1883] . Wampum and its History. 473 
Plymouth Colony. He carried wampum thither and bought corn. 
To this introduction the pious Hubbard attributes all the wars 
which ensued between the Puritans and the Indians. ‘ Whatever 
were the honey in the mouth of that beast of trade [the Dutch ?] 
there was a deadly sting in the tail,” he wails out, with much more 
to the same purpose. The authority for Gowan’s statement is 
probably an intimation in Nathaniel Morton’s “ New England’s 
Memoriall” (1669), p. 67, followed by the remark that “Sundry 
unworthy person’s ” sold firearms to the Indians for it. 
It was during the administration of William Kieft that the 
wampum currency was of greatest importance in New York, 
Washington Irving, in his Knickerbocker History, Chapter vI, 
gives a humorous account of it and the troubles to which it gave 
rise. Kieft began by endeavoring to flood the colony with this 
Indian money, which the Indians were content to take in exchange 
for their peltries, but which of course had no intrinsic value. Says 
the veritable Diedrich : ` 
“ He began by paying all the servants of the Company and all 
the debts of the government in strings of wampum. He sent 
Smissaries to sweep the shores of Long Island, which was the 
Ophir of this modern Solomon, and abounded in shell-fish. 
These were transported in loads to New Amsterdam, coined into 
Indian Money and launched into circulation. 
s And now for a time affairs went on swimmingly. * * * 
ankee trad 
€rs poured into the province, buying everything they 
could lay their hands on, and ass the idei Dutchmen their 
Pig Price—in Indian money. If the latter, however, attempted 
Bhat the Yankees in the same coin for their tin ware and wooden 
ta » the case was altered; nothing would do but Dutch guil- ` 
| heron like ‘metallic currency.’ What was worse, the 
shell, troduced an inferior kind of wampum made of oyster- 
ieee cs which they deluged the province, carrying off in ex- 
: Fi ae the silver and gold, the Dutch herrings and Dutch 
. ia early did the knowing men of the East manifest 
= and in bargaining the New Amsterdammers out of the oys- , 
“Thy leaving them the shell. ; 
how. was a long time before William the Testy was made sensible 
: him by ho, etely his grand project of finance was turned a 
: found it on Eastern neighbors; nor would he probably have ever 
had maqout had not tidings been brought him that the Yankees 
of mint ae pooscent upon Long Island, and had established a kind 
; banks, S Oyster bay, where they were coining up all the oyster 
F A 
- q Hen this was making a vital attack upon the province ina 
