USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Cape Cod, the right arm of Massachusetts : an historical narrative > Part 24
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Vessels.
Men.
Quintals cured.
Chatham,
boats,
64
250
Dennisport,
boats,
30
600
Provincetown,
27*
506
10,600
600
11,450
From the settlement of the country to the present time, the mackerel fishery has been extensively pursued, but has been attended with great fluctuations and uncertainties. The mackerel is a sportive and capricious fish, liable to change its haunts and its habits. Exact statements and reliable statistics of the business are not to be obtained previous to 1804. Commencing that year with a catch of 8000 bbls., the produet gradually mounted upward to 236,243 bbls. in 1820, and for the next fifteen years hardly ever went below 200,000 bbls., averaging more than that amount. From 1835 to 1845, there was a considerable reduction of product, but in the latter year it amounted to 202,302 bbls. In 1851, the catch went up to 329,242 bbls. The total catch of the year 1896, as reported by the inspector general, was only 70,717 bbls., in the entire state.
This decline is by some attributed to the use of the purse seine, by which whole "schools" may be surrounded off-
*Including fresh fish fleet.
316
CAPE COD.
shore, in any depth of water. Other causes, however, may have and probably did contribute to this result.
From the statistics available, the relation of the Cape towns to this enterprise may be gathered. In 1851, when the largest catch of the state is reported, the number of vessels, tonnage and number of men and boys employed in this county are given below :
No. 28
Tonnage.
Barnstable,
1,918
Men and boys. 339
Brewster,
4
259
47
Chatham,
19
1,346
230
Dennis,
47
3,096
585
Eastham,
3
170
23
Harwich,
48
3,231
577
Orleans,
5
336
54
Provincetown,
60
4,332
688
Truro,
52
3,626
581
Wellfleet,
79
5,411
852
Yarmouth,
14
990
169
359
24,715
4,145
Whole state,
853
53,705
9,112
In 1896, the total catch inspected in this county is comprised in 2,397 bbls., reported in Provincetown, taken by eight vessels and 169 men. The business of catching mackerel has not, however, declined to such a degree as these figures would seem to indicate, but the business has changed its character, a considerable number of Provincetown men being engaged in the market fresh fishery, though the fleet does not make a very great showing compared with that of former years, being composed of about 20 vessels during the year, only some 15 of them continuing in the business
317
THE FISHERIES AND WHALING.
for the entire season. These vessels employed not much exceeding 400 men.
Although cod and mackerel have, from the beginning of our history, been the chief objects of pursuit by our fishermen, and have engaged, more than all others, the attention of business and scientific men and legislators, there are many other and very valuable fisheries near at hand .* As population has increased and the markets for food fishes have multiplied, the resources of our waters and coast have been enhanced in value and importance, and contrivances for catching fish have taxed the inventive faculties of the enterprising and ingenious. Such devices as weirs, pounds, and fykes, for entrapping the inhabitants of the sea, though not in all respects unknown in former times, have in late years been employed to such an extent as to revolutionize the business. The expediency of employing these devices is a matter of earnest controversy, and much attention is devoted by the legislature and scientific boards in the discussion of measures for regulating or restraining these instrumentalities, in the same line of the controversy respecting sweep nets in the deep water fisheries. That our waters abound in more than usually important and interesting piscatorial specimens, is evident from the establishment of a branch of the United Sates Fishery Commission in Wood's Hole in this county, whence specimens are collected, observations of fish life and development are made, and adjacent waters, which have been denuded, are restocked with eggs and fry of different varieties of fish in great quantities and illimitable numbers.
The connection of the Cape fisheries with the cause of popular education did not terminate with the appropriation of their proceeds by the colony court to the establishment of *See page 5.
818
CAPE COD.
a Grammar school in Plymouth. The importance of this section for scientific investigation and research was recognized by the establishment, in connection with the Wood's Hole U. S. Fishery station, about the year 1887, of the Marine Biological Laboratory, one of the most widely known and firmly established summer schools in existence, devoted to natural science. This is said to be the largest summer school of biology in the world, some two hundred persons being in attendance in 1896, and next to the Naples Station, it takes first rank in the number and importance of the contributions to knowledge which have gone out from it. It is also an excellent example of successful inter-collegiate co-operation.
The whaling business is another once important, now greatly depressed, industry. When the English first visited these shores Cape Cod bay was a favorite resort for whales, which abounded here and found the food they desired, and in the pursuit of which they were often drawn into shoal water and not infrequently left by the ebbing tide. The controversies about drift whales and the amount of legislation incident to this subject by the colony court, evince its importance to the colonists. They did not wait long, however, for stranded whales, but put forth in their frail boats and boldly attacked the leviathan "in its native element." Stations were erected on the seaside, where watch was kept for the appearance of the huge game. In Yarmouth a section was set apart (in the present town of Dennis) for the houses of the whalemen, and a spring of unfailing water was reserved for their use, and the " Whaling Grounds" have never been entirely alienated by the two towns. That the whalemen of this region early possessed unusual skill in this pursuit is evinced by the announcement that in 1690, "Ichabod Paddock of Yarmouth went to
319
THE FISHERIES AND WHALING.
Nantucket to instruct the people in the art of killing whales in boats from the shore."
Whales becoming scarce after a while, vessels were fitted out to search for and pursue them. From Truro, Wellfleet, Falmouth, a lucrative business was pursued. In 1771, Barnstable county had 36 vessels engaged in this business, 2 from Truro, 2 from Barnstable, 4 from Falmouth, 30 from Wellfleet, with an average tonnage of about 75, and manned with an average of 15 men. Two citizens of Truro, Captains David Smith and Gamaliel Collins, in 1774, adventured to the Falkland Islands in pursuit of whales, acting by the advice of Admiral Montague of the British navy. They were successful, and after that visited the coast of Guinea and Brazil. The oft-quoted description of the New England whaleman, by England's great orator, Edmund Burke, loses nothing by age and use : "While we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, pene- trating into the deepest recesses of Hudson Bay ; while we are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of Polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of natural ambition, is but a stage and resting place in the progress of their victorious industry. While some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue the gigantic game along the shores of Brazil."
Capt. Jesse Holbrook of Wellfleet, who flourished in the period of the Revolutionary war, on one voyage killed 52 sperm whales. A London company eagerly engaged him for twelve years, to teach their employes his art. After a career of diversified fortune, he returned to Wellfleet,
320
CAPE COD.
where his life was closed. In nearly every Cape town half a century ago, numbers of veteran retired whaling captains might be found, but few of them now remain on the stage of action.
At different periods several towns of this county had considerable fleets engaged iu the business. Thus, in 1837, Falmouth had at sea nine whale ships, with an aggregate of 2,823 tonnage. None now hail from that port. In 1865, twenty-eight Provincetown crafts brought in rising $300,000 worth of oil. In 1896, fourteen vessels, with an aggregate of 1,278.08 tonnage, sailed from that port. In 1855, there were fourteen whaling vessels employing 155 men hailing from Orleans. They have long since disappeared. The business as a leading industry of the county has steadily declined, along with the cod and mackerel fisheries.
A
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NATIVE INDIANS.
Friendliness of the Aborigines-Decimated by the Plague-Capt. Hunt's Treachery -The Local Sachemdoms-Indian Legends- Purchase of the Soil-Early efforts to Christianize the natives- Richard Bourne and his labors-Mr. Bourne's successors-Civil government for the Indians-Mr. Tupper's work in Sandwich- Enumeration of "praying Indians" on the Cape-Mr. Treat's and Mr. Thornton's labors as missionaries-Causes of the decay of the Indians considered-Organization of District of Mashpee- Yar- mouth Indians and Deacon Nauhaught-Lack of Memorials of the Aborigines.
HE first advance of the Cape Indians to the English was in friendship and comity. When Gosnold landed on Cape Cod, in 1602, "a young Indian with plates of copper hanging in his ears, and with a bow and arrow in his hand, came to him in a friendly manner, and offered his services." Capt. John Smith coasted the Cape and landed there in 1614, and was kindly received and kindly treated by the natives. It was his Capt. Hunt, however, who kidnapped the seven Nauset Indians, and sold them into slavery in Malaga-an act of perfidy, which, for many years after, was the source of trouble and peril to the English.
In the year 1617, the plague, or some other mortal disease, broke out among the Indians between the Narra- gansett and the Penobscot, and almost wholly depopulated the region. The Cape Indians were comprised in this
322
CAPE COD.
calamitous affliction. They had, just before the breaking out of the disease, captured the crew of a French bark, and, in retaliation for the kidnapping of their neighbors by Capt. Hunt, had killed nearly all of them. A captive, whose life they had spared, told them that God was angry with them, and that He would destroy them and give their country to others. They replied that they were too many for God to kill. They recalled this prediction when they were smitten by the plague, and when the pestilence came, began, with the natural superstition of savages, to think cne part of the prognostication had been fulfilled, and when the Mayflower and its company arrived on the coast, they felt that the other part was about to be enacted. The shower of arrows which was shot after them at Nanset, in what was styled "The First Encounter," was, no doubt, the outcome of the hostile spirit engendered by this act of treachery and bad faith on the part of Hunt.
Within the limits of the Old Colony of Plymouth were three principal sachemdoms of Indians. One comprehended the territory from Eel River, in Plymouth, to the south shore of the Cape, and from Wood's Hole on the west, to the eastern part of Barnstable. Within this were several petty sachems and divisions, of which Mashpee was the chief. On the eastern part of the Cape, from Nobscusset, now Dennis, was another sachemdom. The capital of this was Nauset, since named Eastham. These were called the Nanset Indians. All the Cape Indians were supposed to be tributary, or in some sort of subjection to Massasoit of the Wampanoags or Pokanockets .* But their depend- ence seemed to have been very slight. The local names, the places where the Cape tribes dwelt, were Massapee or Mashpee, Scanton, Cummaquid, Mattakeeset, Nobscusset, *Trumbull's Hist. U. S.
323
THE NATIVE INDIANS.
Monomoyick, Sequatucket, Nauset and Paomet. They were a mild and inoffensive race, and aside from the affair at Nanset, their intercourse with the English was of a pacific nature. Their friendly offices while the English were famine-stricken, and the surplus of their granaries, which was the object of an advantageons traffic by the Plymouth colonists, doubtless saved the settlers from annihilation during the terrible winters which succeeded the settlement.
The residence of the Cape Indians near the sea developed in them a degree of imagination and a poetic fancy beyond the wont of savage and uncivilized people. The natives of the Cape and Nantucket had their own peculiar mythology, which they related to the early English settlers. In former times, as the legend goes, a great many moons ago, a bird, extraordinary for size, used often to visit the south shore of Cape Cod, and carry from there in its talons a vast number of small children. Maushope, who was an Indian giant, as fame reports, resided in these parts. Enraged at the havoc among the children, he on a certain time waded into the sea in pursuit of the bird, till he had crossed the sound and reached Nantucket. Before Maushope forded the sound, the island was unknown to the red men. Maushope found the bones of the children in a heap, under a large tree. He then, wishing to smoke a pipe, ransacked the island for tobacco, but finding none, he filled his pipe with poke, a weed which the Indians sometimes used as a substitute. Ever since the above memorable events, fogs have been frequent at Nantucket and on the Cape. In allusion to this tradition, when the aborigines observed a fog rising, they would say, "There comes old Maushope's smoke." This tradition has been related in another way: That an eagle seized and carried off a papoose. The parents followed it in their canoe until they came to Nantucket, where
324
CAPE COD.
they found the bones of their child, dropped by the eagle. There is another Indian tradition, that Nantucket was formed by Maushope emptying the ashes from his pipe, after he had done smoking.
The settlers on the Cape acknowledged the Indians' title to the soil, by the purchase, for a consideration more or less valuable, in all cases where they occupied the territory. The compensation, it is true, was not such as would at this day seem adequate, but it must be considered that the Indian deemed it sufficient, that he still exercised the right of hunting and roaming over the territory, reserving to himself his planting grounds and the right to avail himself of the resources of the territory, so that he in fact made but slight concession to the purchaser, and his own condition was rendered actually better by having thrifty and prosperous neighbors, with whom to trade and procure many articles which, in his savage state, he could not possess. Gov. Josiah Winslow stated, in 1676, " I think I can truly say, that before these present troubles with the Indians broke out, we did not possess one foot of land in this colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors." So long as an Indian existed he had reserved to him all the land that he could improve to advantage, and often more than he made a profitable use of.
Efforts were early made to christianize the Indians. Eliot, the apostle, called to Yarmouth, to settle a controversy in the church in 1647 or 1648, turned his attention to the work to which his life was devoted. He overcame all difficulties growing out of a difference in dialect from that of the Massachusetts Indians, and succeeded in making himself understood. He was baffled somewhat by the ill-nature or quizzical propensities of a sachem called Jehu, and encouraged by a pliable one, who lent a more willing
325
THE NATIVE INDIANS.
ear; but no such results grew out of his labors as in Natick, where Eliot spent so large a portion of his useful and devoted life.
At an early period, Mr. Richard Bourne, one of the emigrant settlers of Sandwich, turned his attention with untiring devotion, to the work of evangelizing the Indians in that vicinity. The earliest account which we have of his labors in Mashpee was in 1658, when he was present, assisting in establishing a boundary line between the Indians and the proprietors of Barnstable. In 1660, through his efforts, the grant of a tract of 10,500 acres of land was set apart for the exclusive use of the Indians of Mashpee. Rev. Mr. Hawley said of him: "Mr. Bourne was a man of that discernment that he conceived it was in vain to propagate Christian knowledge among any people without a territory where they might remain in peace from generation to generation, and not be molested." His efforts were then engaged in providing them with some settled and orderly plan of government. In Feb., 1665, on the application of Mr. Bourne, "in behalf of the Indians under his instruction, as to their desire of living in some orderly way of government, for the better preventing and redressing of things amiss amongst them by just means," the court approved of six Indians "to have the chief inspection and management thereof, with the help and advice of said Rd. Bourne, as the matter may require; and that one of the aforesaid Indians be installed to act as constable," the rights and authority due to any sachem not to be infringed. These Indian courts were eminently successful, and an orderly form of government was early established and long maintained. The Indians held these courts, tried criminals, passed judgments and executed the sentences. Mr. Bourne and Gov. Hinckley often attended these tribunals, and aided the Indians as magistrates in difficult cases.
326
CAPE COD.
Mr. Bourne, having obtained the deeds of the Indian reservation, as before stated, Aug. 17, 1670, was installed as pastor of an Indian church gathered from among his own disciples and converts. The ordination services were performed by the Apostle Eliot, other ministers of the vicinity officiating. The organization of a church was confirmed at the same time. Mr. Shearjashub Bourne, son of Richard, procured, after his father's decease, a ratification by the court of Plymouth, of the deeds obtained by this noble and devoted missionary from the Indians, and an entailment of lands to the South Sea Indians, "so that no. part or parcel of those lands might be bought by, or sold to, any white person or persons, without the consent of all the Indians, not even with the consent of the general court."
The successor of Mr. Richard Bourne was an Indian - Simon Popmonet-who, after a career of usefulness of forty years, died about the timc his successor was ordained. This successor was Joseph Bourne, a descendant of Richard, who sustained that relation from 1729 to 1742, when he resigned, "complaining much of the ill-treatment which the Indians received, and of the neglect of the commissioners of his support." He still, however, continued to show his interest in the cause of the Indians, and encouraged and assisted the next white missionary, Rev. Gideon Hawley. Mr. Bourne was succeeded by Solomon Briant, an Indian, as pastor of the Mashpee church ; and, though he encountered considerable opposition in the county, he continued his ministry among his red brethren until 1758. He preached in the Indian dialect, was a good and devoted man, but apparently deficient in prudence and executive ability. His dismission was occasioned by dissatisfaction on the part of the Indians.
327
THE NATIVE INDIANS.
The successor of Mr. Briant was Rev. Gideon Hawley, a gentleman of high literary qualifications and devotion to duty, who labored here for nearly a half-century. Mr. Hawley had previously done missionary work among the Indians in Stockbridge, under the patronage of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and afterwards among the Iroquois, under that of Sir William Johnson, and had been a chaplain in the French wars. He died in 1807, at his post of duty, aged 80 years.
Rev. Phineas Fish succeeded Mr. Hawley in 1812, encountering much opposition upon theological and political grounds for a portion of his incumbency. After a controversy of much acrimony, continued for several years, the inhabitants of Mashpee, whose spiritual affairs were managed by the parent Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, were, in 1834, accorded a system of partial self-government, which resulted in the retirement of Mr. Fish and the incumbency of preachers of the choice of the people.
Following the withdrawal of Mr. Fish, the pulpit was occupied for some time by Rev. Wm. Apes, who had been greatly instrumental in bringing about the new order of affairs. Mr. Apes was himself an Indian, of the Pequot tribe, and a man of much vigor and power, both as a writer and a speaker. He came to Mashpee at a period when the rights of the natives were not adequately recognized by the state government, and became their active champion in the effort to obtain a redress of grievances. There was a quasi revolution, and the participants were arrested and some of them convicted and imprisoned for riotous conduct. The services of Hon. Benj. F. Hallett,* a native of an adjoining
*Mr. Hallett, who afterwards attained eminence as a political controversialist and a lawyer, died in Boston, Sept. 17, 1862, aged 68 years.
328
CAPE COD.
village in Barnstable, were enlisted in their behalf, and by his sympathetic exertions, the legislature of 1833 was led to accord to these people the rights which they claimed had been withheld from them. Mr. Apes was regarded as their deliverer from oppression and injustice. Since his day no stable and settled pastoral relation has been sustained by any incumbent.
The form of civil government of this district, which was adopted after the establishment of the new order of affairs, accorded to the people a partial, though not a complete, management of their own interests. They chose their own town officers, who were assisted and restrained by a commissioner appointed by the state. By an act of 1842, their lands were apportioned among the proprictors in lots of 60 acres each, not to be conveyed, however, to persons not inhabitants. In 1870, Mashpee was made a town and endowed, without restriction, with the rights of self- government, like other towns. The state still evinced its peculiar interest in this people by continuing its pecuniary aid in the support of the public schools and highways.
Another Sandwich citizen, Thomas Tupper, labored devotedly for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the natives of the soil. His field seems to have been along the head of Buzzard's Bay and the region of Herring Pond. The first substantial church erected in Sandwich was one built for the Herring Pond Indians, through Mr. Tupper's instrumentality, and to the expense of which Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston contributed liberally .*
There never was an exact and reliable enumeration of the whole number of the Cape Indians, until near the close of the eighteenth century. The accounts of the number of
*The foundation of this structure and traces of Indian graves nearby are visible on a sporadic hill, not far from the Bournedale railroad station.
329
THE NATIVE INDIANS.
"praying Indians" in the county, reported to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, is liable to the suspicion of being colored by the not unnatural desire to make this part of the field of labor appear as extensive and important in the eyes of the parent society, as a favorable view of the circumstances would admit. This view was fortified by the willingness of many of the natives to sustain a nominal connection with the whites in religious and secular matters, for the resulting advantages, without being very strongly impressed by the spiritual phase of the matter.
According to an account given by Mr. Richard Bourne to Mr. Gookin, in 1674, there were of praying Indians "at Meshaun, i. e. Provincetown and Truro, and at Punonak- anit, Wellfleet, 72; at Potanumaquat, Eastham, 44; at Monamoyick, Chatham, 71; at Sawkatucket, Brewster, Nobsquassett, Dennis, Mattakees, Yarmouth and East Barnstable, 122; at Mashpee and several places adjoining, 117; at Poscoqutt, Sandwich, Wawayontat, Wareham, and Sokanes, Falmouth, 36." To this, Mr. Cotton adds Witteaumut, another part of Sandwich, 40. Among the Indians on Mr. Bourne's plantation at Mashpee were 142 who could read the Indian language, 9 who could read English, and 72 who were taught to write.
In the year 1685, Gov. Thomas Hinckley transmitted to England an account of these praying Indians in Plymouth colony, by which it is found that there were nearly 1,000 of them within the limits of the county of Barnstable, classified as follows, with their tribe and teachers :
Pamet, Billingsgate, (Nausett), alias Eastham, (Great
Tom, teacher), 264
Manomoyett, (Indian Nicholas), 165
Saquetucket and Nobscusset, (Manasseh), 121
Mattakeese, (Jeremy Robin), 70
330
CAPE COD.
Skauton, (Simon Wickett),
51
Mashpey, (Shanks, under Mr. Bourne), 141
Manamet, (Charles, under Mr. Tupper), 110
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