The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century : $b An ethnohistorical surveyMarten, Catherine
History
The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century : $b An ethnohistorical survey
Marten, Catherine
Indians of North America -- New England -- History -- 17th century; Wampanoag Indians
Changes were being introduced into Indian culture long before the
arrival of the first permanent European settlers. Fishing and whaling
industries brought large numbers of ships (nearly four hundred in
1578) to the vicinity of Newfoundland and Cape Breton; incidental
trade in furs between the Indians and these vessels covered a
six-hundred mile range that undoubtedly included New England.[17]
Indian graves which date from this period contain European trade
items—the first evidence of the changes being introduced into native
culture.[18] The Indians seem especially to have appreciated the
value of the metal tools which the Europeans brought.[19] Their own
use of metal had been limited to the making of ornaments out of
native copper. For heavy work, such as felling trees and dressing
game, stone tools were used.
The increasing substitution of metal tools for stone ones brought
about changes in Indian technology that continued through the
seventeenth century. The situation for New England Indians in general
is summarized by Willoughby:
After and during the first two or three decades of the seventeenth
century the Indians received from European traders, especially
from the French and Dutch, cloth, kettles, hatchets, and many
other objects, and the graves of that period have yielded numerous
articles of this nature. The native industries of the people
rapidly declined. It was principally among the women that the finer
arts survived for a time, such as the better class of bag and
basket making, porcupine and moose-hair embroidery, etc., although
the men continued for a period the production of their excellent
wooden bowls and drinking cups.[20]
Technological change was not, however, only a matter of the loss of
skill at aboriginal crafts. The Indians were quick to learn useful
new techniques from the English settlers. They learned the art of
pewter casting, and thus produced pipes and buttons.[21] A further
use for their new-found knowledge of metallurgy was noted by Governor
Bradford:
They have also their moulds to make shotte, of all sorts, as
muskett bulletts, pistoll bullets, swan and gose shote, and of
smaler sorts; yea, some have seen them have their scruplates to
make scrupins themselves, when they wante them, with sundery
other implements, wher with they are ordinarily better fited and
furnished then the English them selves.[22]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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