Already, as appears from the records, "At a General Court
held at Boston in New England, the 7th of
The first month,
1643-4." - "Wassamequin, Nashoonon, Kutchamaquin, Massaconomet,
and Squaw Sachem, did voluntarily submit themselves" to the
English; and among other things did "promise to be willing from
time to time to be instructed in the knowledge of God." Being
asked "Not to do any unnecessary work on the Sabbath day,
especially within the gates of Christian towns," they answered,
"It is easy to them; they have not much to do on any day, and
they can well take their rest on that day." - "So," says Winthrop,
in his Journal, "we causing them to understand the articles, and
all the ten commandments of God, and they freely assenting to
all, they were solemnly received, and then presented the Court
with twenty-six fathom more of wampom; and the Court gave each of
them a coat of two yards of cloth, and their dinner; and to them
and their men, every of them, a cup of sack at their departure;
so they took leave and went away."
What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the wilderness,
to preach the Gospel to these minks and muskrats! who first, no
doubt, listened with their red ears out of a natural hospitality
and courtesy, and afterward from curiosity or even interest, till
at length there were "praying Indians," and, as the General Court
wrote to Cromwell, the "work is brought to this perfection, that
some of the Indians themselves can pray and prophesy in a
comfortable manner."
It was in fact an old battle and hunting ground through which we
had been floating, the ancient dwelling-place of a race of
hunters and warriors. Their weirs of stone, their arrowheads and
hatchets, their pestles, and the mortars in which they pounded
Indian corn before the white man had tasted it, lay concealed in
the mud of the river bottom. Tradition still points out the
spots where they took fish in the greatest numbers, by such arts
as they possessed. It is a rapid story the historian will have
to put together. Miantonimo, - Winthrop, - Webster. Soon he comes
from Montaup to Bunker Hill, from bear-skins, parched corn, bows
and arrows, to tiled roofs, wheat-fields, guns and swords.
Pawtucket and Wamesit, where the Indians resorted in the fishing
season, are now Lowell, the city of spindles and Manchester of
America, which sends its cotton cloth round the globe. Even we
youthful voyagers had spent a part of our lives in the village of
Chelmsford, when the present city, whose bells we heard, was its
obscure north district only, and the giant weaver was not yet
fairly born. So old are we; so young is it.
We were thus entering the State of New Hampshire on the bosom of
the flood formed by the tribute of its innumerable valleys. The
river was the only key which could unlock its maze, presenting
its hills and valleys, its lakes and streams, in their natural
order and position.
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