From time to time the colonists were enjoined by the directors of the company in England to pay for all lands occupied by them when the Indians claimed ownership.1 These and other provisions show a uniform desire to confirm the Indians in all their rights, and seem to have been so far successful that in 1643 two chiefs with their followers became voluntarily subject to the Massachusetts laws, promising to assist in maintaining the government and to be willing to be "instructed in the knowledge and worship of God."" From time to time, subsequently, most of the New England Indians professed submission and subjection to the colonial authorities; a fact that should be remembered when considering the severity with which the Indians were afterward treated. On the occasion when five chiefs offered their submission a number of questions or propositions were propounded to them, which, with the answers they returned, are given as well to show the ideas of the essentials of Christian civilization held by our New England ancestors as to illustrate the views of the Indians themselves. 1. To worship the only true God, which made heaven and earth, and not to blaspheme Him. Ans. We do desire to reverence the God of the English and to speak well of Him, because we see He doth better to the English than other gods do to others. 2. Not to swear falsely. Ans. They say they know not what swearing is among them. 3. Not to do any unnecessary work on the Sabbath day, especially within the gates of Christian towns. Ans. It is easy to them; they have not much to do on any day, and they can well take their ease on that day. 4. To honor their parents and all their superiors. Ans. It is their custom to do so; for the inferiors to honor the superiors. 5. To kill no man without just cause and just authority. Ans. This is good and they desire to do so. 6. To commit no unclean lust, as fornication, adultery, incest, rape, sodomy, buggery, or bestiality. Ans. Though some time some of them do it, yet they count that naught,3 and do not allow it. 7. Not to steal. Ans. They say to that as to the sixth query. 8. To suffer their children to learn to read God's word, that they may learn to know God aright and worship Him in His own way. Ans. They say as opportunity will serve, and English live among them, they desire so to do. 9. That they should not be idle. Ans. To this they consented, acknowledging it to be good.* 1 Records of Mass., Vol. I, p. 400. 2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 40. Mass,, Vol. II, pp. 55–56. 3 Vile. • Records of The custom of enslaving prisoners of war was the usual custom. Chief Justice Marshall says: From the earliest times war has existed, and war confers rights in which all have acquiesced. Among the most enlightened nations of antiquity one of these was that the victor might enslave the vanquished. This, which was the usage of all, could not be pronounced repugnant to the law of nations, which is certainly to be tried by the test of general usage.1 Slavery was also a mode of punishment for crime. Persons were permitted by English law to sell themselves; and it was also adjudged that infidels could be bought and sold as merchandise. Scruples, however, were felt against enslaving Christians. In 1641 a statement of the laws for Massachusetts Colony was compiled in accordance with an order of the Court in 1638, and this compilation became known as the "Body of Liberties." The ninety-first article declares: There shall never be any Bond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority." Based on this law, it has been repeatedly held by the highest courts of Massachusetts that No child born here since 1641 was ever by law a slave. Single judges may have dropped language, at times, that might be capable of another construction; but that of the courts, when speaking authoritatively upon the point, has all been one way, that freedom was the child's birthright." The Indians who had become subject to the English appear to have paid regular taxes in the form of tribute. In September, 1655, we find, according to the records of the commissioners, that— The Pequot Indian Tributaries came in to present theire Wampam to the Commissioners desiring to give them orders both for settlement and comly demeanor of themselves, one towards another, as alsoe whoe should be theire governor this next year. The amount paid by the Pequots on this occasion was 301 fathoms, 18. 6d.5 110 Wheat. Rep., 120. 2 Palfrey: Hist. of New England, Vol. II, pp. 23–27. 3 Mass. Hist. Col., Vol. XXVIII, p. 231; Massachusetts and its Early History, Lowell Inst. Lectures, p. 201. 44 Mass., 128, n. ; 16 Mass., 75; 13 Mass., 552; 10 Cush., 410; Quincy Rep., 29, Gray's note; Massachusetts and its Early History, Lowell Inst. Lectures, p. 205. 5 Wampum was made a legal tender to the amount of forty shillings by the Massachusetts General Court in 1643, "the white at 8 a penny, the black at 4, excepting in payment of country rates."-Holmes' Annals, I, p. 271. A fathom or belt of wampum consisted of 360 beads, and its value fluctuated greatly from time to time. In 1640 the white was reckoned at four, and the black at two beads a penny; three years afterward it was worth but half as much. But it had been made legal tender to the amount of forty shillings, whereas in 1640 it was limited to one shilling.-Sumner's History American Currency, pp. 4, 8. Reckoning wampum at its value as fixed in 1643, the tax paid by the Pequots on this occasion amounted, if in black wampum, to £112 198.; if in white, to £56 108. 3d. In 1644, the allied Indians being threatened by the Narragansets, the Court ordered ten Englishmen to build a strong palisaded house for the Indians and to guard them for a season. These precautions having had the effect of deterring the southern Indians, the Court stated that if this labor seemed needless, such provisions should be made as seemed best for the Indians. The Narragansets at the same time were bade to leave the vicinity of the allied Indians on pain of being treated as enemies.3 In the same year the Court record contains the following: "It is not fit to deprive the Indians of any lawful comfort which God alloweth to all men by the use of wine;" and it was therefore made lawful to sell wine to the Indians.1 In November, 1644, the General Court of Massachusetts "ordered that the county courts in this jurisdiction shall take care that the Indians in the several shires shall be civilized, and they shall have power to take order from time to time to have them instructed in the knowledge and worship of God." A year later the General Court, "being still mindful of its duty, doth endeavor as much as in it lies, that all means may be used to bring the natives to the knowledge of God and his ways, and to civilize them as rapidly as may be," and it called in the aid of the elders of the several shires and asked them to consider some plan to accomplish this desire, and report at the next session of the Court." All Indians subject to New England government were enjoined to attend service on Sunday, and no Indian was to be permitted to enter a town on Sunday except to attend meeting, and never to enter an Englishman's house without knocking, under penalty of punishment." The next year, therefore, we find that a law which had been enacted prohibiting the employment of Indian labor, except under a permit from the General Court, was repealed; that provision was made for having the laws interpreted to them; that it was ordered that two ministers should be appointed each year to preach to them through interpreters, and to improve their prospects of success something was to be allowed them by the General Court "to give away freely unto those Indians whom they shall perceive most willing and ready to be instructed by them;" and a committee was appointed to select and purchase lands "for the encouragement of the Indians to live in an orderly way amongst us, from which it would appear that the Indians had no land of their own left in the vicinity of the English settlements. The same year it was decided that though the Indians were not to be compelled to embrace the Christian religion, they were to be held amenable to punishment for a violation of the law against blasphemy, the penalty of which was death. It was also "ordered and decreed by this Court that no Indian shall at any time powow or perform outward wor+ Ibid., p. 85. 2 Ibid., p. 74. 1 Records of Mass., Vol. II, p. 72. Ibid., p. 134. 6 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 7. 4 8 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 166, 178-179, Vol. III, pp. 56, 57, 85-100. ship to their false gods, or to the devil, in any part of our jurisdiction, whether they be such as dwell here, or shall come hither. If any shall transgress the law, the powower to pay five pounds, the procurer five pounds, and every assistant countenancing by his presence or otherwise twenty shillings."1 From this time the political condition of the Indians, as well as their relation to their white neighbors, became intimately connected with the labors of John Eliot and his co-workers. These men declared that it was "absolutely necessary to carry on civility with religion." Civilization, education, and religious training were closely interwoven in the history of the Indians of New England. Two points of legislation which had their influence upon the Indians' future, need to be cited: First, in 1665 the Court declared that Indian lands shall not be sold or leased without the consent of the Court.2 Second, ten years later the methods of Indian trade were changed. Considering the "great abuse and scandal that hath arisen by the license of trading-houses with the Indians, whereby drunkenness and other erimes have been, as it were, sold unto them, all Indian trading. houses are to cease, and no sales to be made except in open shops where goods are sold to the English."3 In the preamble to the Articles of Union adopted by the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, in May, 1643, forming the united colonies of New England, occurs the following passage: "Whereas we all came into these parts of America with the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." The articles provided for a commission to frame agreements to promote peace and prevent wars, and so arrange with regard to the Indians"that they neither grow insolent nor be injured without due satisfaction."5 Trumbull, in speaking of the benefits realized from the union of the New England colonies, remarks: "It was the grand source of mutual defense in Philip's war, and of the most eminent service in civilizing the Indians, and propagating the gospel among them." This union, which existed until the charters of the colonies were vacated in 1686, covered the period in which Eliot, Mayhew, and others labored with such zeal and success to christianize and civilize the Indians of New England. Though difficulties had sometimes arisen between the whites and Indians in New England, they had not involved any considerable number of the latter, and had been easily composed until the outbreak of King Philip's War in 1675, so that the efforts to christianize and civilize the natives had proceeded without serious interruption. The terri282. 3 Ibid., 'Records of Mass., Vol. II, pp. 176, 177. 2 Ibid., Vol. IV, Part 2, p. Vol. V, p. 63. Winthrop Hist. of Mass., Vol. II, p. 121; Mass. series, Vol. I, p. 175 5 Records of Mass., Vol. IV, Part 2, p. 473. I, 129; Holmes' Aunals, I, 270. Hist. Coll., 1st Hist. of Conn., ble effects of that war on the scattered New England settlements have often been portrayed, but its destructive influence on the efforts to elevate the Indians has not been so carefully estimated. Mr. Gookin's narrative, entitled "An Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England, in the years 1675, 1676, and 1677, impartially drawn, by one well acquainted with that Affair," was written from his residence at Cambridge, December, 1677. It was found long after in private hands in England, and was given to the public by the American Antiquarian Society only in 1836. Mr. George E. Ellis says of this narrative: * Even at this late day and while the pangs which it cost the writer, and of which as borne by others it was the faithful record, have long been stilled in peace, it can not be read without a profound sympathy of sorrow. The gentle, earnest truthfulness, the sweet forbearance, the passionless tone, and the full, minute, and well-authenticated matter of this record, draw to the writer our warmest respect and confidence. The substance of it is a matter-of-fact, detailed rehearsal of the jealousies, apprehensions, and severe measures on the part of the people and government of Massachusetts, in their dealing with the "Praying Indians" during the horrors and massacres of that exterminating war [King Philip's]. Gookin and Eliot were fully persuaded, from their own knowledge, that the Indians under instruction were then sufficient in numbers, with constancy and sincerity for the emergency, if they had been judiciously managed, to have been most effective allies of the whites in that war, and that their settlements were in fact admirably adapted to be a wall of defense. The darkest jealousies, which could not be reasoned with, popular panics, and bruited or whispered suspicions, had full sway. The word was, "We have been nourishing vipers." It was affirmed that, either by artifice, or threats, or promises of reward, Philip would sooner or later induce the converted Indians to make common cause with him as spies or traitors. This jealousy was natural, and is not to be wondered over. The magistrates seem to have tried to withstand it. Many of their first measures in dealing with it were considerate and forbearing, as they remonstrated with the popular excitement, and endeavored to restrain it, manifesting a true sympathy with the suspected and odious parties. But it was all in vain. Just enough cases also did occur, which, when aggravated by rumor and generalized upon, seemed to warrant suspicion and distrust of all the christianized Indians. Some few who had settlements in the towns, and a larger number of those who had never committed themselves directly to the experiment on trial in their behalf, slipped away into the woods. In three instances barns or outbuildings in exposed situations were set on fire, as was suspected and alleged, by Indians who had been under the kindly care of the whites. In no instance, however, was such a deed proved against any one of them, while there were mischievous and malignant strollers enough in those dismal days to have done many such acts, and worse ones. In the meantime several outrages and even murders were committed against the Indians by the exasperated whites, and the juries would not convict the offenders in the courts, though the magistrates faithfully instructed and urged them to do so. It would appear that, as the excitement and panic increased, something of the effect followed which had from the first been apprehended. As day by day brought fresh alarms the suspicions and animosi es against the christianized Indians could no longer be held in check. Some indeed were ready to turn against them with the deadliest weapons. The rooted race prejudice stirred the English blood. Their [the Indians'] occasional assumptions of equality, induced by their common Christian profession and observances, made the Indians offensive. Timid and thrifty persons dreaded the strolling or camping of a few of them in their neighborhood, as worse than Gypsies. The Indians observed and felt all these things, and it is not to be wondered at that they sometimes |