Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

by Samuel Adams Drake

The first thing this Indian asked for was beer. The Pilgrims themselves preferred it to water, but they had none left; so they feasted him on good English cheer, and gave him strong waters to wash it down. His naked body excited astonishment, and a compassionate Pilgrim cast a horseman's cloak about him. Of all the assembly that encircled him, Samoset alone seemed unconcerned. The settlers had seen skulking savages on the hills, but they knew not what to make of this fellow, who thus dropped in on them, as it were, for a morning call. Since their first encounter with the Nauset Indians, they expected enmity, and not friendship. A midnight assault in their unprepared state was the thing most dreaded. Peace or war seemed to reside in the person of this Indian. They watched him narrowly. At night-fall they hoped he would take his leave; but he showed neither disposition to depart, nor distrust at beholding himself the evident object of mingled fear and suspicion. They concluded to send him on board the Mayflower for safe-keeping, and Samoset went willingly to the shallop; but it was low tide, and they could not reach the vessel. So they lodged him in Steven Hopkins's house. The next day he left them to go to Massasoit, and they finished by recognizing him as a friend, sent them by Heaven. Samoset was the Pemaquid chief, of whom we should gladly know more than we do. His communications were of importance to the Pilgrims, for Bradford admits that the exact description he gave them of his own country and of its resources was very profitable to them. I suppose it led to their establishing the trading-houses at Penobscot and Kennebec, and to the addition of the strip of country on the latter river to their patent of 1629, afterward enlarged by other tracts purchased of the Indians. The Pilgrims preferred trading to fishing, and no subsequent colony had such an opportunity to enrich themselves; but it was the policy of the English adventurers to keep them poor, and it may be questioned whether they developed the shrewdness in traffic for which their descendants have become renowned.

Samoset's coming paved the way for that of Massasoit, who made his entry into Plymouth with Indian pomp, in March. He was preceded by Samoset and Squanto,[200] who informed the settlers that the king was close at hand. The Pilgrims were then assembled under arms on the top of Burial Hill, engaged in military exercise, and witnessed the approach of Massasoit with his savage retinue of sixty warriors. Here were two representative delegations of the Old World and the New; the English in steel caps and corslets, the Indians in wild beasts' skins, paint, and feathers. The bearing of the Christians was not more martial than that of the savages.

The Pilgrims stood on their dignity, and waited. At the king's request, Edward Winslow went out to hold parley with him. His shining armor delighted the Indian sachem, who would have bought it, together with his sword, on the spot, but Winslow was unwilling to part with either. After mutual salutations and some talk of King James, Massasoit, accompanied by twenty, proceeds to the town, leaving Winslow a hostage in the hands of Quadequina, his brother. At the town brook Massasoit is met by Standish with half a dozen musketeers. Here are more grave salutations, and then the king is conducted to an unfinished house, where the utmost state the Pilgrims could contrive was a green rug and three or four cushions placed on the floor. There is a roll of drum and blast of trumpet in the street, and Bradford, attended by musketeers, enters. He kisses the hand of the New England prince—"tho'," says Mourt, "the king looked greasily"—and the savage kisses Bradford. Then they sit. The governor calls for a stoup of strong waters, which he quaffs to the king, after the manner of chivalry; the royal savage drinks, in return, a great draught, that makes him "sweate all the time after."

"Give me the cups,
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth.
'Now the king drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin."

It may interest some readers to know what a real Indian king was like. "He was," says an eye-witness, "a very lustie man, in his best yeares, an able body, grave of countenance, and spare of speech; in his Attyre little or nothing differing from the rest of his followers, only in a great Chaine of white bone Beades about his necke; and at it behinde his necke hangs a little bagg of Tobacco, which he dranke and gave us to drinke; his face was painted with a sad red like murry, and oyled both head and face, that hee looked greasily. All his followers, likewise, were in their faces in whole or in part painted, some blacke, some red, some yellow, and some white, some with crosses, and other Antick workes, some had skins on them, and some naked, all strong, tall, all men in appearance.

"One thing I forgot; the king had in his bosome, hanging to a string, a great long knife. He marvelled much at our trumpet, and some of his men would sound it as well as they could." Mourt also states that the king trembled with fear while he sat by the governor, and that the savages showed such apprehension of the fire-arms that the governor caused them to be removed during the conference.

This was the first American Congress of which I have found mention. The Indians knew what a treaty of amity meant. They needed no instruction in international law. I believe they knew the Golden Rule, or had a strong inkling of it. That was a convention more famous than the Field of the Cloth of Gold, though there were but a green rug and a few cushions. "The peace," Bradford writes, "hath now (1645) continued this twenty-four years." "To which I may add," says Prince, "yea, 30 years longer, viz., to 1675."

The Indians, at the entertainment given them in Plymouth, partook heartily of the food set before them, but they could not be induced to taste spices or condiments. Salt was not used by them. Gosnold regaled them with a picnic at the Vineyard, of which John Brereton says, "the Indians misliked nothing but our mustard, whereat they made many a sowre face." I doubt not the English spread it thickly on the meat, even at the hazard of good understanding.

It took these simple natives a long time to comprehend the English method of correspondence. They could not penetrate the mystery of talking paper. There is a story of an Indian sent by Governor Dudley to a lady with some oranges, the present being accompanied with a letter in which the number was mentioned. When out of the town, the Indian put the letter under a stone, and going a short distance off, ate one of the oranges. His astonishment at finding the theft discovered was unbounded.

I did not omit a ramble among the wharves, but saw little that would interest the reader. When you are there, the proper thing to do is to take a boat and cross the bay to Clark's Island and Duxbury. We sailed over the submerged piles at the end of Long Wharf; for the pier, once the pride of Plymouth, was fast going to wreck. The tops of the piles, covered with sea-weed kept in motion by the waves, bore an unpleasant resemblance to drowned human heads bobbing up and down. As we passed close to the new light-house off Beach Point, the boatman remarked that when it was being placed in position the caisson slipped in the slings, and dropped to the bottom nearer the edge of the channel than was desirable.