HISTORICAL SKETCHES. 183 



Indians. 



It is strange to contemplate that wherever civiliza- 

 tion has gone, especially as regards the North Ameri- 

 can continent, no matter how amicable the relations 

 between the settlers and original owners of the soil 

 may have been, the aborigines have slowly but surely 

 disappeared before the encroachments of civilization, 

 like dew under the rays of the morning sun. 



The relations that existed between the settlers of 

 Nantucket and the Indians were unusually amicable; 

 the land which the whites bought was honestly paid 

 for; they entered into each other's councils; the 

 Indians were educated and taught the ways of civilized 

 life. So far as Christianizing them was concerned, 

 probably greater success was attained here than in 

 any other locality on the continent.* But the race 

 was doomed. In 1763-64 a terrible disease raged 

 for six months among them, leaving out of three hun- 

 dred and fifty-eight Indians at its commencement only 

 one hundred and thirty-six, thus sweeping off nearly 

 five eighths of their number. One by one they de- 

 parted to the happy hunting grounds, until in 1822 the 

 last Indian wrapped his blanket around him and u slept 

 with his fathers," less than two centuries and a quarter 

 from the discovery of the island. In 1854 Abraham 

 Quary, at the age of eighty-two, passed peacefully 

 away : in this man's veins ran the last drop of blood 



* Soon after the English had settled on the island, attempts 

 were made to convert the Indians to the faith of the gospel, 

 and in course of years all of them become nominal Christians. 

 (Barber's Historical Collections, page 448.) 



