Many a lesson was taken by the wondering settlers in New England forestry under the skilful tuition of Squanto or Samoset. “Once,” says the quaint old record, “a party of us got belated in the forest, where the night was spent; in the morning, wandering from the track, we were shrewdly puzzled, and lost the way. As we wandered, we came to a tree, where a young sprit was bowed down over a bow, and some acorns strewed underneath; Stephen Hopkins said it had been fixed to catch deer; so as we were looking at it, William Bradford being in the rear, when he came up looked also upon it, and as he went about, it gave a sudden jerk up, so that he was immediately caught fast by the leg. It was a very pretty device, made with a rope of their own making, and having a noose as artificially fixed as any roper in England could make, and as like ours as can be: this we brought away with us.”[207] This was a pleasant jest to the hunters, in which the gravest of them doubtless indulged in a laugh at their too curious governor, thus caught in the Indian deer-trap. The hint, however, was well worth their study; and often afterwards it served them a good turn, ere their ringing axes frightened the timid deer into following the dusky native hunters beyond the encroaching and ever-widening circle of civilization.
To increase the general stock of information, and to relieve the routine tedium of the settlement, several expeditions were planned during this first summer; and these looked into the continent a few miles distant in the east, the north, and the west.[208]
The first of them took the shape of an embassy to Massasoit. As the warm weather brought the Indians to the sea-shore in search of lobsters and to fish, they proved to be a sad annoyance to the colonists. They were treated with uniform courtesy, and this kindness furnished a motive for frequent visits, so that men, women, and children, were always hanging about the village, clamorous for food and pertinaciously inquisitive. It was partly to abate this nuisance, and “partly,” says the old chronicle, “to know where to find our savage allies, if occasion served, as also to see their strength, explore the country, make satisfaction for some injuries conceived to have been done on our parts, and to continue the league of peace and friendship between them and us,”[209] that Stephen Hopkins and Edward Winslow were now delegated to wait upon the friendly sagamore in his forest home.
In July, 1621, these earliest negotiators of New England set out upon their mission, “not with the pomp of modern diplomats, but through the forest and on foot, to be received, not to the luxuries of courts, but to share in the abstinence of savage life.” Marks of the devastation caused by the pestilence which had preceded their settlement, of “the arrows that flew by night,” were visible wherever the envoys went, and they witnessed the extreme poverty and feebleness of the aborigines.[210]
On, on pressed the Englishmen through the intricate mazes of the woods, and they never ceased to wonder at the ease and certainty with which Squanto, who accompanied them as guide and interpreter, picked out the right path from the labyrinthine tracks.[211] A walk of fifteen miles brought them to an almost “deserted village,” called Namasket, in what is now Middleborough, where the few remaining natives received them with the most gracious rites of Indian hospitality, and gave them “a kind of bread,” and the spawn of shad boiled with old acorns.[212] Here they tarried for an hour in the afternoon. Eight miles farther inland they bivouacked, with the sky for a covering and the trees for blankets. A number of Indians had assembled at this place to fish, but these had erected no shelter. Around them they discerned under the moonlight the evident marks of former extensive cultivation. “Thousands of men had lived there,” says Winslow, the historian of the mission, “who died in the great plague not long since.”[213]
In the morning, rising early, they resumed their journey. Their retinue was swollen by six savages who insisted upon bearing them company, and who bore their arms and baggage. At the various fords the friendly red men carried the Englishmen across dry-shod upon their shoulders,[214] a mark of unprecedented complaisance when coming from the proverbially lazy Indian of the northeast coast.
In due time the envoys reached Pokanoket, the residence of Massasoit. The sachem was not at home. Ere long, however, he returned. The Englishmen received him royally, and saluted him by a discharge of their muskets. Massasoit reciprocated their greeting in true Indian style.[215]
The Pilgrims had been careful to provide their envoys with a plentiful supply of those trinkets which the red men so highly prized; and now, ere any business was opened, these presents were delivered. The sagamore was given “a horseman’s coat of red cotton, decked with a slight fringe of lace,” and a copper chain. When he had put on this scarlet garment, and hung the chain about his neck, he seemed greatly pleased by his unwonted bravery of attire, while his warriors appeared to be equally gratified by the grand appearance of their king.[216]
This ceremony completed, all squatted upon the ground, a circle was formed, and amid deep silence the pipe of peace was smoked, each individual taking a whiff and then passing the pipe to his next neighbor. After this—and it should seem that even among the untamed children of the forest there existed a “circumlocution office,” where there was red tape to be cut—the envoys explained the object of their visit. The sagamore listened courteously to their recital, and was pleased to grant each and all of their requests.
“To the end that we might know his messengers from others,” writes Winslow, “we desired Massasoit, if any one should come from him to us, to send the copper chain, that we might know the savage, and hearken and give credit to his message accordingly.”[217]