USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Middlesex County manual, history from 1878 > Part 3
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The situation of the praying towns of Middlesex during Phillip's War was such that, as Gookin declares, "the Indians in them might have been improved as a wall of defence about the greatest part of the Colony ;"-for Wamesit bordered upon the Merrimack River, and the six other villages lay in Littleton, Marlborough, Grafton, Ashland, Natick and Stoughton, the distance from one to another being only twelve or fourteen miles.
Gookin further observes that, "had the sug- gestions and importunate solicitations of some persons, [particularly Eliot and himself,] who had knowledge and experience of the fidelity
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and integrity of the praying Indians, been attended and practiced in the beginning of the war, many and great mischiefs might have been (according to reason) prevented ; for most of the praying towns, in the beginning of the war, had put themselves into a posture of defence, and had made forts for their security against the common enemy ; and it was suggested and pro- posed to the authority of the country, that some Englishmen, about one third part, might have been joined with those Christian Indians in each fort, which the praying Indians greatly desired, that thereby their fidelity might have been better demonstrated, and that with the assistance and company of some of those English soldiers, they might daily scout or range the woods from town to town, in their several assigned stations, and hereby might have been as a living wall to guard the English frontiers, and consequently the greatest part of the Jurisdiction, which, with the blessing of God, might have prevented the desolations and devastations that afterward en- sued. This was not only the suggestion of some English, but the earnest desire of some of the most prudent Christian Indians."
But notwithstanding many signal services rendered to the Colony by praying Indians during Phillip's War, the animosity of the com-
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mon white people against them became so in- tense that "the very name of a praying Indian was spoken against. ""
Because much mischief was done by the partisans and allies of Phillip, and because some Indians proved false and perfidious, the masses of the Colony treated all the Indians as false and perfidious. "Things growing to this height," says Gookin, on August 30th, 1675, the Govern- or and Council, against their own reason and inclination, were put upon a kind of necessity, for gratifying the people, to disband all the pray- ing Indians, and to make and publish an order to confine them to five of their own villages, and not to stir above one mile from the centre of such place, upon peril of their lives." The five villages thus designated were the seven old praying towns already described, except those of Marlborough and Magunkog.
The fortified Indian village at Marlborough, which might have been the most serviceable to the whites of all the praying towns, was the first to be disrupted, and that, too, by the military
*See Gookin's Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the years 1675, 1676, 1677, in the second volume of the Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, p. 436. This volume being now a scarce one, liberal extracts from it will be made in this portion of my narrative.
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authorities of the Colony, who should have seen most clearly the importance of maintaining such a frontier post. %
"By this order the poor Christian Indians were reduced to great sufferings, being hindered from hunting and looking after their cattle, swine, and getting in their corn, or laboring among the English to get clothes, and many other ways incommoded; also, were daily ex- posed to be slain or imprisoned, if at any time they were found without their limits. And there wanted not some English (ill willing to . them,) and took occasion to seize upon them, and take away their guns, and detain them to this day, and to bring them to prison."
"Upon the 19th day of October, 1675, the Court passed an order to send troopers to fetch down all the Wamesit and Pakemit Indians ; this was suddenly done, and, to be feared, in a hurry of temptation. The reason of this sud- den motion, as I was informed, was a report brought to the Court that a haystack, belonging to Lieut. James Richardson of Chelmsford, was set on fire and burnt the day before. This fact was charged upon some of the Indians of
*See Gookin, in American Antiquarian Society's Collections, 2nd volume, pp. 455-462. See, also Hudson's History of Marlborough.
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Wamesit ; but they were innocent, as was after- wards cleared ; for some skulking Indians of the enemy, that formerly lived near Groton, the principal whereof was named Nathaniel, he and his party did this and other mischief afterward, in burning several houses at Chelmsford. And one principal design of the enemy was to begin a difference between the English and praying Indians living at Wamesit, so that they might either be secured by the English or necessitated to fly to the enemy. This Nathaniel was after- ward taken at Cochecho, and executed at Boston, who confessed the same. Moreover, Lieut. Richardson, whose hay was burnt, was a person well beloved of those Indians at Wamesit and their great friend, who did not apprehend (as he told me) that any of the Wamesit men had burnt his hay. But others were of a contrary mind, willing to give credit to any report against praying Indians, and ac- cordingly, by their solicitations to the General Court, obtained an order for a troop of horse (as I said before) to march up to Wamesit, and bring down those Indians of Wamesit to Boston. This matter might have been accomplished as well by two men as forty troopers ; for the Indians, upon the least mes- sage by the Court, would readily have obeyed."
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"Upon the 20th of October, 1675, Mr. Joseph Cook of Cambridge was sent down (by Cornet Oakes, that commanded the troops,) unto the Court to inform them that the Wamesit Indians were upon the way coming down to order, and that they might be there on the mor- row ; withall he acquainted the Court that they were in number about one hundred and forty-five men, women and children, whereof about thirty-three were men that were all unarmed ; that many of them were naked, and several of them decrepid with age, sundry infants, and all wanted supplies of food, for they were fain to leave most they had behind them, except some small matters they carried upon their backs. Upon this information, the Court took the matter into more deliberate consideration, and sent back Mr. Cook, with an order to return all the women and children, and old men back to their place, and to bring down only the able men ; which order was put into execution."
The 15th of November, 1675, there befell another great trial to the poor praying Indians at Wamesit ; they lived very near to Lieut. Thomas Henchman, about two miles from Chelmsford, and were under the guard and care 'of Lieut. Richardson, appointed thereunto by the Council. The antecedents to this affliction
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of the Indians was this. A barn belonging to Richardson, being full of hay and corn, was set on fire and consumed. This was done by some skulking rogues of the enemy, that formerly lived about Groton, as we afterward understood ; but the English at Chelmsford imputed the fact to the Wamesit Indians, as they had formerly done by the same man's hay, and thereby brought much trouble upon the poor Christians. Upon this occasion, about fourteen armed men from Chelmsford, pretending to scout and look out for the enemy, but as I was informed, it was moved among them and concluded, that they would go to the wigwams of the Wamesit Indians, their neighbors, and kill them all ; in pursuance whereof they came to the wigwams, and called to the poor Indians to come out of doors, which most of them readily did, both men, women and children, not in the least suspecting the English would hurt them. But two of the English being loaded with pistol-shot, being not far off, fired upon them and wounded five women and child- ren, and slew outright a lad of about twelve years old, which child's mother was also one of the wounded ; she was a widow, her name Sarah, a woman of good report for religion. She was daughter to a Sagamor, named Sagamor John, who was a great friend to the English,
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who lived and died at the same place. Her two husbands, both deceased, were principal Saga- mores, one named John Tohatooner, and the other Oonamog, both pious men, and rulers of the praying Indians, one at Marlborough, the other at Nashobah ; her last husband died before the war, the first long before."
Lorgin and Robbins, the perpetrators of these murders, "were seized and committed to prison, and afterward tried for their lives, but were cleared by the jury, to the great grief and trouble generally of magistracy and ministry and other wise and godly men. The jury pre- tended want of clear evidence ; but some feared it was rather a mist of temptation and prejudice against these poor Indians that darkened their way. This cruel murder and fight occasioned most of these poor Christian Indians to fly away from their wigwams not long after, but carried little or nothing with them ; but for fear, rather exposed themselves and families to the hardships and sufferings of hunger and cold, than to be under the harsh dealings of cruel men. But as soon as the Council were informed that the
*When the Rev. Wilkes Allen wrote his, History of Chelmsford it is said he incorporated therein an account of these atrocities, but the town omitted that account, deeming it discreditable to the town. Thus is history warped for purposes of local pride.
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Indians were fled, they sent out orders to Lieut. Henchman to send after them, and endeavour to persuade them to return; but their fears so prevailed that they refused to return."
"About the 5th of February, 1676, a petition from the Wamesit Indians (living near Chelms- ford) was presented to the Council by the hands of Jerathmel Bowers (one of their guardians,) the purport whereof was, to desire earnestly that they might be moved from the place where they were ; declaring they feared to stay, because (in all probability) other Indians would come and do mischief shortly, and it would be imputed to them, and they should suffer for it. The Council answered their petition, that they would endeavor to remove them speedily. But there was greater delay about it than was in- tended, by reason of divers other momentous occasions intervening. So that, within a few days after, these poor Indians of Wamesit find- ing themselves in great danger, being threat- ened by some of their English neighbors), they all ran away into the woods towards Pennakook ; only they left behind six or seven aged persons, blind and lame, which, not long after, were destroyed by some cruel and wicked men, in a secret manner, who set fire to the wigwam where they kept, and burnt them all. The
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authors of this fact were not openly known, nor so clearly witnessed thereof, as to proceed against them by authority ; but two persons were suspected strongly to be the actors, one of whom shortly after was slain at Sudbury ; the other is yet alive, who, if guilty, which his own conscience knows, the Lord give him repentance for this so inhuman and barbarous fact, or else undoutedly the just God will in due time avenge this innocent blood. This fact, when heard of, was deservedly abhorred by all sober persons. Those poor Christian Indians of Wamesit escap- ed clear away, and joined themselves with Wannalancet, who had withdrawn himself in the beginning of the war. They suffered much in their peregrination (as we afterward understood,) and sundry of them died by sickness, whereof two were principal (and I hope pious) men ; the one named Numphow, their chief ruler, and the other Mystic George, a teacher of them ; besides divers other men, women and children, through famine and sickness lost their lives. The rest of them, in August 1676, came in with Wan- nalancet to Major Waldron, and the rest of the committee at Cocheco, who were appointed to treat and make peace with such as came in and surrendered ; these Wamesit Indians, as well as Wannalancet and his people, had not been in
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hostility against the English, nor had done them any wrong, only fled away for fear, and for wrongs suffered from some English ; so that there lay no just block in the way unto their reconciliation, so they were accepted ; and yet, afterward, when they were sent to Boston, accusations came against some of them by English captives escaped, that some of them were in arms against the English, (how true those charges were God only knows, for 'tis very difficult, unless upon long knowledge, to dis- tinguish Indians from one another,) however, the testimony of the witnesses against them was admitted, and some of them condemned to death and executed, and others sent to islands out of the country ; but some few were pardoned and reconciled, whereof Wannalancet and six or seven of his men were a part, and the Wam- esit Indians, Sam Numphow (hardly escaped,) Symon Betokam, Jonathan, George, a brother to Sam Numphow, and a very few other men, but several women and children, who now lived among the rest."
As with the Nationalists during the late Civil War, so with the Colonists during Phillip's War, their necessities finally overcame their prejudices. As the blacks of our time were called in to save the Union, so were the reds of
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the Colonial era called in to save the towns of Middlesex from the allies of Phillip. It was not however, until a body of the enemy lay strongly entrenched within twenty miles of Lancaster, Groton and Marlborough, and was making daily incursions upon the different towns, that the Council resolved to arm and send forth a com- pany of the praying Indians from Deer Island, under the conduct of Samuel Hunting and James Richardson, the one made a captain, the other his lieutenant for this service.""
"Upon the 21st of April, 1676, Captain Hunting had drawn up and ready furnished his company of forty men, at Charlestown. They were ordered by the Council at first to march up to Merrimack river near Chelmsford, and there to settle a garrison near the great fishing- places, where it was expected the enemy would come at this season to get fish for their neces- sary food ; and from this fort to keep their scouts abroad daily, to seize the enemy ; and if they should be overpowered by greater numbers, their garrison and fort was for their retreat, until assistance might be sent them."
*So soon as we condescended to improve our pray- ing Indians in the war, from that day forward we always prospered ; until God pleased to tear the rod in pieces, partly by conquest, partly by fire, sickness and death. Apostle Eliot's Journal.
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"From this time forward, our Christian Indian soldiers were constantly employed in all expeditions against the enemy, while the war lasted ; and after the arrival of the ships from England, which was in May, arms were bought to furnish the rest of the able men ; and then Capt. Hunting's company was made up to the number of eighty men ; those did many signal services in the summer of 1676. At Wesha- kum, and at or near Mendon, at Mount Hope, at Wachusett, and several other places, they were made use of as scouts before the army, and at such time when the army lay still and staid at their quarters ; in which scoutings they took several captives, and slew many of the enemy, and brought their scalps to their commanders."
In the course of this War, John and Daniel Hoare, members of the historic family of Middlesex of that name, were so unfortunate as to be imprisoned on divers charges of crime in connection with the Indians. The following are the prayers of a petition sent by them to the Colonial authorities in September, 1676.
I. That all indictments that are presented against the said Daniel Hoare, either jointly with others or particularly respecting himself, by the Grand Jury, we may have copies of and testimonies that are sworn to in what may con- cern our case.
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2. That we may have summonses from the Secretary, for such witnesses as we may or shall stand in need of for our justification in any crime that is or may be charged against him to the end the cause of both parties may legally come before the Judges to the end true and equal justice may be done betwixt our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoners respectively.
3. That all jurors that may be summoned or impanneled on the petty jury may be such as are allowed by the laws and statutes of the realm of England-those in the respective County and neighborhood where the fact charged is pretended to have been committed.
4. That he may know what time he may be called to answer that so we may summons our witnesses accordingly-there being no time specified in the mittimus.
5. That your prisoner may have liberty to go and attend on the solemn worship of the Lord our God in Boston, both on the Lord's Days and lecture days, while the Lord gives opportunity."
The Hoar family has furnished the country several lawyers of eminent ability-notably Judge E. R. Hoar, Senator Hoar, their late father, and the present editor of the American Law Review. But this petition shows that legal acumen was not wanting in this family two
*From manuscript notes of John Wingate Thornton, Esq., appended to his private copy of the narrative of his ancestor, General Gookin, so often quoted in these pages.
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centuries ago. It is a curiousity in our judicial history, all the more valuable because of the unfortunate loss by fire of the records of the Colonial Court of Assistants, before which Hoar and his associates were brought to trial.
Daniel Hoare and three others were con- victed "for murdering of a certain parcel of Indians" and sentenced to death. This fact is the more remarkable because the Hoar family were friendly to the Indians
In connection with the rough manner in which the Wamesit Indians were hurried from their own homes to Boston, the still more brutal incidents attending their return should not be omitted. While they lay in prison at Charlestown, thirty-three of them "were sent for before the General Court at Boston, and charged with burning a stack of hay at Chelmsford, belonging to James Richardson. But no proof appeared, and it was afterward discovered that they were all innocent, and that the enemy did it. The issue of this examination and charge was, that three of the company, viz. one named Will Hawkins, a Narragansett Indian, that used constantly to work about Salem, and was now, since the war, retired to Wamesit, and two others that were not praying Indians, nor properly belonged to Wamesit, but retired thither
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since the war ; these three were condemned to be sold for slaves, and sent out of the country, and accordingly committed to prison in order to their disposal out of the country ; and afterward were sent away. But all the rest, being thirty, were to return back to Charlestown to continue under restraint still. A vote passed in the House of Deputies, as I heard, finding all the Wamesit Indians guilty of burning the hay ; but it was not consented to by the magistrates."
"The rest of the Wamesit Indians, being about twenty in number, were sent back to their wives and children at Wamesit. But as they passed home, being under the guard of Lieu- tenant James Richardson, and a file of soldiers," Gookin relates that they marched through Woburn while the train band of that place was exercising. "Lieutenant Richardson and his Indians, with their guard, made a halt and he held out his handkerchief as a flag of truce, whereupon the Captain and officers of the band sent to Richardson, who showed them his com- mission from the Council to conduct those Indi- ans safely to their homes ; whereupon the Captain and officers gave very strict charge to all the soldiers not to shoot a gun until all the Indians were past and clear, nor yet to give any opprobious words. But notwithstanding
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this strict prohibition, when the Indians were passing by, a young fellow, a soldier named Knight, discharged his musket and killed one of the Indians stone dead, being very near him. The person slain was a stout young man, very nearly allied to the principal praying Indians of Natick and Wamesit.""
Since the War of 1676, the remnants of the five confederacies of New England Indians have generally professed Christianity-the Church of Rome attracting those of Maine, while the rest of them accepted, more or less heartily, the Protestant faith. The Narragansetts, the Po- kanokets, and the Pequots, had been substan- tially harried out of existence; while of the Pawtuckets and the Massachusetts a mere wreck remained.
In 1677, the Indians in Massachusetts, including the praying natives, were grouped by the General Court in four villages of their own, Natick, Stoughton, Grafton and Wamesit .; But their lands were wanted by their white neighbors, and they found no rest. One by one these villages became extinct. Natick, which was the earliest, was also the last, of the praying towns.
*See Gookin, in American Antiquarian Society's Collections, 2nd volume, pp. 462-521. See, also, Cowley's History of Lowell, and Shattuck's History of Concord. +Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 5, p. 136.
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John Dunton, who visited Natick in 1705, has left us a lively account of the village and of the Indian King and Queen. On his arrival there, he says, he "stept up and kissed the Indian Queen, making two very low bows, which she returned very civilly. The sachem was very tall, and well limbed, but had no beard, and a sort of a horse-face. The Queen was
well shaped and her features might pass pretty . well; she had eyes as black as jet, and teeth as white as ivory; her hair was very black and long, and she was considerably up in years ; her dress peculiar, she had sleeves of moose-skin, very finely dressed, and drawn with lines of various colors, in Asiatic work, and her buskins were of the same sort; her mantle was of fine blue-cloth, but very short, and tied about her shoulders and at the middle with a zone, curiously wrought with white and blue beads, into pretty figures ; her bracelets and her necklace were of the same sort of beads, and she had a little tablet upon her breast, very finely decked with jewels and precious stones ; her hair was combed back and tied up with a border which was neatly worked, with gold and silver.""
The Indian town government of Natick outlived that of the church, but finally passed
*Life and Errors of John Dunton, p. 158.
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into the control of the white inhabitants. The records of the town, originally kept in the Indian language alone, were now kept in both English and Indian, and the town offices were divided between the two races, the whites taking the lion's share, and "the reds the lamb's. Finally the lamb's share, following the law of "the survival of the fittest," passed to the whites with the lion's. The number of the tribe in 1749, was 166; in 1763, was 37 ; in 1797, was 20 ; and in 1826 the tribe was extinct.
Not only have all these towns of praying Indians vanished into gloom, but five or six generations of white men have affected to look with pity upon the labors of Eliot and Gookin as fated to be fruitless, however well meant. Eliot and Gookin can bear all this, and more than this; they can bear it for two thousand years, as they have already borne it for two hundred years.
Shallow, self-complacent men may the- orize as they please; it will be found at last that Eliot and Gookin were right, and that the hopes which they indulged, of the capacity of the Indians for civilization, were well founded, and might have been realized, but for events over which they and their Indian clients had no . control.
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Although great numbers of Indians have. perished by wars of dispossession and imported diseases since the colonization of this Continent by Europeans, and some tribes have become extinct, two facts may now be regarded as set- tled : first, that the number of Indians inhabit- ing America at the time of Columbus has been grossly exaggerated; second, that in those localities where the Indian occupation has been permanent and free from the incursions of the whites, the Indians have steadily increased in numbers, and they have partially recovered from their former immense losses.
The great Dakota tribe, for example, has been steadily increasing ever since it first be- came known .*
Since this narrative was begun, the Bible and Tract Distributing Society have published an able Lecture by Stanley Pumphrey, of Eng- land, on Indian Civilization, which demonstrates the soundness of Eliot and Gookin's plans, although neither they nor their plans are any- where named therein. The greater part of Mr. Pumphrey's lecture is devoted to a com- parison from his personal examination between the present condition of the tribes in the Indian
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