A STUDY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 311 



baric trinkets on a par with solid coin of the old English realm. * * * 

 The coin marks, the £ s. d. of their money, they adopted from the Lom- 

 bard merchants who settled in Loudon, and taught them the larger 

 commerce. They brought these mystic symbols of civilization across 

 the seas and stamped, them on the shell treasures of Canonicus and 

 Sassacus." 



There was no restriction on the manufacture of wampum. Anybody 

 could make it, and it was made by the whites as well as the Indians. 

 " Seeing that profit and wealth lay in the possession of wampum the 

 burghers [of New Amsterdam] as the easiest way of getting rich began 

 to make it. . With their tools of steel this could be done very rapidly, 

 but with the loss of the painstaking care with which the Indians wrought 

 came a loss of value and the wampum soon began to depreciate. To 

 widen their market it was carried to New England." * 



The inferior quality of much of the wampum in circulation about this 

 time led to the legislation of 1648 and 1649, by Massachusetts and Con- 

 necticut, in the matter of " bad, false, and unfinished peage." 



" In 1644 the Indian trade was at its height in New England. In 1661 

 and 1662 all the New England colonies ceased to receive wampum as a 

 lawful currency, * * * but its use continued long after. * * * 

 New York continued the beads in circulation longer than the regular 

 use prevailed in New England." 



The "Acts of Virginia,! 1655," show legislation as follows: "Be it 

 enacted by this Grand Assembly that peeces of Eight that are good 

 and of silver shall pass for five shillings sterling, and Roan only and 

 Wompom peeke to keep their wonted value." 



In 1693 they were recognized in the definite rates of the Brooklyn 

 ferry. They continued to be circulated in the remoter districts of New 

 England through the century, and even into the beginning of the 

 eighteenth.^ 



It was practically in use as change and was current with silver in 

 Connecticut in 1704. 



The knowledge and use of wampum or wampum-peage extended far 

 into the interior of the country, or perhaps more properly wampum in 

 some form was not uncommon among the aborigines of what was then 

 the " far West." 



The territory occupied by the Five Indian Nations being between 

 that of the coast tribes and that of the remoter western Indians, indi- 

 cates a path of distribution, and justifies the supposition that the 

 wampum of the more distant was the same as that of the sea-board 

 tribes. 



■Whether the interior tribes of the continent at that time, made use 

 of it as money or as jewelry for personal adornment is a matter of con- 

 jecture. It is however highly probable that the wampum beads used 



* Ingersol] et al. $ Weeden. 



t Acts of Virginia Assembly, IV, 1655. 



