their acquiring the general good will of the Indians. If they had studied the character of the inhabitants of the country to which they had migrated, they would soon have observed that the Indians, with all their native generosity of disposition, seldom forgave a serious injury; and the early and unfavourable impressions given to them by the conduct of the Europeans were such as could not easily be forgotten.

In New England, the very first act almost of the settlers towards the natives seems to have been a robbery. Several of the English, while exploring the country in November 1620, found the Indian houses deserted. Having examined these, "some of the best things wee tooke away with us, and left the houses standing still as they were."* The infamous conduct of the English captain who, a few years before, had trepanned on board his ship a party of friendly Indians, carrying them off as slaves to the Mediterranean, has already been noticed; and this act in itself could not fail to raise the indignation of all the tribes in that part of the country. It may likewise be observed, that long before any attempts were made to persuade them to receive the religion of the Europeans, some of those sanguinary hostilities had taken place between the English and the Indians, which caused

* Purchas, part iv. book x. chap. 4.

the latter to look upon the colonists as their inveterate, and often as their treacherous, enemies.

In New France, also, the folly of interfering in Indian wars was evident from the earliest period. In order to ingratiate themselves with the Algonquin and Huron nations, the French began their expeditions by carrying fire and sword into the heart of the country of the Iroquois-a people who had never injured them. This was sufficient to fix that powerful confederacy in almost unceasing hostility to the French; and the consequence was, that they received with doubt and distrust every subsequent attempt of that nation to civilize or convert them. But, even among the Indian tribes with whom the French were in alliance, the Roman Catholic missions did not succeed in effecting any real and general change in the religious sentiments of the native population.

1

The harsh discipline and restraint inflicted upon the Roman Catholic converts by the civil and religious authorities in New France, has been pointed out in a former chapter; and unfortunately the same system appears to have been too often followed in the British Protestant colonies.

Long before the end of the seventeenth century the European population had rapidly increased in New England. Even about the year 1673 it is stated to have exceeded 120,000 souls. Those who endeavoured in that country to convert the

Indians, continued generally resident in their own townships, supported by their own people, and living among their own countrymen. Even the so much celebrated church of the Praying Indians, under the superintendence of Mr. Eliot, at Natick, was scarcely more than a dozen of miles from his own regular parish of Roxbury, near Boston; and the other similar establishments, formed at a subsequent period, were all surrounded by, or adjoining to, the English settlements. From their local situation, therefore, and from other circumstances, these Indians were favourably situated for receiving every benefit which the Europeans could impart to them. But the conduct pursued with respect to them by the constituted authorities of New England, and the services in which they were often employed -- particularly in being sent as spies among their own countrymen were such as not only to prevent their receiving any real advantage in consequence of the endeavours to teach them Christianity, but entirely to prevent conversion from spreading among the general mass of the native population.

The accounts given of these acts of treachery are every where to be met with among the details of the contemporary writers. In the war with Philip, it was already noticed that his chief counsellor, Sosoman, after betraying his master's secrets, was baptized by the English, and employed by them to preach among the Indians; after which he was

prevailed upon to go back as a spy among Philip's adherents. In the same war, Hubbard relates, that, "while our forces were out, a couple of Christian Indians were sent as spies into the Nipnet and Narraganset country, through the woods in the depth of winter, when the ways were impassable for other sort of people. These two, by name James and Job, ordered their business so prudently, as that they were admitted into those Indian habitations as friends."* It has been already observed that, in their wars, the English not only often engaged the Christian Indians thus to act as spies among their countrymen, but also to fight against them in the field, and for these services they received marked encouragement and reward. But every reflecting Indian- and of these there were many must have perceived that his conversion to the religion of the Whites, and his treachery to his own countrymen, went hand in hand; and he could not comprehend why an Englishman should be hanged for the same sort of conduct for which a converted savage was remunerated. "The scouts brought in one Joshua Tift, a renegado Englishman, who, upon some discontent among his neighbours, had turned Indian, married one of the Indian squaws, renounced his religion, nation, and natural parents, all at once, fighting against them.

* Hubbard's Narrative, p. 76.

After examination, he was condemned to die the death of a traitor. As to his religion he was found as ignorant as a heathen, which no doubt caused the fewer tears to be shed at his funeral."*

Nor can it be doubted, that in the English colonies the Indian proselytes were retained in their converted state more by fear than by attachment. In many cases, indeed, they were treated by their protectors as if they had been avowed enemies. Even Uncas himself, the chief Sachem of the Mohegan Indians, and the converted ally of the English, did not meet with that treatment which a Christian confederate might have reasonably expected from the public authorities of New England. "This Uncas and all his Mohegan subjects professing Christianity are called Praying Indians. The authority at Boston sent an express to him to come and surrender himself, men and arms, to the English. Whereupon he sent along with the messenger his three sons, and about sixty of his men, with his arms, to be thus disposed of; viz., his two youngest sons to remain as hostages (as now they do at Cambridge), and his eldest son to go captain of the men as assistants of the English against the heathens, which accordingly they did. And the English not yet thinking themselves secure enough, because they cannot know a heathen from a

* Hubbard's Narrative, p. 59.