From this time, the names of the father and son are sometimes found united, and sometimes not so, in instruments by which land was conveyed to the English. In 1649, the former sold the territory of Bridgewater in his own name. "Witnes these presents"—are the words of the deed—"that I Ousamequin Sachim of the contrie of Pocanauket, haue given, granted enfeofed and sould unto Myles Standish of Duxborough Samuel Nash and Constant Southworth of Duxborough aforesaid in the behalfe of all ye townsmen of Duxborough aforesaid a tract of land usually called Saughtucket extending in length and the breadth thereof, as followeth, that is to say—[here follow the boundaries of what is now Bridgewater]—the wch tract the said Ousamequin hath given granted enfeofed and sould unto ye said Myles [Standish] Samuel Nash and Constant Southworth in the behalfe of all ye townsmen of Duxborough as aforesaid wth all the emunities priveleges and profitts whatsoever belonging to the said tract of land wth all and singular all woods underwoods lands meadowes Riuers brooks Rivulets &c. to have and to hould to the said Myles Standish Samuel Nash and Constant Southworth in behalfe of all the townsmen of the towne of Duxborough to them and their beyers forever. In witnes whereof I the said Ousamequin have here unto sett my hand this 23 of March 1649.
"The mk of {mark} Ousamequin.
"In consideration of the aforesaid bargain and sale wee the said Myles Standish Samuel Nash and Constant Southworth, doe bind ourselves to pay unto ye said Ousamequin for and in consideration of ye said tract of land as followeth
| "7 Coats a yd and half in a coat | } | Myles Standish |
| 9 Hatchets | } | |
| 8 Howes | } | Samuel Nash |
| 20 Knives | } | |
| 4 Moose skins | } | Constant Southworth. |
| 10 Yds and half of cotton | }" |
The original document of which we have here given a literal and exact copy has been preserved to this day. It is in the handwriting of Captain Standish.
The precise date of Massasoit's death is unknown. In 1653, his name appears in a deed by which he conveyed part of the territory of Swansey to English grantees. Hubbard supposes that he died about three years subsequent to this; but as late as 1661, he is noticed in the Records of the United Colonies, as will appear more particularly in the life of his eldest son. Two or three years afterwards, conveyances were made of the Pokanoket lands in which he appears to have had no voice; and it may be fairly inferred that he died in that interval. He must have been near eighty years of age.
Such are the passages which history has preserved concerning the earliest and best friend of the Pilgrims. Few and simple as they are, they give glimpses of a character that, under other circumstances, might have placed Massasoit among the illustrious of his age. He was a mere savage; ignorant of even reading and writing, after an intercourse of near fifty years with the colonists; and distinguished from the mass of savages around him, as we have seen, by no other outward emblem than a barbarous ornament of bones. It must be observed, too, as to them, that the authority which they conferred upon him, or rather upon his ancestors, was their free gift, and was liable at any moment to be retracted, wholly or in part, either by the general voice or by the defection or violence of individuals. The intrinsic dignity and energy of his character alone, therefore, must have sustained the dominion of the sachem, with no essential distinction of wealth, retinue, cultivation, or situation in any respect, between him and the meanest of the Wampanoags. The naked qualities of his intellect and is heart must have gained their loyalty, controlled their extravagant passions to his own purposes, and won upon their personal confidence and affection.
That he did this appears from the fact, so singular in Indian history, that among all the Pokanoket tribes, there was scarcely an instance of even an individual broil or quarrel with the English during his long life. Some of these tribes, living nearer the Colony than any other Indians, and going into it daily in such numbers, that Massasoit was finally requested to restrain them from "pestering" their friends by their mere multitude,—these shrewd beings must have perceived, as well as Massasoit himself did, that the colonists were as miserably fearful as they were feeble and few. Some of them, too,—the sachem Corbitant, for example,—were notoriously hostile, and perhaps had certain supposed reasons for being so. Yet that cunning and ambitious savage extricated himself from the only overt act of rebellion he is known to have attempted, by "soliciting the good offices of Massasoit," we are told, "to reconcile him to the 'English." And such was the influence of the chief sachem, not only over him, but over the Massachusetts sachems, that nine of the principal of them soon after came into Plymouth from great distances, for the purpose of signifying their humble respect for the authority of the English.
That Massasoit was beloved as well as respected by his subjects and neighbors, far and wide, appears from the great multitude of anxious friends who thronged about him during his sickness; Some of them, as Winslow ascertained, had come more than one hundred miles for the purpose of seeing him; and they all watched his operations in that case, with as intense anxiety as if the prostrate patient had been the father or the brother of each. And meagre as is the justice which history does the sachem, it still furnishes some evidence, not to be mistaken, that he had won this regard from them by his kindness. There is a passage of affecting simplicity in Winslow's Relation, going to show that he did not forget their minutest interests, even in his own almost unconscious helplessness. "That morning," it is said, "he caused me to spend in going from one to another among those that were sick in the town [Sowams]; requesting me to treat them as I had him, and to give to each of them some of the same I gave him, saying they were good folk."
But these noble traits of the character of Massasoit are still more abundantly illustrated by the whole tenor of his intercourse with the whites. Of his mere sense of his positive obligations to them, including his fidelity to the famous treaty of 1621, nothing more need be said, excepting that the annals of the continent furnish scarcely one parallel even to that case. But he went much further than this. He not only visited the Colony in the first instance of his own free will and accord, but he entered into the negotiations cheerfully and deliberately; and in the face of their manifest fear and suspicion. Henceforth the results of it were regarded, not with the mere honesty of an ally, but with the warm interest of a friend. It was probably at his secret and delicate suggestion,—and it could scarcely have been without his permission, at all events,—that his own subjects took up their residence among the colonists, with the view of guiding, piloting, interpreting for them, and teaching them their own useful knowledge. Winslow speaks of his appointing another to fill the place of Squanto at Plymouth, while the latter should be sent about among the Pokanokets, under his orders, "to procure truck [in furs] for the English."