DIVIDING THE LAND. 1 43 



chusetts Colony to secure bona fide deeds from the 

 Indians, for all the lands they had appropriated upon 

 grants of the colony and of the king. 



The natives were by this time about crowded off the 

 land, but there is no need to be so sentimental on behalf 

 of the Indians as to upbraid our forefathers for taking lands 

 without giving a fair consideration until so late a day. 



The idea of Indian ownership indeed came ridiculously 

 late to the Anglo-Saxon intruders; but it is- doubtful 

 whether it ever came at all to the Indians themselves. 

 One might as properly think of owning a part of the mid- 

 Atlantic Ocean as to think of an Indian owning part of 

 a boundless forest, the only use for which was to scud 

 through it occasionally as a vessel travels the sea. Their 

 little villages were very seldom permanent lodges; and to 

 buy them out was only to persuade them to move a little 

 earlier to a new place of food catching. 



The newcomers did the aborigines the injury of making 

 game scarce and neighbors too thick ; and it seems a trifle 

 absurd that so much stress has been laid by sentimental 

 writers upon the vague ownership of lands which can be 

 accorded to the Indians. 



It is somewhat amusing therefore to read the accom- 

 panying instrument* made out in the dignified circumlo- 



*INDIAN DEED. July 4, 1665. 

 (Suffolk County Deeds, Vol. VIII.) 

 Whereas divers Englishmen did formerly come (into the Massachusets now 

 called by the Englishmen New England) to inhabit in the dayes of Chickatabut 

 our father who was the Cheife Sachem of the sayd Massachusets on the South- 

 ward side of Charles River, and by the free Consent of our sayd father did set 

 downe upon his land and in the yeare of our Lord God one thousand six hundred 

 thirty and four divers Englishmen did set downe and inhabit upon part of the 

 land that was formerly our sayd fathers land, which land the Englishmen call by the 

 name of Hingham, which sayd Englishmen they and their heires and assosiats have 

 ever since had quiet and peaceable possession of their Towneshippe of Hingham 

 by our likeing and Consent which we desire they may still quietly possess and 

 injoy and because ther have not yet bin any legall conveyance in writing passed 

 from us to them conserning their land which may in future time occasion differ- 

 ence between them and us all which to prevent — Know all men by these presents that 

 we Wompatuck called by the English J osiah now Cheife Sachem of the Massachusets 



