TH INDIAN BIBLIOGRAPHIES. "SIC VOS NON VOBIS." (THIRD ARTICLE.') HE sachems of the Pequots, of the Narragansetts, of the Wampanoags or Pokanokets, of the Massachusetts, and of the Pawtuckets, were the five political rulers dominating all other Indian nations living upon what now constitutes New England's main lands and the islands included within her present boundaries. This was before the advent of the white race. The Pequots, the most numerous and perhaps the most warlike of these Indian powers, possessed the territory since known as Connecticut, having their chief canton where the picturesque city of New London now stands. They dominated the contiguous. nations, and on the shores of the Connecticut River and parts of Long Island. The Narragansetts, second in importance, had their chief cantons on the shores of Narragansett Bay and Canonicut Island. They ruled the nations of the bays, the islands, and of the inland regions from the eastern border of the Pequots' domain, including Rhode Island, Block Island, and parts of Long Island. The Wampanoags, third in importance, had their domain and cantons east and northwest of the Narragansetts; they controlled the nations inhabiting Nantuckett, Martha's Vineyard, Nawsett, Mannamoyk, Sawkattuckett, and other minor tribes. The Massachusetts, fourth in importance, were the original lords of the soil constituting the State which perpetuates their name and identifies their memory with some of the most important events in North American history. They were a numerous and great people, living northward of the Wampanoags, and their principal cantons, which were the first to be encroached upon by the Puritan colonists, were clustered on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. They dominated the Weechagaskas, Neponsitts, Punkapaogs, Nonantums, Nashaways, and some tribes of the Nipmucks. They were hostile to the Narragansetts, and allied with the Pawkunnawkutts, who were south of them, and with the Pawtucketts, who lived on the northeast of their border. The Pawtucketts, fifth in relative standing, occupied the country. north and northeast of the Massachusetts, and dominated the 1 See the AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW for October, 1893, vol. xviii., 698, and for July, 1894, vol. xix., 545. Pennakooks, Agawomes, Naamkeeks, Pascatawayes, Accomintas, and tribes of other nations. The Pawtucketts' domain was the next, after that of the Massachusetts, to be encroached upon and subsequently occupied by the Puritan colonists.' All these Indian nations used a general language having local dialects. The five sachems of the Pequots, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, Massachusetts, and Pawtucketts, held sway over their subordinate nations by the power of their warriors and by traditionary right of control; they were rarely at peace with each other. Had they united their forces into an armed confederacy, such as was the Iroquoian at a corresponding time, and united in opposing the white intruders on their respective domains, it is doubtful if the English Puritans could have established the permanent settlements they had succeeded in making. Without such union they were unable single-handed to resist the power of the whites, who crushed one after another of these sachems; the leading and most ambitious, and the most numerous of the combinations, the Pequots, being the first to experience the fate reserved for all, and were conquered and dismembered as early as 1637. During the interval of peace ensuing, was commenced the missionary effort to convert the Massachusetts Indians. This missionary work became coincident with the inception of the "Algonquian Bibliography," so far as this related to publications by English authors during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These prints were more or less connected with religious work in behalf of the Indians; which beginning, as stated, soon after the conquest of the Pequot sachem, and interrupted by subsequent wars, was ended when there were no longer any Indian tribes left on New England soil; when in fact the New England nations had become obliterated. But the attention of the general reader, and of the historical student in particular is directed to the fact that these Puritan missions were contemporary, first, with the Catholic missions of Huronia, and second, with the glorious and chivalric, if not romantic, crusade of the Jesuit fathers in the Iroquoian cantons, who, at the peril of their lives, bore the standard of the Cross, which they erected successively in every canton of the warriors of the Iroquoian Confederacy, in the "Country of the Lakes" of New York, from the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers to Lake Erie. Probably no periods in the history of the North American Indians are more interesting in relation to their welfare and to their subsequent fate. For the immediate descendants of these races were destined to fall under English control. 1 The Indian nomenclature is that of General Gookin, as quoted by Mr. Pilling in his Algonquian Bibliography, p. 176. The one great character, and the most prominent actor, in the history of the failure of the efforts to convert and to civilize the Indian people ruled by the five great aboriginal sachems of New England; the man whose name stands out in bold relief in Puritan history as the apostle of mercy and of charity to the red men whose territory had been reft from them by the Puritan colonists— the name of this man is John Eliot. He was born in Herfordshire, England, in 1604, graduated at Cambridge in 1622, and received orders in the Church of England, but became a dissenter and emigrated to Boston in 1631, where he was married the following year. He was soon after accepted, ordained as a Puritan minister and assigned to the small pastorate of Roxbury, near Boston, where he remained during the entire course of his earthly career. His interest in the welfare of the New England Indians was first made conspicuous by one of his sermons at Roxbury, in which he denounced the commissioners of the colony, who were the ruling power, for sharp practice on their part to the prejudice of the Pequot nation. This was in 1634. For this he incurred the displeasure of the colonial magistrates and he was compelled to make a public apology. It is on record as an acknowledgment of his ability, that in 1639, he, in conjunction with Rev. Thomas Welde and Rev. Richard Mather, were appointed to prepare a new version of the Psalms of David in English metre, which work was printed and has since been generally known as the "Bay Psalm Book." This was the first book printed in the English-American colonies. Extending his interest in the native Indian to a more practical method, he instructed an intelligent young Pequot, living in Dorchester, in the English rudiments, and when satisfied with the mental capacity of his copper-hued student, he made him his own tutor in the study of the Indian dialects, with the general use of which he soon became familiar. In 1646 he commenced his missionary work by preaching to the Indians, in the vicinity of Boston, in their local dialect, and in the following year he made regular visits to the chief cantons of the five dominant Indian powers. Like nearly all Indian missionary labor, his initial experience was neither agreeable or satisfactory, and, moreover, it was not exempt from toil and danger. This was the beginning of the Puritan missions, as they may be called, in New England. An account of this work and a description of the field of its operations was sent to England, and in 1647 a society was chartered in London for its encouragement and support, officially "for the propagation of the gospel to the Indians of New England." It was this London propaganda which supplied the means for subsequent missionary work in New England by sending each year funds and material to the commissioners of the colony. John Eliot was its apostle. In the meantime the converted Indians were withdrawn from their respective homes and grouped in a settlement at Nonatum, in the vicinity of Boston; and in 1650 the Christian Indian town of Natic was founded, where all the converts were gathered and where the heads of families were assigned land, on which they built homes and cultivated the soil for their support; a tribal form of government was established among them. After nine years of probation this Natic community were deemed worthy and formally admitted to the Puritan fold. They were then permitted to form a church organization. Natic became the headquarters of Eliot. He preached here regularly, established an Indian school and from its pupils he selected and prepared young Indian adepts to aid him in the missionary field. Similar Indian convert communities were subsequently organized in New England under the auspices of Eliot and his zealous co-laborers, Mayhew, Bourne and Cotton. The aid extended by the London propaganda enabled these missionaries to work among the Indians with partial success, but the war with Philip in 1675 utterly demoralized these efforts to civilize them. The colonists became so insanely maddened against them, that a red man, whether a Christian convert or a Pagan, became the object of their deadly hatred and frequently met death at their hands at sight. Even the peace-loving converts at Natic, who, for a quarter of a century, had been permitted to enjoy Christian fellowship in the Puritan fold, experienced this hatred to such an extent that to save them from being slaughtered, Eliot was obliged to tear them hastily from their homes and to provide a refuge for them near Boston.' A worse fate met the unfortunate converts who had been grouped in other Christian communities. Despite the protests of Eliot, Mayhew, Bourne, Cotton and their co-workers, the converted Indians were driven from these settlements and compelled to seek a refuge in the forest and to undergo the persecutions of their Pagan enemies. The lot of these unfortunates became a sad one; they were hunted out of their abodes by Puritan soldiers, and such as escaped death at their hands experienced it with torture from their savage persecutors. After the downfall of Philip, Natic and some other convert settlements were repopulated and missionary work was resumed; 1 On Deer Island, in Boston harbor. VOL. XX.-16 but the native New Englanders had become suspicious of the sincerity of the white man; results were discouraging, little progress was made, although many native preachers and exhorters aided. the missionaries. The New England Indians were the first of their race on North American soil to experience the effects of their contiguity to the Anglo-Saxon race. Their doom had been sealed. Their utter extinction had become only a question of time; the presence of a Christian Indian on the soil of his ancestors was disagreeable to the Puritan, and as occasion required, the wild tribes of the forest were chased and slaughtered without mercy. Natic, which had been the solace of Eliot's philanthropic heart, languished and decayed. Its Indian population steadily diminished and its founder who had built so much upon its future, was destined to witness its partial extinction. Eliot had an Indian preacher ordained to succeed him; his successor continued to labor until 1716, when Natic, last of the converted Indian settlements on New England soil, ceased to exist as such, and so far as its Indian population was concerned, became a thing of the past. Meantime, there had been no lack of funds for missionary work in New England; the London propaganda had rather increased their liberal contributions, which they sent each year to the Commissioners of the Colonies; whether these functionaries were in sympathy with Eliot and his confréres, who had increased in number and efficiency, is a question. But by the aid of these funds Eliot was enabled to compile and have printed in the Indian language at Cambridge, Mass., the religious, scriptural and philological works which remain a monument to his memory as a philanthropist and a scholar. A notice of these works will appear in the chronological series arranged by Mr. Pilling. The earliest English print described in the " Algonquian Bibliography," has a fac-simile of the title page; it is by Captain John Smith, of Virginia: A Map of Virginia. ON of the Country, the Commodities, People, Gover ment and Religion. Written by Captaine Smith, sometimes Go vernour of the Countrey. (sic). etc. AT OXFORD. Printed by Joseph Barnes, 1612. Small quarto, pp. 110. Copies were seen in the British Museum, Harvard aud Lenox libraries.' A fine copy of this work was sold at the Murphy sale for $180. |