240 THE EED MAN'S NOTION OF PRICES. 



It would be impossible to get at the volume in circulation, but values 

 are accessible. These remained substantially those I have mentioned* 

 until 1673, when the true wampum had become very scarce, owing to the 

 hoarding of it by the Indians and its disposal to remote tribes. The 

 Dutch council, therefore, issued an edict enhancing its legal value twenty- 

 five per cent., and permitting the Swedes of southern New Jersey, who 

 had been plundered by Dutch privateers, to lay an imposition iu wampum 

 to the value of four guilders upon each anker of strong rum, and so on. 



Such an action as this increase of value one-fourth, by act of council, 

 the red men could not in -the least comprehend. Adair says they had a 

 fixed value for every bead, and "bought and sold at the current rate, 

 without the least variation for circumstances either of time or place; and 

 now they will hear nothing patiently of loss or gain, or allow us to 

 heighten the price of our goods, be our reasons ever so strong." This 

 was a sad case for an Indian trader ! 



Nearly a centuryf passed, and still the shell-money held a firm place 

 in colonial trade all along the coast. That observant traveller, Dr. Kalm, 

 who visited and wrote about the American settlements in 1748, saw this 

 money in constant use at that period all through the coast towns. "A 

 traveller," he says, " who goes to trade with the Indians, and is well stocked 

 with wampum, may become a considerable gainer ; but if he take gold 

 coin or bullion, he will undoubtedly be a loser; for the Indians who live 



three of the black for an English penny. The seawant depreciates from time to time. 

 The New England people make use of it as a means of barter, not only to carry away the 

 best cargoes which we send thither, but to accumulate a large quantity of beavers and other 

 furs ; by which the company is defrauded of her revenues, and the merchants disappointed 

 in making returns with that speed which they might wish to meet their engagements : 

 while their commissioners and the inhabitants remain overstocked with seawant — a sort 

 of currency of no value except with the New -Netherland savages,'" etc. 



* In New Jersey, 1640. Six beads valued at two stivers for black and one stiver for 

 white. 



In New York, 1641. Polished good "Manhattan" wampum, four beads for one stiver; 

 five and six unpolished beads for one stiver. 



At Boston, 1648. White, eight beads for one penny ; black, four for one penny. 



New York, 1659 — see preceding foot-note. 



In Rhode Island, 1663. "White (periwinkle), six beads for one penny ; black (quahaug), 

 three beads one penny ; by the fathom, three hundred and sixty white beads, five shillings 

 sterling; a fathom black, ten shillings sterling. 



t New Jersey, 1765. "Every bead is of a known value, and a belt of a less number 

 is made to equal one of a greater, by so many as is wanting fastened to the belt by a 

 string. . . . Eight white wampums, or four black, passed at this time as a stiver ; twenty 

 stivers made what they called a guilder, which was about sixpence of present currency." — 

 Smith, History of New Jersey. 



