In January, 1975, the Narragansett Indian tribe filed suit in federal district court to regain lands in southern RI which they claimed were illegally taken from them in 1880. In May, 1976, Paul R. Campbell and Glenn LaFantasie were hired by the RI Attorney General's office and the law firm of Tillinghast, Collins and Graham as historian for the defense, initiating research on the tribe which spanned over two years and several states. By the time their work for the court case was completed, the two historians had collected photocopies of over 9,000 documents dating as far back as 1524. Campbell and LaFantasie's work also provided the material for papers they co-wrote in 1978 about the Narragansetts, Narragansett Indians Land Controversies and Narragansett Country; for an undergraduate course which they co-taught at Providence College in 1977; and for a lecture series with the Rhode Island Historical Society in the spring of 1978. LaFantasie relied heavily on these materials to prepare annotations for The Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2 vols. (1988), which he edited for the Rhode Island Historical Society while serving as Editor of Publications from 1979 to 1985.
In other historical areas, Campbell co-wrote two books with Rhode Island author Patrick Conley: Providence: A Pictorial History (1982) and Firefighters and Fires in Providence (1985). Campbell served as Library Director at the Rhode Island Historical Society from 1979 to 1987.
From the guide to the Paul Campbell Research Notes, 1976-1985., (Rhode Island Historical Society)
