Transcriber’s Note: There are two Chapter VIIs.
LIVES
OF THE
CHIEF FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.
The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers: let
him not leave us, nor forsake us.
1 Kings 8:57.
VOL. III.
THE LIFE
OF
JOHN ELIOT:
WITH AN ACCOUNT
OF THE EARLY MISSIONARY EFFORTS
AMONG
THE INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND.
BY NEHEMIAH ADAMS,
PASTOR OF ESSEX STREET CHURCH, BOSTON.
_Written for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and
approved by the Committee of Publication._
BOSTON:
MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY,
Depository, No. 13 Cornhill.
1847.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847,
BY CHRISTOPHER C. DEAN,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE.
The substance of this book is a Lecture delivered in 1842, before
the Young Men’s Missionary Association of Boston. On application of
the Publishing Committee, the author has consented to enlarge it for
publication, as one of the Series of the Lives of the New England Fathers.
SEAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS (OR SALEM) COLONY.
[Illustration: SIGILLVM:GVB:ET:SOCIET:DE:MATTACHVSETS:BAY:IN:NOVA:ANGLIA]
TRANSLATION.
Seal of the Governor and Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England.
LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
Missionary object of the Pilgrims. Seal of Massachusetts
Colony. Reasons with the Pilgrims for leaving Holland. Extract
from the Royal Charter of the Plymouth Colony. Charter of
the Salem Company. Thoughts on this Continent as a field for
Missionary efforts. Account of the landing at Plymouth, and the
first meeting with the Indians. First Missionary efforts among
them. Manners and habits of the New England Indians. Numbers in
the various tribes. Reflections on the Missionary character and
efforts of the Pilgrims. The May-flower.
A prominent object with the Pilgrim fathers in coming hither, was, to
preach the Gospel to the Indians of this Continent.
Many popular orators and writers represent them, as it were, following
and worshiping a goddess of liberty. But it was not for the mere liberty
of believing and doing what they pleased that they braved the ocean and
the perils of this wilderness. Two great motives influenced them. For the
liberty of worshiping God according to their own consciences, they “went
out not knowing,” as the event proved, “whither they went.” But this was
not all; they had a missionary object in coming here.
It is an interesting fact that the original seal of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay, who arrived and settled at Salem in 1628, had on it a
North American Indian, with these words proceeding from his mouth, “Come
over and help us.” This device on the seal of their colony published to
the world the fact that they regarded themselves as foreign missionaries
to North America. This was also the case with their brethren of the
Plymouth Colony, who arrived eight years before.
The Pilgrims had fled to Holland, from the persecutions of the English
Church. In the account of their residence in Holland we find some records
which establish beyond a doubt the fact of their missionary intentions in
coming to these shores. Governor Bradford, in his History of Plymouth,
speaking of the Pilgrims while yet in Holland, says, “This year, (1617,)
Mr. Robinson and his Church begin to think of a remove to America, for
several weighty reasons, as (1.) The difficulties in Holland discouraged
many from coming to them out of England, and obliged many to return. (2.)
By reason of these difficulties with the licentiousness of the youth,
and temptations of the place, many of their children left their parents,
some of them becoming soldiers, others taking to foreign voyages, and
some to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to the great grief
of their parents, and fear lest their posterity through these temptations
and examples should degenerate, and religion die among them. (3.) From an
inward zeal and great hope of laying some foundation or making way for
propagating the kingdom of Christ to the remote ends of the earth, though
they should be but as stepping stones to others.”
They obtained letters patent from the crown authorizing them to settle
in North Virginia. The following is an extract from the Royal Charter,
and is of the same purport with the third reason assigned by Governor
Bradford for their removal to America. The Royal Charter says,—“We have
thought it fit, according to our kingly duty—to second and follow God’s
holy will, by which means we may with boldness go on to the settling of
so hopeful a work which tendeth to the reducing and conversion of such
savages as remain wandering in desolation and distress, to civil society
and Christian religion.”
It is well known that the Colonists who received this Charter, and sailed
for North Virginia, were driven into the waters of Cape Cod, and thus
unintentionally landed and settled at Plymouth.
The Charter of “the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,” who settled a few years
after at Salem, says, “To win and incite the natives of that country to
the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind
and the Christian faith, is, in our royal intention and the adventurer’s
free profession, the principal end of the plantation.”
The Committee of the “Massachusetts” Company, in their letter dated
at Gravesend, and addressed to Mr. Endicott, the leader, and afterward
the Governor, of the Massachusetts or Salem Colony, say, “For that the
propagating the Gospel is the thing we profess above all in settling this
plantation, we have been careful to make plentiful provision of good
ministers.”[1]
It is interesting to think of this Continent as having been the object
of missionary zeal and efforts with the pilgrim fathers. The place which
this continent occupies on the globe is peculiar and interesting. The
numerous nations of the old world are crowded together in one hemisphere,
and this continent is the prominent object of the other. It did not seem
presumption to the pilgrims to believe that God laid its deep foundations
by itself, in the midst of the oceans rolling between it and the rest of
the globe, for some purpose as singular as its position. In the writings
of ancient poets there are remarkable allusions to this continent, when
as yet it was undiscovered. Seneca, a Latin writer, who lived at the
beginning of the Christian era, has in his “Medea” this declaration:
“The time will come in remote years when the ocean will unloose the
present boundaries of nature, and a great country will appear. Another
Typhis will discover new worlds, and Thule will no longer be the limit
of the earth.”[2] Homer and Horace had sung of Islands west of Africa,
the Atlantides, which were “the Elysian fields.” Hanno, the Carthaginian
general and great navigator, had sailed from the pillars of Hercules,
(the straits of Gibraltar,) westward, thirty days. Some suppose that he
must have seen America, or some of the neighboring islands.[3] Columbus
verified the dreams and surmises of the world; the Cabots pursued his
sublime discoveries, and they, with their Bristol crews, long accustomed
to Icelandic fisheries, found this continent. New adventurers carried
home some of the native Indians; and, at length, a new Continent,
inhabited by wild men, became the subject of intense interest to the
civilized world. Our pious forefathers, while yet in the old world,
fancied that they heard the Macedonian cry from the Indians here, and
it quickened their flight, as they say, “to follow Christ into a waste
howling wilderness.”
Having been driven into the waters of Cape Cod, instead of North
Virginia, and making a safe harbor on Saturday, the Pilgrims fell
on their knees and blessed the God of heaven. The Sabbath came; the
Mayflower riding at anchor, and the exploring party in the shallop, kept
the first Sabbath of the Lord which, perhaps, had ever been recognized in
this region, since God rested from his works.
“Monday,” says Prince, in his New England Chronology, “the people go
ashore to refresh themselves;—the whales play round about them, and the
greatest store of fowl they ever saw. But the earth here a company of
sand hills, and the water so shallow near the shore, they were forced
to wade a bow-shot or two to get to land, which being freezing weather,
affecteth them with grievous coughs and colds, which after proves the
death of many. When they had marched a mile southward, they see five
or six savages whom they follow ten miles till night, but could not
overtake them, and lodge in the woods. The next day they come to a place
of graves, then to some heaps of sand, when they dig into them, and
find several baskets full of Indian corn, and take some, for which they
purpose to give the natives full satisfaction as soon as they could meet
with any of them.” Two days after, they returned to borrow more corn; the
ground had frozen a foot deep, but they made up their corn, says Governor
Morton, to ten bushels; the next day some of the party, having spent the
night there, dug again into some little hillocks, but they found that
instead of being cornhills they were graves. By the overruling providence
of God, the corn which they had thus borrowed with such good intent to
repay, furnished them with seed for the ensuing spring. Here we have the
first scene of their approach to the wild objects of their pious and
benevolent endeavors.
During the month of February, after their arrival, the colony were
afterwards informed that the Indians assembled all their Powwaws, or the
conjurers of the country, to curse them with their horrid ceremonies and
incantations. They held their assembly for this purpose in a dark and
dismal swamp.
On the morning of March 16th, however, they say a savage boldly came
alone along the houses straight to the rendezvous, and surprised them
with calling out, “Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome, Englishmen!” It seems
that he had learned some broken English from the fishermen of Nova
Scotia. He said that his name was Samoset, that he was sagamore or lord
of a country “a day’s sail thence with a great wind,” or five days land
travel. He told them that four years ago all the inhabitants of the place
where they then were, (now Plymouth,) died of an extraordinary plague;
that there was neither man, woman, nor child remaining. At night they
lodged and watched him. A few days after he returned with an Indian
named Squanto, whom a man by the name of Hunt had carried to Spain with
nineteen others, and who by some means went to England, and lived in
Cornhill, London, with Mr. John Slanie, merchant. He could speak a little
English, and thus he was extremely useful to the colonists in assisting
them to trade and make treaties with the surrounding Indians. They
endeavored to conciliate the natives, but wisely mingled intimations that
they were prepared to resist them if attacked.
The treacherous tribe of Narragansett Indians, with five thousand
fighting men, who at first made a treaty with the settlers, showed signs
on one occasion of hostility. Canonicus, their chief Sachem, sent a
bundle of arrows, tied with a snake’s skin, which Squanto told them meant
a challenge. Governor Bradford and his Council sent them word that if
they had rather have war than peace, they might begin when they would;
they had done the Indians no wrong, nor did they fear them; nor would
the Indians find them unprepared. Then, with some wit, the Governor sent
them, by another messenger, the snake’s skin filled with powder and
bullets; but they refused to receive it, and sent it back.
Thus, after various alarms, and treaties, the pilgrims had fortified
themselves in the country, and individuals among them had begun the pious
work of instructing some of the young Indians in the Christian religion.
In 1621, one year after the arrival at Plymouth, Elder Robert Cushman
sent word to his friends in England that many of the Indians, especially
the younger of them, were teachable; that if the Colony had means they
would bring up hundreds of them to labor, and learning, and that young
men in England who desired to further the Gospel among these poor
heathen, would do well to come over and spend their estates, time, and
labor, in so doing.
During the few first years after the settlement at Plymouth, several of
the natives gave evidence of conversion, and instances of happy death
occurred among them. But the hardships and trials incident to a removal
into this wilderness delayed the systematic and general efforts of the
settlers to convert the Indians. Individuals, however, were laboring
among them with success. In 1636, the Plymouth Colony enacted laws to
provide for the preaching of the Gospel among the Indians, and ten years
after, the Massachusetts Colony passed a similar act.
In 1675, it was ascertained that the whole number of Indians in New
England, beginning as far east as the St. Croix River, was about fifty
thousand. Of these, about twelve thousand were in the neighborhood of the
Massachusetts and the Plymouth Colonies.
At the settlement of this country there were five principal nations,
or sachemships, of Indians, in this part of New England, viz, 1. The
Pequots; 2. The Narragansetts; 3. The Pawkunnawkuts; 4. The Pawtucketts;
5. The Massachusetts. Each of these nations included several tribes,
governed by sagamores.
The Pequots formerly had 4000 warriors; in 1674, 300.
The Narragansetts formerly had 5000 warriors; in 1674, 1000.
The Pawkunnawkuts formerly had 3000 warriors; in 1674, nearly extinct.
The Pawtuckets formerly had 3000 warriors; in 1674, 250.
The Massachusetts formerly had 3000 warriors; in 1674, 300.
The _Pequots_ inhabited the most southerly parts of New England, their
country for the most part fell under the Connecticut jurisdiction. Their
principal sachem lived at or near New London, called, in their language
Pequot.
The _Narragansetts_ occupied Rhode Island, and other islands in
Narragansett bay.
The _Pawkunnawkuts_ inhabited the region of the Plymouth Colony,
and their sachem held sway over the Sagamores of Nantucket, Martha’s
Vineyard, and neighboring places. A few years before the arrival of the
Pilgrims, a great number of this nation of Indians as before stated, were
swept away by a plague, and thus the way was opened for the entrance of
the Pilgrims.
The _Pawtuckets_ lived to the north, and northeast of the Massachusetts
Indians. They were almost wholly destroyed by the plague just mentioned.
The _Massachusetts_ Indians dwelt principally about the parts of
Massachusetts bay which were first settled by the English, and bordering,
some of them, on the region of the Pawkunnawkuts. They were very numerous
and powerful. Their chief sachem held rule over many petty chiefs. This
people was also visited by the plague in 1612-13, which destroyed the
most of them, and prepared the way for the English settlers.
This fact has often brought to mind these words of David: “We have heard
with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in
their day, in the times of old. How thou didst drive out the heathen with
thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people and cast
them out. For they got not the land in possession by their own sword,
neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm,
and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them.”
An early New England writer[4] says, that he had not been able to learn
accurately the nature of the disease or plague which depopulated the
Indian tribes in the remarkable manner already described; but that he had
“discoursed” with some old Indians, who told him that the patients were
“all over exceedingly yellow,” and this they described by showing him a
yellow garment which the bodies of the victims resembled in color, both
before and after death. There is a tradition that a Frenchman, who not
long before this plague, had fallen into their hands by shipwreck, told
them, as some of the surviving shipmates reported, just before he died
by their hands, that “God was angry with them for their wickedness, and
would not only destroy them all, but would also people their country with
men who would not live after their brutish manners.” Those infidels then
blasphemously replied, that God could not kill them; which blasphemous
mistake was confuted by an horrible and unusual plague, whereby they were
consumed in such vast multitudes, that our first planters found the land
almost covered with their unburied carcases, and they that were left
alive were smitten into awful and humbler regards of the English by the
terrors which the Frenchman’s prophecy had imprinted on them.
When the Pilgrims in Holland thought of coming to this country, some of
them hesitated for several reasons, and among others through their fear
of the savages, who they heard were “cruel, barbarous, and treacherous,
being most furious in their rage, and merciless where they overcome, not
being content only to kill and take away life, but delight to torment men
in most bloody manner that may be, flaying men alive with the shells of
fishes, cutting off the points and members of others by piecemeals, and
broiling them on the coals, and causing men to eat the collops of their
flesh in their sight whilst they live; with other cruelties horrible
to be related.”[5] Some were therefore in favor of settling in Guiana,
in South America. But they feared the jealousy of the Spaniards, and
finally concluded to settle within the jurisdiction of the company of
Virginia, where the English, in 1607, had made a settlement. In this way,
they supposed that they could also have better access to the savages,
“to reduce them to civil society, and the Christian religion.” But God
brought them by a way they knew not, having first in part cut off the
heathen nations to bring them in.
The May-flower sailed from Holland, September 6, 1620, for the Hudson
River. But they were driven into the waters of Cape Cod, and it was a
current belief that the shipmaster was bribed by the Dutch to change her
course, because the Dutch wished to settle in the region for which the
Pilgrims embarked. But some of the best authorities deny this, and say
that the change of their course was accidental.
There is so much connection between climate and characters that we may
reasonably suppose it to have been the intention of Providence to plant
the Pilgrims in this cold region, and on this hard soil, that they might
be and do that which is proved to have been their high destiny to be and
to accomplish. Whereas, had they settled in a warmer and more enervating
latitude, we cannot believe that such a New England as we now behold
would have arisen; it would have been easier for the settlers to have
borne the imposition of slavery from the mother country, whereas here
in Massachusetts the sturdy vigor and independence which were borne and
nourished on this rocky and sandy soil, grew impatient of slavery, and
soon threw it off, and hence in part the present difference between
the North and the South, in some of the essential elements of natural
prosperity. God brought the Pilgrims into these bays and harbors, and to
this northern soil, because here the qualities necessary to their future
usefulness and greatness as a nation could be most successfully developed
and strengthened. Instead of reducing the savages to slavery as they
might have done had the institution of slavery been fastened upon them
in southern regions, they “reduced the savages to civil society, and the
Christian religion.” Let us return for a moment to the landing of the
Pilgrims.
When the May-flower had cast anchor, the Pilgrims fitted up the little
shallop which they had brought in their vessel, and coasted the Cape for
about a month to determine on the best place for landing and settlement.
Having at length fixed on a place, the shallop, with the exploring
party came to anchor on Saturday, the 9th of December, corresponding to
December 20, New Style. The Sabbath dawned upon them, but the exploring
party remained on board, notwithstanding the inmates of the May-flower
were still at anchor, waiting to know the result of the exploration. How
beautiful and striking was the coincidence of their arriving at Plymouth
on the eve of the Sabbath. What a Sabbath it must have been to them. Not
only was their comfortless and perilous voyage in a crowded vessel, and
their anxious search for a landing place now over, but their persecutions
in the old world, their oppressive treatment from the Established Church
for not conforming to rites and practices which they could not observe,
had now come to an end. Now they had found a new world where they
might believe and worship as they pleased. Now they would no longer be
taxed for the support of worship in which they had no share. Now their
ministers would no longer be ill-used or nick-named, for not conforming
to unscriptural practices; now they would not be obliged to keep Lent,
and Ash-Wednesday, Candlemas, Christmas, and All-Saints’-day, in a manner
repugnant to their consciences. As they looked on this great wilderness,
free from all corruptions of man in the worship of God, and pure in that
respect as the virgin snows that covered the evergreens, and sheeted
the old sand wastes, and shone on the distant hills, they could breathe
freely, as they said in the words which indicate the essential spirit of
their faith, God is a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him
in spirit and in truth. The world has never seen such a sight, before
or since, as that shallop and the May-flower in Plymouth Bay, with the
progenitors of this great and glorious New England; fleeing from the old
world, arriving at this new world and keeping Sabbath at anchor in these
waters. What has ever happened to be likened to it since the time when
Noah and his family sailed away from the old world, which had corrupted
itself before God, and transplanted the religion of the true God for a
new beginning? It would have been interesting to have heard the prayers,
and songs of praise, and words of Scripture, with which they kept the
Sabbath in their floating Bethels. We notice here that Puritan regard for
the Sabbath which has ever characterized New England, and on which her
safety so much depends. How natural it would have been for the voyagers
to have leaped ashore at the first moment of their arrival in the
harbor which they had concluded to make their home. How many passengers
now in similar circumstances, would deny themselves the pleasure of
exchanging the wearisome confinement on ship-board, for the excitement
and satisfaction of exploring their new home? But the Pilgrims would not
begin the work of their settlement, of removing any of their effects from
the vessel, on the Lord’s day, and since the time when God rested from
his work on the Sabbath, there has not been a more sublime act of rest
and of worship, than was observed by that Pilgrim band.
All this was in accordance with their character and intentions as a
missionary band, and for its relation to this view of their character we
have dwelt at large upon this incident in their history.
It cannot be impressed too deeply upon our minds that our forefathers
did not come here merely to “enjoy their liberty,” not merely to flee
from persecution, not to increase their worldly estate; they came here,
among other good reasons, as they expressly declare, to extend the
kingdom of Christ, and the Royal Charter professed that the royal object
in granting it was that they might reduce such savages as they found
wandering in desolation and distress to civil society and the Christian
religion. Does any one cherish a feeling of reverence and love for
these pilgrims in view of their sacrifices and efforts to found these
institutions which we possess, who yet feels no interest in the work
of propagating the gospel to the ends of the earth? Let him consider
that a company of Christian missionaries going from this land and
settling in India, or Africa, or Oceanica, may be the founders of just
such institutions as we enjoy, among the people to whom they are sent.
Let every missionary consider that in distant years he may be justly
regarded as a pilgrim-father to some portion of the earth for whom he
may have done as much as the New England Pilgrims have done for New
England. The object of Christian missions is to re-produce and multiply
our Christian institutions in heathen and pagan lands. The opportunity
of laying foundations in heathen wilds, similar to those which the
Pilgrims laid here, has not come to an end. Many a missionary bark may
yet be, essentially, a May-flower to distant parts of the earth. Some
islands which were filled with savages as barbarous as our Indians, have
had their independence recognized by Christian nations, and have taken
their place among the nations of the earth; and that band of American
missionaries who left these shores for the Sandwich Islands in 1820,
and who went round Cape Horn singing the old hymn in the tune of Melton
Mowbray,
“Head of the church triumphant,
We cheerfully adore thee,” &c.,
and who planted the Gospel on those islands, will no doubt in after
times have their names enshrined by a grateful posterity in those distant
seas. The little schooner which the Rev. John Williams, the martyr of
Rarotonga, built with his own hand, to visit the islands of the Harvey
group, was a real “May-flower.” Prophetic visions of the effects of the
Gospel we see fulfilled on these shores and around the globe. Here,
emphatically, “instead of the thorn has come up the fir-tree, and instead
of the brier the myrtle-tree.” In what way can we cherish the memory of
our Pilgrim fathers better than to keep alive in us and our children that
zeal to spread the Christian religion and Christian institutions, which
was one of the strong impulses that bore them across the flood? As the
missionary spirit was the native air in which the pilgrim faith was born
and nurtured, we may believe that the same spirit will most effectually
cherish those institutions and laws which are the fruit of their wisdom.
That spirit is a sincere desire to see the glory of God promoted in the
world, a willingness to make efforts and sacrifices “that his way may be
known on earth, his saving health among all nations.”
“The May-flower”! That name must have been proposed by some gentle
wife, or by some sweet child, to the man who built that favored vessel!
She was, in her seasonableness, more than a _May-flower_; she was the
Crocus among the eternal snows and the dreary winter of this western
savage world. In the selection of her for the great mission which
she accomplished, angels might have said to her, as they came to be
ministering spirits to those in her who were to be, in more than one
sense, “heirs of salvation,” as Gabriel said to Mary, “Hail, thou that
art highly favored—the Lord is with thee!” The name of this vessel is one
of those instances, of which we see so many in the word, the providence
of God, in which “the beauty of the Lord our God” appears in connection
with his acts of renown. To the cold eye of reason that name was only
a mercantile accident; the eye of faith is willing to be accounted
visionary while it sees in it that same hand which, after the deluge,
selected the rainbow instead of a periodical tempest, or a Dead Sea, as
the memorial of a covenant with the earth.
The painting of the Landing of the Pilgrims, by Weir, justly represents
some of the pilgrim company as of cultivated and even polished appearance
and manners; they were not the offscouring of the earth. They were
men and women of whom, in their day, the world was not worthy. For
scholarship, intelligence, and moral worth, the Pilgrims and their
associates in the old countries would have been ornaments to the land
which chased them away. The reader will find this illustrated in a
satisfactory manner in the Life of the Rev. John Cotton, by the Rev.
A. W. M’Clure, in the first two volumes in this series of the Lives of
eminent N. E. Puritans.
CHAPTER II.
Description of the Indians. Their manners, habits, mode of
life, &c. Efforts to convert them, previous to Eliot’s labors.
Some account of the manners and habits of the Indians, as our forefathers
and their successors found them, will be necessary that we may appreciate
the labors and self-denial which were required of those who instructed
these sons of the forest in religion and civilization. A correct
knowledge of their original condition dispels the romantic associations
which many have with the name of a North American Indian. The lowest
degradation had been reached by these savages. The laws of a people are
a true picture of the people, and some of the laws which the Indians
enacted when they began to be civilized, reveal the misery and filthiness
from which they began at last to be recovered. This will be illustrated
as we proceed.
We will speak first of the personal appearance of the Indian.
Their skin was of a tawny color, a yellowish, dark complexion. Their
form and limbs were well proportioned, and it was seldom that a crooked
person was found among them. Their hair was long, black, and coarse,
without curling; their eyes black, without lustre. In their general
appearance they were so much like the Moors of Africa, that many have
supposed them to have come originally from that part of the world.
They had many wives, but one of them was chief in her husband’s regard.
They put away their wives, and the wife also left her husband when
offended with him.
Their revengeful disposition is proverbial. The relatives of an injured
or murdered Indian regarded his wrong as done to them, and they sought
satisfaction in the death of the offender, or in the payment of wampum,
(or shells,) which passed with them for money.
They were an idle race, especially the men. Tillage was chiefly performed
by the women, though to but little extent. The women also carried
burdens, as in removing from place to place. They also prepared the food.
Their wigwams were made with slim poles fixed in the ground, bent, and
fastened at the top with the bark of trees. The best of them were made
tight and warm with the whole barks of trees, pressed when green by a
heavy weight of timber. A common sort of bulrushes woven together, made
mats for the covering of the poorer houses. The houses varied in size,
from twenty to forty feet square, and some were from sixty to a hundred
feet long, and thirty feet broad. In the smaller houses a fire was
kindled in the centre, but in the larger, several fires were made for the
convenience of the inmates. A hole in the top of the house served the
place of a chimney, and on the top of the house a mat was suspended, to
serve the purpose of a ventilator to the smoke, being set to the windward
side. Their bedsteads were made of rude boards split from the tree, and
raised about a foot from the ground, covered with skins, or with mats of
woven grass, or bulrushes.
Their principal food was a kind of pottage in which it would be
difficult to say what article prevailed. Indian corn, kidney beans, all
kinds of flesh and fish, cut in small pieces with the bones, many kinds
of roots, artichokes, ground-nuts, squashes, oak acorns, walnuts, and
chestnuts, were boiled together. The nuts being dried, and powdered, were
used as flour to thicken the mess. They made a cake of parched corn,
which they called nokake. This they took with them in their travels, and
is said to have been so hearty a kind of food, that they subsisted on it
many days in their wanderings from place to place.
Their household utensils corresponded in simplicity to their food, and
mode of cooking. The pots were made of clay, in the shape of an egg
without the top. They were glad to receive pots of metal, as the earth
of which they made their brittle vessels was scarce and dear. They used
a kind of wood which was not liable to split, for dishes, spoons, and
ladles. Their water pails were made of birch bark, folded square, with a
handle or bail. Some of them held two or three gallons, and they could
make one of them in the space of an hour. They wrought pictures of birds,
beasts, fishes and flowers of divers colors in their baskets, which were
made of corn husks, silk grass, and wild hemp.
They formerly used no drink but water, though they soon learned from the
settlers the manufacture and use of cider. When they became acquainted
with intoxicating drinks, they showed a violent love for them, by which
their savage passions and propensities were fearfully excited.
Their clothing was, at first, of skins, and some had mantles of birds’
feathers, twilled together. Even the most barbarous of them were decent
in covering their persons, and were never seen naked in public.
One of their principal remedies in sickness was, to put the patient, and
sometimes several patients together, in a rude stone house, which they
would heat by building fires round it, and having thus put the sick into
a violent perspiration, they would plunge them into a neighboring brook.
They divided time into sleeps, and moons, and winters. It is a curious
fact that they called the Constellation, Charles’ Wain, by the same name
with the English, the Bear. Like the early eastern nations, they seem to
have pondered the face of the heavens, and to have made figures of the
stars.
Their money consisted of shells, or strings of shells, the black
being double in value to the white. The _mints_ of their money seem to
have been at Block Island, and Long Island, upon whose sandy flats and
shores, these welk shells were chiefly found. It was called wompompeague,
or, wompeague, and by contraction, wompum, or, wampum. They redeemed
captives, paid tribute, made satisfaction for wrongs, and murders, and
purchased peace of their more powerful neighbors, with strings of this
wampum.
Their weapons were bows and arrows, clubs, tomahawks, made of wood like a
pole axe, with a sharp stone in the head. They used targets or shields of
bark.
They formerly smeared their skin with bears’ grease, but when the English
swine afforded them lard, they used it as a substitute, and thus having
anointed themselves, they painted their faces with vermilion, or red,
and powdered their heads. Sometimes they painted one half of the face
black, and the other white, and so, with various colors, deformed their
visages, the women, especially, doing this, and the warriors thereby
making themselves hideous in battle. Widows, mourning for their husbands,
painted their faces wholly black. The men preparing for war put their
hair in a roll, and surmounted it with turkey’s or eagle’s feathers, with
other fantastic and showy decorations.
They took great pleasure in dancing, the men only dancing, and they
singly, (except in the war dance,) with uncouth and antic gestures and
movements of the whole body, the spectators singing or whooping. The
dancer took off his ornaments one by one as he danced, and gave them away
to those who looked on, and when he had given away all that he had upon
him, and was weary, another would succeed him, and thus succeeding each
other they would spend the nights of a whole week together, sleeping by
day. At such dancings accompanied with revelings, chiefly held after
harvest, they were addicted to many evil practices.
They were a hospitable race. Strangers were furnished with the best food
and lodging, and were served before themselves.
Their government was for the most part monarchical, the chief sachem or
sagamore making his will the law, though there were chief men associated
with him as counselors. In some of the tribes the influence of the head
men was greater than in others, making the government a mixture of
monarchy and aristocracy.
They had no idols made with hands, but being ignorant of the true God,
they adored natural objects; the sun, the moon, the earth, fire, and
other things. They supposed that every thing in nature has a god in it,
or belonging to it, but fire they believed to be itself a god. They
believed that there was one god in the southwest, who was the chief deity.
The Indians had priests or powows, or, powaws, who were conjurers, who,
with horrid rites and incantations, told their fortunes, advised them
in their affairs, yelled over them in their sick and dying moments, and
performed religious worship with terrific noises and actions,
“Like stabled wolves or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate.”
The Indians believed in the immortality of the soul, that the good are
admitted to a splendid entertainment, and the wicked wander in agony
forever, and that there is no resurrection of the body for good or bad.
As to the origin of the Indians, Roger Williams has well expressed the
truth on the subject, in his Key into the language of the Indians of New
England.[6]
“From Adam and Noah that they spring, it is granted on all hands. But for
their later descent, and whence they came into these parts, it seems hard
to find, as to find the well-head of some fresh stream which running many
miles out of the country to the salt ocean, hath met with many mixing
streams by the way.”
Mr. Williams gives many particulars of their manners and customs; some of
which are here added.
Their nokake, or nokehick, parched meal, was carried by each man on a
journey, or in war, in a basket, fastened to his back, or in a hollow
belt. With a spoonful of this meal, and a spoonful of water from the
brook, Mr. Williams says he has many a time made a good supper. This
parched meal, boiled with water, he says, is the wholesomest diet they
have. _Nawsaump_ was a kind of meal pottage unparched, and from this the
English derived their _samp_, or Indian corn, broken and boiled, and
eaten, hot or cold, with milk or butter; “which are mercies beyond the
natives’ plain water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the
English bodies.”
Tobacco was in general use among them, and was the only plant which the
men cultivated, the women attending to the rest. The following remark, by
Mr. Williams, is in good illustration of former views and feelings with
regard to the use of spirituous liquors. “I never see any take tobacco
so excessively as I have seen men in Europe; and yet excess were more
tolerable in them, because they want the refreshing of beer and wine,
which God had vouchsafed Europe.”[7]
They made up a fire, when they were lying down to sleep, summer and
winter. “Their fire,” says Williams, “is instead of our bed clothes. And
so themselves, and any that have occasion to lodge with them, must be
content to turn often to the fire, if the night be cold; and they who
first wake must repair the fire.”
Bad dreams they considered as threatenings from God; and when they
happened to them, they would engage in prayer at all times of the night.
An Indian once dreamed that the sun, whom they worship as a god, darted
a beam into his breast. This he took for an admonition of his death. He
called his friends and neighbors together, and prepared some refreshment
for them; but himself remained awake, and fasting, for ten days and
nights in great humiliation and distress.
“The women nurse all the children themselves; yet a rich or high woman
maintains a nurse to tend the child.”
“They have amongst them natural fools, either so born, or accidentally
deprived of reason.”
“The toothache is the only pain which will force their stout hearts to
cry. I have never heard any cries among them like those of men in the
toothache. In this pain they use a certain root dried, not much unlike
our ginger.”
“They are most skillful in cutting off the heads of their enemies in
fight. I know the man, yet living, who pretended to fall from his own
camp to the enemy, proffered his service in the front with them against
his own army. He drew them out to battle, keeping in front; but, on a
sudden, shot their chief leader and captain, and, in a trice, fetched off
his head, and returned immediately to his own again. His act was false
and treacherous; yet herein appear policy, stoutness, and activity.”
“Their desire of and delight in news, is great as the Athenians. A
stranger that can relate news in their own language they will style him
manittoo, a god.”
In hearing news they sit in a circle, two, three, or four deep. “I have
seen near a thousand in a round where English could not well near half so
many have sitten.”
They frequently inquired “Why came the Englishmen hither?” The
explanation most commonly believed among themselves at first was, that
the English wanted fire-wood, and so removed to these parts, as the
Indians remove when they have used up the wood around them.
They kept the time of the day and the night with great accuracy, by
observing the sun, moon, and stars. Living abroad in the fields and
sleeping much out of doors, even the young children were expert in
telling the time. The Indians were punctual in their promises as to
time. Mr. Williams says they once charged him with lying for not being
punctual, though necessarily delayed.
English travelers were struck with the paths which the bare and tough
feet of the Indians had made in stony places. One writer says that he
has known many of them to run between eighty and a hundred miles in a
summer’s day, and return within two days. He says they were so thoroughly
acquainted with the interior of the country by means of hunting, that
they have guided travelers forty miles without any path. They coveted
horses above other beasts, preferring the ease of riding even to the
comfort of milk and butter from the cow. On meeting with one another in
travel, they were very happy and joyful; and striking fire, with stones
or sticks, took tobacco, and set down to talk. It was quite rare to
meet an old man or a lame man with a staff, their constitutions being
generally robust.
The English settlers were greatly struck with the purity of the air
and of the water in New England.[8] But as New England is about twelve
degrees south of England, the greater cold of this region is explained,
Mr. Williams thinks, by the fact that main lands and continents are
colder than islands. “England’s winds are sea winds, which are commonly
more thick and vapory, and warmer winds. The northwest wind, which
occasioneth New England cold, comes over the cold, frozen land, and
over many millions of loads of snow. And yet the pure wholesomeness of
the land is wonderful, and the warmth of the sun such in the sharpest
weather, that I have often seen the natives’ children run about stark
naked in the coldest days, and the Indian men and women lie by a fire in
the woods in the coldest nights; and I have often been out myself such
nights without fire, mercifully and wonderfully preserved.”
It is observed by many writers that the Indians had a considerable
mixture of sadness in their disposition. Though nature here was profuse
in wild animals for food, and fish, and fowl, and fruits, the savages
were subject to much suffering from causes which they had no knowledge
to understand nor skill to prevent. Their superstitions joined with
their savage vices made them afraid. It would seem also, in noticing
the proofs of this disposition to melancholy, that the coming event of
their disappearance as a race had cast its shadow upon their spirits. Mr.
Williams says that they dislike cloths inclining to white, “but preferred
to have a sad color, without any whitish hairs, suiting with their own
natural temper, which inclines to sadness.”[9]
In the spirit with which our forefathers came hither, seeking the
conversion of the red race, good men from time to time pursued different
measures for their spiritual good. But while other men deserve great
praise for their zeal and industry in this benevolent work, it was
reserved to JOHN ELIOT to gain for himself the name of the Apostle to the
Indians. The way in which he obtained it will now appear, and also some
account of his life and character, with further notices respecting the
Indians.
Though individuals had incidentally labored among the Indians for their
spiritual good before the Apostle Eliot began his efforts to give them
the Gospel, and some useful impressions had been made on some of their
minds, the first systematic efforts for their conversion were made by
him. Roger Williams’ narrative was printed in London, in 1643. Eliot
began to preach in the Indian tongue in 1646. Mr. Williams says,
“Many solemn discourses I have had with all sorts of nations of them,
from one end of the country to the other, so far as opportunity, and the
little language I have, could reach.
“I know there is no small preparation in the hearts of multitudes of
them. I know their many solemn confessions to myself, and one to another,
of their last wandering conditions.
“I know not with how little knowledge and grace of Christ the Lord may
save; and therefore neither will despair, nor report much.
“Two days before the death of Wequash, the Pequot captain, as I passed
up to Quunnihticut (Connecticut) river, it pleased my worthy friend,
Mr. Fenwick, whom I visited at his house in Saybrook fort, at the mouth
of that river, to tell me that my old friend Wequash lay very sick. I
desired to see him, and himself was pleased to be my guide two miles
where Wequash lay.
“Amongst other discourses concerning his sickness and death, in which he
freely bequeathed his son to Mr. Fenwick, I closed with him concerning
his soul. He told me that some two or three years before, he had lodged
at my house, where I acquainted him with the condition of all mankind,
and his own in particular; how God created man and all things; how man
fell from God, and his present enmity against God and the wrath of God
against him till repentance. Said he, your words were never out of my
heart to this present; and, said he, ‘Me much pray to Jesus Christ.’ I
told him so did many English, French, and Dutch, who had never turned
to God nor loved him. He replied in broken English: ‘Me so big naughty
heart: me heart all one stone!’ Savoring expressions using to breathe
from compunct and broken hearts, and a sense of inward hardness and
unbrokenness. I had many discourses with him in this life; but this was
the sum of our last parting, until our general meeting.”[10]
We now come to the history of the man by whom the work of converting and
civilizing the Indians was carried out with the most signal success.