USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Chatham > History of Chatham, Massachusetts : formerly the Constablewick or Village of Monomoit ; with maps and illustrations and numerous genealogical notes > Part 3
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
the beads about his neck, should, at the same time, put the rope on him to draw him by force. But if they should be too boisterous and it should not be possible to succeed, they should be stabbed, the rope being firmly held; and if by chance any of them should get away, there should be men on land to charge upon them with swords. Meanwhile, the little cannon on our bark were to be kept ready to fire upon their companions in case they should come to assist them, under cover of which firearms the shallop could withdraw in security. The plan above mentioned was well carried out as it had been arranged." 10
Champlain is not entirely frank in this last statement, as his own subsequent narrative shows. Lescarbot states more explicitly that they failed to capture any of the natives alive through too great haste; and that, having failed in their ruse, they attacked them with swords and butchered six or seven of them. The heads of these they carried away with them to Port Royal. Several days after these events, the Indians came to the shore and endeavored to lure the French into an ambuscade, which had been formed under a hillock behind some bushes. Sieur de Poutrincourt, with ten armed men, proceeded to the shore, but, on their approach, those in the ambuscade fied. The Indians then attempted to draw them into a second ambush, with the same result. They fired some musket shots after the retreating natives and returned to their vessel.
Sieur de Poutrincourt now decided to return forthwith to Port Royal, being short of provisions and having on his hands several sick and wounded men, who were suffering from lack of proper medicines and salves." He, accord- ingly, made ready and set sail somewhere about October
10. Voyages of Samuel de Champlain (Prince Soc. Ed. ) 11, 133.
11. There seems to have been a strange lack of proper equipment for this voyage In many respects. It will be remembered that they bad no tackle for catching fish when they reached Stage Harbor.
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ENCOUNTERS WITH NATIVES.
25, arriving safely at Port Royal on November 14. Bathed and discouraged, the colonists abandoned the Port Royal settlement the following year and returned to France.
Such were the unfortunate experiences of the first white men known to have set foot upon the soil of Chatham. In consequence of a trivial act of wrong on the part of ignorant savages, four white men lost their lives, and doubtless many times that number of savages fell. More than this, the natives were placed in a position of hostility to strangers, which the actions of those Europeans who came to Cape Cod after them tended only to aggravate. Little blame can be given the Indians for the bitterness they subsequently showed toward the white man, or for the massacres which followed. Not until Governor Bradford, the peacemaker, and his Indian friend and interpreter, Tisquantum, began their intercourse with the Cape tribes, were the wounds inflicted by the French gradually healed.
CHAPTER III.
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SOME EARLY VOYAGERS, DERMER'S FIGHTS AT MONOMOIT, AND BRADFORD'S VISITS.
F OR several years after the departure of the French, no other Europeans appear to have visited the harbor of Monomoit, although more than one vessel approached its shores and became entangled in the adjacent shoals. The first of these was the "Half Moon," commanded by Captain Henry Hudson, who, in April, 1609, sailed from Amsterdam with a crew of English and Dutch sailors, intending to dis- cover a northwest passage to the Indies. On August 3 he sighted Cape Cod at some point not clearly defined, but probably near its northern extremity. It was near a head- land, the body of which, it is stated, lay in latitude 41 de- grees 45 minutes north. Here some of his men landed, found grapes and roses and saw some of the savages. From this point they sailed south and southeast, passing along by Monomoit, thence over the "Shoals " and south of Nantucket, reaching finally New York Bay.1
In June, 1610, Captain Samuel Argall set sail from Jamestown, Virginia, in a small pinnace, bound for the Bermudas. His voyage was, however, prolonged till he reached the coast of Maine, and, on his return trip, he found himself, on August 20, off Cape Cod, where he in- tended to fish. He sighted a headland on that day stated to be in latitude 41 degrees 44 minutes north, and, thinking it was Cape Cod, sailed southwesterly down over the same 1. Juet's Account of lludson's Voyage, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll. 1, 121 et seq.
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EARLY VOYAGERS.
shoals which Hudson had traversed the previous year. The headland which he saw may have been some part of Mono- moit.2
In the following year trouble with the natives of Cape Cod again arose. A vessel commanded by Captain Edward Harlow, and hailing from the Isle of Wight, had been dispatched from England to the vicinity of the Cape for the purpose of finding an island supposed to be near it. The search was unsuccessful, but Harlow discovered that the Cape was not itself an island, as had been supposed, but a part of the mainland. There can be no doubt that he visited nearly all of the Cape shore. As might naturally be ex- pected after the action of the French in 1606, he had several skirmishes with the natives, the details of which have not come down to us. He succeeded in detaining aboard his ship three of the Cape savages-Peckmo, Monopet and Pekenimme by name-but soon after Peckmo leapt over- board and got away. The latter then returned with some companions, cut Harlow's boat from the stern of the ship, got her on shore, filled her with sand and so defended her with bows and arrows that the English could not recover her. At another place on the Cape shore they had three of their men severely wounded by arrows. They secured two more Indians from Martha's Vineyard and one from an island called Nohono (perhaps Nantucket) and returned home.3
Three years later the famous navigator, Captain John Smith, was at Cape Cod upon an exploring expedition. He sailed from England in April, 1614, with two ships and forty-five men, and, after a quick passage, arrived off the coast of Maine, where he left a part of his men to fish, and with the remainder proceeded to explore the coast. In this
2. Purchas Pligrims Pt. 4, 1761. The exact latitude of Monomolt is 41 degrees 40 minutes north.
3. Works of John Smith (Eng. Scholar's Lib. Ed.) 701.
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
way he visited all the New England shore as far south as Cape Cod and made a map of the whole region. He must have explored Cape Cod bay and perhaps doubled the Cape at Provincetown. That he did not go as far as Monomoit is evidenced by his account of the " Shoals," which was plainly based upon information derived from the Indians and not from his own observation. He says, "toward the south and southwest (?) of this cape [Cape Cod] is found a long and dangerous shoale of sands and rocks, But so farre as I encircled it [the Cape] I found thirtie fadome water aboard the shore and a strong current, which makes mee thinke there is a channel about this Shoale, where is the best and greatest fish to be had, Winter and Summer, in all that countrie, But the Salrages say there is no channel, but that the shoales beginne from the maine [land] at Pawmet to the ile of Nausit,4 and so extends beyond their knowledge into the sea." >
After one of his vessels had been laden with fish, Smith set sail for home, leaving the other vessel in command of Captain Thomas Hunt to load for Spain. The latter, to his own disgrace and to the disgust of Smith, before setting sail, conceived the idea of kidnapping some of the natives and selling them as slaves. This scheme he proceeded to carry out, and, enticing about a score of the Plymouth Indians on board his vessel, put to sea. At Cape Cod he kidnapped seven others of the Nauset tribe and carried all of them to Malaga. This act of treachery undoubtedly stirred the Cape Indians deeply, coming, as it did, after their troubles with
4. The "Ile of Nanslt." an Island of considerable extent, lay near the eastern shore of Orleans off about east from Pochet Island. The early settlers of old Eastham called It Slut's Bush, by which name It appears In their town records as early as 1659. It has long since been entirely obliterated by the action of the ocean currents, but a small portion remained as late as 1810. It was hilly and in some parts rocky. A tract of salt meadow lay between It and the malnland and a beach extended from It northerly parallel with the main shore. Otis' Account of the Discovery of an Ancient Ship on the Eastern Shore of Cape Cod, N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XVIII, 37.
5. Works of John Smith (Eng. Scholar's Lib. Ed.) 205.
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EARLY VOYAGERS.
Champlain's party and with Captain Harlow.6 They had their revenge soon after, as we shall see.
In 1614 Admiral Adrian Block, a Dutchman, was on the New England coast in the "Onrust " or "Restless," examining Long Island Sound and vicinity and extending his researches as far north as Boston Harbor. He or some other Dutch navigator about this time made a map of the New England coast, on which Cape Cod is called "Staaten Hoeck," Cape Mallebarre, or Monomoy Point, "Vlacke Hoeek" (Flat Hook or Cape), and Stage Harbor, "Unge- luckige Haven" (Unlucky Harbor), the last being a rendering into the Dutch language of Champlain's "Port Fortuné." 7
In 1616 Captain Edward Brawnde, an Englishman, was on the coast of Maine in a ship of two hundred tons, "bound about Cape Cod for the discovery of certain peril which is told by the savages to be there." He was under the orders of Captain John Smith. The "certain peril " was doubtless the "shoals" off Monomoit.8
This year a French fishing vessel was wrecked at the lower part of the Cape, and the natives took their revenge for their former troubles. The sailors, evidently, saved not only their lives, but a considerable part of their goods, which they sought to conceal on the sandy shore. As soon as their presence became known, the natives began to assemble and finally set upon them, killing all but a few, and compelling the survivors to disclose the whereabouts of their property. These survivors were five in number and
6. "If vessels from unknown shores had then visited the coast of England or of France, or were now to sall into the harbors of Massachusetts, and, on departing. carried off, never to be heard of again, such visitors as could be enticed aboard, it is safe to say that those coming in other vessels of apparently similar character thereafter visiting those shores would not be kindly received. This was the exact case of the savages of the New England coast, but history has recorded not much on their side of the story. Say- ing little of their wrongs, it dwells at length on their treachery, their cruelty, and their extermination." C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. History 1. 5.
7. See a copy of this map in Memorial Hist. of Boston I, 57.
8. N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XXVIII, 248.
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
their captors distributed them about in captivity. Sent up and down the Cape from sachem to sachem to be made sport of, they were fed with the food of dogs, while, as hewers of wood and drawers of water, they experienced a fate worse than that of slaves." Of course, the natives of Monomoit had a part in this savagery. At length, two of the five were rescued in 1619, as will appear later; "while another, more fortunate than the rest in respect to the chief into whose hands he fell, adapted himself to his new con- ditions, and even had a squaw bestowed upon him, by whom he left a child. Of yet another there has a tradition come down, through two wholly disconnected sources, that he had saved a book, apparently a copy of the Bible, in which he often read; and that finally he learned enough of their language to rebuke his tormenters, and to predict for them God's displeasure and the coming of a race which should destroy them." 10)
The year 1616 was also memorable as the year of the great plague among the New England Indians. It was thought by some to have been the yellow fever; but, as it was not stopped by cold weather, but continued its ravages throughout the winter of 1616-17 and into the next sum- mer, and was not communicated to the white people who came into contact with the Indians at that time, the better opinion seems to be that it was simply what Governor William Bradford describes it to be, "an infectious fever." 11 It depopulated the country settled a few years after by the Pilgrims and Puritans, but was supposed not to have raged so violently among the Indians farther south. I doubt, however, whether the Cape Indians escaped lightly. Champ- lain, in 1606, reports the Indians at Port Fortune as very
9. C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. History I, 6; Bradford's Ilistory, ₩9. 65
10. C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. History I, 7.
11. C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. Ilistory I, Chap. I.
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EARLY VOYAGERS.
numerous, while Governor Bradford, in 1622, as we shall sce, found the inhabitants but few.
In 1619 a new explorer, Captain Thomas Dermer, an Englishman employed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, was upon the Cape Cod coast. He rescued two of the unfortunate French sailors, already three years in captivity among the Cape Indians, visited Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard and then returned to his rendezvous, the island of Monhegan, on the coast of Maine. Dermer had with him on this voyage an Indian named Tisquantum or Squanto as interpreter and guide, of whom particular mention should be made, as he was closely identified with Monomoit, visiting it or its vicinity several times and finally dying there in 1622. His ashes, probably, found their final resting place some- where in its soil. He was one of the Indians kidnapped by Hunt in 1614, but, unlike the others, he seems to have won the friendship of his captors, learned their language, and became of great use to the Eng- lish. He somehow reached England from Spain, perhaps brought thither by Hunt, who found difficulty in disposing of all his human freight at Malaga, and be- came a servant to an English gentleman. Later he was at Newfoundland, where Dermer first found him.
After his return to Monhegan, as above stated, Dermer decided, for various reasons, to set out for Virginia, taking with him four or five men besides the Frenchmen. On this voyage to Virginia he entered the harbor at Monomoit. "We had not now," he says, "that fair quarter [i. e. treat- ment] among the savages as before, which, I take it, was by reason of our savage's absence [i. e. Tisquantum], who desired (in regard of our long journey) to stay with some of our savage friends at Sawahquatooke; 2 for now almost everywhere where they were of any strength, they sought to betray us. At Manamock 3 (the southern part of Cape Cod
12. Satucket (Brewster).
13. Monomoit. -(4)-
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
now called Sutcliffe's Inlets) "4 I was unawares taken prisoner, when they sought to kill my men whom I left to man the pinnace, but missing of their purpose, they de- manded a ransom, which had, I was as far from liberty as before. Yet it pleased God at last, after a strange manner, to deliver me, with three of them, into my hands, and a little after the chief sachem himself, who, seeing me weigh anchor, would have leaped overboard, but intercepted, craved pardon, and sent for the hatchets given for ransom, exeusing himself by laying the fault on his neighbors; and to be friends, sent for a canoe's lading of corn, which received, we set him free." 6
The next voyagers in the vicinity of Monomoit, of whom we have any account, were destined by Providence to play a far greater part in the history of the New World than all those who had preceded them, for they were none other than the Pilgrims on their memorable voyage to found a colony in a land, where the pure light of their faith might shine undisturbed, both for their own profit and the benefit of those in heathen darkness. The record of the voyage shows that, after they first sighted land on November 9, 1620, they attempted to pass down south of the Cape over the "Shoals," in all probability in full sight of Monomoit, but being alarmed, as other voyagers had been, by the dangerous reefs and breakers, turned back northward and sought refuge at Provincetown. Governor Bradford, in his account of the voyage, mentions their first landfall, which was toward the north part of the Cape, and then says :
"After some deliberation had amongst themselves & with
14. This name for Monomolt was given by some English voyager, of whom we have no record. It was probably bestowed In honor of Dr. Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, who was associated with SIr Ferdinando Gorges In hils enterprises for colonization on the New England coast. Ile is mentioned by Captain John Smith as one of those who fitted him out in 1615 for a voyage to New England, which he attempted, but falled to accomplish by reason of shipwreck.
15. Dermer's Letter to Purchas, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., (2nd serles). Vol. I; Brad- ford's History, 59. Some writers place this voyage in the year 1620, for reasons not apparent.
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EARLY VOYAGERS.
ye Mr. of ye ship, they tacked aboute and resolved to stande for ye sonthward (ye wind & weather being faire) to finde some place abonte Hudson's river for their habita- tion.16 But after they had sailed yt course about halfe ye day, they fell amongst deangerous shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so farr intangled therwith, as they conceived themselves in great danger ; & ye wind shrinking upon them withall, they resolved to bear up againe for the Cape, and thought themselves hapy to gett out of those dangers before night overtooke them, as by God's provi- dence they did. And ye next day they gott into ye Cape- harbor" [Provincetown ].17
It is evident, therefore, that to the "Shoals" of Monomoit must be attributed the result that New England, and not New York or New Jersey, became the home of the Pilgrims.
In the summer of 1622 an English vessel called the Dis- covery, Captain Jones master, must have spent some time in the vicinity of Monomoit. She was fitted out by English merchants to discover all the harbors between Virginia and Plymouth and the shoals of Cape Cod, and to trade along the coast where they could. On her way from Virginia she reached Plymouth in August.18
A few months later we find the Pilgrims again on the outer shore of the Cape and having an experience with the "Shoals" similar to their previous one. This time Governor Bradford with a small crew was upon a trading expedition from Plymouth around the outside of the Cape. 19 He carried
16. According to thelr original intention.
17. Bradford's History, 46. Governor Bradford adds the following explanation : " It [Cape Cod] was thus first named by Capten Gosnole and his company, Ano: 1602, and after by Capten Smith was caled Cape James; but it retains ye former name amongst seamen. Also yt pointe which first shewed those dangerous shoulds unto them, they called Pointe Care and Tucker's Terrour; but ye French & Dutch, to this day, call it Malabarr, by reason of those perilous shoulds, and ye losses they have suffered their." 18. Bradford's History, 91.
19. Governor Bradford on this occasion had a small ship, the Swan, from Mr. Thomas Weston's colony at Wessagussett (Weymouth) and a Plymouth shallop. His crew was partly from Plymouth and partly from Wessagussett. Morton, New England's Memorial (Davis' Ed.), 83.
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
with him Tisquantum or Squanto as an interpreter and pilot, who had assured him that he had "twice passed within the shoals of Cape Cod both with English and French," " and knew the way. "Nevertheless," says Governor Winslow, in his account of the voyage, "they went so far with him, as the master of the ship saw no hope of passage, but being, as he thought, in danger, bare up and according to Tisquantum's directions, made for a harbor not far from them at a place called Manamoyeke, which they found, and sounding it with their shallop, found the channel, though but narrow and crooked,21 where at length they harbored the ship.
That night the Governor, accompanied with others, having Tisquantum for his interpreter, went ashore. At first the inhabitants played least in sight, because none of our people had ever been there before; but understanding the ends [i. e. objects] of their coming, at length came to them, wel- coming our Governor according to their savage manner ; refreshing them very well with store of venison and other victuals, which they brought them in great abundance ; promising to trade with them, with a seeming gladness of the occasion. Yet their joy was mixed with much jealousy [i. e. suspicion ] as appeared by their after practices ; for at first they were loth their dwellings should be known, but when they saw our Governor's resolution to stay on the shore all night, they brought him to their houses, having first conveyed all their stuff to a remote place not far from the same ; which one of our men, walking forth occasionally, espied. Whereupon, on the sudden, neither it nor they 20. Tisquantum is the same It dian mentioned by Dermer as accompanying him on his voyage.
21. This description, doubtless, applies to the opening through Nauset Beach into Pleasant Bay, then existing, but now long since closed. The following language of Governor Winslow seems to point to this conclusion: "Here they perceived that the tide set In and out with more violence at some other place more sontherly, which they had not seen nor could discover, by reason of the violence of the season all the time of their abode there. Some judged that the entrance thereof might be beyond the shoals; but there is no certainty thereas yet known." Winslow's Relation, (Young's Chronicles of the P'ilgrims, 300) .
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EARLY VOYAGERS.
could be found; and so, many times after, upon conceived occasions they would be all gone, bag and baggage. But being afterwards, by Tisquantum's means, [being] better per- suaded, they left their jealousy [i. e. abandoned their suspicions ] and traded with them; where they [the Pil- grims ] got eight hogsheads of corn and beans, though the people were but few. This gave our Governor and the company good encouragement, Tisquantum being still con- fident in the passage, and the inhabitants affirming that they had seen ships of good burthen pass within the shoals afore- said.23 But here, though they had determined to make a second essay, yet God had otherways disposed ; who struck Thèse Tisquantum with sickness, insomuch that he died ; 24 which crossed [i. e. prevented] their southward trading, and the more, because the master's sufficiency was much doubted, and the season very tempestuous and not fit to go upon dis- covery, having no guide to direct them." " Accordingly, they retraced their course northward, rounding the Cape, reaching the country of the Massachusetts and finally arriv- ing at Plymouth.
In this account the Monomoyicks appear at first extremely suspicious and shy. Naturally enough, they regarded the strangers as enemies and expected trouble. They remem- bered de Poutrincourt, Harlow, Hunt and Dermer. They knew that they had taken revenge upon the shipwrecked Frenchmen, and that only two years before, their neighbors, the Nausets, had killed three Englishmen sent out by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and that two others had barely escaped
22. "They got In this vioage in one place and another about 26 or 28 hogshids of corne and beans." Bradford's History, 92.
23. The Indians had seen Gosnold, De Poutrincourt and Dermer " pass within the shoals " to our certain knowledge. Probably Harlow and others unknown had sailed over the same course.
24. Tisquantum died of a fever accompanied with a bleeding at the nose, which the Indians take for a symptom of death. Ile desired the Governor to pray that he might go to the Englishmen's God In heaven, bequeathing sundry of his things to sundry of bis English friends as remembrances of his love. Bradford's History, 92
25. Winslow's Relation, (Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 300).
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HISTORY OF CHATHAM.
to Monhegan. There had been fifteen years of warfare with the strangers from across the sea and they expected that the Pilgrims would continue hostilities. Undoubtedly, had Tis- quantum been absent, the fate of Governor Bradford and his party would have been similar to that of Dermer, if not worse. Too much cannot be said in praise of this faithful ally of the English. Coming into the Plymouth settlement soon after it was begun, he not only assisted in keeping the Indians friendly, but as Governor Bradford aptly says, he "was their interpreter, and was a spetiall instrument sent by God for their good beyond their expectation. He directed them how to set their corne, wher to take fish, and to procure other comodities, and was also their pilott to bring them to unknowne places for their profitt, and never left them till he dyed." " On this particular occasion, as we have seen, he rendered signal service. His persuasions, together with the conciliatory manner of Governor Bradford, clearly won the confidence and regard of the natives, while his unexpected death must have strongly affected both them and the Pil- grims. And so over Tisquantum's grave, as it were, a friendship was formed which was never afterwards broken. Even the very next year, when all or nearly all the other Cape tribes were drawn into a conspiracy against the Ply- mouth settlers, the natives of Monomoit could not be in- duced to turn against their new friends. From the list of the tribes who are mentioned as joining in that conspiracy, the name of the Monomoyick tribe is significantly absent.2 No more graceful act could be performed by the grateful descendants of the Pilgrims than to ereet upon the highest eminence at Chatham a simple monument to this unhonored, but most deserving, friend and protector of their fore- fathers.2
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