WAMPANOAG INDIANS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 885 



year 1619, Capt. Thomas Dernier landed at Martha's ViDeyard and was 

 attacked By the natives. He and his companions gallantly defended 

 themselves with their swords and escaped. Several Indians were killed 

 in the fray. When Bartholomew Gosnold visited that island, in 1G02, 

 it is written that he trafficked amicably with the natives of the 

 vicinity, and it is very probable that Captain Dermer, or Martin Pring, 

 who had spent the summer at Edgartown a few years before (in 

 1G03), did something to provoke the Indians, or Captain Dermer 

 would have been differently treated. Captain Weymouth had kid- 

 napped five Indians in Maine, and one of Captain Smith's commanders, 

 named Hunt, carried off forcibly twenty-seven natives from Massachu- 

 setts Bay — Squanto, afterwards the interpreter of the settlers at Ply- 

 mouth, being one of the number. Such treatment of the Indians would 

 not be likely to win their confidence, and it is no wonder that when the 

 Pilgrims landed the natives should try to take revenge upon them, 

 especially after they had been robbed of corn, themselves pursued, and 

 the graves of their people disturbed by this very company of men. 

 Three days before the landing of the Pilgrims at Patuxet, or Plymouth, 

 while exploring in what afterward became the town of Eastham, they 

 were attacked at night or early in the morning by the Nauset Indians, 

 probably led by Aspinet, a subchief, who owed allegiance to Massasoit. 

 This spot, called Namskeket by the Indians, was named by the English 

 u The First Encounter." Some years before this, the explorer Cham 

 plain had an encounter with the Indians of Cape Cod, or Cap Blanc, 

 and immediately started back to Europe. At a time of great want in 

 Plymouth colony, through the assistance of Squanto and Massasoit, 

 the colonists obtained supplies of corn from the Indians of Barnstable 

 County. Very soon the land itself, which was so easily cultivated, 

 attracted emigration from Plymouth, and from this time forward there 

 was little to be recorded but the deeding of land to whites, the pov- 

 erty, drunkenness, and plagues of the natives, and the labors of good 

 men like Mr. Treat to instruct them and improve their condition. We 

 have few particulars in regard to Indian wars of the Wampanoags, 

 either among themselves or with other tribes, those given by Gookin 

 and in the history of Nantucket being almost the only ones. On Nan- 

 tucket, according to their traditions, there were two tribes*>f Indians, 

 one that crossed from the Vineyard and landed on the west end of the 

 island, the other that came across from Monomoy, or Chatham, and 

 landed upon the east end. These two tribes, or portions of the Warn- 

 panoag tribe, engaged in a war about the year 1030, the last Indian 

 war on the island, and the only one of which we have any knowledge. 

 In studying the history of Indian tribes in almost any part of the conn- 

 try one cannot fail to be struck by the terrible ravages that disease 

 makes when once it enters their midst. Longfellow, in his tale of Hia- 

 watha, did not overlook this sad feature in Indian life, and the descrip- 

 tion of the pestilence is hardly too strong to represent the mortality 



