Thus while the Indian declined in power his simple coinage passed from hand to hand, among his conquerors, in the haunts where unnumbered generations of his ancestors had trafficked it in rude barter, or offered it with solemn ceremonial, their costliest offering, to their country's gods. It was for about a quarter of a century a legal tender in New England, while among the Dutch it was during half a century often the only circulating medium, and among both Dutch and English it filled a more or less important part in the currency for nearly an entire century. When at length the increasing wealth of the people drove wampum out of common use, it still remained an important article in commerce. It was manufactured at New York until the commencement of the present century to be used in traffic with the Indians, for whom it had lost none of its charms, and to be carried by our whalers into the northern seas. Treaties and compacts between the different tribes and the states, and later the general government, continued to be ratified by the interchange of wampum belts. The records of the eighteenth century abound with instances of this character. The last occasion of the kind is believed to have been at Prairie du Chien in 1825.[59] Among the Indians of the present day wampum is unknown. The name still remains, but the trifles to which it is applied bear no resemblance to the ancient article. The glass beads now current as wampum and the original wampum are not less unlike, than the squalid Blackfoot of our western plains, and the proud and imperious Mohawk, beside his native stream. FOOTNOTES: [1] Trumbull in his notes in the Narragansett Club Reprint of Roger Williams's _Key_, says: "_Wom pam_ was the name of the white beads collectively; when strung or wrought in girdles they constituted _wanom-peg_ [Roger Williams], the _wampon-peage_ of Wood and other early writers." _Peage_ or _peake_ signified simply "strung beads," and _wampom-peage_ accordingly signified "strings of white beads." The English were doubtless led to consider _wampum_ a generic word, because they heard it oftenest used, _wampum_ being much more abundant than _suckauhock_. Their error has however long since received the sanction of usage. But as far as our own knowledge extends there was no comprehensive word for all shell beads in use among the Indians. _Sewan_ had perhaps very nearly such a use in certain localities, but the real meaning of the word _sewan_ appears from the following note in the Narragansett Club Reprint of Roger Williams's _Key_:--"_Seahwhoog_, 'they are scattered' [Elliot]. From this word the Dutch traders gave the name of _sewared_ or _zeewand_ [the participle, _seahwhoun_, 'scattered,' 'loose'], to _all_ shell money just as the English called all _peage_, or string beads, by the name of the white or _wampom_."