who had been invited to come and give an example of their superiority. In another record we find the following reply to the request of Count Zinzendorf, to be permitted to preach the gospel to the Six Nations: Brother! You have made a long journey over the seas to preach the gospel to the white people and to the Indians! You did not know that we were here, and we knew nothing of you. This proceeds from above [probably in allusion to the first discovery of the continent]. Come therefore to us, both you and your brethren ; we bid you welcome among us. Take this fathom of wampum in confirmation of the truth of my words. But later we read the following speech, addressed to one of the Moravian Brethren: Brother, last year you asked our leave to come and live with us, for the purpose of instructing us and our children, to which we consented; and now having come, we are glad to see you. Brother! It appears to us that you must have changed your mind, for instead of instructing us or our children, you are cutting trees down on our land! You have marked out a large spot of ground for a plantation, as the white people do everywhere; and by-and-by another and another may come and do the same; and the next thing will be that a fort will be built for the protection of these intruders; and thus our country will be claimed by the white people, and we be driven further back, as has been the case ever since the white people came into this country. Say! Do we not speak 'the truth? This speech, made in council, was received in this case with consideration, and finally the Moravian Brother accepted a garden-spot sufficient for his individual support.1 A suspicion, but too well founded, had, however, undermined the confidence of all the leading Indians of the various tribes of New England and the adjacent country. Seldom was there a chief who became a convert to Christianity. The few individual cases on record are those of chiefs who had some personal knowledge of such men as Roger Williams, Daniel Gookin, John Eliot, and Zeisberger, whose integrity of character, and honest zeal in the cause of their religion, were recognized by these savage lovers of good faith. They, by their truth, illustrated their doctrines, and so met the requirements that had been stated to Champlain as necessary for conviction. Following the records of the steps of these apostles, we read this document: Whereas we, John Watson, senior, and Henry Prentiss, were appointed by the Honorable Council of Massachusetts, in New England, to reside among the Praying Indians living at Natick, to observe and inspect their manners and conversation, which service we attended for about twelve weeks; during all this time we carefully observed their carriage and demeanor, and do testify on their behalf, that they behaved themselves both religiously towards God, and respectively, obediently, and faithfully to the English; and in testimony of the truth thereof, we have hereunto set our hands, the of 1677. JOHN WATSON, senior, So great was the prejudice of the early settlers against the Praying Indians, converts to Christianity, through 1 Heckwelder's Narrative. the zeal of good men, that it proved, as the above testifies, necessary to have witnesses to their good behavior. Of the assiduous labors of the humane Gookin, we find it stated that they caused him to be "a byword among men and boys." And at length the record states that the Marlborough Indian converts, being vilified and traduced, were sent for by the government, under a guard of soldiers, whose captain tied them, fifteen in all, neck to neck, and so delivered them over to authority and imprisonment in Boston; when, after an interval, there being no just cause shown against them, they were finally given their freedom. In the mean time all their effects in their native home had been stolen or destroyed, for which no restitution was made by the government. Prejudice and fear again and again found occasion to repeat similar wrongs. On this subject Mr. Gookin gives the following suggestions: Because some neighbor Indians to the English at Ouabage, Hadley, and Springfield (though none of these were Praying Indians) had proved perfidious and were become enemies, hence it was that all the Indians are reckoned to be false and perfidious. Things growing to this height among the English, the Governor and Council, against their own reason, were put upon a kind of necessity, for gratifying the people, to disband all the Praying Indians, and to make and publish an order to confine them to five of their villages. These were forbidden to entertain any strange Indian; nor were they permitted to leave the precincts of their wigwams, beyond the limits of a mile. "Should an Indian be found," reads the enactment, "out of these precincts, travelling in any of our towns or woods, contrary to these limits above mentioned, he shall be com manded under guard and examination, or he may be killed or destroyed as he best may or can." 1 Did any person harbor or protect the Indians, he was discountenanced by the community. Mr. John Hoare, of Concord, Massachusetts, was appointed by a committee to take charge of certain Indians on his place. "He had their wigwams pitched on his grounds, near his house. . . . He was very loving to them, and very diligent and careful to promote their good." Gookin further relates: The captain who had seized the Marlborough Indians entered the town, with a party of his men, upon the Sabbathday, went into the meeting-house where the people were convened to worship God. And after the exercise was ended, the captain spake openly to the congregation to this effect: that he understood there were some heathen in the town, committed to one Hoare, which he was informed were a trouble and a disquiet to them; therefore if they desired it, ho would remove them to Boston: to which speech of his, most of the people being silent, except two or three that encouraged him, he took, as it seems, the silence for consent; and immediately after the assembly was dismissed, he went with three or four files of men, and a hundred or two of the people-men, women, and children—at his heels, and marched away to Mr. Hoare's house, and there demanded of him to see the Indians under his care. Mr. Hoare opened the door and showed them to them, and they were all numbered and found there; the captain then said to Mr. Hoare, that he would leave a corporal and soldiers to secure them; but Mr. Hoare answered, there was no need of that, for they were already secured, and were committed to him by order of the Council, and he would keep and secure them. But yet the 1 At a Council held in Boston, Aug. 30, 1675. captain left his corporal and soldiers there, who were abusive enough to the poor Indians by all language. The next morning the captain came again, to take the Indians and send them to Boston. But Mr. Hoare refused to deliver them unless he showed him an order of the Council; but the captain could show no other but his commission to kill and destroy the enemy; but Mr. Hoare said these were friends and under order. The captain could not be satisfied with his answer, but commanded his corporal forthwith to break open the door and take the Indians all away, which was done accordingly, and some of the soldiers plundered the poor creatures of their shirts, shoes, dishes, and such other things as they could lay their hands upon, though the captain commanded the contrary. They were all brought to Charlestown with a guard of twenty men. The General Court, on receiving an account of this transaction, expressed disapproval of the captain's proceedings, but nevertheless, gave him no personal rebuke. And to conclude this matter, those poor Indians, about fifty-eight of them of all sorts, were sent down to Deer Island, there to pass into the furnace of affliction with their brethren and countrymen. But all their corn and other provisions, sufficient to maintain them for six months, were lost at Concord; and all their other necessaries, except what the soldiers plundered. They were obliged to subsist upon clams, as others did, with some little corn provided by the charge of the Honorable Corporation.1 Sagoyouwatha Keigreiawake, or Red Jacket, on being asked why he opposed the establishment of missionaries among his people, replied with energy, “Because they do us no good," and followed this statement 1 History of the Christian Indians in New England, by Daniel Gookin. |