WAMPANOAG INDIANS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 887 



immediate necessity. They are very subject to licet ic complaints, for 

 more than half that are born are carried off young: with consumptions." 



Within the past summer I found living on Betty's Neck only three 

 Indians, all women, descendants of Massasoit, and relatives of Philip's 

 faithful follower, Tuspaquin, the Black Sachem, chief of all the Ne- 

 maskett and Assawamsett Indians. Full particulars of this interesting 

 family, whose home is in North Abingtou, Mass., may be learned in a 

 book published by the mother, Mrs. Zerviah Gould Mitchell, now aged 

 76 years. She claims to be a lineal descendant, in the seventh genera- 

 tion, from the " great and good Massasoit." Both she and her daughters 

 have received good education, and the mother became eloquent in de- 

 scribing the treatment of Tuspaquin, Annawon, and some other Indians 

 engaged in King Philip's war. The mother and the daughter Melinda, 

 or Teweeleema, have aquiline noses and long black bair, and are as 

 good types of this tribe of Indians as I have ever seen. It is only while 

 their house in North Abington is let that they expect to remain on this 

 spot, for which they appear to have a strong attachment. We were 

 informed by the mother that the " men folks " of their family were dead 

 or gone, and it is very probable that after this generation passes away 

 no more Indians will ever live on Betty's Neck, unless this family is 

 quickly re enforced by Indians of Mashpee or Gay Head. The native 

 population on Cape Cod at the time the whites landed cannot be exactly 

 known, but, through the labors of those men interested in the conver- 

 sion of the Indians upon Cape Cod, not many years after its settlement, 

 we know that there was once a large native population which dwin- 

 dled rapidly away, and of which time has now left us hardly a trace. 

 A letter dated Sandwich, July 1, 1674, from Eichard Bourne to Daniel 

 Gookin, on the " Progress of the Gospel among the Indians in the colony 

 of New Plymouth," gives a list of the praying Indians in the towns of 

 Cape Cod at that date. He states explicitly that he has been " conver- 

 sant with and employed amongst them these many years," and it is 

 very probable that the list includes all the places of any consequence at 

 the time of his writing, for special mention is made of all places which 

 still need religious aid. In the year 1792, when the first volume of the 

 Massachusetts Historical Society was published, containing this letter 

 from Mr. Bourne, the sites of some of the Indian towns mentioned by 

 him were already forgotten, and so explanatory notes, written largely 

 by the Hon. Nat. Freeman, of Sandwich, were inserted, now seen in- 

 closed in brackets. The proportion of these converted Indians to the 

 unconverted ones may have have been small at this early date, but in 

 regard to the former Mr. Bourne appears to have gained exact infor- 

 mation, even mentioning the number of those converted who could read 

 and write. The number that could read and write will be omitted in 

 the quotation, as it is for the names and sites of towns that the letter 

 is valuable to us rather than their degree of culture. 



" First there is at Meeshawn, or near the head of the cape [Cape Cod. 

 Par* of tliese Indians probably lived in Proviucetowa, but the greatest 



