Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/485

Rh be quoted, though it can hardly be said to relieve the responsibility of the English in furnishing the Indians with liquor, inasmuch as they must have taught them how to make it: —

It had still been intended that the removed Indians should remain, and work and plant on the islands in the harbor. But the good service done by many of them helped a relenting feeling. The distressed condition of the old men, the women, and the children drew pity towards them. Good Thomas Oliver, their friend, offered to harbor them at his place on Charles River, Cambridge. Their release in May, 1676, was a jubilee to the poor creatures. It was estimated that about a fourth part of all the Indians in New England — Massachusetts numbering three thousand — had been more or less influenced by civilization and Christianity. It was believed by some that had it not been for these, and had they on the other hand been leagued with Philip, the whites would have been exterminated. After the war the “stated places” for Indian churches in Massachusetts were contracted to four. Occasional stations were established for preaching, where the natives met to fish, hunt, or gather nuts. In Plymouth colony and in the Vineyard there were ten in each, and in Nantucket five. In 1670 Eliot, with Cotton of Plymouth, and Mr. Mayhew, ordained at the Vineyard Hiacoomes, the first converted native pastor of the Indian church, — a worthy and noted man. He had had a promising son in Harvard College. An Indian church was soon after gathered at Mashpee, with an English pastor. The “Praying Indians” in Massachusetts, Plymouth, and the Vineyard, in 1674, were numbered at