Except in the destruction of the Pequots, the native tribes of New England
had as yet undergone no very material diminution. The Pokanokets or
Wampanoags, though somewhat curtailed in their limits, still occupied the
eastern shore of Narragansett Bay. The Narragansetts still possessed the
western shore. There were several scattered tribes in various parts of
Connecticut; though, with the exception of some small reservations, they
had already ceded all their lands. Uncas, the Mohegan chief, was now an old
man. The Pawtucket or Pennacook confederacy continued to occupy the
falls of the Merrimac and the heads of the Piscataqua. Their old sachem,
Passaconaway, regarded the colonists with awe and veneration. In the
interior of Massachusetts and along the Connecticut were several other less
noted tribes. The Indians of Maine and the region eastward possessed their
ancient haunts undisturbed; but their intercourse was principally with the
French, to whom, since the late peace with France, Acadia had been again
yielded up. The New England Indians were occasionally annoyed by war
parties of Mohawks; but, by the intervention of Massachusetts, a peace had
recently been concluded.
Efforts for the conversion and civilization of the Indians were still
continued by Eliot and his coadjutors, supported by the funds of the
English society. In Massachusetts there were fourteen feeble villages of
these praying Indians, and a few more in Plymouth colony. The whole number
in New England was about thirty-six hundred, but of these near one-half
inhabited the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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