Canonicus was the chief sachem of the Narragansett. While the Wampanoag tribe aligned themselves with the Plymouth colonists, Canonicus instead cast his lot with Roger Williams, to whom he granted Rhode Island. In 1622, after his tribe escaped the plague that all but eradicated the Wampanoag three years earlier, Canonicus sent the Plymouth settlers a bundle of arrows wrapped in the skin of a rattlesnake. His aggressive stance was said to be shaken when Governor Bradford returned the same snakeskin, now stuffed with gunpowder and shot.
