APPENDIX
To avoid incumbering the body of the foregoing little discourse, I have not therein mentioned the received opinion in Virginia, which very much attributed the promoting these perturbacons to Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Bacon with his other adherents, were esteemed, as but wheels agitated by the weight of his former and present resentments, after their choler was raised up to a very high pitch, at having been (so long and often) trifled with on their humble supplications to the govern’r for his imediate taking in hand the most speedy meanes towards stopping the continued effusions of so much English bloud, from time to time by the Indians; which comon sentim’ts I have the more reason to believe were not altogether groundlesse, because myself have heard him (in his familiar discourse) insinuate as if his fancy gave him prospect of finding (at one time or other) some expedient not only to repaire his great losse, but therewith to see those abuses rectified that the countrey was oppressed with through (as he said) the forwardness advarice and French despotick methods of the govern’r. and likewise I know him to be a thinking man, and tho’ nicely honest, affable, and without blemish, in his conversation and dealings, yet did he manifest abundance of uneasiness in the sense of his hard usages, which might prompt him to improve that Indian quarrel to the service of his animosities, and for this the more fair and frequent opportunities offered themselves to him by his dwelling at Jamestown, where was the concourse from all parts to the govern’r. and besides that he had married a wealthy widow who kept a large house of publick entertainm’t. unto which resorted those of the best quality, and such others as businesse called to that town, and his parts with his even temper made his converse coveted by persons of all ranks; so that being subtile, and having these advantages he might with lesse difficulty discover mens inclinations, and instill his notions where he found those woud be imbib’d with greatest satisfaction.
As for Mr. Bacon fame did lay to his charge the having run out his patrimony in England except what he brought to Virginia and of that the most part to be exhausted, which together made him suspected of casting an eye to search for retrievment in the troubled waters of popular discontents, wanting patience to wait the death of his oppulent counsin, old Collo. Bacon, whose estate he expected to inherit.
But he was too young, too much a stranger there, and of a disposition too precipitate, to manage things to that length those were carried, had not thoughtful Mr. Lawrence been at the bottom.
In this chapter of Good Newes, which is a continuation of Winslow’s earlier Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (London, 1624), Winslow provides a detailed description of the religious beliefs, gendered division of labor, political structures, and customs of the Indians he encountered in Massachusetts.
Source: Edward Winslow, Good Newes from New England (London, 1624)
Thus have I made a true and full Narration of the state of our Plantation, and such things as were most remarkable therein since December 1621. If I have omitted any thing, it is either through weakness of memory, or because I judged it not material: I confess my stile rude, and unskillfulness in the task I undertook, being urged hereunto by opportunity, which I knew to be wanting in others, and but for which I would not have undertaken the same; yet as it is rude so it is plain, and therefore the easier to be understood; wherein others may see that which we are bound to acknowledge, viz. That if ever any people in these later ages were upheld by the providence of God after a more special manner then others, then we: and therefore are the more bound to celebrate the memory of his goodness, with everlasting thankfulness. For in these forenamed straits, such was our state, as in the morning we had often our food to seek for the day, and yet performed the duties of our Callings, I mean other daily labors, to provide for after time: and though at some times in some seasons at noon I have seen men stagger by reason of faintness for want of food, yet ere night by the good providence and blessing of God, we have enjoyed such plenty as though the windows of heaven had been opened unto us. How few, weak, and raw were we at our first beginning, and there selling, and in the midst of barbarous enemies? yet God wrought our peace for us. How often have we been at the pits brim, and in danger to be swallowed up, yea, not knowing, till afterward that we were in peril? and yet God preserved us: yea, and from how many that we yet know not of, he that knoweth all things can best tell: So that when I seriously consider of things, I cannot but think that God hath a purpose to give that Land as an inheritance to our Nation, and great pity it were that it should long lie in so desolate a state, considering it agreeth so well with the constitution of our bodies, being both fertile, and so temperate for heat and cold, as in that respect one can scarce distinguish New-England from Old.
A few things I thought meet to add hereunto, which I have observed amongst the Indians, both touching their Religion, and sundry other Customs amongst them. And first, whereas my self and others, in former Letters (which came to the Press against my will and knowledge) wrote, that the Indians about us are a people without any Religion, or knowledge of any God, therein I erred, though we could then gather no better: For as they conceive of many divine powers, so of one whom they call Kiehtan, to be the principal and maker of all the rest, and to be made by none: He (they say) created the heavens, earth, sea, and all creatures contained therein. Also that he made one man and one woman, of whom they and we and all mankind came: but how they became so far dispersed that know they not. At first they say, there was no Sachem, or King, but Kiehtan, who dwelleth above in the Heavens, whither all good men go when they die, to see their friends, and have their fill of all things: This his habitation lyeth far West-ward in the heavens, they say; thither the bad men go also, and knock at his door, but he bids them Quatchet, that is to say, Walk abroad, for there is no place for such; so that they wander in restless want and penury: Never man saw this Kiehtan; only old men tell them of him, and bid them tell their children, yea, to charge them to teach their posterities the same, and lay the like charge upon them. This power they acknowledge to be good, and when they would obtain any great matter, meet together, and cry unto him, and so likewise for plenty, victory, etc. sing, dance, feast, give thanks, and hang up Garlands and other things in memory of the same.
Another power they worship, whom they call Hobomok, and to the Northward of us Hobbamoqui; this as far as we can conceive is the Devil, him they call upon to cure their wounds and diseases. When they are curable, he persuades them he sends the same for some conceived anger against them, but upon their calling upon him can and cloth help them: But when they are mortal, and not curable in nature, then he persuades them Kiehtan is angry and sends them, whom none can cure: in so much, as in that respect only they somewhat doubt whether he be simply good, and therefore in sickness never call upon him. This Hobomok appears in sundry forms unto them, as in the shape of a Man, a Deer, a Fawn, an Eagle, etc. but most ordinarily a Snake: He appears not to all but the chiefest and most judicious amongst them, though all of them strive to attain to that hellish height of honor.
He appeareth most ordinary and is most conversant with three sorts of people, one I confess I neither know by name nor office directly of these they have few but esteem highly of them, and think that no weapon can kill them: another they call by the name of Powah, and the third Pniese. The office and duty of the Powah is to be exercised principally in calling upon the Devil, and curing diseases of the sick or wounded. The common people join with him in the exercise of invocation, but do but only assent, or as we term it, say ten to that he saith, yet sometime break out into a short musical note with him. The Powah is eager and free in speech, fierce in countenance, and joineth many antics and laborious gestures with the same over the party diseased. If the party be wounded he will also seem to suck the wound, but if they be curable (as they say) he toucheth it not, but a Skooke, that is the Snake, or Wobsacuck, that is the Eagle, sitteth on his shoulder and licks the same. This none see but the Powah, who tells them he cloth it himself. If the party be otherwise diseased, it is accounted sufficient if in any shape he but come into the house, taking it for an undoubted sign of recovery.
And as in former ages Apollo had his temple at Delphos, and Diana at Ephesus; so have I heard them call upon some as if they had their residence in some certain places, or because they appeared in those forms in the same. In the Powahs speech he promiseth to sacrifice many skins of beasts, kettles, hatchets, beads knives, and other the best things they have to the fiend, if he will come to help the party diseased: But whether they perform it I know not. The other practices I have scene, being necessarily called at some times to be with their sick, and have used the best arguments I could make them understand against the same: They have told me I should see the Devil at those times come to the party, but I assured my self and them of the contrary, which so proved: yea, them selves have confessed they never saw him when any of us were present. In desperate end extraordinary hard travel in childbirth, when the party cannot be delivered by the ordinary meals, they send for this Powah though ordinarily their travel is not so extreme as in our parts of the world, they being of a more hardy nature; for on the third day after child-birth I have scene the mother with the infant upon a small occasion in cold weather in a boat upon the Sea.
Many sacrifices the Indians use, and in some cases kill children. It seemeth they are various in their religious worship in a little distance, and grow more and more cold in their worship to Kiehtan; saying in their memory he was much more called upon. The Narragansetts exceed in their blind devotion, and have a great spacious house wherein only some few (that are as we may term them Priests) come: thither at certain known times resort all their people, and offer almost all the riches they have to their gods, as kettles, skins, hatchets, beads, knives, etc. all which are cast by the Priests into a great fire that they make in the midst of the house, and there consumed to ashes. To this offering every man bringeth freely, and the more he is known to bring, hath the better esteem of all men. This the other Indians about us approve of as good, and wish their Sachems would appoint the like: and because the plague hath not reigned at Narragansetts as at other places about them, they attribute to this custom there used.
The Pnieses are men of great courage and wisdom, and to these also the Devil appeareth more familiarly then to others, and as we conceive maketh covenant with them to preserve them from death, by wounds, with arrows, knives, hatchets, etc. or at least both themselves and especially the people think themselves to be freed from the same. And though against their batters all of them by painting disfigure themselves, yet they are known by their cottage and boldness, by reason whereof one of them will chase almost an hundred men, for they account it death for whomsoever stand in their way. These are highly esteemed of all sorts of people, and are of the Sachems Council, without whom they will not war or undertake any weighty business. In war their Sachems for their more safety go in the midst of them. They are commonly men of the greatest stature and strength, and such as will endure most hardness, and yet are more discreet, courteous, and humane in their carriages then any amongst them scorning theft, lying, and the like base dealings, and stand as much upon their reputation as any men.
And to the end they may have store of these, they train up the most forward and likeliest boys from their childhood in great hardness, and make them abstain from dainty meat, observing divers orders prescribed, to the end that when they are of age the Devil may appear to them, causing to drink the juice of Sentry and other bitter herbs till they cast, which they must disgorge into the platter, and drink again, and again, till at length through extraordinary oppressing of nature it will seem to be all blood, and this the boys will do with eagerness at the first, and so continue till by reason of faintness they can scarce stand on their legs, and then must go forth into the cold: also they beat their shins with sticks, and cause them to run through bushes, stumps, and brambles, to make them hardy and acceptable to the Devil, that in time he may appear unto them.
Their Sachems cannot be all called Kings, but only some few of them, to whom the rest resort for protection, and pay homage unto them, neither may they war without their knowledge and approbation, yet to be commanded by the greater as occasion serveth. Of this sort is Massasoit our friend, and Conanacus of Narragansett our supposed enemy.
Every Sachem taketh care for the widow and fatherless, also for such as are aged, and any way maimed, if their friends be dead or not able to provide for them.
A Sachem will not take any to wife but such an one as is equal to him in birth, otherwise they say their seed would in time become ignoble, and though they have many other wives, yet are they no other then concubines or servants, and yield a kind of obedience to the principal, who ordereth the family, and them in it. The like their men observe also, and will adhere to the first during their lives; but put away the other at their pleasure.
This government is successive and not by choice. If the father die before the son or daughter be of age, then the child is committed to the protection and tuition of some one amongst them, who ruleth in his stead till he be of age, but when that is I know not.
Every Sachem knoweth how far the bounds and limits of his own Country extendeth, and that is his own proper inheritance, out of that if any of his men desire land to set their come, he giveth them as much as they can use, and sets them their bounds. In this circuit whosoever hunteth, if they kill any venison, bring him his fee, which is the fore parts of the same, if it be killed on the land, but if in the water, then the skin thereof: The great Sachems or Kings, know their Own bounds or limits of land, as well as the rest.
All travelers or strangers for the most part lodge at the Sachems, when they come they tell them how long they will stay, and to what place they go, during which time they receive entertainment according to their persons, but want not.
Once a year the Pnieses use to provoke the people to bestow much come on the Sachem. To that end they appoint a certain time and place near the Sachems dwelling, where the people bring many baskets of come, and make a great stack thereof. There the Pnieses stand ready to give thanks to the people on the Sachems behalf, and after acquainteth the Sachems therewith, who fetcheth the same, and is no less thankful, bestowing many gifts on them.
When any are visited with sickness, their friends resort unto them for their comfort, and continue with them ofttimes till their death or recovery. If they die they stay a certain time to mourn for them. Night and morning they perform this duty many days after the burial in a most doleful manner, insomuch as though it be ordinary and the note musical, which they take one from another, and all together, yet it will draw tears from their eyes, and almost from ours also. But if they recover then because their sickness was chargeable, they send come and other gifts unto them at a certain appointed time, whereat they feast and dance, which they call Commoco.
When they bury the dead they sow up the corps in a mat and so put it in the earth. If the party be a Sachem they cover him with many curious mats, and bury all his riches with him, and enclose the grave with a pale. If it be a child the father will also put his own most special jewels and ornaments in the earth with it, also will cut his hair and disfigure himself very much in token of sorrow. If it be the man or woman of the house, they will pull down the mattes and leave the frame standing, and bury them in or near the same, and either remove their dwelling or give over house-keeping.
The men employ themselves wholly in hunting, and other exercises of the bow, except at some times they take some pains in fishing.
The women live a most slavish life, they carry all their burdens, set and dress their come, gather it in, seek out for much of their food, beat and make ready the come to eat, and have all household care lying upon them.
The younger sort reverence the elder, and do all mean offices whilst they are together, although they be strangers. Boys and girls may not wear their hair like men and women, but are distinguished thereby. A man is not accounted a man till he do some notable act, or show forth such courage and resolution as becometh his place. The men take much tobacco, but for boys so to do they account it odious.
All their names are significant and variable, for when they come to the state of men and women, they alter them according to their deeds or dispositions.
When a maid taken in marriage sue first cutteth her hair, and after weareth a covering on her head till her hair be grown out. Their women are diversely disposed, some as modest as they will scarce talk one with another in the company of men, being very chaste also; yet other some light, lascivious and wanton.
If a woman have a bad husband, or cannot affect him, and there be war or opposition between that and any other people, she will run away from him to the contrary party and there live, where they never come unwelcome: for where are most women, there is greatest plenty.
When a woman hath her monthly terms she separateth herself from all other company, and liveth certain days in a house alone: after which she washeth her self and all that she hath touched or used, and is again received to her husbands bed or family.
For adultery the husband will beat his wife and put her away, if he please. Some common strumpets there are as well as in other places, but they are such as either never married, or widows, or put away for adultery: for no man will keep such an one to wife.
In matters of unjust and dishonest dealing the Sachem examineth and punisheth the same. In case of thefts, for the I first offense he is disgracefully rebuked, for the second beaten by the Sachem with a cudgel on the naked back, for the third he is beaten with many strokes, and hath his nose slit upward, that thereby all men may both know and shun him. If any man kill another, he must likewise die for the same. The Sachem not only passeth the sentence upon male-factors, but executeth the same with his own hands, if the party be then present; if not, sendeth his own knife in case of death, in the hands of others to perform the same. But if the offender be to receive other punishment, he will not receive the same but from the Sachem himself, before whom being naked he kneeleth, and will not offer to run away though he beat him never so much, it being a greater disparagement for a man to cry during the time of his correction, then is his offense and punishment.
As for their apparel they wear breeches and stockings in one like some Irish, which is made of Deer skins, and have shoes of the same leather. They wear also a Dears skin loose about them like a cloak, which they will turn to the weather side. In this habit they travel, but when they are at home or come to their journeys end, presently they pull off their breeches, stocking, and shoes, wring out the water if they be wet, and dry them, and rub or chafe the same. Though these be off, yet have they another small garment that covereth their secrets. The men wear also when they go abroad in cold weather an Otter or Fox skin on their right arm, but only their bracer on the left. Women and all of that sex wear strings about their legs, which the men never do.
The people are very ingenious and observative, they keep account of time by the moon, and winters or summers; they know diverse of the stars by name, in particular, they know the North-star and call it maske, which is to say the bear. Also they have many names for the winces. They will guess very well at the wince and weather before hand, by observations in the heavens. They report also, that some of them can cause the wince to blow in what part they list, can raise storms and tempests which they usually do when they intend the death or destruction of other people, that by reason of the unseasonable weather they may take advantage of their enemies in their houses. At such times they perform their greatest exploits, and in such seasons when they are at enmity with any, they keep more careful watch then at other times.
As for the language it is very copious, large, and difficult, as yet we cannot attain to any great measure thereof; but can understand them, and explain our selves to their understanding, by the help of those that daily converse with us. And though there be difference in an hundred miles distance of place, both in language and manners, yet not so much but that they very well understand each other. And thus much of their lives and manners.
Instead of Records and Chronicles, they take this course, where any remarkable act is done, in memory of it, either in the place, or by some path-way near adjoining, they make a round hole in the ground about a foot deep, and as much over, which when others passing by behold, they inquire the cause and occasion of the same, which being once known, they are careful to acquaint all men, as occasion serveth therewith. And least such holes should be filled, or grown up by any accident, as men pass by they will oft renew the same: By which means many things of great Antiquity are fresh in memory. So that as a man travelleth, if he can understand his guide, his journey will be the less tedious, by reason of the many historical Discourses will be related unto him.
Schaghen was the representative of the States General in the Assembly of the Nineteen of the West India Company. In this report to the directors of the company he announces the purchase of Manhattan Island for sixty guilders. This is the earliest reference to the purchase of Manhattan that scholars have found.
Source: New Netherland Project, New York State Archives; original in Rijksarchief in The Hague.
RCVD. 7 NOVEMBER 1626
High and Mighty Lords,
Yesterday the ship the Arms of Amsterdam arrived here. It sailed from New Netherland out of the River Mauritius on the 23d of September. They report that our people are in good spirit and live in peace. The women also have borne some children there. They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders. It is 11,000 morgens in size [about 22,000 acres]. They had all their grain sowed by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle of August They sent samples of these summer grains: wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, beans and flax. The cargo of the aforesaid ship is:
7246 Beaver skins
178½ Otter skins
675 Otter skins
48 Mink skins
36 Lynx skins
33 Minks
34 Weasel skins
Many oak timbers and nut wood. Herewith, High and Mighty Lords, be commended to the mercy of the Almighty,
Your High and Mightinesses’ obedient,
P. Schaghen
The Frethorne letter is the best example of indentured servants’ complaints and sufferings in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.
Source: Susan Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 4:58–62.
Loving and Kind Father and Mother
My most humble duty remembered to you, hoping in god of your good health, as I myself am at the making hereof. This is to let you understand that I you child am in a most heavy case by reason of the country, is such that it causeth much sickness, as the scurvy and the bloody flux and diverse other diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak. And when we are sick there is nothing to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie. As for deer or venison I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men which is most pitiful if you did know as much as I, when people cry out day and night, Oh That they were in England without their limbs and would not care to lose any limb to be in England again, yea, though they beg from door to door. For we live in fear of the emeny every hour, yet we have had a combat with them on the Sunday before Shrovetide, and we took two alive, and make slaves of them, but it was by policy, for we are in great danger; for our plantation is very weak by reason of the death and sickness of our company. For we came but twenty for the merchants, and they are half dead just; and we look every hour when two more should go. Yet there came some four other men yet to live with us, of which there is but one alive; and our Lieutenant is dead, and his father, and his brother. And there was some five or six of the last year’s twenty, of which there is but three left, so that we are fain to get other men to plant with us; and yet we are but 32 to fight against 3000 if they should come. And the nighest help that we have is ten mile of us, and when the rogues overcame this place last they slew 80 persons. How then shall we do, for we lie even in their teeth? They may easily take us, but that God is merciful and can save with few as well as with many, as he showed to Gilead. And like Gilead’s soldiers, if they lapped water, we drink water which is but weak. And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death, except that one had money to lay out in some things for profit. But I have nothing at all—no, not a shirt to my back but two rags, nor clothes but one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, but two bands. My cloak is stolen by one of my fellows, and to his dying hour would not tell me what he did with it; but some of my fellows saw him have butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak, I doubt, paid for. So that I have not a penny, nor a penny worth, to help me too either spice or sugar or strong waters, without the which one cannot live here. For as strong beer in England doth fatten and strengthen them, so water here doth wash and weaken these here only keeps life and soul together. But I am not half a quarter so strong as I was in England, and all is for want of victuals; for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in day at home than I have allowed me here for a week. You have given more than my day’s allowance to a beggar at the door; and if Mr. Jackson had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case. But he like a father and she like a loving mother doth still help me. For when we go to Jamestown that is 10 miles of us, there lie all the ships that come to land, and there they must deliver their goods. And when we went up to town [we would go], as it may be, on Monday at noon, and come there by night, [and] then load the next day by noon, and go home in the afternoon, and unload, and then away again in the night, and be up about midnight. Then if it rained or blowed never so hard, we must lie in the boat on the water and have nothing but a little bread. For when we go into the boat we have a loaf allowed to two men, and it is all if we stayed there two days, which is hard; and must lie all that while in the boat. But that Goodman Jackson pitied me and made me a cabin to lie in always when I come up, and he would give me some poor jacks home with me, which comforted me more than peas or water gruel. Oh, they be very godly folks, and love me very well, and will do anything for me. And he much marvelled that you would send me a servant to the Company; he saith I had been better knocked on the head. And indeed so I find it now, to my great grief and misery; and saith that if you love me you will redeem me suddenly, for which I do entreat and beg. And if you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for some little money, then for God’s sake get a gathering or entreat some good folks to lay out some little sum of money in meal and cheese and butter and beef. Any eating meat will yield great profit. Oil and vinegar is very good; but, father, there is great loss in leaking. But for God’s sake send beef and cheese and butter, or the more of one sort and none of another. But if you send cheese, it must be very old cheese; and at the cheesemonger’s you may buy very good cheese for twopence farthing or halfpenny, that will be liked very well. But if you send cheese, you must have a care how you pack it in barrels; and you must put cooper’s chips between every cheese, or else the heat of the hold will rot them. And look whatsoever you send me—be in never so much—look, what[ever] I make of it, I will deal truly with you. I will send it over and beg the profit to redeem me; and if I die before it come, I have entreated Goodman Jackson to send you the worth of it, who hath promised he will. If you send, you must direct your letters to Goodman Jackson, at Jamestown, a gunsmith. You must set down his freight, because there be more of his name there. Good father, do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know if you did but see me, you would weep to see me; for I have but one suit. But it is a strange one, it is very well guarded. Wherefore, for God’s sake, pity me. I pray you to remember my love to all my friends and kindred. I hope all my brothers and sisters are in good health, and as for my part I have set down my resolution that certainly will be; that is, that the answer of this letter will be life or death to me. Therefore, good father, send as soon as you can; and if you send me any thing let this be the mark.
ROT
Richard Freethorne,
Martin’s Hundred
John Smith claims to have copied down these words from Wahunsonacock, known to the English as Chief Powhatan, as he addressed the colonists at Jamestown.
Source: Edward Arber, ed., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith (Edinburgh, 1910), 1:132–136.
Captaine Smith, you may understand that I having seene the death of all my people thrice, and not any one living of these three generations but my selfe; I know the difference of Peace and Warre better than any in my Country. But I am now grown old, and must soon die; my brothers, Opitchapan, Opechancanough and Catataugh, and then my two sisters, and their two daughters, are distinctly each others successors. I wish their experience was equal to mine; and that your love to us might not be less than ours to you.
But this bruit from Nandsamund, that you are come to destroy my Country, so much affrighteth all my peopke as they dare not visit you. What will it availe you to take that by force you may quickly have by love, or to destroy them that provide you food. What can you get by warre, when we can hide our provisions and fly to the woods? whereby you must famish by wronging us your friends. And why are you thus jealous of our loves seeing us unarmed, and both doe, and are willing stille to feede you, with that you cannot get but by our labours? Thinke you I am so simple, not to know it is better to eate good meate, lye well, and sleepe quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with you, have copper, hatchets, or what I want being your friend: then be forced to flie from all, to lie cold in the woods, feede upon Acornes, rootes, and such trash, and be so hunted by you, that I can neither rest, eate, nor sleepe; but my tyred men muct watch, and if a twig but breake, every one cryeth there sommeth Captaine Smith: then must I fly I know not whether: and thus with miserable feare, end my miserable life, leaving my pleasures to such youths as you, which through your rash unadvisednesse may quickly as miserably end, for want of that, you never know where to finde. Let this threrfore assure you of our loves, and every yeare our friendly trade shall furnish you with Corne; and now also, if you would come in friendly manner to see us, and not thus with your guns and swords as to invade your foes.
I, therefore, exhort you to peaceable councils; and, above all, I insist that the guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy and uneasiness, be removed and sent away.
Smith’s letter is an excellent illustration of the hardships of early settlement and of Puritan attitudes toward Indians.
Source: The original of this letter is lost. The letter is printed in Helen Evertson Smith, Colonial Days and Ways (Hartford, 1900), pp. 49–51. N.B:: This version, the only one extant, appears to be missing a final section.
HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS
COLONY
JAN. THE FIRST 1698/99
My dear and dutiful son:
I was at so tender an age at the death of my beloved father that I am possessed of but little of the information for which you seek. My reverend father was an ordained minister of the Gospel, educated at Cambridge in England, and came to the land by reason of the great persecution by which the infamous Archbishop Laud and the Black Tom Tyrant (as Mr. Russell was always wont to call the Earl of Strafford) did cause the reign of His Majesty Charles the First to lose favor in the sight of the people of England. My father and mother came over in 1636/37, first to Watertown, which is near Boston, and after a year or two to Wethersfield on the great river, where he became the first settled pastor. Concerning of the early days, I can remember but little save hardship. My parents had brought both menservants and maidservants from England, but the maids tarried not but till they got married, which was shortly for there was a great scarcity of women in the colonies. The men did abide better. One of them had married one of my mother’s maids, and they did come with us to Wethersfield, to our great comfort for some years, until they had many little ones of their own. I do well remember the face and figure of my honored father. He was 5 foot, 10 inches tall, and spare of build, though not lean. He was as active as the redskinned men and sinewy. His delight was in sports of strength, and with his own hands he did help to rear both our own house and the first meetinghouse of Wethersfield, wherein he preached years too few. He was well-featured and fresh-favored with fair skin and long curling hair (as near all of us have had), with a merry eye and sweet smiling mouth, though he could frown sternly enough when need was.
The first meetinghouse was solidly made to withstand the wicked onslaughts of the redskins. Its foundations was laid in the fear of the Lord, but its walls was truly laid in the fear of the Indians, for many and great was the terrors of them. I do mind me [i.e., remember] that all the ablebodied men did work thereat, and the old and feeble did watch in turns to espy if any savages was in hiding near[by], and every man kept his musket nigh to his hand. I do not myself remember any of the attacks made by large bodies of Indians whilst we did remain in Wethersfield, but did oftimes hear of them. Several families which did live back a ways from the river was either murdered or captivated in my boyhood, and we all did live in constant fear of the like. My father ever declared [that] there would not be so much to fear if the redskins was treated with such mixture of justice and authority as they could understand, but if he was living now he must see that we can do naught but fight them and that right heavily.
After the redskins the great terror of our lives at Wethersfield, and for many years after we had moved to Hadley to live, was the wolves. Catamounts were bad enough, and so was the bears, but it was the wolves that was the worst. The noise of their howlings was enough to curdle the blood of the stoutest, and I have never seen the man that did not shiver at the sound of a pack of them. What with the way we hated them and the good money that was offered for their heads, we do not hear them now so much, but when I do I feel again the young hatred rising in my blood, and it is not a sin, because God made them to be hated. My mother and sister did each of them kill more than one of the gray howlers, and once my oldest sister shot a bear that came too near the house. He was a good fat one, and kept us all in meat for a good while. I guess one of her daughters has got the skin.
As most of the Wethersfield settlers did come on foot through the wilderness and brought with them such things only as they did need at the first, the other things was sent round from Boston in vessels to come up the river to us. Some of the ships did come safe to Wethersfield, but many was lost in a great storm. Amongst them was one which held all our best things. A good many years later, long after my father had died of the great fever and my mother had married Mr. Russell and moved to Hadley, it was found that some of our things had been saved and kept in the fort which is by the river mouth, and they was brought to us. Most of them was spoiled with seawater and mold, especially the books and the plate. Of this there was no great store, only the tankard, which I have, and some spoons, divided among my sisters, which was all so black [that] it was long before any could come to its own color again.
This remarkable document illustrates the cooperation between black and white servants in the early Chesapeake.
Source: Warren Billings, ed., The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606–1689 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), pp. 144–146.
1st. Saith that about a year since he went from mary branch to his masters mill [with] John Fisher a Servant to his master alsoe (being miller) to fetch some meale the miller not being within[,] this declarant Saith he went into the mill and there lookinge for meale found in a Caske amongst Some woole and yarne a turkey warme and the feathers pluckt of [f] and the neck twisted about which Turkey this declarant drest and with a negro of his masters Eat it, And about two nights after this declarant goeing from mary branch to Chequonessex with one Sandy Coloured Turkey and one black turkey under his armes John Fisher then had this declarant to say nothing but come to the mill at night and he should eate parte of them which this declarant did and eate parte of one of them but did not See the other
2nd. That at the last Springe the aforesaid John Fisher perswaded this declarant and Thomas Hartly (another of Col. Wests Servants) to kill a Lamb and lent us his knife to kill it which accordingly we did and carried into the Swamp and [illegible] drest it some of it wee then Eat and next morning he went with us and he Eat what he would and Said it was well done
3rd. That about August last the said John Fisher perswaded this declarant and a negro Tony to carry a Sheep from Chequonessex to mary branch and there kill it but if it were not fatt then lett it loose amongst the Sheep there att mary branch And there take one of the best of those Sheep and kill it accordingly wee carry away a Sheep upon the horse Tyger from Chequonessex and killed it att mary branch house but did not Exchange it as he ordered: The next day John Fisher came and Eat Some of it and Carryed some of it with him.
4th. That about the last of August last this declarant and the aforesaid John Fisher and the aforesaid Thomas Hartley (by Fishers perswasions) killed a Sow att Chequonessex house and by the said John Fishers order fleade [flayed] her and tyed up her gutts in the skin and Stones with them and threw them into the pond afterwards wee tooke a Pott and the Sowe and carryed them into the Swamp and there drest halfe of it and the rest wee Eat at the Indian towne.
5th. That about the seaventh day of october last this declarant beinge att breakfast att Chequonessex house heard mr Francis Chambers bid the aforesaid John Fisher Catch two piggs and bring them in afterwards this declarant beinge at plow the said Fisher bade him goe along with him to help him and take his gun with him which he accordingly did And shott one pigg and would have carried that into the house but the said John Fisher would not but had him goe kill another for one would not doe but this declarant could not[.] there upon the said Fisher said he would roast that and golt a Spitt for the purpose and asked this declarant if he Could gett fire who answered he could not thereupon the said Fisher Stopt the touchhole of the Gunn and gott fire and there roasted it and Eat it[.] In the time the pigg was roasting old mr Johnson Came to the fire but the said Fisher seeing him come ran away with the spilt and kept out of sight untill the old man went away
6th. That abought a fortnight or three weeks since this declarant and the aforesaid John Fisher Thomas Hartley and jack A negro at two sever-all times killed four piggs one of them being marked with my masters marke carryed them away and Eate them.
[7th.] That on Tuesday last was a fortnight alt night to this declarant and the said Thomas Hartley sitting by the fire in the middle roome the said John Fisher came to us and bade us goe along with him (which we did) then he went out with us to the henhouse and said jonny Negro had hid a bag of potatoes there and that he would steale them whereupon he put downe a board by the doore and then unlockt the doore And tooke the Potatoes presently after the same night this declarant and Thomas Hartley went to the henhouse againe and tooke a Turkey and a hen and carryed them into the shoomakers shop loft and there pluckt them and boyled them in the shop
8th. That about a week since my master Calling this declarant the said Fisher and Hartley to question for our misdemeanors Afterwards the said Fisher said to us that if he was brought to any damage he would begone and if he could gett there he would send his master a very Loveing Letter that his sheep his hoggs and turkeys were very fat etc.
9th. That what is above written and declared is very true And that this Declarant can depose to the same when Called Dated this 6th day of November anno Domini 1684
10th. allso this declarant farther saith that there was another sheep killed by him and John Fisher which he did not remember when he was examined before Col. [Daniel] Jenifer.
The marke of
Roger Court Crotosse
X
This decision by the Virginia Council and General Court demonstrates the growing distinctions between indenture and enslavement.
Source: Henry R. McIlwaine, ed., Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622–1632, 1670–1676. With Notes and Excerpts from Original Council and General Court Records, into 1683, Now Lost (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1924), p. 466.
9TH OF JULY 1640.
Whereas Hugh Gwyn hath by order from this Board Brought back from Maryland three servants formerly run away from the said Gwyn, the court doth therefore order that the said three servants shall receive the punishment of whipping and to have thirty stripes apiece one called Victor, a dutchman, the other a Scotchman called James Gregory, shall first serve out their times with their master according to their Indentures, and one whole year apiece after the time of their service is Expired. By their said Indentures in recompense of his Loss sustained by their absence and after that service to their said master is Expired to serve the colony for three whole years apiece, and that the third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere.
A famous document, in which Rolfe explains his motives for marrying Pocahontas, emphasizing the opportunity to Christianize her.
Source: Lyon G. Tyler, ed. Narratives of Early Virginia (New York, 1907), pp. 239–244.
Honorable Sir, and most worthy Governor:
When your leisure shall best serve you to peruse these lines, I trust in God the beginning will not strike you into a greater admiration than the end will give you good content. It is a matter of no small moment, concerning my own particular, which here I impart unto you, and which toucheth me so nearly as the tenderness of my salvation. How be it, I freely subject myself to your grave and mature judgement, deliberation, approbation, and determination, assuring myself of your zealous admonitions and godly comforts, either persuading me to desist or encouraging me to persist therein, with a religious fear and godly care—for which (from the very instant that this began to root itself within the secret bosom of my breast) my daily and earnest prayers have been, still are, and ever shall be produced forth with as sincere a godly zeal as I possibly may, to be directed, aided, and governed in all my thoughts, words, and deeds, to the glory of God, and for my eternal consolation. To persevere wherein I never had more need, nor (till now) could [I] ever imagine to have been moved with the like occasion.
But (my case standing as it doth) what better worldly refuge can I here seek than to shelter myself under the safety of your favorable protection? And did not my ease proceed from an unspotted conscience, I should not dare to offer to your view and approved judgement these passions of my troubled soul, so full of fear and trembling is hypocrisy and dissimulation. But knowing my own innocence and godly fervor in the whole prosecution hereof, I doubt not of your benign acceptance and clement construction. As for malicious depravers and turbulent spirits, to whom nothing is tasteful but what pleaseth their unsavory palate, I pass not for them, being well assured in my persuasion (by the often trial and proving of myself, in my holiest meditations and prayers) that I am called hereunto by the spirit of God, and it shall be sufficient for me to be protected by yourself in all virtuous and pious endeavors. And for my more happy proceeding herein, my daily oblations shall ever be addressed to bring to pass so good effects that your self and all the world may truly say: this is the work of God, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
But to avoid tedious preambles and to come nearer the matter: first suffer me, with your patience, to sweep and make clean the way wherein I walk from all suspicions and doubts which may be covered therein, and faithfully to reveal unto you what should move me hereunto.
Let therefore this, my well-advised protestation, which here I make between God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness at the dreadful Day of Judgement (when the secret of all men’s hearts shall be opened) to condemn me herein, if my chiefest intent and purpose be not to strive with all my power of body and mind in the undertaking of so mighty a matter—[in] no way led (so far forth as man’s weakness may permit) with the unbridled desire of carnal affection, but [striving] for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our country, for the glory of God, for my own salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ [of] an unbelieving creature, namely Pocahontas, to whom my hearty and best thoughts are, and have [for] a long time been, so entangled, and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was even wearied to unwind myself thereout. But Almighty God, who never faileth His [followers] that truly invoke His Holy Name, hath opened the gate and led me by the hand [so] that I might plainly see and discern the safe paths wherein to tread.
To you, therefore, most noble Sir, the patron and father of us in this country, do I utter the effects of this my settled and long-continued affection (which hath made a mighty war in my meditations), and here I do truly relate to what issue this dangerous combat is come unto, wherein I have not only examined but thoroughly tried and pared my thoughts even to the quick, before I could find any fit, wholesome, and apt applications to cure so dangerous an ulcer. I never failed to offer my daily and faithful prayers to God for His sacred and holy assistance. I forgot not to set before mine eyes the frailty of mankind, his proneness to evil, his indulgence of wicked thoughts, with many other imperfections wherein man is daily ensnared and oftentimes overthrown, and them compared to my present estate. Nor was I ignorant of the heavy displeasure which Almighty God conceived against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives, nor of the inconveniences which may thereby arise, with other the like good motions which made me look about warily and with good circumspection into the grounds and principal agitations which thus should provoke me to be in love with one whose education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in all nurture from myself that oftentimes with fear and trembling I have ended my private controversy with this [thought]: surely these are wicked instigations, hatched by him who seeketh and delighteth in man’s destruction. And so, with fervent prayers to be ever preserved from such diabolical assaults (as I took those to be), I have taken some rest.
Thus, when I had thought [that] I had obtained my peace and quietness, behold, another but more gracious temptation hath made breaches into my holiest and strongest meditations, with which I have been put to a new trial in a straighter manner than the former. For besides the many passions and sufferings which I have daily, hourly, yea, and in my sleep endured, even awaking me to astonishment, taxing me with remissness and carelessness, [with] refusing and neglecting to perform the duty of a good Christian, pulling me by the ear and crying, “why dost not thou endeavor to make her a Christian?” (and these have happened, to my greater wonder, even when she hath been furthest separated from me, which in common reason, were it not an undoubted work of God, might breed forgetfulness of a far more worthy creature)—besides, I say, the holy spirit of God hath often demanded of me, why I was created, if not for transitory pleasures and worldly vanities, but to labor in the Lord’s vineyard, there to sow and plant, to nourish and increase the fruits thereof, daily adding with the good husband in the gospel somewhat to the talent, [so] that in the end the fruits may be reaped, to the comfort of the laborer in this life and his salvation in the world to come? And if this be, as undoubtedly this is, the service Jesus Christ requireth of His best servant: woe unto him that hath these instruments of piety put into his hands and willfully despiseth to work with them. Likewise, adding hereunto her great appearance of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of God, her capableness of understanding, her aptness and willingness to receive any good impression, and also the spiritual, besides her own, incitements stirring me up hereunto.
What should I do? Shall I be of so untoward a disposition as to refuse to lead the blind into the right way? Shall I be so unnatural as not to give bread to the hungry? Or [so] uncharitable as not to cover the naked? Shall I despise to actuate these pious duties of a Christian? Shall the base fear of displeasing the world overpower and withhold me from revealing unto man these spiritual works of the Lord, which in my meditations and prayers I have daily made known to Him? God forbid. I assuredly trust He hath thus dealt with me for my eternal felicity and for His glory, and I hope so to be guided by His heavenly grace that in the end, by my faithful pains and Christian-like labor, I shall attain to that blessed promise, pronounced by that holy prophet Daniel, unto the righteous that bring many unto the knowledge of God: namely, that they shall shine like the stars forever and ever. A sweeter comfort cannot be to a true Christian, nor a greater encouragement for him to labor all the days of his life in the performance thereof, nor a greater gain of consolation to be desired at the hour of death and in the Day of Judgement.
Again, by my reading and [by] conference with honest and religious persons have I received no small encouragement–besides serena mea conscientia, the clearness of my conscience clean from the filth of impurity, quae est instar muri abenei, which is unto me as a brazen wall. If I should set down at large the perturbations and godly motions which have stricken within me, I should but make a tedious and unnecessary volume. But I doubt not [that] these shall be sufficient both to certify you of my true intents in [the] discharging of my duty to God and to yourself, to whose gracious providence I humbly submit myself, for His glory, your honor, our country’s good, the benefit of this plantation, and for the converting of one unregenerate to regeneration, which I beseech God to grant, for His dear son Christ Jesus, His sake.
Now if the vulgar sort, who square all men’s actions by the base rule of their own filthiness, shall tax or taunt me in this my Godly labor, let them know [that] it is not [from] any hungry appetite to gorge myself with incontinency. [To be] sure, (if I would, and were so sensually inclined), I might satisfy such desire–though not without a seared conscience, yet with Christians more pleasing to the eye and less fearful in the offence unlawfully committed. Nor am I in so desperate an estate that I regard not what becometh of me. Nor am I out of hope but one day to see my country, nor so void of friends, nor mean in birth, but there to obtain a match to my great content. Nor have I ignorantly passed over my hopes there, nor [do I] regardlessly seek to lose the love of my friends by taking this course. I know them all, and have not rashly overslipped any.
But shall it please God thus to dispose of me (which I earnestly desire [in order] to fulfill my ends before set down), I will heartily accept of it as a Godly task appointed [for] me. And I will never cease, (God assisting me), until I have accomplished and brought to perfection so holy a work, in which I will daily pray God to bless me, to mine and her eternal happiness. And thus desiring no longer to live, to enjoy the blessings of God, than this my resolution doth tend to such Godly ends as are by me before declared; [and] not doubting of your favorable acceptance, I take my leave, beseeching Almighty God to rain down upon you such plenitude of His heavenly graces as your heart can wish and desire. And so I rest,
at your command, most willing
to be disposed of,
John Rolfe
This petition illuminates the debate over the admission of Jews into the colony of New Netherland.
Source: Samuel Oppenheim, Early History of the Jews in New York (New York, 1909), pp. 9–11; petition translated here from the Dutch. (In Dutch the title of the document is Aende Ed: Heeran de Beswinthebberen vand geoctroljeerde Wesjndischle Compé ter Camera der Stad Amstelredamme.).
To the Honorable Lords, Directors of the Chartered West India Company, Chamber of the City of Amsterdam.
The merchants of the Portuguese Nation residing in this City respectfully remonstrate to your Honors that it has come to their knowledge that your Honors raise obstacles to the giving of permits or passports to the Portuguese Jews to travel and to go to reside in New Netherland, which if persisted in will result to the great disadvantage of the Jewish nation. It also can be of no advantage to the general Company but rather damaging.
Granted that they may reside and traffic, provided they shall not become a charge upon the deaconry or the Company.
There are many of the nation who have lost their possessions at Pernambuco and have arrived from there in great poverty, and part of them have been dispersed here and there. So that your petitioners had to expend large sums of money for their necessaries of life, and through lack of opportunity all cannot remain here to live. And as they cannot go to Spain or Portugal because of the Inquisition, a great part of the aforesaid people must in time be obliged to depart for other territories of their High Mightinesses the States-General and their Companies, in order there, through their labor and efforts, to be able to exist under the protection of the administrators of your Honorable Directors, observing and obeying your Honors’ orders and commands.
It is well known to your Honors that the Jewish nation in Brazil have at all times been faithful and have striven to guard and maintain that place, risking for that purpose their possessions and their blood.
Yonder land is extensive and spacious. The more of loyal people that go to live there, the better it is in regard to the population of the country as in regard to the payment of various excises and taxes which may be imposed there, and in regard to the increase of trade, and also to the importation of all the necessaries that may be sent there.
Your Honors should also consider that the Honorable Lords, the Burgomasters of the City and the Honorable High Illustrious Mighty Lords, the States-General, have in political matters always protected and considered the Jewish nation as upon the same footing as all the inhabitants and burghers. Also it is conditioned in the treaty of perpetual peace with the King of Spain that the Jewish nation shall also enjoy the same liberty as all other inhabitants of those lands.
Your Honors should also please consider that many of the Jewish nation are principal shareholders in the Company. They having always striven their best for the Company, and many of their nation have lost immense and great capital in Its shares and obligations.
The Company has by a general resolution consented that those who wish to populate the Colony shall enjoy certain districts of land gratis. Why should now certain subjects of this State not be allowed to travel thither and live there? The French consent that the Portuguese Jews may traffic and live in Martinique, Christopher and others of their territories, whither also some have gone from here, and your Honors know. The English also consent at the present time that the Portuguese and Jewish nation may go from London and settle at Barbados, whither also some have gone.
As foreign nations consent that the Jewish nation may go to live and trade in their territories, hew can your Honors forbid the same and refuse transportation to this Portuguese nation who reside here and have been settled here well on to about sixty years, many also being born here and confirmed burghers, and this to a land that needs people for its increase?
Therefore the petitioners request, for the reasons given above (as also others which they omit to avoid prolixity), that your Honors be pleased not to exclude but to grant the Jewish nation passage to and residence in that country; otherwise this would result in a great prejudice to their reputation. Also that by an Apostille and Act the Jewish nation be permitted, together with other inhabitants, to travel, live and traffic there, and with them enjoy liberty on condition of contributing like others, &c. Which doing, &c
This African American woman was convicted of arson, undoubtedly an act of resistance to enslavement, and rather than being hanged, she was sentenced to a burning at the stake.
Source: Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (1904), 6:321.
AT A COURT OF ASSISTANTS HELD AT BOSTON, 6 SEPTEMBER, 1681
Maria Negro, servant to Joshua Lambe of Roxbury in the County of Suffolk in New England, being presented by the Grand Jury, was indicted by the name of Maria Negro for not having the fear of God before her eyes and being instigated by the Devil at or upon the eleventh day of July last in the night did wittingly, willingly and feloniously set on fire the dwelling house of Thomas Swann of said Roxbury by taking a coal from under a sill and carried it into another room and laid it on the floor near the door and presently went and crept into hole at a back door of thy master Lamb’s house and set it on fire. Also taking a live coal between two chips and carried it into the chamber by which also it was consumed as by your confession will appear contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the king, his Crown and dignity, the laws of this jurisdiction. The prisoner at the bar pleaded and acknowledged herself to be guilty of this fact. And accordingly, the next day being again brought to the bar, had sentence of death pronounced against her by the Honorable Governor, yet she should go from the bar to the prison whence she came and thence to the place of execution and there be burned.
William Berkeley was governor of Virginia during Bacon’s Rebellion. This document, shorter than the anonymous account of the rebellion also included in this collection of documents, is a defense of Berkeley’s actions during the rebellion. It might be used instead of, or along with, the anonymous acount.
Source: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series (Boston, 1871), 9:178–181.
The declaration and remonstrance of Sir William Berkeley, his most sacred Majesty’s Governor and Captain-General of Virginia.
Sheweth: that about the year 1660, Col. Mathews the then Governor died, and then in consideration of the service I had done the country, in defending them from, and destroying great numbers of the Indians, without the loss of three men, in all the time that war lasted, and in contemplation of the equal and uncorrupt justice I had distributed to all men, not only the Assembly, but the unanimous votes of all the country, concurred to make me Governor in a time when, if the rebels in England had prevailed, I had certainly died for accepting it. ’Twas, Gentlemen, an unfortunate love shewed to me, for, to shew myself grateful for this, I was willing to accept of this government again, when by my gracious king’s favor I might have had other places much more profitable and less toilsome then this hath been. Since that time that I returned into the country, I call the great God, judge of all things in heaven and earth to witness, that I do not know of anything relative to this country, wherein I have acted unjustly, corruptly, or negligently, in distributing equal justice to all men, and taking all possible care to preserve their proprieties, and defend them from their barbarous enemies.
But, for all this, perhaps I have erred in things I know not of. If I have, I am so conscious of human frailty, and my own defects, that I will not only acknowledge them, but repent of, and amend them, and not, like the rebel Bacon, persist in an error, only because I have committed it; and tells me in divers of his letters that it is not for his honor to confess a fault, but I am of opinion that it is only for divels to be incorrigible, and men of principles like the worst of divels; and these he hath, if truth be reported to me, of divers of his expressions of atheism, tending to take away all religion and laws. And now I will state the question betwixt me as a governor and Mr. Bacon, and say that if any enemies should invade England, any counsel—or, justice of peace, or other inferior officer, might raise what forces they could to protect his Majesty’s subjects. But I say again, if, after the king’s knowledge of this invasion, any the greatest peer of England should raise forces against the king’s prohibition, this would be now—and ever was in all ages and nations—accompted treason. Nay, I will go further, that though this peer was truly zealous for the preservation of his king, and subjects, and had better and greater abilities then all the rest of his fellow subjects, to do his king and country service, yet if the king (though by false information) should suspect the contrary, it were treason in this noble peer to proceed after the king’s prohibition: and for the truth of this I appeal to all the laws of England, and the laws and constitutions of all other nations in the world. And yet further, it is declared by this Parliament that the taking up arms for the king and Parliament is treason; for the event shewed that whatever the pretense was to seduce ignorant and well-affected people, yet the end was ruinous both to king and people—as this will be if not prevented. I do therefore again declare that Bacon, proceeding against all laws of all nations, modern and ancient, is rebel to his sacred Majesty and this country; nor will I insist upon the swearing of men to live and die together, which is treason by the very words of the law.
Now, my friends, I have lived thirty-four years amongst you, as uncorrupt and diligent as ever Governor was; Bacon is a man of two years amongst you, his person and qualities unknown to most of you, and to all men else, by any virtuous action that ever I heard of. And that very action which he boasts of was sickly and foolishly, and, as I am informed, treacherously carried to the dishonor of the English nation; yet in it he lost more men then I did in three years’ war; and by the grace of God will put myself to the same dangers and troubles again when I have brought Bacon to acknowledge the laws are above him, and I doubt not but by God’s assistance to have better success then Bacon hath had. The reason of my hopes are, that I will take counsel of wiser men then myself; but Mr. Bacon hath none about him but the lowest of the people.
Yet I must further enlarge, that I cannot without your help, do anything in this but die in defence of my king, his laws, and subjects, which I will cheerfully do, though alone I do it; and considering my poor fortunes, I cannot leave my poor wife and friends a better legacy then by dying for my king and you: for his sacred Majesty will easily distinguish between Mr. Bacon’s actions and mine, and kings have long arms, either to reward or punish.
Now, after all this, if Mr. Bacon can shew one precedent or example where such actings in any nation whatever was approved of, I will meditate with the King and you for a pardon, and excuse for him; but I can shew him an hundred examples where brave and great men have been put to death for gaining victories against the command of their superiors.
Lastly, my most assured friends, I would have preserved those Indians that I knew were hourly at our mercy, to have been our spies and intelligence, to find out our bloody enemies; but as soon as I had the least intelligence that they also were treacherous enemies, I gave out commissions to destroy them all, as the commissions themselves will speak it.
To conclude, I have done what was possible both to friend and enemy; have granted Mr. Bacon three pardons, which he hath scornfully rejected, supposing himself stronger to subvert then I and you to maintain the laws, by which only, and God’s assisting grace and mercy, all men must hope for peace and safety. I will add no more, though much more is still remaining to justify me and condemn Mr. Bacon, but to desire that this declaration may be read in every county court in the country, and that a court be presently called to do it before the Assembly meet, that your approbation or dissatisfaction of this declaration may be known to all the country, and the King’s Council, to whose most revered judgments it is submitted.
Given the 29th day of May, a happy day in the 28th year of his most sacred Majesty’s reign, Charles the Second, who God grant long and prosperously to reign, and let all his good subjects say Amen.
William Berkeley
This is the law most often cited in discussions of the establishment of racial slavery in the mainland colonies.
Source: William Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (Richmond, 1809–1823), 2:170.
[December 1662] Whereas some doubts have arrisen whether children got by an Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or Free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any christian shall committ Fornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee soe offending shall pay double the Fines imposed by the former act.
This petition of Richard Saltonstall is an early piece of evidence both of the trade in Africans in New England and opposition to it.
Source: John Winthrop, History of New England from 1630 to 1645, ed. James Savage (1826), 2:379–380 (1972; reprinted in Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, vol. 3, New England and the Middle Colonies (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1965), pp. 6–7.
To the Honoured General Court,
The oath I took this yeare att my enterance upon the place of assistante was to this effect: That I would truly endeavour the advancement of the gospell and the good of the people of this plantation (to the best of my skill,) dispencing justice equally and impartially (according to the laws of God and this land) in all cases wherein I act by virtue of my place. I conceive myselfe called by virtue of my place to act (according to this oath) in the case concerning the Negers taken by captain Smith and Mr. Keser; wherein it is apparent that Mr. Keser upon a sabboth day gave chace to certaine Negers; and upon the same day tooke divers of them; and at another time killed others; and burned one of their townes. Omitting several misdemeinours which accompanied these acts above-mentioned, I conceive the acts themselves to bee directly contrary to these following laws (all which are capitall by the word of God; and 2 of them by the lawes of this jurisdiction.)
The act (or acts) of murder (whether by force or fraude) are expressly contrary both to the law of God, and the law of this country.
The act of stealing Negers, or of taking them by force, (whether it be considered as theft, or robbery) is (as I conceive) expressly contrary, both to the law of God, and the law of this country.
The act of chaceing the Negers (as aforesayde) upon the sabboth day (beeing a servile worke and such as cannot be considered under any other heade) is expressly capitall by the law of God.
These acts and outrages beeing committed where there was noe civill government which might call them to accompt, and the persons by whome they were committed beeing of our jurisdiction, I conceive this court to bee the Ministers of God in this case; and therfore my humble request is that the severall offenders may be imprisoned by the order of this court, and brought unto their deserved censure in convenient time; and this I humbly crave, that soe the sinn they have committed may be upon their owne heads, and not upon ourselves (as otherwise it will).
This remonstrance to Governor Peter Stuyvesant demonstrates the religious toleration of the residents of this Long Island community in contrast to Stuyvesant’s own efforts to prevent radical sects from settling within his colony.
Source: “Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York,” published by The State of New York, under the supervision of Hugh Hastings, State Historian (Albany, N.Y., 1901), pp. 412–413.
Right Honorable.
You have been pleased to send up unto us a certain Prohibition or Command, that wee shoulde not receive or entertaine any of those people called Quakers, because thay are supposed to bee by some seducers of the people; for our parte wee cannot condem them in this case, neither can wee stretch out our hands against them to punish, bannish or persecute them, for out of Christ, God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the handes of the liveing God; wee desire therefore in this case not to judge least wee be judged, neither to Condem least wee bee Condemed, but rather let every man stand and fall to his own. Maister wee are bounde by the Law to doe good unto all men, especially to those of the Household of faith; and though for the present wee seeme to bee unsensible of the law and the Lawgiver; yet when death and the Law assault us; if we have (not) our advocate to seeke, who shall plead for us in this case of Conscience betwixt God and our own soules; the powers of this world can neither attack us neither excuse us, for if God justify who can Condem, and if God Condem there is none can justifye; and for those Jealowsies and suspitions which some haue of them that they are destructive unto Magistracy and Ministry that cannot bee; for the Magistrate hath the Sword in his hand and the Minister hath the Sword in his hand as witnesse those tow great examples which all Maiestrates and Ministers are to follow M(oses) and Christ; whom God raised up Maintained and defended against all the Enemies both flesh and spirit, and therefore that wich is of God will stand, and that which is of Man will (come) to noething: and as the Lord hath taught Moses, or the Civill power, to give an outward libertie in the State by the Law written in the heart designed (for) the good of all and can truly judge who is good and who is evill, who is true and who is false, and can pass definitiue sentence of live or (death) against that man which rises up against the fundamental law of the States Generall, soe (he) hath made his Ministers a savor of life unto (life?), and a savor of death unto death.
The law of loue, peace and libertie in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered the sonnes of Adam, which is the glory of the outward State of Holland; so loue, peace and libertie extending to all in Christ Jesus, Condems hatred, warre and bondage; and because our Savior saith it is impossible but that offence will come, but woe be unto him by whom they Commeth, our desire is not to offend one of his little ones in whatsoever forme, name or title hee appreares in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker; but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them: desireing to doe unto all men as wee desire all men should doe unto us, which is the true law both of Church and State; for our Savior saith this is the Law and the Prophets; Therefore if any of these said persons come in loue unto us, wee cannot in Conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free Egresse into our Towne and howses as God shall preswade our Consciences; and in this we are true subjects both of the Church and State; for wee are bounde by the law of god and man to do good unto all men, and evill to no man; and this is according to the Pattent and Charter of our Towne given unto us in the name of the States Generall which we are not willing to infringe and violate but shall hold to our pattent and shall remaine your Humble Subjects the inhabitants of Vlishing; written the 27th of December in the Yeare 1657 by mee.
Edward Heart,
Clericus.
Tobias Feake
William Thorne. Sr.
Edward Tarne?
Nathaniel Hefferd
The Marke of William Pidgion
Ellias Doughtie
Richard Stocton
Nathaniel Tue
The Marke M of Micah Tue
Edward Ffarington
Robert Efield, Jr.
Michael Milner
George Wright
Henry Samtell
John Mastine
The Marke of William Noble
The mark of William Thorne,
John Storer
Benjamin Hubbard
The Marke of George Clere
Antonie Feild
Edward Griffine
Nicolas Blackford
The Marke P of Philipp Ud
Robert Efield, Sr.
Nick Colas Parsell
Henry Townsend
John Foard
Edward Heart
John Townesend
First of January, 1658
Bradford’s account of the history of Plymouth cannot be reproduced in full; this excerpt contains Bradford’s account of Samoset, Squanto, and the treaty these Indians helped the Pilgrims negotiate with the Wampanoag chief, Massosoit.
Source: William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morrison (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953).
All this while the Indians came skulking about them, and would sometimes show themselves aloof off, but when any approached near them, they would run away, and once they stole away their tools where they had been at work and were gone to dinner. But about the 16th of March, a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand but marveled at it. At length they understood, by discourse with him, that he was not of these parts but belonged to the eastern parts where some English ships came to fish, with whom he was acquainted and could name sundry of them by their names, amongst whom he had got his language. He became profitable to them in acquainting them with many things concerning the state of the country in the east parts where he lived, which was afterward profitable unto them, as also of the people here, of their names, number, and strength, of their situation and distance from this place, and who was chief amongst them. His name was Samoset. He told them also of another Indian whose name was Squanto, a native of this place, who had been in England and could speak better English than himself.
Being, after some time of entertainment and gifts, dismissed, a while after he came again, and five more with him, and they brought again all the tools that were stolen away before, and made way for the coming of their great Sachem [chief], called Massasoit. Who, about four or five days after, came with the chief of his friends and other attendance, with the aforesaid Squanto. With whom, after friendly entertainment and some gifts given him, they made a peace with him (which hath now continued this 24 years) in these terms:
1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him.
3. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored, and they should do the like to his.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him, if any did war against them, he should aid them.
5. He should send to his neighbors confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.
6. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them.
After these things he returned to his place, called Sowams, some 40 miles from this place, but Squanto continued with them and was their interpreter and was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation. He directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish and to procure other commodities, and was also their pilot to bring them to unknown places for their profit, and never left them till he died. He was a native of this place, and scarce any left alive besides himself. He was carried away [earlier] with divers others by one Hunt, a master of a ship, who thought to sell them for slaves in Spain. But he got away for England and was entertained by a merchant in London, and employed to Newfoundland and other parts by one Mr. Dermer, a gentlemen employed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others for discovery and other design in these parts.
This document illustrates the anti-Semitism of the residents of New Amsterdam upon the arrival of Jews in the city.
Source: J. Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (1909), pp. 392–393.
Reverendi Domini, Fratres in Christo, Synergi observandi:
I feel it my duty to answer the letter of your Reverences, dated the 11th of November, [1654].
We have cause to be grateful to the Messrs. Directors and to your Reverences for the care and trouble takent to procure for the Dutch on Long Island a good clergyman, even though it has not yet resulted in anything. Meanwhile, God has led Domine Jannes Polheimus from Brazil, by way of the Caribbean Islands, to this place. He has for the present gon to Long Island, to a village called midwout, which is somewhat the meditallium of the other villages, to wit, Breuckelen, Amersfoort and Gravesande. There he has preached for the accommodation of the inhabitants on Sundays during the winter, and has administered the sacraments, to the satisfaction of all, as Director Stuyvesant has undoubtedly informed the Messrs. Directors.
As to William vestiens, who has been schoolmaster and sexton here, I could neigher do much, nor say much, in his favor, to the Council, because for some years past they were not satisfied or pleased with his services. Thereupon when he asked for an increase of salary last year, he received the answer, that if the service did not suit him, he might ask for his discharge. Only lately I have been before the Council on his account, and spoken about it, in consequence of your letter, but they told me that he had fulfilled his duties on so-so and theat he he did little enough for his salary.
Some Jews cam from Holland last summer, in order to trade. Later, some Jews came upon the same ship as D. Polheymius; they were healthy, but poor. It would have been proper, that they should have been supported by their own people, but have been at our charge, so that we have had to spend several hundred guilders for their support. They came several times to my house, weeping and bemoaning their misery. When I dierected them to the Jewish merchant, they said, that he would not lend them a single stiver. Some more have come from Holland this spring. They report that many more of the same lot would follow, and then they would build here a synagogue. This causes among the congregation here a great deal of complaint and murmuring. These people have no othe God than the Mammon of unrighteousness, and no other aim than to get possession of Christian property, and to overcome all other merchants by drawing all trade towards themselves. Therefore we request your Reverences to obtain from the Messrs. Directors, that these godless rascals, who are of no benefit to the country, but look at everything for their own profit, may be sent qway from here. For as we have here Papists; Mennonites and Lutherans among the Dutch; also many Puritans or Indepents, and many atheists and various other servants of Baal among the English under this Government, who conceal themselves under the name of Christians; it would create a still greater confusion, if the obstinate and immovable Jews came to settle here.
In closing I commend your Reverences with your families to the protection of God, who will bless us and all of you in service of the divine word.
Your obedient
Johnan. Megapolensis
Amsterdam in New Netherland
the 18th of March, 1655.
This document demonstrates the conflict between Dutch and English citizens of New York City (formerly New Amsterdam) following the seizure of the colony of New Netherland by the English in 1664.
Source: Nicolls-Lovelace Papers, New York Historical Society; printed in Peter R. Christogh, ed. Administrative Papers of Governors Richard Nicolls & Francis Lovelace, 1664–1673 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980).
Firstly, said Capt. Broodhead in the month of January of the year 1666, new style, came into court when the Bench was in session, and demanded who had authorized the Court to meet without his knowledge, as he said he was Governor of this place and no session should be held without his knowledge and consent, and angrily shoved the papers off the court bench, in violation of the first article of the Instruction accorded to the Schout and Commissioners, which said authority above mentioned is not to be found in Capt. Broodhead’s instruction.
2ndly, Regarding the quartering of the soldiers which the honorable Governor General has referred to the Schout and Commissioners; the said Captain has opposed it, contrary to the fifth article of the Instruction, given to the Schout and Commissioners, when at the house of Cornelis Slecht he tore up the billets that were issued, and on the contrary gave others in their stead, and on this account in the presence of the Commissioner Jan Joosten picked a quarrel with the Schout because he continued to do so according to authority; likewise has he presumed to exact from divers burghers, being working people, a schepel of wheat per week for himself on condition of relieving them from having soldiers quartered on them. They are Louis du Bois, Walran du Mont, Albert Jansen, Roeloff Swartwout, Jan Jansen from Amersfort, Albert Gerretsen; and he has on the same condition received from Pieter Cornelissen two schepels of wheat, and if unwilling he has quartered soldiers on some of them. This authority for billeting is not to be found in Capt. Broodhead’s instructions.
3rdly, In violation of the Seventh Article of the Instruction of the Schout and Commissioners Capt. Broodhead has presumed to arrest without prior complaint the following persons: to wit, Schout Willem Beeckman, Court Messenger Albert Jansen van Steenwyck, Cornelis Barentsen Slecht twice, Tjerck Claesen de Wit, Albert Govertsen, Teunis Jacobsen, Walran du Mont, Magdalena Dirricks wife of Harmen Hendricks, Ariaen Huybertsen, in utter violation even of the Instruction to Capt. Broodhead himself.
Done in Wildwyck in the Esopus this 25th April, 1667.
This petition to Charles II comes from representatives of the Catholic minority in Maryland who feared continued religious persecution in the wake of John Coode’s Protestant Association victory in 1690. In their reply John Coode and fellow Protestant leaders refute all charges that they had acted illegally and insist their government ought to be recognized as legitimate.
Source: Archives of Maryland, vol. 8, Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1687/8–1693, William Hand Browne, ed. (Baltimore: State Archives, 1890), pp. 212–214, 225–228.
The humble Petition of several of your Maties Loyal Protestant Subjects, and ancient Inhabitants of your Province of Maryland, and lately from thence here arrived, in behalf of themselves and most of the Inhabitants of the said Province.
Sheweth
That your Petrs have for many years enjoy’d the blessing of Peace under the mild Government of the Lord Baltemore and his Father and have been equal partakers of their Justice as well as favours with your Majties subjects there of other perswasions, untill of late your Petrs have been by the malicious designs and wicked Practices of one John COODE and his Accomplices disturbed and deprived of their long continued happiness and yor Majties peaceable and Dutifull subjects have been most barbarously and inhumanly treated by them, having not only in a Tumultuous manner wrested the Government into their owne hands, seizing the Publick Records wherein is the security of your Petitioners Estates and reposing them in the hands of unfitt persons that arbitrarily seized and plundered your Petr’s estates and imprisoned their Persons to the ruine of themselves and families, and have violently perverted the Laws of the Province having done what their own wicked Wills suggested which they maintain by force seeking to shelter their oppressions from your Majesties Ears by covering their Actions with the pretence of Zeale for your Majties service, not regarding your Majesties gracious coffiands by your Royal Letter of the first of February in the first year of your Reigne for the preservation of the peace of the said Province; and unjustly stileing those who will not join with them Traytors to your MLs Government Notwithstanding your Petitionrs (as like wise several hundreds of your Majesties Protestant subjects of that your Province and who abhor the Actions of the said Coode and his Complices) no sooner received notice of your Majesties happy Accession to the Crowne but that they shewed themselves with all possible Demonstrations of Joys and only waited your Majesties Orders for your being proclaimed, The Declaration of the said Coode. and eight more persons, which he falsely says to be that of your Majestie’s Protestant subjects of Maryland being most notoriously false as were also the subscriptions to the Addresses they presented to your Majtic forged as your Petitioner can make appear; Which persons have also levied Taxes on us illegally. Those and many other grievances and Irregularities which are set forth in several Addresses of your Majties subjects of that your Province (and here ready in all humble manner to be tendred to your Majtie) will inevitably in a short time bring that your Mats flourishing Province into Ruine and Confusion, unless your Majtie shall in your princely wisdom interpose your Royall Authority to put a stop thereto.
Your Petitioners therefore most humbly pray your Majtie That you will graciously be pleased to give your Orders that the said John Coode together with one Kenelm Cheselyn, who is one of his Accomplices and are both now here in London may be sent for before your Majtie to answer the Complaints occasioned by the aforesaid oppressions of your Petitioner, and that your Majtie will be pleased to grant such Redress to your Petr against the said Coode and his Accomplices as upon making appear our said Grievances to your Majtie your Majtie in your Princely Justice and wisdome shall think fit.
And your Petr (as in duty bound) shall ever pray &c:
John Lillingston George Lingan Henry Coursey
Thomas Knighton Miles Gibson Thomas Tailler
John Hinson. Samuel Chew Richard Hill
Abraham Wilde. Edward Dorsey.
(Endorsed)
Maryland
Referr d by Order of 20.
Nov: 1690.
Read 22. Nov: 1690.
The Answer of John Coode and Kenelm Cheseldine Maryland Agents and Commissioners from the late Convention of their Majesties Province of Maryland on behalfe of the said Convention and themselves to a Paper Exhibitted against them: To the Kings most Excellent Majesty by Richard Hill Henry Coursey George Wells George Lingham, Edward Dorsey &c: The Chief and most of which were the Protestants that opposed their present Majesties Right and Tytle to the Allegiance Obedience and subjection of their said Majesties subjects in the said Province.
Margin: 3 of the Peticrs sd Taylour & Lillingston at the Revolution
As to the first Allegation in the said Paper, that they petition on behalfe of themselves and most of the Inhabitants of the said Province is false For they can produce no power or qualification from any other persons whatsoever. The whole Province (as by Addresses from the severall Counties heretofore delivered in and now ready to be delivered to their Majesties fully manifesting the contrary as well as severall persons (viva voce) to testify the same.
As to the second Allegation That the Province hath in his Lordspp and his Father’s time enjoyed a continuall peace and that persons of all perswasions have enjoyed equall favours from the Government is also untrue. Witness the Insurrection at the Clifts occasioned by his Lordspps Writts of Elleccon comanding Four Representatives for each County to be elected as an Assembly out of which Four, his Lordspp afterwards called only two that he thought most fitt for his Interest to be an Assembly who laid the greatest Levy upon the People that ever was laid in that Province. Which they refused to pay as not being laid by their legall Representatives and for which three of them were condemned and two of them executed. Witness also the Comotions in the said Province upon his Lordspps arrivall there in the time of the Popish Plott. As also upon the Indians killing divers English at the Lower end of the Towne (being a place there so called) and ever since have the people beene in continuall feares and jealousies of the French and Northern Indians who often pass by the Confines of the said Province with French Priests who were acquainted with the English and Irish Preists there inhabiting, and as to the equall enjoyment of favours as is pretended. It is well known that of late yeares there have not been any Protestants preferred to Offices were there were Papists fitt to enjoy the same That of all perswasions there, the Church of England have had the least encouragement and respect.
And as to that Clause, in the said Paper wherein they maliciously charge the said John Coode and his Accomplices to be the Disturbers of the Province and changers of the Government These Respondts do deny that either he the said Cood or any by his order or Privity ever unjustly disturbed or changed the same But do say that five moneths after their present Majesties were settled in the Throne and the generality of their dominions had submitted to them and after they were proclaimed in Virginia the adjacent Country and all other their Majesties Colonies in America of which the Popish Government of Maryland were as well assured as they could be of any matter of Fact. The said Deputy Governours (with the Papists and severall of the aforesaid Petitioners their Adherents) disclaiming their Allegiance to their Majesties and politickly disarmeing the Protestants denying to call the Assembly to examine the Confederacy charged on them by Indians by whom they were accused as well as the English useing daily invectives against their Majesties persons and Government and all the Protestant Peers of the Realm conniveing at and encourageing all others to do the same, binding Protestants to their good behaviour endeavouring to imprison others for the least shew of their allegiance sending Warrants for such as but read or heard any of their Majesties Proclamacon or the Parliament Papers termeing them Treason able Papers and those that read or heard them or should but say God Bless the King Traitors daily broaching lyeing news (as they pretended sent to the Preists and Jesuitts from all parts of the French Kings invinceable Army to conquer England and the late King James his Victory in Scotland and Ireland and his great party in England to joyn with them to subdue the Rebells as they termed the Protestants as also the great strength of the French and Canada Indians if occasion served to invade the Province and other their Majesties Protestant Colonies in those Parts praying publickly in their Popish Chappells for the Irish and French success against the English and daily drinking health to the same wishing the arrivall of that golden day as they termed it To the great terrour of the Protestants and encouragement of the Papists The Protestants standing continually upon their guards and some flying for fear into Virginia so enraged the people as that it was not easy to restraine them from riseing tho they had no armes nor amunition to defend themselves and the more thinking men were plunged in their minds what course to take For Armes and Ammunition they had not to defend themselves and to depart the Province was to ruine their Estates and Familyes and stay they could not with safety without owneing their Allegiance to the late King James and fidelity to that present Popish Government thereby denying their Faith Allegiance Mary land and subjection to their present Majesties which would have been high Treason and adhereing to their Enemies against the conscience and interest of all good Protestants and to involve them into the same crimes of Disloyalty with their Enemies and subject them to the penaltyes of the Law for High Treason. Whereupon the most eminent Protestants in the Province associated themselves with this Resolution That as God Almighty had given their Majesties a just call to the Crown to whom their Faith and Allegiance was due so according to their Duty and the Laws of the land they would with their lives and fortunes mainteyne their Majesties Right and Title to the Faith and Allegiance Obedience and subjection of their subjects in the said Province.
Thus matters stood untill towards the latter part of July 1689 at which time the people of Virginia did often threaten us and were ready (in great numbers) to come over into Maryland to reduce us alleadging wee were Rebells for not Proclaimeing their Majesties in the mean time news being brought to some of the aforesaid Protestants that the Deputy Governors were fortifying the Court house at St Maries and Matapany garrison and raiseing men to keep the same; they sent over to the Magistrates in Virginia desireing them to restrain the proceedings and designes aforesaid of their people. And there upon about two hundred and fifty Protestants tho very badly provided with Armes and Ammunition marched down to the City of St Maries to know the truth of the aforesaid Report and to desire the Deputy Governors to call an Assembly which had been for a long time prorogued against the desires of all honest men. That speedy course might be taken for the satisfaction of both Protestants and Papists untill orders from England. But when they arrived there they found the said Court house full of armed men made a garrison ready to oppose them. Whereupon they sent into the said Fort the Protestant Declaration demanding to have King William and Queen Mary to be proclaimed and submitted To which they refuseing to do the said Protestants marched up resolutely to the said Garrison and haveing gained the Doores and Windows and being ready to enter Those within did surrender takeing with them their private armes and leaveing the publick armes to the Protestants and then they marched to Matapany Fort about eight miles distant where about four hundred men were in Garrison and demanded surrender of the same to the use of King William and Queen Mary the which they refused for sometime to do. But finding the number of the Protestants to encrease and resolveing to attacke the same They surrendered upon Articles and thereupon a convention of the cheife of the Protestants kept all the said Articles inviolable yet notwithstanding the said Deputy Governors endeavoured by all wicked meanes possible to pervert and draw the people from their Allegiance to their Majesties and stirr them up to Rebel lion and obstruct the said Convention from settling the Countrey in Peace and quietness untill order from their Majesties which notwithstanding they proceeded unto. And first of all pursuant to their Duty they caused their Majesties to be pro claimed and drew up an Address to them and then proceeded to settle the Province untill Orders from them, as first to settle the Military and civill Officers continueing all Protestants in their places and removeing all Papists and putting Protestants in their Rooms pursuant to their Majesties Declaration and continued all the Tempoary Laws in the Province laid the publique Levy which (notwithstanding the great occasion) was the least that had beene in that Province for many yeares tho they also paid the debts of the old Governmt out of the same and then drew all up into an Ordinance of Assembly whereby those matters do more fully appeare, after which the Deputy Governts and severall of the Petitioners their Adherents (being of the Lord Baltemores Comission) did on the behalfe of King James endeavour all they could to raise Rebellion against their Majesties in all the parts of the Province In the opposeing of which if any received Damage it is more then those Re spondts know or ever heard of before there being none done by them or their Order And do verily beleive there was none done by any other But if any such there were lett them prove the same agat those that did it, and the Law is open for their Remedy the Convention never giveing authority thereto.
As to that other part of the charge in the said Paper of acting contrary to their Majesties Letter These Respondts humbly conceive that the Convention hath given sufficient Answer in their last Letter to their Majesties unto which they do in all humility desire to be referred.
As to the generall charge of Forgery in the latter part of the aforesaid Petition to his Majesty These Respondts know not to whom it relates and do therefore look upon it to be a notorious Falsehood forged by themselves
And the Respondts do humbly desire that the Depositions Evidences and Papers relateing to the prmisses ready to bee produced to this Right Honble Board may be read and heard.
(Endorsed)
Mr Coode &c:—
Answere to the petition
Read the 22d Dee: 1690.
Tompson’s epic poem is one of the most vivid accounts of the Anglo-Indian conflict known to the English as King Philip’s War.
Source: Original is in the Huntington Library, California; reprinted in Richard Slotkin and James K. Folsom, eds., So Dreadful a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King Philip’s War, 1676–1677 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1978), pp. 215–231.
To the Reader
Courteous Reader:
I never thought this babe of my weak fantasy worthy of an imprimatur; but being an abortive, it was begged in these perplexing times to be cherished by the charity of others. If its lineaments please not the reader better than the writer, I shall be glad to see it pressed to death: but if it displease not many and satisfy any, it’s to me a glorious reward, who am more willing than able to any service to my country and friend.
Farewell
THE PROLOGUE
The times wherein old Pompion was a saint,
When men fared hardly yet without complaint
On vilest cates; the dainty Indian maize
Was eat with clamshells out of wooden trays
Under thatched huts without the cry of rent,
And the best sauce to every dish, content.
When flesh was food, & hairy skins made coats,
And men as well as birds had chirping notes.
When simnels were accounted noble blood
Among the tribes of common herbage food.
Of Ceres’ bounty formed was many a knack
Enough to fill Poor Robin’s Almanac.
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly signed away for love of gold.
’Twas then among the bushes, not the street
If one in place did an inferior meet,
“Good morrow, brother, is there ought you want?
Take freely of me, what I have you ha’n’t.”
Plain Tom and Dick would pass as current now,
As ever since “Your servant, Sir,” and bow.
Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes
Which now would render men like upright apes,
Was comelier wear our wiser fathers thought
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought.
’Twas in those days an honest grace would hold
Til an hot pudding grew at heart a cold.
And men had better stomachs to religion
Than I to capon, turkey cock, or pigeon.
When honest sisters met to pray not prate
About their own and not their neighbors’ state.
During plain dealing’s reign, that worthy stud
Of th’ancient planters race before the flood.
These times were good, merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than jonakin and mush.
Although men fared and lodged very hard
Yet innocence was better than a guard.
’Twas long before spiders & worms had drawn
Their dungy webs or hid with cheating lawn
New England’s beauties, which still seemed to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.
’Twas ere the neighboring virgin land had broke
The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoke.
’Twas ere the islands sent their presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
’Twas ere a barge had made so rich a freight
As chocolate, dust gold, and bitts of eight.
Ere wines from France and Muscovado too
Without the which the drink will scarcely do,
From western isles, ere fruits and delicacies,
Did rot maids’ teeth & spoil their handsome faces.
Or ere these times did chance the noise of war
Was from our towns and hearts removed far.
No bugbear comets in the crystal air
To drive our Christian planters to despair.
No sooner pagan malice peeped forth
But valor snibbed it; then were men of worth
Who by their prayers slew thousands angel-like,
Their weapons are unseen with which they strike.
Then had the churches rest, as yet the coals
Were covered up in most contentious souls.
Freeness in judgment, union in affection,
Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection.
These were the twins which in our counsels sate,
These gave prognostics of our future fate,
If these be longer lived our hopes increase,
These wars will usher in a longer peace:
But if New England’s love die in its youth
The grave will open next for blessed truth.
This theme is out of date, the peaceful hours
When castles needed not but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but blood and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New England’s urn.
New England’s hour of passion is at hand,
No power except divine can it withstand;
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
But her old prosperous steeds turn heads about,
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings:
So that the mirror of the Christian world
Lies burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furled.
Grief reigns, joys flee and dismal fears surprise,
Not dastard spirits only but the wise.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceived the eye
Of the big swollen expectant standing by.
Thus the proud ship after a little turn
Sinks into Neptune’s arms to find its urn.
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn.
Even thus thine infant cheeks begin to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail.
This is the prologue to thy future woe,
The epilogue no mortal yet can know.
NEW ENGLAND’S CRISIS
In seventy-five the critic of our years
Commenced our war with Philip and his peers.
Whether the sun in Leo had inspired
A feverish heat, and pagan spirits fired?
Whether some Romish agent hatched the plot?
Or whether they themselves? appeareth not.
Whether our infant thrivings did invite?
Or whether to our lands pretended right?
Is hard to say; but Indian spirits need
No grounds but lust to make a Christian bleed.
And here methinks I see this greasy lout
With all his pagan slaves coiled round about,
Assuming all the majesty his throne
Of rotten stump, or of the rugged stone
Could yield; casting some bacon-rind-like looks,
Enough to fright a student from his books,
Thus treat his peers, & next to them his commons,
Kenneled together all without a summons.
“My friends, our fathers were not half so wise
As we ourselves who see with younger eyes.
They sell our land to Englishmen who teach
Our nation all so fast to pray and preach:
Of all our country they enjoy the best,
And quickly they intend to have the rest.
This no wunnegin, so big matchit law,
Which our old fathers’ fathers never saw.
These English make and we must keep them too,
Which is too hard for them or us to do,
We drink we so big whipped, but English they
Go sneep, no more, or else a little pay.
Me meddle squaw me hanged, our fathers kept
What squaws they would, whether they waked or slept.
Now if you’ll fight I’ll get you English coats,
And wine to drink out of their captains’ throats.
The richest merchants’ houses shall be ours,
We’ll lie no more on mats or dwell in bowers.
We’ll have their silken wives take they our squaws,
They shall be whipped by virtue of our laws.
If ere we strike ’tis now before they swell
To greater swarms than we know how to quell.
This my resolve, let neighboring sachems know,
And everyone that hath club, gun, or bow.”
This was assented to, and for a close
He stroked his smutty beard and cursed his foes.
This counsel lightning-like their tribes invade,
And something like a muster’s quickly made,
A ragged regiment, a naked swarm,
Whom hopes of booty doth with courage arm,
Set forth with bloody hearts, the first they meet
Of men or beasts they butcher at their feet.
They round our skirts, they pare, they fleece, they kill,
And to our bordering towns do what they will.
Poor hovels (better far than Caesar’s court
In the experience of the meaner sort)
Receive from them their doom next execution,
By flames reduced to horror and confusion:
Here might be seen the smoking funeral piles
Of wildred towns pitched distant many miles.
Here might be seen the infant from the breast
Snatched by a pagan hand to lasting rest:
The mother, Rachel-like, shrieks out “My child.”
She wrings her hands and raves as she were wild.
The brutish wolves suppress her anxious moan
By cruelties more deadly of their own.
Will she or nill the chastest turtle must
Taste of the pangs of their unbridled lust.
From farms to farms, from towns to towns they post,
They strip, they bind, they ravish, flay, and roast.
The beasts which want their master’s crib to know,
Over the ashes of their shelters low.
What the inexorable flames do spare
More cruel heathen lug away for fare.
These tidings ebbing from the outward parts
Makes tradesmen cast aside their wonted arts
And study arms: the craving merchants plot
Not to augment but keep what they have got.
And every soul which hath but common sense
Thinks it the time to make a just defense.
Alarums everywhere resound in streets,
From West sad tidings with the Eastern meets.
Our common fathers in their counsels close
A martial treaty with the pagan foes.
All answers center here that fire and sword
Must make their sachem universal lord.
This arms the English with a resolution
To give the vaporing scab a retribution.
Heavens they consult by prayer, the best design
A furious foe to quell or undermine.
Resolved that from the Massachusetts bands
Be pressed on service some Herculean hands
And certainly he well deserved a jerk
That slipped the collar from so good a work.
Some volunteers, some by compulsion go
To range the hideous forest for a foe.
The tender mother now’s all bowels grown,
Clings to her son as if they’d melt in one.
Wives clasp about their husbands as the vine
Hugs the fair elm, while tears burst out like wine.
The new-sprung love in many a virgin heart
Swells to a mountain when the lovers part.
Nephews and kindred turn all springs of tears,
Their hearts are so surprised with panic fears.
But doleful shrieks of captives summon forth
Our walking castles, men of noted worth,
Made all of life, each captain was a Mars,
His name too strong to stand on waterish verse:
Due praise I leave to some poetic hand
Whose pen and wits are better at command.
Methinks I see the Trojan horse burst ope,
And such rush forth as might with giants cope:
These first the natives’ treachery felt, too fierce
For any but eyewitness to rehearse.
Yet sundry times in places where they came
Upon the Indian skins they carved their name.
The trees stood sentinels and bullets flew
From every bush (a shelter for their crew).
Hence came our wounds and deaths from every side
While skulking enemies squat undescried,
That every stump shot like a musketeer,
And bows with arrows every tree did bear.
The swamps were courts of guard, thither retired
The straggling blue-coats when their guns were fired,
In dark meanders, and these winding groves,
Where bears & panthers with their monarch moves
These far more cruel slyly hidden lay,
Expecting Englishmen to move that way.
One party lets them in, the other greets
Them with the next thing to their winding-sheets;
Most fall, the rest thus startled back return,
And from their bypassed foes receive an urn.
Here fell a captain, to be named with tears,
Who for his courage left not many peers,
With many more who scarce a number left
To tell how treacherously they were bereft.
This flushed the pagan courage, now they think
The victory theirs, not lacking meat or drink.
The ranging wolves find here and there a prey,
And having filled their paunch they run away
By their hosts’ light, the thanks which they return
Is to lead captives and their taverns burn.
Many whose thrift had stored for after use
Sustain their wicked plunder and abuse.
Poor people spying an unwonted light,
Fearing a martyrdom, in sudden fright
Leap to the door to fly, but all in vain,
They are surrounded with a pagan train;
Their first salute is death, which if they shun
Some are condemned the gauntelet to run;
Death would a mercy prove to such as those
Who feel the rigor of such hellish foes.
Posts daily on their Pegasean steeds
Bring sad reports of worse than Nero’s deeds,
Such brutish murders as would paper stain
Not to be heard in a Domitian’s reign.
The field which nature hid is common laid,
And mothers’ bodies ripped for lack of aid.
The secret cabinets which nature meant
To hide her masterpiece is open rent,
The half-formed infant there receives a death
Before it sees the light or draws its breath,
Many hot welcomes from the natives’ arms
Hid in their skulking holes many alarms
Our brethren had, and weary weary trants,
Sometimes in melting heats and pinching wants:
Sometimes the clouds with sympathizing tears
Ready to burst discharged about their ears:
Sometimes on craggy hills, anon in bogs
And miry swamps better befitting hogs,
And after tedious marches little boast
Is to be heard of stewed or baked or roast,
Their beds are hurdles, open house they keep
Through shady boughs the stars upon them peep,
Their crystal drink drawn from the mother’s breast
Disposes not to mirth but sleep and rest.
Thus many days and weeks, some months run out
To find and quell the vagabonding rout,
Who like enchanted castles fair appear,
But all is vanished if you come but near,
Just so we might the pagan archers track
With towns and merchandise upon their back;
And thousands in the south who settled down
To all the points and winds are quickly blown.
At many meetings of their fleeting crew,
From whom like hail arrows and bullets flew;
The English courage with whole swarms dispute,
Hundreds they hack in pieces in pursuit.
Sed haud impune, English sides do feel
As well as tawny skins the lead and steel
And some such gallant sparks by bullets fell,
As might have cursed the powder back to hell:
Had only swords these skirmishes decided
All pagan skulls had been long since divided.
The lingering war outlives the summer sun,
Who hence departs hoping it might be done,
Ere his return at Spring: but, ah! he’ll find
The sword still drawn, men of unchanged mind.
Cold winter now nibbles at hands and toes
And shrewdly pinches both our friends and foes.
Fierce Boreas whips the pagan tribe together
Advising them to fit for foes and weather:
The axe which late had tasted Christian blood
Now sets its steely teeth to feast on wood.
The forests suffer now, by weight constrained
To kiss the earth with soldiers lately brained.
The lofty oaks and ash do wag the head
To see so many of their neighbors dead;
Their fallen carcasses are carried thence
To stand our enemies in their defense.
Their myrmidons enclosed with clefts of trees
Are busy like the ants or nimble bees:
And first they limber poles fix in the ground,
In figure of the heavens convex: all round
They draw their arras-mats and skins of beasts
And under these the elves to make their nests.
Rome took more time to grow than twice six hours,
But half that time will serve for Indian bowers.
A city shall be reared in one day’s space
As shall an hundred Englishmen out-face.
Canonicus’ precincts there swarms unite,
Rather to keep a winter guard than fight.
A dern and dismal swamp some scout had found
Whose bosom was a spot of rising ground
Hedged up with mighty oaks, maples, and ashes,
Nursed up with springs, quick bogs & miry plashes,
A place which nature coined on very nonce
For tigers not for men to be a sconce.
’Twas here these monsters, shaped and faced like men,
Took up their rendezvous and brumal den,
Deeming the depth of snow, hail, frost, and ice
Would make our infantry more tame and wise
Than by forsaking beds and loving wives,
Merely for Indian skins to hazard lives:
These hopes had something calmed the boiling passion
Of this incorrigible warlike nation.
During this short parenthesis of peace
Our forces found, but left him not at ease.
Here English valor most illustrious shone,
Finding their numbers ten times ten to one.
A shower of leaden hail our captains feel
Which made the bravest blades among us reel.
Like to some anthill newly spurned abroad,
Where each takes heels and bears away his load:
Instead of plate and jewels, Indian trays
With baskets up they snatch and run their ways.
Sundry the flames arrest and some the blade,
By bullets heaps on heaps of Indians laid.
The flames like lightning in their narrow streets
Dart in the face of everyone it meets.
Here might be heard an hideous Indian cry,
Of wounded ones who in the wigwams fry.
Had we been cannibals here might we feast
On brave Westphalia gammons ready dressed.
The tawny hue is Ethiopic made
Of such on whom Vulcan his clutches laid.
Their fate was sudden, our advantage great
To give them once for all a grand defeat;
But tedious travel had so cramped our toes
It was too hard a task to chase the foes.
Distinctness in the numbers of the slain,
Or the account of pagans which remain
Are both uncertain, losses of our own
Are too too sadly felt, too sadly known.
War digs a common grave for friends and foes,
Captains in with the common soldier throws.
Six of our leaders in the first assault
Crave readmission to their mother’s vault
Who had they fell in ancient Homer’s days
Had been enrolled with hecatombs of praise.
As clouds dispersed, the natives’ troops divide,
And like the streams along the thickets glide.
Some breathing time we had, & short God knows
But new alarums from recruited foes
Bounce at our ears, the mounting, clouds of smoke
From martyred towns the heavens for aid invoke:
Churches, barns, houses with most ponderous things
Made volatile fly o’er the land with wings.
Hundreds of cattle now they sacrifice
For airy spirits up to gormandize;
And to the Moloch of their hellish guts,
Which craves the flesh in gross, their ale in butts.
Lancaster, Medfield, Mendon, wildred Groton,
With many villages by me not thought on
Die in their youth by fire that useful foe,
Which this grand cheat the world will overflow.
The wandering priest to everyone he meets
Preaches his church’s funeral in the streets.
Sheep from their fold are frighted, keepers too
Put to their trumps not knowing what to do.
This monster war hath hatched a beauteous dove
In dogged hearts, of most unfeigned love,
Fraternal love the livery of a saint
Being come in fashion though by sad constraint,
Which if it thrive and prosper with us long
Will make New England forty thousand strong.
But off the table hand, let this suffice
As the abridgment of our miseries.
If mildew, famine, sword, and fired towns,
If slaughter, captivating, deaths, and wounds,
If daily whippings once reform our ways,
These all will issue in our Father’s praise;
If otherwise, the sword must never rest
Till all New England’s glory it divest.
A SUPPLEMENT
What means this silence of Harvardine quills
While Mars triumphant thunders on our hills.
Have pagan priests their eloquence confined
To no man’s use but the mysterious mind?
Have pow-wows charmed that art which was so rife
To crouch to every Don that lost his life?
But now whole towns and churches fire and die
Without the pity of an elegy.
Nay rather should my quills were they all swords
Wear to the hilts in some lamenting words.
I dare not style them poetry but truth,
The dwindling products of my crazy youth.
If these essays shall raise some quainter pens
’Twill to the writer make a rich amends.
MARLBORO’S FATE
When London’s fatal bills were blown abroad
And few but specters travelled on the road,
Not towns but men in the black bill enrolled
Were in gazettes by typographers sold:
But our gazettes without erratas must
Report the plague of towns reduced to dust:
And fevers formerly to tenants sent
Arrest the timbers of the tenement.
Ere the late ruins of old Groton’s cold,
Of Marlboro’s peracute disease we’re told.
The feet of such who neighboring dwellings urned
Unto her ashes, not her doors returned.
And what remained of tears as yet unspent
Are to its final gasps a tribute lent.
If painter overtrack my pen let him
An olive color mix, these elves to trim;
Of such an hue let many thousand thieves
Be drawn like scarecrows clad with oaken leaves,
Exhausted of their verdant life and blown
From place to place without an home to own.
Draw devils like themselves, upon their cheeks
The banks for grease and mud, a place for leeks.
Whose locks, Medusa’s snakes, do ropes resemble,
And ghostly looks would make Achilles tremble.
Limn them besmeared with Christian blood & oiled
With fat out of white human bodies boiled.
Draw them with clubs like mauls & full of stains,
Like Vulcan’s anvilling New England’s brains.
Let round be gloomy forests with cragged rocks
Where like to castles they may hide their flocks,
Till opportunity their cautious friend
shall jog them fiery worship to attend.
Show them like serpents in an avious path
Seeking to sow the firebrands of their wrath.
Most like Aeneas in his cloak of mist,
Who undiscovered move wheree’er they list
Cupid they tell us hath two sorts of darts,
One sharp and one obtuse, one causing wounds,
One piercing deep the other dull rebounds,
But we feel none but such as drill our hearts.
From Indian sheaves which to their shoulders cling,
Upon the word they quickly feel the string.
Let earth be made a screen to hide our woe
From heaven’s monarch and his lady’s too;
And lest our jealousy think they partake,
For the red stage with clouds a curtain make.
Let dogs be gagged and every quickening sound
Be charmed to silence, here and there all round
The town to suffer, from a thousand holes
Let crawl these fiends with brands and fired poles,
Paint here the house & there the barn on fire,
With holocausts ascending in a spire.
Here granaries, yonder the churches smoke
Which vengeance on the actors doth invoke.
Let Morpheus with his leaden keys have bound
In featherbeds some, some upon the ground,
That none may burst his drowsy shackles till
The brutish pagans have obtained their will,
And Vulcan files them off; then Zeuxis paint
The frenzy glances of the sinking saint.
Draw there the pastor for his bible crying,
The soldier for his sword, the glutton frying
With streams of glory fat, the thin-jawed miser,
“Oh had I given this I had been wiser.”
Let here the mother seem a statue turned
At the sad object of her bowels burned.
Let the unstable weakling in belief
Be mounting Asshur’s horses for relief.
Let the half convert seem suspended twixt
The dens of darkness, and the planets fixed,
Ready to quit his hold, and yet hold fast
By the great Atlas of the heavens vast.
Paint papists muttering o’er their apish beads
Whom the blind follow while the blind man leads.
Let Ataxy be mounted on a throne
Imposing her commands on everyone,
A many-headed monster without eyes
To see the ways which want to make men wise.
Give her a thousand tongues with wings and hands
To be ubiquitary in commands,
But let the concave of her skull appear
Clean washed and empty quite of all but fear,
One she bids flee, another stay, a third
She bids betake him to his rusty sword,
This to his treasure, th’other to his knees,
Some counsels she to fry and some to freeze,
These to the garrison, those to the road,
Some to run empty, some to take their load:
Thus while confusion most men’s hearts divide
Fire doth their small exchequer soon decide.
Thus all things seeming ope or secret foes,
An infant may grow old before a close,
But yet my hopes abide in perfect strength.
THE TOWN CALLED PROVIDENCE ITS FATE
Why muse we thus to see the wheels run cross
Since Providence itself sustains a loss:
And yet should Providence forget to watch
I fear the enemy would all dispatch;
Celestial lights would soon forget their line,
The wandering planets would forget to shine,
The stars run all out of their common spheres,
And quickly fall together by the ears:
Kingdoms would jostle out their kings and set
The poor mechanic up whom next they met,
Or rather would whole kingdoms with the world
Into a chaos their first egg be hurled.
There’s none this providence of the most high
Who can survive and write its elegy.
But of a solitary town I write,
A place of darkness yet receiving light
From pagan hands a miscellaneous nest
Of error’s hectors, where they sought a rest
Out of the reach of laws but not of God,
Since they have felt the smart of common rod.
’Twas much I thought they did escape so long,
Who gospel truth so manifestly wrong:
For one Lot’s sake perhaps, or else I think
Justice did at greatest offenders wink
But now the shot is paid, I hope the dross
Will be cashiered in this common loss.
Houses with substance feel uplifting wings,
The earth remains, the last of human things:
But know the dismal day draws near wherein
The fire shall earth itself dissolve and sin.
SEEKONK PLAIN ENGAGEMENT
On our Pharsalian Plains, comprising space
For Caesar’s host brave Pompey to outface,
An handful of our men are walled round
With Indian swarms; anon their pieces sound
A madrigal like heaven’s artillery
Lightning and thunderbolts their bullets fly.
Here’s hosts to handfuls, of a few they leave
Fewer to tell how many they bereave.
Foolhardy fortitude it had been sure
Fierce storms of shot and arrows to endure
Without all hopes of some requital to
So numerous and pestilent a foe.
Some musing a retreat and thence to run,
Have in an instant all their business done,
They sink and all their sorrows’ ponderous weight
Down at their feet they cast and tumble straight.
Such who outlived the fate of others fly
Into the Irish bogs of misery.
Such who might die like men like beasts do range
Uncertain whither for a better change,
These natives hunt and chase with currish mind,
And plague with cruelties such as they find.
When shall this shower of blood be over? When?
Quickly we pray, oh, Lord! say thou “Amen.”
SEEKONK OR REHOBOTH’S FATE
I once conjectured that those tigers hard
To reverend Newman’s bones would have regard,
But were all saints they met ’twere all one case,
They have no reverence to an angel’s face:
But where they fix their griping lion’s paws
They rend without remorse or heed to laws.
Rehoboth here in common English, Rest,
They ransack, Newman’s relics to molest.
Here all the town is made a public stage
Whereon these Nimrods act their monstrous rage.
All cruelties which paper stained before
Are acted to the life here o’er and o’er.
CHELMSFORD’S FATE
Ere famous Winthrop’s bones are laid to rest
The pagans Chelmsford with sad flames arrest,
Making an artificial day of night
By that plantation’s formidable light.
Here’s midnight shrieks and soul-amazing moans,
Enough to melt the very marble stones:
Firebrands and bullets, darts and deaths and wounds
Confusive outcries everywhere resounds:
The natives shooting with the mixed cries,
With all the cruelties the foes devise
Might fill a volume, but I leave a space
For mercies still successive in their place
Not doubting but the foes have done their worst,
And shall by heaven suddenly be cursed.
Let this dear Lord the sad conclusion be
Of poor New England’s dismal tragedy.
Let not the glory of thy former work
Blasphemed be by pagan, Jew, or Turk:
But in its funeral ashes write thy name
So fair all nations may expound the same:
Out of her ashes let a Phoenix rise
That may outshine the first and be more xwise.
ON A FORTIFICATION AT BOSTON BEGUN BY WOMEN DUX FEMINA FACTI
A grand attempt some Amazonian dames
Contrive whereby to glorify their names,
A ruff for Boston neck of mud and turf,
Reaching from side to side from surf to surf,
Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pies,
Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise.
The wheel at home counts it an holiday,
Since while the mistress worketh it may play.
A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts
Forsake at home their pastry-crust and tarts
To knead the dirt, the samplers down they hurl,
Their undulating silks they closely furl.
The pickaxe one as a commandress holds,
While t’other at her awkness gently scolds.
One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why
Can’t you promove your work so fast as I?
Some dig, some delve, and others’ hands do feel
The little wagon’s weight with single wheel.
And lest some fainting fits the weak surprise,
They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise.
These brave essays draw forth male stronger hands
More like to daubers than to martial bands;
These do the work, and sturdy bulwarks raise,
But the beginners well deserve the praise.
This account, written by Jesuit missionary Vincent Bigot and revised by his superior, Claude Dablon, demonstrates the difference in French and English attitudes and practices regarding the conversion of Indians to Christianity.
Source: Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791, vol. 61, 1677–1680 (Cleveland, 1900), pp. 208–213.
Since the year 1673, prayer has been offered at gandaouagé,—which is one of the villages of agnié, of which father Bonniface has had charge,—both morning and evening, as steadily as in the best-regulated families of france. There is nothing more Comforting than to witness these good Christians pray together aloud, and finish that holy act with spiritual Canticles. Several little children, also, 7 or 8 years of age, have formed their own little Choir, and do on earth what the angels never cease to do in Heaven. It is a pleasure to see these little innocents marshaling themselves in the Chapel and rendering to God their homage as well as do those most advanced in age.
A little Cradle, prepared at christmas, illuminated with a number of lights and adorned with evergreens, excited to a wonderful degree the devotion of the christians, who in their Hymns bestowed on the infant Jesus tokens of their gratitude and love. There was no way of resisting the Entreaties which came from those who are still infidels, to go in and Gratify their Curiosity by a lengthened Survey of that which rendered the spot pleasing to their eyes. The festival was spent in Singing and praying—for a longer time than usual, notwithstanding the severity of the cold. Their devotion toward this endearing mystery is so tender that, to assist their piety, the father permitted them to Go on with their tunes and christmas carols Until easter. Nothing could be desired more fervent or more touching, in a country which at first seemed inaccessible to the faith.
But would it be readily believed that the Ceremony of the blessed bread takes place every sunday, by turns, at agnié?—that means, among people who have been reputed cannibals; who in former times gorged themselves not only on the Fresh of their enemies, but even of those who announced to them the gospel. They practice this ancient custom of the church with all the more Joy, inasmuch as they are all brethren, and children of God, whose bread they now eat while awaiting the time when he will cause them to taste of eternal delights. She who provides the blessed bread serves a slight repast to all the Christians at her home, at which the prayer before and after meals is said. The Civility that they show to the one who has invited them has about it nothing of the savage, and These gatherings serve wonderfully in fostering fervor and Charity. Here indeed, it must be said, is the finger of God; and that it pertains only to him to effect such changes, and so to humanize brutal natures as to render wolves worthy of being counted in the flock of the great shepherd of souls.
I will say nothing of the estimation in which This new church holds all tokens of our holy religion. Crosses and medals are their most precious jewels; they treasure them so dearly that they carry them round their Necks Even into the conventicles new holland, where the heretics have never succeeded in snatching away a single bead from their Rosaries.
Marmaduke Stevenson was one of the “Boston martyrs,” a Quaker hanged on October 27, 1659, by the Massachusetts government for entering the colony and attempting to proselytize.
Source: London Yearly Meeting, Christian Life, Faith, and Thought, Being the First Part of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends of Great Britain (London, 1922).
In the beginning of the year 1655, I was at the plough in the east parts of Yorkshire in Old England, near the place where my outward being was; and, as I walked after the plough, I was filled with the love and presence of the living God, which did ravish my heart when I felt it, for it did increase and abound in me like a living stream, so did the life and love of God run through me like precious ointment giving a pleasant smell, which mad me to stand still. And, as I stood a little still, with my heart and mind stayed upon the Lord, the word of the Lord came to me in a still, small voice, which I did hear perfectly, saying to me in the secret of my heart and conscience, “I have ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,” and, at the hearing of the word of the Lord, I was put to a stand, seeing that I was but a child for such a weighty matter. So, at the time appointed, Barbados was set before me, unto which I was required of the Lord to go and leave my dear and loving wife and tender children; for the Lord said unto me, immediately by HIs Spirit, that He would be as an husband to my wife and as a father to my children, and they should not want in my absence, for He would provide for them when I was gone. And I believed the Lord would perform what He had spoken, because I was made willing to give up myself to His work and service, to leave all and follow Him, whose presence and life is with me, where I rest in peace and quietness of spirit, with my dear brother [William Robinson] under the shadow of His wings, who hath made us willing to lay down our lives for His name’s sake, if unmerciful men be suffered to take them from us. And, if they do, we know we shall have rest and peace with the Lord for ever in His holy habitation, when they shall have torment night and day.
So, in obedience to the living God, I made preparation to pass to Barbados in the Fourth month [June] 1658. So, after some time that I had been on the said island in the service of God, I heard that New England had made a law to put the servants of the living God to death if they returned after they were sentenced away, which did come near me at that time; and, as I considered the thing and pondered it in my heart, immediately came to word of the Lord unto me, saying, “Thou knowest not but that thou mayst go thither.”
But I kept this word in my heart and did not declare it to any until the time appointed, so, after that, a vessel was made ready for Rhode Island, which I passed in. so, after a little time that I had been there, visiting the seed which the Lord had blessed, the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Go to Boston with they brother William Robinson,” and at His command I was obedient and gave up to His will, that so His work and service may be accomplished. for He had said unto me that He had a great work for me to do, which is now come to pass. And, for yielding obedience to and for obeying the voice and command of the everlasting God, which created heaven and earth and the foundations of waters, do I, with my dear brother, suffer outward bonds near unto death.
And this is given forth to be upon record, that all people may know who hear it, that we came not in our own will but in the will of God.
Given forth by me, whom am know to men by the name of Marmaduke Stevenson, but have a new name given me, which the world knowns not of, written in the book of life.