Englishmen."* These were the first Indians ever seen in England. They were brought to the English court "in their country habit,” and “spoke a language never heard before out of their own country." The French discovered the River St. Lawrence in 1508, and the captain of the ship who made the discovery, carried several natives to Paris, which were the first ever seen in France. What were their names, or even how many they were in number, is not set down in the accounts of this voyage. The name of this captain was Thomas Aubert.§ John Verazzini, in the service of France, in 1524, sailed along the American coast, and landed in several places. At one place, which we judge to be some part of the coast of Connecticut, "20 of his men landed, and went about two leagues up into the country. The inhabitants fled before them, but they caught an old woman who had hid herself in the high grass, with a young woman about 18 years of age. The old woman carried a child on her back, and had, besides, two little boys with her. The young woman, too, carried three children of her own sex. Seeing themselves discovered, they began to shriek, and the old one gave them to understand, by signs, that the men were fled to the woods. They offered her something to eat, which she accepted, but the maiden refused it. This girl, who was tall and well shaped, they were desirous of taking along with them, but as she made a violent outcry, they contented themselves with taking a boy away with them." The name of NEW FRANCE was given to North America in this voyage. In another voyage here, Verazzini was killed, and, as some say, eaten by the Indians. Few of the early voyagers were better than demi savages, for they would retaliate upon the Indians as though they had been on equal footing with them, in respect to their own ideas of justice. When Capt. Hudson discovered and sailed up the river which now bears his name, the most flagrant injustice was committed on the Indians by some of his men. To set that affair in a clear light before the reader, we will give the following passages from the journal of Robert Juet, one of the voyage. 1609, Sept. 6. Our master sent John Colman with four men to sound the river, four leagues distant, which they did, but in their return to the ship, they were set upon by Indians in two canoes, to the number of 26; in which affair John Colman was killed by an arrow shot into his throat, and two others were wounded. The next day Colman was buried on a point of land which to this day bears his name. What offence, if any, was given to the Indians to provoke this attack from them, can never be discovered; but from the course of proceedings of Hudson's men, there can be but little doubt of offence of some kind on their part. Sept. 8. The people came on board us, and brought tobacco and Indian wheat, to exchange for knives and beads, and offered us no violence. So we, fitting up our boat, did mark them, to see if they would make any show of the death of our man, but they did not. Sept. 9. In the morning two great canoes came on board full of men; one with bows and arrows, and the other in show of buying knives to betray us; but we perceived their intention. We took two of them, to have kept them, and put red coats on them, and would not suffer the others to come near us, and soon after the canoes leave them. Immediately two other natives came on board us; one we took, and let the other go, but he soon escaped by jumping overboard. *Rapin's Hist. England, i. 685. ed. fol. This is upon the authority of Berkely. Instead of England, however, he says Europe; but, by saying the six, which Columbus had before taken from St. Salvador, made their escape, he shows his superficial knowledge of those affairs. Hear Herrera : "En suitte de cela, [that is, after Columbus had replied to the king's letter about a second voyage,] il [Columbus] partit pour aller à Barcelone auec sept Indiens, parce que les autres estoient morts en chemin. Il fit porter aueque luy aes perroquets verds, et de rouges, et d'autres choses dignes d'admiration qui n'auoient iamais esté veues en Espagne." Hist. des Indes Occident. i. 102, Ed. 1660, 3 tomes, 4to. See also Harris, Voyages, ii. 15. ed. 1764, 2 v. fol.; Robertson, America, i. 94. ed. 1778, 4to. Berkely's Naval Hist. Brit. 268. ed. 1756, fol. and Harris, Voyages, ii. 191. Sept. 11. The ship had now anchored at considerable distance up the river. The people of the country came on board, making show of love, and gave us tobacco and Indian wheat. Sept. 12. This morning there came eight-and-twenty canoes full of men, women and children to betray us; but we saw their intent, and suffered none of them to come on board. They have great tobacco pipes of yellow copper, and pots of earth to dress their meat in. That the Indians came "to betray them," with their women and children, was a mistaken notion of our voyagers, but they were not acquainted with the manners of these people. It is, and always has been their universal custom to send away or leave at home their families when they go out upon an expedition. Sept. 15. Hudson sails 20 leagues farther up the river, "passing by high mountains," probably the high lands of West Point. This morning the two captive savages got out of a port of the ship and made their escape. Sept. 18. The master's mate went on shore with an old Indian, a sachem of the country, who took him to his house and treated him kindly. Oct. 1. The ship, having fallen down the river "seven miles below the mountains," comes to anchor. One man in a canoe kept hanging under the stern of the ship, and would not be driven off. He soon contrived to climb up by the rudder, and got into the cabin window, which had been left open, from which he stole a pillow, two shirts, and two bandoleers. The mate shot him in the breast and killed him. Many others were in canoes about the ship, who immediately fled, and some jumped overboard. A boat manned from the ship pursued them, and coming up with one in the water, he laid hold of the side of the boat, and endeavored to overset it; at which one in the boat cut off his hands with a sword, and he was drowned. Oct. 2. They fall down seven leagues farther, and anchor again. Then, says Juet, came one of the savages that swam away from us at our going up the river, with many others, thinking to betray us, but we suffered none of them to enter our ship. Whereupon two canoes, full of men with their bows and arrows, shot at us after our stern; in recompense whereof we discharged six muskets, and killed two or three of them. Then above an hundred of them came to a point of land to shoot at us. There I shot a falcon at them, and killed two of them; whereupon the rest fled into the woods. Yet they manned off another canoe with nine or ten men, which came to meet us; so I shot at it also a falcon, and shot it through, and killed one of them. Then our men, with their muskets, killed three or four more of them. Thus are recorded the Indian events of Hudson's voyage in the River ~Manna-hata, (as he learned its name,) in 1609. Donacona, a chief upon the River St. Croix, was met with, in 1535, by the voyager James Cartier, who was well received and kindly treated by him and his people; to repay which, Cartier, "partly by stratagem and partly by force," carried him to France, where he soon after died.* Notwithstanding, Cartier was in the country five years after, where he found Agona, the successor of Donacona, and exchanged presents with him, probably reconciling him by some plausible account of the absence of Donacona. Tas quantum, or Tisquantum, was one of the five natives carried from the coast of New England, in 1605, by Capt. George Waymouth, who had been sent out to discover a north-west passage. This Indian was known afterwards to the settlers of Plimouth, by whom he was generally called 'Squanto or 'Squantum, by abbreviation. The names of the other four were Manida, Skettwarroes, Dehamda and Assacumet. Although Gorges does not say Dehamda was one brought over at this time, it is evident that he was, because, so far as we can discover, there were no other natives, at that time in England, but these five. Sir Fer finando Gorges says, Waymouth, "falling short of his course, [in seeking the N. W. passage,] happened into a river on the coast of America, called Pemmaquil, from whence he brought five of the natives.". "And it so pleased our great God that" Waymouth, on his return to England, "came into * Forster, 440-442. the harbor of Plymouth, where I then commanded." Three of whose natives, namely, Manida, Skettwarroes and Tasquantum, “I seized upon. They were all of one nation, but of several parts, and several families. This accident must be acknowledged the means, under God, of putting on foot and giving life to all our plantations." Paying great attention to these natives, he soon understood enough by them about the country from whence they came to establish a belief that it was of great value; not perhaps making due allowance for its being their home. And Sir Ferdinando adds, "After I had those people sometimes in my custody, I observed in them an inclination to follow the example of the better sort; and in all their carriages, manifest shows of great civility, far from the rudeness of our common people. And the longer I conversed with them, the better hope they gave me of those parts where they did inhabit, as proper for our uses; especially when I found what goodly rivers, stately islands, and safe harbors, those parts abounded with, being the special marks I leveled at as the only want our nation met with in all their navigations along that coast. And having kept them full three years, I made them able to set me down what great rivers run up into the land, what men of note were seated on them, what power they were of, how allied, what enemies they had," &c. Thus having gained a knowledge of the country, Sir Ferdinando got ready "a ship furnished with men and all necessaries" for a voyage to America, and sent as her captain Mr. Henry Challoung, with whom he also sent two of his Indians. The names of these were Assacumet and Manida. Chalons, having been taken sick in the beginning of the voyage, altered his course, and lost some time in the West Indies. After being able to proceed northward, he departed from Porto Rico, and was soon after taken by a Spanish fleet, and carried into Spain, "where their ship and goods were confiscate, themselves made prisoners, the voyage overthrown, and both my natives lost." One, however, Assacumet, was afterwards recovered, if not the other. This voyage of Chalons was in 1606. It appears that the Lord Chief Justice Popham had agreed to send a vessel to the aid of Chalons, which was accordingly done before the news of his being taken was known in England. For Sir Ferdinando Gorges says, “It pleased the lord chief justice, according to his promise, to despatch Capt. [Martin] Prin from Bristol, with hope to have found Capt. Challounge;" "but not hearing by any means what became of him, after he had made a perfect discovery of all those rivers and harbors," "brings with him the most exact discovery of that coast that ever came to my hands since, and, indeed, he was the best able to perform it of any I met withal to this present, [time,] which, with his relation of the country, wrought such an impression in the lord chief justice, and us all that were his associates, that (notwithstanding our first disaster) we set up our resolutions to follow it with effect." Dehama and Skettwarroes were with Prin§ in this voyage, and were, without doubt, his most efficient aids in surveying the coast. It appears from Gorges, that Dehamda was sent by the chief justice, who we suppose had considered him his property, and Skettwarroes by himself. They returned again to England with Prin. *It seems, from this part of his narrative, that he had but three of them, but, from subsequent passages, it appears he had them all. See also America painted to the Life. + Challons, by some. Gorges has him, sometimes, Clowns, Chalon, &c. The same who presided at the trial of Sir W. Ralegh and his associates, in 1603. See Prince's Worthies of Devon, 672, 673. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, ii. 284, says, "Travelers owed their safety to this judge's severity many years after his death, which happened Anno Domini 16**" thinking, no doubt, he had much enlightened his reader by definitely stating that Sir John Pophum died some time within a hundred years. The severity referred to has reference to his importuning King James not to pardon so many robbers and thieves, which, he said, tended to render the judges contemptible, and "which made him more sparing alterward." Gorges, one of the main springs of these transactions, who wrote the account we give, makes no mention of any other captain accompanying him; yet Dr. Holmes's authorities, Annals, i. 125, led him to record Thomas Hanum as the performer of this voyage. And a writer of 1622 says, Hanam, or, as he calls him, Human, went commander, and Prinne See 2 Col. Mass. Hist. Soc. ix. 3. This agrees with the account of Gorges the He had probably been given to him by Sir Ferdinando. ma`ster, younger. The next year, 1607, these two natives piloted the first New England colony to the mouth of Sagadahock River, since the Kennebeck. They left England 30 May, and did not arrive here until 8 August following. "As soon as the president had taken notice of the place, and given order for landing the provisions, he despatched away Captain Gilbert, with Skitwarres his guide, for the thorough discovery of the rivers and habitations of the natives, by whom he was brought to several of them, where he found civil entertainment, and kind respects, far from brutish or savage natures, so as they suddenly became familiar friends, especially by the means of Dehamda and Skitwarrers.” "So as the president was earnestly intreated by Sassenow, Aberemet, and others, the principal Sagamores, (as they call their great lords,) to go to the Bashabas, who it seems was their king." They were prevented, however, by adverse weather, from that journey, and thus the promise to do so was unintentionally broken, "much to the grief of those Sagamores that were to attend him. The Bashebas, notwithstanding, hearing of his misfortune, sent his own son to visit him, and to beat a trade with him for furs." Several sad and melancholy accidents conspired to put an end to this first colony of New England. The first was the loss of their store-house, containing most of their supplies, by fire, in the winter following, and another was the death of Lord Popham. It consisted of 100 men, and its beginning was auspicious; but these calamities, together with the death of their president, broke down their resolutions. So many discouragements, notwithstanding a ship with supplies had arrived, determined them to abandon the country, which they did in the spring.* What became of Dehamda and Skettwarroes there is no mention, but they probably remained in the country with their friends, unless the passage which we shall hereafter extract, be construed to mean differently.t * To return to Tisquantum. There is some disagreement in the narratives of the cotemporary writers in respect to this chief, which shows, either that some of them are in error, or that there were two of the same name-one carried away by Waymouth, and the other by Hunt. From a critical examination of the accounts, it is believed there was but one, and that he was carried away by Waymouth, as Sir Ferdinando Gorges relates, whose account we have given above. It is impossible that Sir Ferdinando should have been mistaken in the names of those he received from Waymouth. The names of those carried off by Hunt are not given, or but few of them, nor were they kidnapped until nine years after Waymouth's voyage. It is, therefore, possible that Squantum, having returned home from the service of Gorges, went again to England with some other person, or perhaps even with Hunt. But we are inclined to think that there was but one of the name, and his being carried away an error of inadvertence. Patuxet, afterward called Plimouth, was the place of residence of Squantum, who, it is said, was the only person that escaped the great plague of which we shall particularly speak in the life of Massasoit; where, at the same time, we shall take up again the life of Squantum, whose history is so intimately connected with it. It was in 1611 that Captain Edward Harlow§ was sent "to discover an Ile supposed about Cape Cod," who "falling with Monagigan, they found onely Cape Cod no Ile but the maine; there [at Mouligon Island] they detained three Saluages aboord them, called Pechmo, Monopet and Pekenimne, but Pechmo leapt ouerboard, and got away; and not long after, with his consorts, cut their Boat from their sterne, got her on shore, and so filled her with sand and guarded her with bowes and arrowes, the English lost her.”|| This exploit of Pechmo is as truly brave as it was daring. To have got *They had "seated themselves in a peninsula, which is at the mouth of this river, [Sagadahock,] where they built a fortress to defend themselves from their enemies, which they named St. George." America painted to the Life, by Ferd. Gorges, Esq. p. 19. See life Massasoit It is plain, from Prince, Chron. 134, that his authors had confounded the names of these Indians one with another. Sir Ferd. Gorges is probably wrong in calling him Henry Harley. Capt. Smith's Gen. Hist. N. Eng. under the stern of a ship, in the face of armed men, and at the same time to have succeeded in his design of cutting away and carrying off their boat, was an act as bold and daring, to say the least, as that performed in the harbor of Tripoli by our countryman Decatur. From Monligon Harlow, proceeding southward, fell in with an island called then by the Indians Nohono. From this place "they tooke Sakaweston, that after he had lived many years in England, went a soldier to the wars of Bohemia."* Whether he ever returned we are not told. From this island they proceeded to Capawick, since called Capoge, [Martha's Vineyard.] Here "they tooke Coneconam and Epenow," and "so, with fiue Saluages, they returned for England." Epenow, or, as some wrote, Epanow, seems to have been much such a character as Pechmo-artful, cunning, bold and daring. Sir Ferdinando Gorges is evidently erroneous in part of his statement about this native, in as far as it relates to his having been brought away by Hunt. For Harlow's voyage was in 1611, and Epanow was sent over to Cape Cod with Captain Hobson, in 1614, some months before Hunt left. As it is peculiarly gratifying to the writer to hear such old venerable writers as Smith, Gorges, &c. speak, the reader perhaps would not pardon him were he to withhold what the intimate acquaintance of the interesting Epanow says of him. Hear, then, Sir Ferdinando :— "While I was laboring by what means I might best continue life in my languishing hopes, there comes one Henry Harley unto me, bringing with him a native of the Island of Capawick, a place seated to the southward of Cape Cod, whose name was Epencue, a person of goodly stature, strong and well proportioned. This man was taken upon the main, [by force,] with some 29 others by a ship of London that endeavored to sell them for slaves in Spaine, but being understood that they were Americans, and being found to be unapt for their uses, they would not meddle with them, this being one of them they refused, wherein they exprest more worth than those that brought them to the market, who could not but known that our nation was at that time in travel for setling of Christian colonies upon that continent, it being an act much tending to our prejudice, when we came into that part of the countries, as it shall further appear. How Capt. Harley came to be possessed of this savage, I know not, but I understood by others how he had been shown in London for a wonder. It is true (as I have said) he was a goodly man, of a brave aspect, stout and sober in his demeanor, and had learned so much English as to bid those that wondered at him, WELCOME, WELCOME; this being the last and best use they could make of him, that was now grown out of the people's wonder. The captain, falling further into his familiarity, found him to be of acquaintance and friendship with those subject to the Bashaba, whom the captain well knew, being himself one of the plantation, sent over by the lord chief justice, [Popham,] and by that means understood much of his language, found out the place of his birth," &c. Before proceeding with the history of Epanow, the account of Capt. Thomas Hunt's voyage should be related; because it is said that it was chiefly owing to his perfidy that the Indians of New England were become so hostile to the voyagers. Nevertheless, it is plain, that (as we have already said) Hunt did not commit his deprecations until after Epanow had escaped out of the hands of the English. Capt. John Smith was in company with Hunt, and we will hear him relate the whole transaction. After stating that they arrived at Monhigon in April, 1614,§ spent a long time in trying to catch whales without success; and as "for gold, it was rather the master's device to get a voyage, that projected it ;" that for trifles they got "near 11CCO beaver skins, 100 *Capt. Smith's Gen. Hist. N. Eng. Perhaps not the Capt. Harlow before mentioned, though Prince thinks Gorges means him. If in this he refers to those taken by Hunt, as I suppose, he sets the number higher than others. His grandson, F. Gorges, in America Painted, &c., says 24 was the number seized by Hunt Smith had an Indian named Tantum with him in this voyage, whom he set on shore at Cape Cod. |