Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/439

 402

parties of these Indians swept across the ter presumably of his own race, once asked ritory of these States both north and south Waban what he should do when Indians got of the White Mountains, killing many of the drunk and quarreled. To which the sapient Pennacooks, and sometimes causing great old Indian replied: "Tie urn all up, and whip fright, at least, to the Massachusett tiibes as urn plaintiff, and whip urn 'fendant and whip far south as the present Norfolk County, urn witness." The Christian Indians by the year 1675 and much more to the tribes of Maine. They forced the Penobscots, and probably the had become quite numerous. Drake men tions communities of them at Provincetown Androscoggins and Kennebecs, and possi bly, the Sokokis, for many years, to pay and Truro, in Eastham, Chatham, Harwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich, them annual tribute, consisting of blueber ries and dried clams. The Mohawk hordes, Wareham and Falmouth; their number indeed, on one occasion, penetrated as far aggregating four hundred and sixty-two. eastward as the Schoodic lakes; where, One hundred and forty of them could read, according to Indian tradition, a great battle and seventy-two, write Indian; while nine was fought; but whether this completed the only could read English. In 1685 there were conquest of the country by them, or checked in Plymouth Colony one thousand, four hun their further advance, is a matter of doubt. dred and thirty-nine Indians who were con The Mohawks and the Iroquois gradually sidered Christians. At the same period there disappeared with the western movement of were fifteen families, about seventy-five per the tribes soon after the Revolutionary War; sons, at Wamesit—now. Lowell. and the only hostile Indians encountered For a long time there was little gain from since in New England were the composite the efforts to Christianize the Mohegans and and vengeful tribe of the St. Francis; though Xarragansetts; the chief sachems being fixed this also had been greatly reduced by the in their determination against it. Historian very effective attack of Colonel Rogers upon Neal relates that Cutahamoquin, one of the Mohegan sachems, went to Rev. John Eliot's their chief village in 1759. Some twelve or fifteen hardy pioneers, Indian lecture in an English settlement on about the year 1790, followed up the fertile Connecticut river, and openly protested valley of the upper Connecticut, and began against the Christianizing of his people, and a settlement near the northern border of New the building of a town there by the white Hampshire; but during the war of 1812, the people. "He said to Mr. Eliot: 'Indians that Indians drove them off. However, they pray to God do not pay me tribute, as for merly they did.' The statement was admitted returned with more settlers after the war. When—in 1660, or soon after—a sort of to be partly true; for now they gave him no civil community was established at Natick, more than they thought reasonable. ''To remove the reproach which their an Indian named Waban was made a ruler sachem had laid upon them, the few Chris of fifty; subsequently he was appointed jus tice of the peace, proving a most efficient tian Indians present at the lecture told Mr. Eliot what they had done for the sachem in officer. The following—said to«be a verba tim copy of a warrant he once issued—is the last two years. Their gifts to him, they said, had been twenty-six bushels of corn at probably familiar to many local readers: one time and six at another: that, in hunting "You, you big constable, quick you catch for him two days, they had killed him fifteen urn Jeremiah Offscow. Strong you hold deer. They had broken up for him two acres um, safe you bring um afore me. of land; made him a great wigwam; built for Waban, justice peace." him twenty rods of fence, with a ditch and One story relates that a young- justice, two rails about it; and paid a debt for him of