The Nantucket IndiansDouglas-Lithgow, R. A. (Robert Alexander)
History
The Nantucket Indians
Douglas-Lithgow, R. A. (Robert Alexander)
Indians of North America -- Massachusetts; Nantucket Island (Mass.) -- History
The number of settlers who had arrived from Salisbury in 1660 and 1661
soon began to make themselves comfortable in their new and strange
environment, while the Indians could not but admire the novel type of
dwelling houses which the new-comers had set up in strange contrast
with the humble wigwams of the aborigines; indeed the new procedure
which was being introduced in many directions must have caused them
much surprise.
For a time the English and the Indians—the civilized and the
uncivilized—worked together amicably for the agricultural development
of the island. Together they cleared and tilled the land (for the most
part existing as a primeval wilderness), settling the allotments,
cutting down the timber, which is said to have almost covered the
island, and mutually performing the numerous farming operations
involved in the reclamation and cultivation of the soil. In addition to
farming they engaged also in fishing, in which art the natives were
expert. Much time was also devoted to the raising of sheep, and thus
while mutual forbearance was exercised, mutual trust was generated, and
while the settlers acted faithfully and justly with the Indians, the
latter were equally loyal in the discharge of their duties in their new
relationships.
When King Philip visited the island in 1665 and tried to induce
the natives to join in his contemplated war with the English, they
emphatically refused to do so, expressing themselves as perfectly
satisfied and desiring to be at peace with the whites. Indeed, at a
town meeting, on October 10th, 1665, Attaychat (Autopscot) “signified
that himself with all the Tomokommoth Indians subject to the English
Government in Nantucket, acknowledge subjection to King Charles II.
This was done in the presence of Metacomet, alias Philip, Sachem of
Mount Hop.”
Unfortunately, civilization has too often brought in its wake habits
and customs which have ever proved degenerative, if not destructive to
the uncivilized races of the earth, and so they proved to the Indians,
who were sober, industrious, and happy before the settlers introduced
among them the iniquitous “fire-water,” to the abuse of which they
fell a prey. Acting under its pernicious influence their primitive
instincts were aroused within them, and never afterwards were they the
same people. Discontent soon spread among them, and litigation in the
Courts—to which they had equal access with the whites—became so very
frequent that the records extend from 1673 to 1754.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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