Page images
PDF
EPUB

ness, and settled among the Penobscot Indians, near the mouth of their noble river. He here took for his wives the daughters of the great Modocawando-the most powerful sachem of the east. His castle was plundered by Governor Andros, during his reckless administration; and the enraged Baron is supposed to have excited the Indians into open hostility to the English.

NOTE 10, page 32.

The owner and commander of the garrison at Black l'oint, which Mogg attacked and plundered. He was an old man at the period to which the tale relates.

NOTE 11, page 32.

Major Phillips, one of the principal men of the Colony. His garrison sustained a long and terrible siege by the savages. As a magistrate and a gentleman, he exacted of his plebeian neighbors a remarkable degree of deference. The Court Records of the settlement inform us that an individual was fined for the heinous offence of saying that "Major Phillips' mare was as lean as an Indian dog."

NOTE 12, page 33.

Captain Harmon, of Georgeana, now York, was, for many years, the terror of the Eastern Indians. In one of his expeditions up the Kennebec River, at the head of a party of rangers, he discovered twenty of the savages asleep by a large fire. Cautiously creeping towards them until he was certain of his aim, he ordered his men to single out their objects. The first discharge killed or mortally wounded the whole number of the unconscious sleepers.

NOTE 13, page 33.

It was

Wood Island, near the mouth of the Saco. visited by the Sieur de Monts and Champlain, in 1603. The following extract, from the journal of the latter, relates to it. "Having left the Kennebec, we ran along the coast to the westward, and cast anchor under a small island, near the main-land, were we saw twenty or more natives. I here visited an island, beautifully clothed with a fine growth of forest trees, particularly of the oak and walnut; and overspread with vines, that, in their season, 25

VOL. I.

produce excellent grapes.

We named it the island of Bacchus."-Les voyages de Sieur Champlain, Liv. 2, c. 8.

NOTE 14, page 33.

John Bonython was the son of Richard Bonython, Gent one of the most efficient and able magistrates of the Colony. John proved to be "a degenerate plant." In 1635, we find, by the Court Records, that, for some offence, he was fined 40s. In 1640, he was fined for abuse toward R. Gibson, the minister, and Mary, his wife. Soon after, he was fined for disorderly conduct in the house of his father. In 1645, the "Great and General Court" adjudged "John Bonython outlawed, and incapable of any of his majesty's laws, and proclaimed him a rebel." [Court Records of the Province, 1645.] In 1651, he bade defiance to the laws of Massachusetts, and was again outlawed. He acted independently of all law and authority; and hence, doubtless, his burlesque title of "The Sagamore of Saco, which has come down to the present generation in the following epitaph:

"Here lies Bonython; the Sagamore of Saco,

He lived a rogue, and died a knave, and went to Hobomoko."

By some means or other, he obtained a large estate. In this poem, I have taken some liberties with him, not strictly warranted by historical facts, although the conduct imputed to him is in keeping with his general character. Over the last years of his life lingers a deep obscurity. Even the manner of his death is uncertain. He was supposed to have been killed by the Indians; but this is doubted by the able and indefatigable author of the history of Saco and Biddeford.—Part. Ï. p. 115.

NOTE 15, page 33.

Foxwell's Brook flows from a marsh or bog, called the "Heath," in Saco, containing thirteen hundred acres. On this brook, and surrounded by wild and romantic scenery, is a beautiful waterfall, of more than sixty feet.

NOTE 16, page 36.

Hiacoomes, the first Christian preacher on Martha's Vineyard; for a biography of whom the reader is referred to Increase Mayhew's account of the Praying Indians.

1726. The following is related of him: "One Lord's day, after meeting, where Hiacoomes had been preaching, there came in a Powwaw very angry, and said, I know all the meeting Indians are liars. You say you don't care for the Powwaws;'-then, calling two or three of them by name, he railed at them, and told them they were deceived, for the Powwaws could kill all the meeting Indians, if they set about it. But Hiacoomes told him that he would be in the midst of all the Powwaws in the island, and they should do the utmost they could against him; and when they should do their worst by their witchcraft to kill him, he would without fear set himself against them, by remembering Jehovah. He told them also he did put all the Powwaws under his heel. Such was the faith of this good man. Nor were these Powwaws ever able to do these Christian Indians any hurt, though others were frequently hurt and killed by them."-Mayhew, pp. 6, 7,

c. 1.

NOTE 17, page 39.

"The tooth-ache," says Roger Williams in his observations upon the language and customs of the New England tribes, "is the only paine which will force their stoute nearts to cry." He afterwards remarks that even the Indian women never cry as he has heard "; some of their men in this paine."

NOTE 18, page 41.

Wuttamuttata, "Let us drink." Weekan, "It is sweet." Vide Roger Williams's Key to the Indian Language, “in that parte of America called New England." London, 1643, p. 35.

NOTE 19, page 42.

Wetuomanit-a house god, or demon. "They-the Indians have given me the names of thirty-seven gods, which I have, all which in their solemne Worships they invocate!" R. Williams's Briefe Observations of the Customs, Manners, Worships, &c., of the Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death: on all which is added Spiritual Observations, General and Particular, of Chiefe and Special use-upon all occasions-to all the English inhabiting these parts; yet Pleasant and Profitable to the view of all Mene. p. 110, c. 21.

NOTE 20, page 45.

Mt. Desert Island, the Bald Mountain upon which over looks Frenchman's and Penobscot Bay. It was upon this island that the Jesuits made their earliest settlement.

NOTE 21, page 47.

Father Hennepin, a missionary among the Iroquois, mentions that the Indians believed him to be a conjuror, and that they were particularly afraid of a bright silver chalice which he had in his possession. "The Indians," says Pere Jerome Lallamant, "fear us as the greatest sorcerers on earth."

NOTE 22, page 49.

Bomazeen is spoken of by Penhallow, as "the famous warrior and chieftain of Norridge wock." He was killed in the attack of the English upon Norridge wock, in 1724.

NOTE 23, page 49.

Pere Ralle, or Rasles, was one of the most zealous and indefatigable of that band of Jesuit missionaries who, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, penetrated the forests of America, with the avowed object of converting the heathen. The first religious mission of the Jesuits, to the savages in North America, was in 1611. The zeal of the fathers for the conversion of the Indians to the Catholic faith, knew no bounds. For this, they plunged into the depths of the wilderness; habituated themselves to all the hardships and privations of the natives; suffered cold, hunger, and some of them death itself, by the extremest tortures. Pere Brebeuf, after laboring in the cause of his mission for twenty years, together with his companion, Pere Lallamant, was burned alive. To these might be added the names of those Jesuits who were put to death by the Iroquois-Daniel, Garnier, Buteaux, La Riborerde, Goupil, Constantin, and Liegeouis. "For bed," says Father Lallamant, in his Relation de ce qui s'est dans le pays des Hurons, 1640, c. 3, "we have nothing but a miserable piece of bark of a tree; for nourishment, a handful or two of corn, either roasted or soaked in water, which seldom satisfies our hunger; and after all, not venturing to perform even the ceremonies of our religion, without being considered as sorcerers." Their success

among the natives, however, by no means equalled their exertions. Pere Lallamant says-" With respect to adult persons, in good health, there is little apparent success; on the contrary, there have been nothing but storms and whirlwinds from that quarter."

Sebastian Ralle established himself, sometime about the year 1670, at Norridge wock, where he continued more than forty years. He was accused, and perhaps not without justice, of exciting his praying Indians against the English, whom he looked upon as the enemies not only of his king, but also of the Catholic religion. He was killed by the English, in 1724, at the foot of the cross, which his own hands had planted. This Indian church was broken up, and its members either killed outright or dispersed.

In a letter written by Ralle to his nephew, he gives the following account of his church, and his own labors. "All my converts repair to the church regularly twice every day; first, very early in the morning, to attend mass, and again in the evening, to assist in the prayers at sunset. As it is necessary to fix the imagination of savages, whose attention is easily distracted, I have composed prayers, calculated to inspire them with just sentiments of the angust sacrifice of our altars: they chant, or at least recite them aloud, during mass. Besides preaching to them on Sundays and saint's days, I seldom let a working day pass, without making a concise exhortation, for the purpose of inspiring them with horror at those vices to which they are most addicted, or to confirm them in the practice of some particular virtue." Vide Lettres Edifiantes et Cur., vol. 6, page 127.

NOTE 24, page 58.

The character of Ralle has probably never been correctly delineated. By his brethren of the Romish Church, he has been nearly apotheosized. On the other hand, our Puritan historians have represented him as a demon in human form. He was undoubtedly sincere in his devo tion to the interests of his church, and not over-scrupulous as to the means of advancing those interests. French," says the author of the History of Saco and Biddeford," after the peace of 1713, secretly promised to supply the Indians with arms and ammunition, if they would renew hostilities. Their principal agent was the celebrated Ralle, the French Jesuit." p. 215.

"The

« PreviousContinue »