Note 29 — John Pory to the Earl of Southampton[1]

Capt. Thomas Hunt took two dozen Indians captive in 1614, some at Plymouth, some on Cape Cod, and sold several as slaves at Málaga. While Hunt’s deeds were not excusable, they were merely the worst of several such incidents. Capt. John Smith pointed out that Hunt could not be responsible for the special hostility of the Capawack Indians toward the English. Rather, their ill will may be traced to the kidnaping of Epenow and Coneconam by Capt. Harlow, in 1614 or earlier; the series of degrading experiences which Epenow underwent at the hands of English captors; his influence on his countrymen after his return to Capawack; and the somewhat mysterious friction between him and Capt. Dermer in 1620, in which the latter was mortally wounded. The Capawack Indians probably feared reprisal for this and related incidents. Capt. John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1632), 204-205; Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), IV, 1778, 1828, 1841, 1849; James P. Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine (Prince Society, 1890), I, 104n-106n; W. F. Gookin, Capawack alias Martha’s Vineyard (1947), 8-17.