp.1-5</ref>
[[File:Natives on block.jpg|thumbnail|right|upright=1.3|The Niantics defending themselves on Block Island in the summer of 1637]]
In 1636, John Gallup came across the boat of trader [[John Oldham (colonist)|John Oldham]], a noted troublemaker. Oldham had flirted with impropriety since the day that he landed on American soil. Not long after arriving in Plymouth in 1623, he "grew very perverse and showed a spirit of great malignancy," according to [[Plymouth Colony]] Governor [[William Bradford (governor)|William Bradford]]. He was later accused of religious subversion and responded with impertinence, hurling invective at his accusers and even drawing a knife on Captain Myles Standish. He was banished from Plymouth and fled to Massachusetts Bay, settling first in [[Hull, Massachusetts|Nantasket]], then [[Cape Ann]], and finally [[Watertown, Massachusetts|Watertown]], where he continued to indulge his penchant for mayhem. Despite his unsavory reputation, Massachusetts Bay sought his extensive knowledge of the New England coast when they asked him to retrieve a hefty ransom on the colony's behalf. It was on this mission that Oldham was murdered and [[Dismemberment|dismembered]].<ref name="environmentsandsocieties.ucdavis.edu"/><ref name="Pastore, Christopher pp.1-5"/>

In August, the Massachusetts authorities dispatched a [[punitive expedition]] of ninety men to Block Island under the command of [[John Endicott]] to avenge Oldham's murder. The expedition was ordered by [[List of colonial governors of Massachusetts|governor of Massachusetts]] [[Henry Vane the Younger|Sir Henry Vane]] to "massacre all of the Native men on the island" and capture the women and children, who would then be sold into [[Slavery in the colonial history of the United States|slavery]]. Upon arriving on Block Island, the expedition burned sixty Niantic [[wigwam]]s and all the cornfields on the island. The expedition also shot every dog they could find, though the Niantic fled into the woods and the colonists killed fourteen people. Deciding that this murder spree and razing was insufficient, Endicott and his men sailed over to Fort Saybrook before going after the Pequot village at the mouth of the [[Thames River (Connecticut)|Thames River]] to demand one thousand [[fathom]]s of [[wampum]] to pay for the murder. They took some Pequot children as hostages to ensure payment, with these incidents being seen as the initial events that led to the [[Pequot War]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dickshovel.com/nian.html|title=History of the Mohegans|publisher=Niantic}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/historypilgrims02sawygoog|quote=manisees.|title=History of the Pilgrims and Puritans: Their Ancestry and Descendants; Basis of Americanization|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historypilgrims02sawygoog/page/n179 18]–25|first=Joseph Dillaway|last=Sawyer|date=1 January 1922|publisher=Century History Company|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

===Settlement===
Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed the island by [[Conquest (military)|conquest]]. In 1658, the colony sold the island to a group of men headed up by Endicott. In 1661, the Endicott group sold the island to a party of twelve settlers that later grew to sixteen (of whom only seven actually settled there<ref name="sixteen">{{cite web|author=Robert M. Downie |url=https://www.blockislandtimes.com/article/week-block-islands-history-november-8-1660-goat-tale/29291 |title=This Week in Block Island's history, November 8, 1660: A goat tale |publisher=Block Island Times |date=2011-11-16 |access-date=2021-03-12}}</ref>) led by John Alcock, who are today memorialized at Settler's Rock, near Cow's Cove. In 1663, island settler Thomas Terry gave six acres of land at the island's largest fresh pond and its surrounding area to four "chief [[sachem]]s". Their names were recorded as Ninnecunshus, Jaguante, Tunkawatten, and Senatick, but they were known by the colonists as Mr. Willeam, Repleave (Reprive), and Soconosh. This land was given to "them being the Cheife Sachems upon the Island there Heires & Assignes Forever to plant and Improve".<ref>[P.30 New Shoreham Town Book, No. 1, G. E. Burgess Transcription 1924.]</ref> This land was then known as the Indian Lands. The Sachems called the Fresh Pond Tonnotounknug.<ref>[P. 21, New Shoreham Town Book, No. 1, G. E. Burgess Transcriotion 1924, Pp. 30-31]</ref> In 1664, Indians on the island numbered somewhere from 1,200 to 1,500. By 1774, that number had been reduced to fifty-one.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/peopleshistoryof00zinn_2|url-access=registration|quote=peoples history of the united states.|title=A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present|page=[https://archive.org/details/peopleshistoryof00zinn_2/page/16 16]|first=Howard|last=Zinn|date=4 February 2003|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=9780060528423 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>  A Dutch [[:File:Map-Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ (Amsterdam, 1685).jpg|map of 1685]] clearly shows Block Island, indicated as ''Adriaen Blocks Eylant'' ("Adrian Block's Island").

In the late seventeenth century, an Englishwoman called named Sarah Sands ''née'' Walker lived on Block Island. Sands is known for being New England's first woman doctor and she has also been suggested to be an early [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thewesterlysun.com/opinion/columnguest/9500106-154/island-doctor-was-a-woman-ahead-of-her-times.html |title=Oddly enough, it was in reading an obscure and slender guidebook to |access-date=2018-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104165941/http://www.thewesterlysun.com/opinion/columnguest/9500106-154/island-doctor-was-a-woman-ahead-of-her-times.html |archive-date=2018-11-04 |url-status=dead}}</ref> She married sea captain James Sands (one of the original sixteen settlers, as recorded by Settler's Rock<ref name="sixteen"/>) in 1645 and had possibly six children, including a daughter named Mercy, born 1663. In 1699, Scottish sailor [[William Kidd]] visited Block Island shortly before he was hanged for piracy. At Block Island, he was supplied by Mercy Sands (then Mrs. Raymond). The story has it that, for her hospitality, Kidd bade Mrs. Raymond to hold out her apron, into which he threw gold and jewels until it was full. After her husband Joshua Raymond died, Mercy moved with her family to what would become the [[Raymond-Bradford Homestead]] in northern [[New London, Connecticut]] (later [[Montville, Connecticut|Montville]]) where she bought much land. The Raymond family was thus said to have been "enriched by the apron".<ref>{{cite book |title=History of New London, Connecticut |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofnewlond00caulk |last=Caulkins |first=Frances Manwaring |author-link=Frances Manwaring Caulkins|year=1895 |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofnewlond00caulk/page/n126 293]}}</ref>

Block Island was incorporated by the [[Rhode Island General Assembly|Rhode Island general assembly]] in 1672, and the island government adopted the name "New Shoreham".

===Post-Colonial Period===
[[File:Block Island Southeast Light, May, 2015.jpg|thumb|The [[Block Island Southeast Light]]]]

During the [[War of 1812]], Block Island was briefly occupied by a [[Royal Navy]] squadron under the command of Captain [[Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet|Sir Thomas Hardy]] in 1814. The occupying squadron consisted of the ship of the line [[HMS Ramillies (1785)|HMS ''Ramillies'']], frigate [[HMS Pactolus (1813)|HMS ''Pactolus'']], brig-sloops [[HMS Despatch (1812)|HMS ''Despatch'']] and [[HMS Nimrod (1812)|HMS ''Nimrod'']] and bomb vessel [[HMS Terror (1813)|HMS ''Terror'']]. Hardy had taken his squadron to Block Island in search of food and to establish a strategic position at the mouth of the [[Long Island Sound]], but discovered that nearly all of the island's livestock and food stores had already been transferred to [[Stonington, Connecticut]]. On August 9, 1814, Hardy's squadron departed Block Island for Stonington in part to capture the transferred food stores and livestock, but his pre-dawn raid on the town a day later was repulsed in the [[Battle of Stonington]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Battle of Stonington |last=De Kay |first=Tertius |year=1990 |page=293}}</ref>

[[File:Great Salt Pond Block Island.jpg|thumb|New Harbor - The Great Salt Pond]]

The original [[Block Island North Light|North Lighthouse]] was built in 1829, but it was replaced in 1837 after the original was washed out to sea. The ocean claimed the replacement lighthouse also, and the lighthouse that can be seen today was constructed in 1867.<ref name=USCG>{{cite uscghist|RI|access-date=October 23, 2007}}</ref> Construction began on Block Island's [[Block Island Southeast Light|Southeast Lighthouse]] a few years later in 1873. Block Island has no natural harbors; breakwaters were constructed in 1870 to form Old Harbor.  New Harbor was created in 1895 when a channel was dug to connect the [[Great Salt Pond (Block Island)|Great Salt Pond]] to the ocean through the northwestern side of the island. The Island Free Library was established in 1875 and is Block Island's only [[public library]].

Isaac Church was the Island's last recorded full-blooded Manisses Indian; he died in 1886 at age 100. He was survived by one son and one daughter whose descendants still reside in Rhode Island today. The landmark Isaac's Corner is named in honor of him, located at the intersection of Center Road, Lakeside Drive, and Cooneymus Road. Isaac is buried to the east of the four corners in the Historical Indian Burial Ground. In 2011, the Block Island Historical Society dedicated the Block Island Manissean Ancestral Stone. In attendance at the unveiling ceremony were descendants of the Manisses Indians, with Tiondra White Rapids Martinez, a direct descendant of Isaac Church, opening the ceremony in their native tongue.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBGM7TAh7mQ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/DBGM7TAh7mQ| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=Unveiling of Ancestral/Descendant Stone for the Block Island Indian's - Part 1|last=Coni Dubois|date=30 June 2011|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

During World War II, several artillery spotters were located on the island to direct fire from the heavy gun batteries at Fort Greene in [[Point Judith]] which protected the entrance to [[Narragansett Bay]]. Lookout positions for the spotters were built to look like houses. The US government offered to evacuate the island, as it could not be effectively defended from enemy invasion, but the islanders chose to stay. Days before the war ended against Germany, the [[German submarine U-853#Battle of Point Judith|Battle of Point Judith]] took place seven miles to the northeast of the island.

[[File:Block Island Airport 2021.jpg|thumb|The [[Block Island State Airport]]]]

The island's [[Block Island State Airport|airport]] (KBID) was opened in 1950 and remains open today as a [[general aviation]] airport. In 1972, the Block Island Conservancy was founded. The Conservancy and other environmental organizations are responsible for protecting over 40% of the island from development.<ref name=nature2>[http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/rhodeisland/preserves/art3146.html The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island - Block Island] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012233153/http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/rhodeisland/preserves/art3146.html |date=2007-10-12}}; ''The Nature Conservancy''; retrieved on October 30, 2007.</ref> In 1974, [[Old Harbor Historic District]] was declared a [[National Register of Historic Places|National Register]] historic district. More information can be found in the following books concerning Block Island's old buildings, islanders, history, and ongoing efforts to conserve the land, together with a collection of 800 period photographs of the island spanning the 1870s to the 1980s and all by historian Robert M. Downie: 
*''Block Island—The Sea''
*''Block Island—The Land''
*''The Block Island History of Photography'', 2 volumes
The students of New Shoreham in grades kindergarten through 12th grade attend [[Block Island School]]. [[Harbor Church]] was founded on October 23, 1765 and is located at 21 Water Street.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Harbor Church |url=http://harborchurchblockisland.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=49048&PID=860221 |access-date=July 30, 2014 |publisher=harborchurchblockisland.org}}</ref>