We talk glibly and deprecatingly of the poor Indians as “mere savages”, but the annals of American history afford but few instances of really nobler men than Massassoit, Passaconaway, Samoset, and Wanackmamack, the controlling Head Sachem of Nantucket. Had it not been for the high personal qualities of such men New England might not have occupied today the proud position which she now holds among the United States. The venerable Chief Wanackmamack was not only the pride and glory of his insular braves, but the tried, true, and loyal friend of the English immigrants. He was as kind-hearted and judicious as he was courageous and high principled, and he governed his home-land so ably and satisfactorily as to justify his memory in history as an exemplary ruler. Of Wauwinet little is known but that he was very old and much respected when the settlers arrived, and nothing, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has been said against him. Nicornoose, his eldest son and successor, has not a good record, as he deserted his wife and children, and had two children by another woman. Beyond the fact that Autopscot was called “a great warrior and got his land by his bow”, and that he permanently established peace throughout the island, little further is recorded of him. Nor does history mention anything concerning Potconet, the sachem ruling the proximate western islands, with the exception of a record of the sale of his lands to the settlers, in 1659. Such were the rulers of Nantucket when the settlers arrived. What a revelation the incoming of the whites must have been to the red men, who had lived on the island, probably from a very early age, among their own people, under their own laws, perpetuating their own habits and customs—living close to Nature—for the most part in peace and amity—simple in their lives, and knowing nothing, caring nothing for the external world beyond them! Yet, on the arrival of the new people who had come to supplant them, they received them amicably, treated them justly, and as they treated one another, relying upon what they recognized as the instinctive and inalienable principles of humanity to govern their relationships and to promote the mutual good and harmony of all. I cannot stop to inquire who first took advantage of the racial differences which distinguished these two peoples, or how the greater intellectuality and experience of the one eventually overcame the other, but Time tells the story; and today, while the whites glory in the beauties of, and the opportunities afforded by their island home, where are the poor Indians, the aborigines? All gone—melted away like dew-drops in the sun, and not even one remains to tell the story of their past history!