HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 



the seductive " fire-water " had wrought them harm, and 

 they were sometimes imposed upon by the cunning greed 

 of crafty and unscrupulous settlers, the Colonial govern- 

 ments were always administered in the endeavor to do 

 them justice and afford them protection; and the proceeds 

 of their hunting, or of their slight farming, now found 

 ready and remunerative sale. In the single matter of the 

 — to the English undesired, yet gradually accomplished — 

 exchange of his bow and flint dagger and stone tomahawk, 

 for the musket, hatchet, and hunting-knife of the white 

 man, the Indian gained, for the legitimate uses of his own 

 savage life, more than all which he had lost from the 

 advent of civilization to these shores. 



Massasoit died in 1661-2, and was succeeded in the 

 sachemship of the Wamfianoags by his eldest son, Alex- 

 ander [Mboanam, Wamsutta]. His life was short after 

 his accession. In a few months' time, it was rumored 

 that he was plotting with the JVarragansetts, — the bug- 

 bear of the Colonies on the west, as the Maquas were on 

 the northwest, — and the Plymouth government thought 

 the matter of sufficient consequence to be looked into. It 

 is not improbable that an impression had been for some 

 time gaining ground, that when the venerable sachem, 

 who had welcomed Bradford and Winslow and their 

 company at Patuxet, and had become their abiding 

 friend, had passed away, certain tendencies toward dis- 



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