the havens and channells that issued into the sea; where there used to be at all times, clams, muscles, and oaysters, and in the summer season lobsters, bass, or mullet, and sturgeon, of which they used to take great plenty, and dry them in the smoake, and keepe them the rest of the yeere. Up higher, at the falls of great rivers, they used to take salmon, shad, alewives, that use in great quantities, more than cart loades, in the spring to pass up into the fresh watter ponds and lakes, therein to spawne, of all which they, with there wares, used to take great store for their use. In all such places there was wont to bee great resort. In time of yeere for their denomination, they use to be divided, as the clans in Scotland, by the head of the tribes, and called after their names. Every son of such a chiefe person used, if he could, to get a company to him, of which he also made himself the sagamore.

Att every of these places there used to be, if commodious, about an hundred or two hundred inhabitants, who had a sagamore over them, whom they acknowledged as their chiefe; and commonly in every province where the tribe was greater, there was some greater sagamore, to whom the rest owed more reverence then to the lesser, whom they called sachem. So as things of common concernement were acted by common consent and agreement, and in such cases they used to bee mutually engaged to assist each other in tyme of danger.

Betwixt Kennebecke and Connecticut were observed to bee about twenty societies or companyes of these salvages, when the English first came upon this coast, to which all the rest may be reduced, all of them together not being capable to make a nation. As 1. at Kennebecke itselfe, where was a great number of them when it was first discovered, who were only knowne to those of the Masachusets by the name of Tarratines, or eastern men. 2. Casco bay, at the head of which, or neere by about Sheepscoat* river, was the seat of Amorascoggan Indians, still standing out in hostilitie against the English, in the • Pegipscot, margin. Ed.

year 1677. After all, the rest were either subdued or fleed away, if they have not lately concluded a peace with our agents. 3. Saco, a more noted river then many others, which alwaies was wont to entertain a sagamore, with a considerable number of Indians. 4. Piscataqua, which being a navigable river, and into which many lesser channels used to empty themselves, was a fit seat for many tribes of them. 5. Merrimacke, where were severall receptacles of them, some twenty and thirty some forty or fifty miles from the mouth of it, as Wammeset, Pentucket, Patucket, Amoskeag, Pennicook, etc. 6. The river of Newberry, att the falls of which was a noted plantation of them, by reason of the plenty of fish, that almost at all seasons of the yeere used to be found there, both in winter and summer. 7. Att Agawam, called now Ipswich, was another noted and desireable place, for plenty of severall sorts of fish found there in time of yeere, both att the harbors mouth shell fish of all sorts, and other kinds higher up the stream, and to which belonged those of Newberry falls that lyes in the midway, betwixt Merrimack and Agawam. 8. Naumkeag, now called Salem, was much frequented by the salvages in former tymes, together with Marblehead and Lin neere adjoyning, which Lin had a distinct sagamore of theire owne surviving till of late, called George, and the Indians name of the place was Saugust. 9. The Massachusets, at or neere the mouth of Charles river, where used to bee the general rendezvous of all the Indians, both on the south and north side of the country. That which by the English is called Charles river, is the bottome of that great bay that runns in betweene Cape Cod and Cape Ann, and was the seat of a great sachem or sagamore, much reverenced by all the plantations of the Indians; neere by to which were Narponset, Punkapog, Wessagusquasset, and so up Charles river, where were severall plantations of the natives seated. Att Misticke was the seat of another sagamore ncere adjoyning, which is a great creeke, that meets with the mouth of Charles river, and so makes the haven of Boston. 10. Pokanacket or Sowame, the seat of the Wompanoogs, of

whom Woosamequen or Massasoit was the chiefe sachem, Anno 1620, whose son was the author of the rebellion of the Indians, 1675; which fire kindled first there, did soone runne over all the country. 11. Those called Nipnetts, seated amongst some lesser rivers and great lakes up higher, within the continent, which some have said were a kinde of tributaries to Massasoit. 12. The Narragansetts, a great people upon the sea coast more towards the mouth of Connecticutt, consisting of severall lesser principalities, yett all united under one generall ruler, called the Chiefe Sachem, to whom all the others owed some kinde of subjection. It is said that before they were destroyed by theire late quarrelling with the English, they had about two thousand fighting men, of all which now there are few or none left, butt a a hundred or two, belonging to Ninigret, who, though hee secretly bore the English noe more good will then the rest, yet being an old man, and cunning, and remembring how his neighbors, the Pequods, were ruined by their power, durst never engage against them, butt allwayes professed and maintayned friendship to the last, in outward appearance. 13. The Pequods, seated on a brave river beyond the Narragansetts, a more fierce and warelike people then any of their neighbors, and therefore made them all stand in awe, though fewer in number than the Narraganssetts, that bordered next upon them. 14. The Mohegans, whose seat is betweene the country of the Pequods and the river of Connecticutt, upon some higher branches of that called Pequod river. 15. The River Indians, such who had seated themselves in severall commodious plantations up higher upon Connecticutt river. 16. The Cape Indians, upon Cape Cod and some other islands neere adjoyning, as at Martin's Vineyard, where civility and Christianity hath taken a deeper roote than in any other plantation of the Indians. 17. The Mohegans about Hudson's river. 18. The Cynikers,* upon the same river, more westward. The Moquawes, comonly called the Mohawkes, whose seat is amongst the rivers and ponds, about seventy miles

Senecas. Ed.

19.

northwest from fort Albany. These have lately renewed or continued a league tripartite with the governor of New Yorke and the rest of the English, both offensive and deffensive. What is like to be the benefit and issue thereof future tyme may declare. 20. The Indians on Long Island and on the mayne opposite thereunto, alonge the sea coast from Connecticutt to Hudson river, of whom they that live about the mouth of the great river, and on the island neer adjoning, were always accounted more barbarous, treacherous, and false, then any other sort of them.

Concerning the right of succession and inheritance, itt is not certainly knowne, nor is it worth the enquiring after; however, it is said by some, that brothers inherit successively before the sons, and the uncles before the nephews, following therein the costome of theire ancesstors, their poverty, and barbarous manner of living, not affording opportunitie, for want of means, to run into many capitall evills, which the wealth of other nations doth dispose them unto. Few or no crimes have beene observed, besides murder and treason, amongest them to bee punished with death, which seems to have beene a law in force among all nations, since the Allmighty destroyed the world with a flood, to purge away its guilt and defilement, contracted by the violence and cruelty of bloodshed, and soone after enacting the standing law so necessary for the upholding humane society, that "whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood bee shed." But theire inhabitants being so poore and meane, and theire manner of life soe uncult and brutish, it is scarce worth the while to enquire farther into the way of theire successions thereunto, or the lawes and costomes whereby they use to be maintained and governed in the possession of them. As for their religion, they never were observed by any of the first comers or others, to have any other but what was diabolicall, and so uncouth, as if it were framed and devised by the devill himselfe, and is transacted by them they used to call pawwowes, by some kinde of familiarity with the devill, and to whom they used to resort for counsell in

all kinde of evills, both corporall and civil. It is not worth the while either to write or read what it was, all of it depending on the uncertayne reports of some occasional spectators; but nothing uncleane or filthy, like the heathen's feasts of Bacchus and Venus, was ever heard of amongst any of them. Their low and meane dyet and fare, (being always accustomed to drink water,) not disposing them to any inordinacy in that kind, as used to be said of old, "Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus;" i. e. ebri, ety and gluttony produces venery,

CHAP. VIII.

Of the first planting of New-England or any part thereof by the English.*

AFTER the expense of much treasure, time, and pains in the discovery of that part of America called Virginia, that lieth to the north of Florida, some eminent and worthy persons, (moved more by a religious zeal to propagate the gospel, and promote the glory of the English nation, than any emulation of their catholick neighbours of Spain,) entertained serious thoughts of planting colonies of their countrymen in that part of the new world. That vast country being found upon experience and trial too large to be moulded into one entire government, (the whole extending from 34 to 48 degrees of north latitude,) it was thought meet should be divided into a first and second colony, to which end patents were granted to sundry honourable persons of the famous cities of London, Bristol, Exeter, and town of Plymouth, about the year 1606; soon after which time the name of New England began to be appropriated to the north colony by the renowned Prince of Wales, after captain Smith discovered the bounds thereof, as some say, about the year 1614; the other still retaining the first name, Virginia. This latter, by the fertility of the soil and commodiousness of the havens and rivers, giving greatest hopes of prosperity and success, was undertak, en by those of London, whose adventures, difficulties,

• From this place the modern orthography will be adopted. Ed.