Note 145 — PART SECOND.

In Belknap’s Biography we have a more particular account of this pestilence, as it is called, and which, if the relations there given are to be credited, certainly determines the disease in question to have been the yellow fever. The account is to the following purpose: Lord Arundel, of Wardour, had employed a captain Weymouth to search for a N. W. passage to India. In this he failed, but falling in with a river, supposed to be either the Kennebeck or Penobscot, he brought from thence five of the natives, with whom he landed at Plymouth in July 1605. Three of the Indians were taken into the family of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and from these many particulars were obtained respecting their country, which being eagerly attended to by Gorges, he formed a plan of advancing his fortune by a thorough discovery of the country. Two vessels were accordingly fitted out; one of which failed, but the other brought such information as gave encouragement to attempt the founding of a colony. Two of the natives who had been brought to England were sent back, and 45 persons were left on the continent to begin the settlement; but these, having undergone great hardships, quitted the place in 1608. Gorges, however was not discouraged. He sent out one of his servants, by name Richard Vines, and some others, whom he hired to stay in the country all winter.

“Mr. Vines and his companions were received by the Indians with great hospitality, though their residence among them was rendered hazardous; both by a war which raged among them, and by a pestilence which accompanied or succeeded it.

“This war and pestilence are frequently spoken of by the historians of New England, as remarkable events, in the course of Providence, which prepared the way for the establishment of an European colony. Concerning the war, we know nothing more than this, that it was begun by the Tarratenes, a nation who resided eastward of Penobscot. These formidable people surprised the bashaba, or chief sachem, at his head quarters, and destroyed him with all his family; upon which all the other sachems who were subordinate to him quarrelled among themselves for the sovereignty; and in these dissensions many of them as well as of their unhappy people perished. Of what particular kind the pestilence was, we have no certain146 information, but it seems to have been a disorder peculiar to the Indians, for Mr. Vines and his companions, who were intimately conversant with them, and frequently lodged in their wigwams, were not in the least degree affected by it, though it swept off the Indians at such a prodigious rate that the living were not able to bury the dead, and their bones were found several years after, lying about the villages where they had resided. The extent of this pestilence was between Penobscot in the east, and Narraganset in the west. These two tribes escaped, whilst the intermediate people were wasted and destroyed.”

This distemper appears to have raged among the Indians in the year 1616. The following particulars are further given in Belknap’s Biography, vol. ii, p. 208: “Hitherto they (the English colonists) had not seen any of the natives at this place. The mortal pestilence which raged through the country, four years before, had almost depopulated it. One remarkable circumstance attending this pestilence was not known till after this settlement was made. A French ship had been wrecked on Cape Cod. The men were saved, with their provisions and goods. The natives kept their eye on them, till they found an opportunity to kill all but three or four, and divide their goods. The captives were sent from one tribe to another, as slaves. One of them learned so much of their language, as to tell them that God was angry with them for their cruelty, and would destroy them, and give their country to another people. They answered that they were too many for God to kill. He replied, that if they were ever so many, God had many ways to kill them, of which they were then ignorant. When the pestilence came among them (a new disease, probably the yellow fever) they remembered the Frenchman’s words; and when the Plymouth settlers arrived at Cape Cod, the few survivors imagined that the other part of his prediction would soon be accomplished. Soon after their arrival, the Indian priests or powows convened, and performed their incantations in a dark swamp three days successively, with a view to curse and destroy the new comers. Had they known the mortality which raged among them, they would doubtless have rejoiced in the success of their endeavours, and might very easily have taken advantage of their weakness to exterminate them. But none of them were seen till after the sickness had abated; though some tools, which had been left in the woods, were missing, which they had stolen in the night.”