XII. CHAPTER point, as were most of the sachems, and especially the pow-wows or priests. Eliot had compiled a form of gov1660. ernment for his converts, based on the institutions of Moses; but the Commissioners for the United Colonies, who had the general oversight of the missions, and the administration of the funds, advised him to be cautious how he interfered too much with the authority of the chiefs. Not content with Christianizing, Eliot wished also to civilize the Indians; indeed, he held civilization essential to Christianity. But he found it much easier to imbue his converts with his theological ideas than to habituate them to settled life and regular labor. Wine and rum, freely imported from Madeira and the West Indies, proved a sore temptation to the converts, unprincipled traders violating the laws which forbade selling to the Indians. Difficulties still more insurmountable were encountered in the violent prejudices of caste which prevailed in New England. The first emigrants seem to have entertained hopes of incorporating the Indians into 1633. their commonwealth. A very early law had provided for the assignment of lands to such Indians as might become civilized, and for organizing them into townships. But the theocratic section of the Puritans were not the men for a work requiring an enlarged benevolence, a patient forbearance, and a respect for human nature which formed no part of their creed. In spite of Eliot's attempts to trace the Indians from the ten lost tribes of Israel, they were despised as savages by the Puritan colonists, and hated as heathen. Familiar with all the stern details of the Old Testament history, the colonists compared themselves to the Israelites, the natives to the Canaanites, and New England to the promised land. It was even suggested that the Indians might be naturally as well as figuratively the children of the devil, whose de XII. vout worshipers they were believed to be, and his willing CHAPTER pupils in sorcery and witchcraft-mere names to us, but. to our fathers horrible and most detestable realities. The colonists, however, did not act up to their model. The Pequod territory and some other tracts were claimed by conquest, but in general the Indian title was purchased. The prices appear small; a coat or a few hatchets paid for a township. The value, in fact, was very little; but it may well be questioned how far the chiefs from whom these purchases were made had any authority to alienate the lands of their tribe, or how far they understood to what extent they were parting with their title. That justice toward the natives, upon which the colonists of New England prided themselves, was conscientious, indeed, but narrow and very vindictive; alike ignorant and careless of the views, feelings, and usages of the Indians; holding them responsible to a strict and austere code, little consonant, on many points, to their habits or ideas; and ascribing to the chiefs an extent of authority, and a control over their people, which they did not by any means actually possess. In all their intercourse with the Indians, they insisted strenuously, as in the instructions to Gibbons when marching against the Narragansets, "on the distance which is to be observed betwixt Christians and barbarians, as well in war as in other negotiations." The feelings of hatred, distrust, and contempt with which the natives were generally regarded, extended even to the "praying Indians," as the converts were called. They were suspected by the mass of the colonists of being secretly in league with the Dutch, and parties to the supposed hostile designs of the Narragansets. To judge by their cautions to Eliot, the Commissioners for the United Colonies, who administered the mission fund, were 1660. CHAPTER Very strongly suspicious lest the converts "should only XII. follow Christ for loaves and outward advantage." It was 1660. only by steady perseverance and oft-repeated importu nities that Eliot so far gained upon prevailing prejudice as to obtain liberty to organize a church at his Indian town of Natick. The missions received little, if any aid from the colonists, being sustained by the contributions from England. Out of that fund were printed Eliot's Indian Grammar, Psalm Book, and Catechism, followed first by the New Testament, and presently by the Old, translated by that indefatigable laborer into the Massachusetts dialect, and printed at Cambridge-the first 1661. American edition of the Bible. Out of the same fund, 1663. also, a small building was erected at the college for the special use of Indian students. Many Indians were taught to read and write, and one graduated at the college. Other villages besides that at Natick, and other churches, were formed. But these converted and civilized Indians were still treated in every respect as a distinct and an inferior race, restricted to villages of their own, and cut off by opinion as well as by law from intermarriage and intermixture with the whites. What wonder, in spite of all Eliot's zeal and devotedness, that this scheme for civilizing and Christianizing the Indians proved in the end an almost total failure? CHAPTER XIII. NEW SWEDEN. PROGRESS OF NEW NETHERLAND. ITS Ussellinx, XIII. T was not against English encroachments alone that CHAPTER the Dutch of New Netherland had to contend. the original projector of the Dutch West India Company, dissatisfied, as often happens, at his treatment by those who had availed themselves of his projects, had looked round for a new patron. To Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, greatly distinguished a few years afterward by his victories in Germany, which saved the Protestants of that empire from total ruin and raised Sweden to. a high pitch of temporary importance, Ussellinx proposed 1626. a plan for a Swedish trading company. This plan the king inclined to favor, and a charter for such a company was presently issued. But the scheme was cut short by the 1630. breaking out of the German war, and the untimely death 1633. of the hero of the north at the victorious battle of Lutzen. The plan of Ussellinx, or a portion of it, was presently revived by Peter Minuets, whom we have formerly seen director of New Netherland. After his recall from that government, he went to Sweden, where he was patronized by the celebrated Oxenstiern, minister of Queen Christina, the daughter of Gustavus. Furnished, by his assistance, with an armed vessel, the Key of Calmar, a tender called the Griffin, and fifty men, Minuets set sail to establish a Swedish settlement and trading post in America. He touched at Jamestown, in Virginia, took in wood and 1638. water, and, during a stay of ten days, endeavored to pur March. CHAPTER chase a cargo of tobacco, but refused to show his papers, XIII. or to state the object of his voyage, which was likely to 1638. conflict with the claims of the English as well as of the April. Dutch. Afterward, when he entered the Delaware, he 1 told the Dutch traders whom he met that his visit was only temporary. But presently he bought of the Indians a tract of land near the head of the bay, on the west shore, where he built a fort called Christina, in honor of the Swedish queen-first commencement of the colony of NEW Sweden. Kieft, the director of New Netherland, greatly dissatisJune. fied at this intrusion, maintained, in repeated protests, that the whole South River and Bay, as Minuets well knew, belonged to the Dutch, having been in their possession many years, "above and below beset with their But to these pro forts and sealed with their blood." ་ tests Minuets paid no attention. He presently sailed for Sweden, leaving a garrison behind of twenty-four men, well supplied with arms, goods, and provisions. Not strong enough to attack the Swedish fort, or unwilling to take the responsibility, Kieft referred the subject to the company. Sweden, then at the head of the Protestant interest in Europe, was a powerful state, collision with which was not to be risked, and the company did not authorize interference with the Swedish settlers. The wiser course was adopted of seeking to raise the Dutch province from a mere trading station to a prosperSept. ous colony. A proclamation was issued, offering free trade to New Netherland in the company's ships, and transportation thither to all wishing to go. The company offered to provide immigrants with lands, houses, cattle, and farming tools at an annual rent, and to supply them with clothes and provisions on credit, at an advance of fifty per cent. on the prime cost. The colo |