years. Some of them are comfortable habitations in winter; but in summer they are so infested with fleas and bugs, that it is impossible for any one but an Indian to sleep in them. The cottages are dirty, unfinished huts.

n

The Indians in general are not neat either in their persons or houses. Neither can they be said to be distinguished for their industry. Beside the farmers, some of the men are whalemen; others catch trout, alewives and other fish in the rivers, Several of the women co tivate the ground; and many of them . ke brooms 2. d baskets, and sell them among their white eighbod but more frequently carry them over to ket A few of the women manufacture their won a clothe themselves and their husbands with the labour of their own hands. A very few of them make but, or cheese. Several of the young females go to the large sea port. towns for months together, and serve in gentemen's kitchens, to the great injury of their morals; and others of the women lead a vagabond life in the country, wore at last they find negro husbands, whom they bring home to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of Mashp?.

There are several schools, where the children taught reading and spelling; but none of them are good; for as the Indians are scattered over the plantation, no enough children for a school can be collected in any one place. The females are in general better taught than the males; but many of the latter can write and cast accounts and some of them have a mechanical turn.

Morals are not in a good state. There are instances of industry and temperance; but too many of these Indians are unwilling to work, and are addicted to drunkenness. The females are more temperate than the males; but not a few of the young women, as well those who are married, as those who are not, are unchaste. The Indians, like other ignorant people, are apt to be suspicious. They cannot believe that the officers of government, the members of the Society for propagating the gospel, their overseers and guardians, and the other gentlemen, who have endeavoured to make them good and happy, and who, if ever men were disinterested, must be allowed to be so, are not under the dominion of selfish

motives. Too many of them are false and trickish: their way of life disposes them to these vices; hunting, fishing, and fowling, the usual employments of savages, train them up to be insidious. But though they are cunning and sly, yet they are at the same time improvident. If they were to be left to themselves, the Indians of Mashpee, and the same thing is true of those of Martha's Vineyard, would soon divest themselves of their land, and spend the capital. The inhabitants of this place are poor; and several of them are entirely supported by the guardians. At times all of them require relief. Their stores are generally very small, as an Indian depends for his daily bread upon his daily success: a week's sickness therefore impoverishes the greatest part of them, and renders them destitute of every comfort. Without the compassion of their white guardians many them would perish; for they have not much pity for each other. Several of them have actually suffered in times passed, from want of attention. Not twenty years since, two widows, Sarah Esau and the widow Nauhaud, who were in usual health, but feeble and alone, perished, at different times, and not far from home. Their bodies were found; but no coroner was called, no inquest was taken. These widows might be driven out by unkindness, or urged by want might be seeking wild fruit in the woods, where they got entangled and died. At that time the Indians of Mashpee were a body politick, and annually chose officers to provide for their poor. But the elected officers of any people are the people in miniature; and among savages, and those who are in a low state of civilization, the sick and the aged are always treated with neglect: for tenderness and disinterested benevolence do not spring up in the heart like indigenous plants; but they are the fruits of long, of laborious, and of intelligent cultivation.

Religion among these people is not in a better state than morals. Last year their meeting house resembled a cage of unclean birds: it may not perhaps be in so bad a condition at present, as a promise was then given that it should be cleansed. The situation of it proved, that they took no delight in the worship of God, as the

house which is dedicated to him was more offensive to the senses, than even their filthy huts. When the savages of New England were first converted to the christian faith, they were styled Praying Indians; but this name cannot with propriety be applied to the inhabitants of Mashpee; for family prayer is almost, if not altogether, unknown among them. Not much more attention is paid to publick, than to domestick religion: very few of the children are baptized; and there are not more than ten or twelve communicants. In one respect, however, there seems to be no indifference to religion; for though there are not more than eighty families, yet there are two ministers of the gospel. Mr. Hawley, the missionary, is a Congregationalist; and Mr. John Freeman, a half-blooded Indian, who is most followed by the na tives, is a Baptist.-The Indians retain few of the superstitions of their ancestors: perhaps they are not more superstitious than their white neighbours. They still however preserve a regard for sacrifice rocks, on which they cast a stick or stone, when they pass by them. They themselves can hardly inform us why they do this, or when it began to be a custom among them. Perhaps it may be an acknowledgment of an invisible agent, a token of the gratitude of the passenger on his journey for the good hand of Providence over him thus far, and may imply a mental prayer for its continuance or perhaps, as many of the vulgar among the English carry about with them lucky bones, and make use of other charms to secure the smiles of fortune, so these sticks, which are heaped on the sacrifice rocks, may be nothing more than offerings made to good luck, a mysterious agent, which is scarcely considered as a deity, which is spoken of without reverence, and adored without devotion. Of the fables of the Indians not many traces are left. One marvellous story however is still preserved. Before the existence of Coatuit Brook, a benevolent trout, intending to furnish the Indians with a stream of fresh water, forced his way from the sea into the land; but finding the effort too great for his strength, he expired, when another fish took up the work where he left it, and completed the brook to Sanctuit Pond. The reader may be

lieve as much of this story as he pleases. He probably would regard the whole as a fiction, if he was not assured, that thousands of persons have seen the mound of earth, which covers the grave of the benevolent trout. It is on the grounds of Mr. Hawley, and not far from his house; and is twenty-seven feet over, and fifty-four feet in length.

Those parts of the history of Mashpee, which have been given in these Collections,* need not be repeated here. At the time when this territory was granted to the South Sea Indians, as they are styled in the deeds, the natives were numerous in the county of Barnstable; but they were not particularly so in Mashpee. At present there are as many in Mashpee, as in former periods, whilst from other parts of the county they have almost entirely disappeared. It must not be inferred from this fact, that the plantation is exempt from the general law to which the aboriginals are subject, that its inhabitants should gradually waste away; but it has proceeded from this cause, that Mashpee enjoying many peculiar privileges and advantages, in particular that those who dwell in it are sure of a living, from their labour, if they are willing to work, and from the charity of their guardians, if they are not,-has during a great number of years been an asylum for lazy Indians from all quarters of the country. They have come, not only from the towns of the county, but from Middleborougli, New Bedford, Natick, Narraganset, and even Long Island. So far is Mashpee from being able to keep good its numbers by natural population, that several ancient families have entirely lost their name. We might particularly mention the Wepquish and Sincausin families, who were remarkable for their cunning and artifice, and of whom, though they flourished here not forty years ago, no sprig now remains. Several ancient families however are still left, in particular the Popmonets and the Keetohs.

The Commissioners of the Society for propagating the gospel in New England during a long course of

*See Coll. of Hist. Soc. 1st Ser Vol. I. p. 126. 204. Vol. III. p. 188 Vol. IV. p. 66. Voi. V. p. 206. Vol. X. p. 113. 133.

years superintended these Indians ;* and they expended large sums of money for their benefit,-in the salaries of their ministers, in schools for the education of their children, in clothes and food for their poor, and in the journies of committees, who visited them from time to time, for the sake of promoting their improvement in piety and virtue, of listening to their complaints, and redressing their grievances. The Report of one of the committees follows this Description; and it is given as a specimen of the care, with which the Commissioners watched over these Indians. Committees of the legis lature have also visited Mashpee, whenever it has been requested; and have exhausted much time, patience, and money in the service of the inhabitants. It has not however been found easy to satisfy them, or to render them happy as the committees could not give them temperance and industry, they have still remained poor, abject, and discontented.

Before 1763, they were under overseers and guardians, who were appointed by the government; but the complaints of the Indians were for many years so loud, and their demands for more liberty so pressing, that in August, 1761, the General Court sent a respectable Committee, consisting of the Honourable William Brattle, Thomas Foster, and Daniel Howard, Esquires, to ask the Indians what they wished. The natives stated their requests to these gentleman, who reported them to the legislature. At length, after several delays, a law was obtained, which conferred on the natives the long desired privilege of choosing their own officers. Accordingly on the 14th day of June, 1763, an act was passed, incorporating the Indians and Mulattoes of Mashpee into a district, and empowering them to elect five Overseers, two being Englishmen, a Town Clerk and Treasurer, they being Englishmen, two Wardens, and one or more Constables. At first it was supposed that this law would produce good effects; but the experiment was tried a number of years, and every one acquainted with Mashpee became

Since the Revolution they have been under the care of other bodies of men, See Coll. of Hist. Soc. II. 47. 2d. Series.