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 260 MASSACHUSETTS INDIANS MASSAGET^E 241,000, including 5,200 slaves, in 1763; and 852,000 in 1775. In 1780 a constitution was framed for the state, which was submitted to the vote of the people and adopted. It is still the supreme law of the state, though several times amended. By a clause in the bill of rights pre- fixed to it, slavery was soon decided to have been abolished. John Hancock was elected first governor. Six years later, in 1786, civil disturbances commenced in the centre and west of the state, caused by the poverty and distress of a great portion of the people, and the heavy taxes necessary to pay the state debt. An insurrection known as Shays's rebellion from the name of its principal leader, Dan- iel Shays, broke out, and was not suppressed without bloodshed. The federal constitution was ratified by a state convention, which met in Boston, Jan. 9, 1788, and gave its assent by a vote of 187 to 168. After the formation of the government Massachusetts adhered gen- erally to the federal party, and was foremost among the states opposed to the war with England in 1812, though she furnished great numbers of seamen to the navy. In 1814 she sent delegates to the convention of the New England states which met at Hartford to confer upon the subject of grievances, and to take such measures for relief as were " not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union." Of that convention George Cabot of Massachusetts was president. In 1820 a convention to revise the constitution proposed various amendments, nine of which were rati- fied by the popular vote. In the same year the district of Maine was separated from Mas- sachusetts, with the consent of the latter, and erected into a state. In 1857 amendments of the constitution were made, by which the dis- trict system of choosing representatives and senators to the state legislature was adopted, in place of the apportionment by towns and counties. During the civil war Massachusetts furnished to the army and navy 159,165 troops, or 131,116 reduced to the three years' stand- ard, the latter being a surplus of 13,492 over all calls by the general government. The loss- es included 3,749 killed in action, 9,086 who died from wounds or disease, 15,645 discharged for disability contracted in service, and 5,866 not accounted for, of which at least one half were probably deaths. The total expenditures by the state on account of the war were $30,- 162,200. Since the close of the war a militia force of about 6,000 men has been maintained, at an average annual expense of $175,000. MASSACHUSETTS INDIANS. At the time of the English settlement of Massachusetts the territory was occupied by five Algonquin tribes. The Pennacooks were in the north- east, partly in what is now New Hampshire ; the Massachusetts on the bay of that name; the Nausets on Cape Cod ; and west of them the Pokanokets or Wampanoags in the south- east. Central Massachusetts was occupied by the Nipraucks or Nipnets ; the western part was uninhabited. All of these tribes were friend- ly except the Nausets, who had had frequent collisions with the crews of French and Eng- lish ships. The Plymouth settlers effected a peace with the Nausets, arid made a treaty with Massasoit, chief of the Pokanokets. (See MASSASOIT.) The Massachusetts colony en- tered into similar relations with the Massachu- setts and Pennacooks. In 1644 the Mayhew? on Martha's Vineyard, and in 1646 John Eliot, began missions to the Indians; and in 1651 Eliot's converts were formed into a commu- nity at Natick. For their use he translated the Bible into their language (New Testament, Cambridge, Mass., 1661 ; whole Bible, 1663). By 1674 the praying Indians or converts num- bered 3,200, of whom 1,100 were in Massachu- setts, 600 in Plymouth, and 1,500 in Martha's Vineyard. A growing discontent among the Indians culminated in 1675 in what is known as King Philip's Indian war. It began with the rising of the Pokanokets under Philip Metacomet or Pometacom, son of Massasoit ; the Nipmucks followed, then the Narragan- setts, and finally the Pennacooks. Though not apparently a concerted plot, the rising was al- most simultaneous, and all the Massachusetts frontier settlements were ravaged. Even the praying Indians caught the contagion, and numbers joined the enemy. The colonists finally conquered the savages, and the war ended with the death of Philip, Aug. 12, 1676. The Pennacooks after this withdrew in a great measure, joining tribes to the east or in Can- ada. The other tribes quieted down, having lost heavily, and many having been sent off to the West Indies as slaves. From time to time lands were assigned to the declining commu- nities, and the Indians have gradually mingled with negroes and whites. A careful census in 1861 showed an aggregate of 1,610 Indians or half-breeds in the state: 306 on Martha's Vineyard, at Christiantown, and Gayhead; 438 at Marshpee and Herring Pond, Cape Cod ; 12 at Natick ; the rest being the Punkapog, Fall River, Hassanamisco, Dudley, Yarmouth, Dartmouth, Mamattakeeset, Tumpum, Deep Bottom, and Middleborough bands, with some stray parties. Since then the tendency has been to assimilate them with the rest of the population. In the United States census of 1870 only 151 Indians are returned from Mas- sachusetts, the rest being counted as white or negro. For the study of the Massachusetts dialect of the Algonquin, materials are sup- plied by Eliot's " Indian Grammar Begun " (Cambridge, 1664 ; Boston, 1832), and " In- dian Primer" (Boston, 1720); Cotton's "Vo- cabulary of the Massachusetts Language" (Cambridge, 1830); and the elaborate stud- ies of Eliot's Bible made by J. Hammond Trumbull, published as yet only in fragments. MASSAGET.E, an ancient nomad people of Asia, who dwelt on the steppes adjoining the Jaxartes or Sir Darya and the sea of Aral, and according to some extended further S. E.