“Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die.
They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English chaplain; he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped, when bullets round him flew.”
The following winter, four chiefs came to Boston to ratify the treaty which followed these hostilities. The government of the colonies prohibited all private traffic with the Indians, as it had been the cause of many troubles. Truck-houses were established in convenient places, at which they were supplied with all the necessaries of life on advantageous terms. Though the government was a loser by the trade, this was deemed the most economical method of preserving peace, and it seems fully to have accomplished its purpose.
The natives throughout the New England provinces, now thinned and weakened, while the English had gained strength and extended their settlements in every direction, made no more serious attempts upon the peace of the country. In the French wars, even down to the period just preceding the Revolution, it is true that incursions were occasionally made, but they produced no lasting results.
There are few Indians now remaining in the New England States. A small number of Mohegans still reside in the vicinity of Norwich, Connecticut, where they have a neat little church, and a missionary has labored among them with some success. A few Penobscot Indians, too, are found in Maine, and here and there, in other places, may be met one or more of the descendants of the aborigines; but they are like the last scattered leaves of autumn,—withered, decaying, and frozen by the wintry blasts; spring finds them not again.