Part 6

When a woman here addicts herself to fornication, and the husband comes to know it, he thrashes her soundly, and if he wishes to get rid of her, he summons the Sackima with her friends, before whom he accuses her. And if she be found guilty, the Sackima commands one to cut off her hair in order that she may be held up before the world as a whore, which they call _poerochque_; and then the husband takes from her everything that she has, and drives her out of the house. If there be children, they remain with her, for they are fond of them beyond measure. They reckon consanguinity to the eighth degree, and revenge an injury from generation to generation unless it be atoned for; and even then there is mischief enough, for they are very revengeful.

And when a man is unfaithful, the wife accuses him before the Sackima, which most frequently happens when the wife has a preference for another man. The husband being found guilty, the wife is permitted to draw off his right shoe and left stocking (which they make of deer or elk skins, which they know how to prepare very broad and soft, and wear in the winter time); she then tears off the lappet that covers his private parts, gives him a kick behind, and so drives him out of the house; and then “Adam” scampers off.

It would seem that they are very libidinous—in this respect very unfaithful to each other; whence it results that they breed but few children, so that it is a wonder when a woman has three or four children, particularly by any one man whose name can be certainly known. They must not have intercourse with those of their own family within the third degree, or it would be considered an abominable thing.

Their political government is democratic. They have a chief Sackima whom they choose by election, who generally is he who is richest in sewan, though of less consideration in other respects. When any stranger comes, they bring him to the Sackima. On first meeting they do not speak; they smoke a pipe of tobacco. That being done, the Sackima asks, “Whence do you come?” The stranger then states that, and further what he has to say, before all who are present or choose to come. That being done, the Sackima announces his opinion to the people, and if they agree thereto, they give all together a sigh, “_He!_” and if they do not approve, they keep silence, and all come close to the Sackima, and each sets forth his opinion till they agree. That being done, they come all together again to the stranger, to whom the Sackima then announces what they have determined, with the reasons moving them thereto.

All travellers who stop over night come to the Sackima, if they have no acquaintances there, and are entertained by the expenditure of as much sewan as is allowed for that purpose. Therefore, the Sackimas generally have three or four wives, each of whom has to furnish her own seed-corn.

The Sackima has his fixed fine of sewan for fighting and causing blood to flow. When any are

[At least four pages of the letter are missing. In them, De Rasieres probably mentioned the occasion of his trip to Plymouth in September and October, 1627, and described the country along the way.]

Coming out of the river Nassau,[148] you sail east-and-by-north about fourteen leagues, along the coast, a half league from the shore, and you then come to “Frenchman’s Point” at a small river where those of Patuxet have a house made of hewn oak planks, called Aptucxet,[149] where they keep two men, winter and summer, in order to maintain the trade and possession. Here also they have built a shallop, in order to go and look after the trade in sewan, in Sloup’s Bay[150] and thereabouts, because they are afraid to pass Cape Malabar,[151] and in order to avoid the length of the way; which I have prevented for this year by selling them fifty fathoms of sewan, because the seeking after sewan by them is prejudicial to us, inasmuch as they would, by so doing, discover the trade in furs;[152] which if they were to find out, it would be a great trouble for us to maintain, for they already dare to threaten that if we will not leave off dealing with that people, they will be obliged to use other means. If they do that now, while they are yet ignorant how the case stands, what will they do when they do get a notion of it?

From Aptucxet the English can come in six hours, through the woods, passing several little rivulets of fresh water, to New Plymouth,[153] the principal place in the district Patuxet, so called in their patent from His Majesty in England.

New Plymouth lies in a large bay to the north of Cape Cod, or Malabar, east and west from the said point[154] of the cape, which can be easily seen in clear weather. Directly before the commenced town lies a sand-bank,[155] about twenty paces broad, whereon the sea breaks violently with an easterly and east-northeasterly wind. On the north side there lies a small island[156] where one must run close along, in order to come before the town; then the ships run behind that bank and lie in a very good roadstead. The bay is very full of fish, of cod, so that the Governor before named has told me that when the people have a desire for fish they send out two or three persons in a sloop, whom they remunerate for their trouble, and who bring them in three or four hours’ time as much fish as the whole community require for a whole day—and they muster about fifty families.

At the south side of the town there flows down a small river of fresh water, very rapid, but shallow, which takes its rise from several lakes in the land above, and there empties into the sea; where in April and the beginning of May, there come so many shad from the sea which want to ascend that river, that it is quite surprising. This river the English have shut in with planks, and in the middle with a little door, which slides up and down, and at the sides with trellice work, through which the water has its course, but which they can also close with slides.

At the mouth they have constructed it with planks, like an eel-pot, with wings, where in the middle is also a sliding door, and with trellice work at the sides, so that between the two [dams] there is a square pool, into which the fish aforesaid come swimming in such shoals, in order to get up above, where they deposit their spawn, that at one tide there are 10,000 to 12,000 fish in it, which they shut off in the rear at the ebb, and close up the trellices above, so that no more water comes in; then the water runs out through the lower trellices, and they draw out the fish with baskets, each according to the land he cultivates, and carry them to it, depositing in each hill three or four fishes, and in these they plant their maize, which grows as luxuriantly therein as though it were the best manure in the world. And if they do not lay this fish therein, the maize will not grow, so that such is the nature of the soil.

New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east towards the sea-coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot of 800 feet long, leading down the hill; with a [street] crossing in the middle, northwards to the rivulet and southwards to the land.[157] The houses are constructed of clapboards, with gardens also enclosed behind and at the sides with clapboards, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets there are three wooden gates. In the center, on the cross street, stands the Governor’s house, before which is a square stockade upon which four patereros are mounted, so as to enfilade the streets. Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof, built of thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannon, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds, and command the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain’s door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor, in a long robe; beside him on the right hand, comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand, the captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day.

Their government is after the English form. The Governor has his Council, which is chosen every year by the entire community, by election or prolongation of term. In inheritances they place all the children in one degree, only the eldest son has an acknowledgment[158] for his seniority of birth. They have made stringent laws and ordinances upon the subject of fornication and adultery, which laws they maintain and enforce very strictly indeed, even among the tribes which live amongst them. They speak very angrily when they hear from the savages that we live so barbarously in these respects, and without punishment. Their farms are not so good as ours, because they are more stony, and consequently not so suitable for the plow. They apportion their land according as each has means to contribute to the eighteen thousand guilders which they have promised to those who had sent them out;[159] whereby they have their freedom without rendering an account to anyone. (Only if the King should choose to send a governor-general, they would be obliged to acknowledge him as sovereign overlord.) The maize seed which they do not require for their own use is delivered over to the Governor, at three guilders the bushel, who in his turn sends it in sloops to the north for the trade in skins among the savages; they reckon one bushel of maize against one pound of beaver’s skins; the profits are divided according to what each has contributed, and they are credited for the amount in the account of what each has to contribute yearly towards the reduction of his obligation. Then with the remainder they purchase what next they require, and which the Governor takes care to provide every year. They have better sustenance than ourselves, because they have the fish so abundant before their doors. There are also many birds, such as geese, herons and cranes, and other small-legged birds, which are in great abundance there in the winter.

The tribes in their neighborhood have all the same customs as already above described, only they are better conducted than ours, because the English give them the example of better ordinances and a better life; and who also, to a certain degree, give them laws, in consequence of the respect they from the very first have established amongst them.

The savages utilize their youth in labor better than the savages round about us: the young girls in sowing maize, the young men in hunting. They teach them to endure privation in the field in a singular way, to wit:

When there is a youth who begins to approach manhood, he is taken by his father, uncle, or nearest friend, and is conducted blindfolded into a wilderness, in order that he may not know the way, and is left there by night or otherwise, with a bow and arrows, and a hatchet and a knife. He must support himself there a whole winter with what the scanty earth furnishes at this season, and by hunting. Towards the spring they come again, and fetch him out of it, take him home and feed him up again until May. He must then go out again every morning with the person who is ordered to take him in hand. He must go into the forest to seek wild herbs and roots, which they know to be the most poisonous and bitter; these they bruise in water and press the juice out of them, which he must drink, and immediately have ready such herbs as will preserve him from death or vomiting. And if he cannot retain it, he must repeat the dose until he can support it, and until his constitution becomes accustomed to it so that he can retain it.

Then he comes home, and is brought by the men and women, all singing and dancing, before the Sackima; and if he has been able to stand it all well, and if he is fat and sleek, a wife is given to him.

In that district there are no lions or bears, but there are the same kinds of other game, such as deers, hinds, beavers, otters, foxes, lynxes, seals and fish, as in our district of country. The savages say that far in the interior there are certain beasts of the size of oxen, having but one horn, which are very fierce. The English have used great diligence in order to see them, but cannot succeed therein, although they have seen the flesh and hides of them which were brought to them by the savages. There are also very large elks there, which the English have indeed seen.

The lion skins which we sometimes see our savages wear are not large, so that the animal itself must be small; they are of a mouse-gray color, short in the hair and long in the claws.

The bears are some of them large and some small; but the largest are not so large as the middle-sized ones which come from Greenland. Their fur is long and black and their claws large. The savages esteem the flesh and grease as a great dainty.

Of the birds, there is a kind like starlings, which we call “maize thieves,” because they do so much damage to the maize. They fly in large flocks, so that they flatten the corn in any place where they alight, just as if cattle had lain there. Sometimes we take them by surprise and fire amongst them with hail-shot, immediately that we have made them rise, so that sixty, seventy, and eighty fall all at once, which is very pleasant to see.

There are also very large turkeys living wild; they have very long legs, and can run extraordinarily fast, so that we generally take savages with us when we go to hunt them; for even when one has deprived them of the power of flying, they yet run so fast that we cannot catch them unless their legs are hit also.

In the autumn and in the spring there come a great many geese, which are very good, and easy to shoot, inasmuch as they congregate together in such large flocks. There are two kinds of partridges; the one sort are quite as small as quails and the other like the ordinary kind here. There are also hares, but few in number, and not larger than a middle-sized rabbit; and they principally frequent where the land is rocky.

This, sir, is what I have been able to communicate to you from memory, respecting New Netherland and its neighborhood, in discharge of my bounden duty. I beg that the same may so be favorably received by you, and I beg to recommend myself for such further service as you may be pleased to command me in, wherever you may find me.

In everything your faithful servant,

ISAACK DE RASIERES.

Bibliographical Note

The standard sources of information on early Plymouth are quickly named: William Bradford, _Of Plymouth Plantation_ (1952, or other edition); the items in Alexander Young (ed.), _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (1844), most of which were printed for “Everyman’s Library” under the same title, 1910; and G. F. Willison, _The Pilgrim Reader_ (1953). Other books which proved useful in the preparation of this one have been cited in footnotes. In addition to these, several ought to receive notice.

On John Pory there are articles in _Dictionary of National Biography_ (by Charlotte Fell-Smith) and _Dictionary of American Biography_ (by A. C. Gordon, Jr.). See also Leo Africanus, _The History and Description of Africa_, translated by John Pory, ed. and intro. by Robert Brown (1896); W. F. Craven, _Dissolution of the Virginia Company_ (1932) and _The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century_ (1949); S. M. Kingsbury (ed.), _Records of the Virginia Company of London_ (1933, 1935), III, IV; Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, fourth series, IX, 8-47; J. H. R. Yardley, _Before the Mayflower_ (1931).

Emmanuel Altham’s name until now has been virtually missing from the Pilgrim literature. The late Dr. Otto Fisher, of Detroit, had a file containing such information as exists on Altham and his family, compiled by Victor C. Sanborn and Oliver R. Barrett with the aid of correspondents in England. Dr. Fisher kindly let the editor of this volume use the file.

The life of Isaack de Rasieres is covered and illuminated by J. F. Jameson, “Introduction” to “Letter of Isaack de Rasieres to Samuel Blommaert, 1628 (?),” _Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664_ (“Original Narratives of Early American History”; 1909), 98-99; and “Letter from Isaack de Rasière to the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, September 23, 1626,” in A. J. F. van Laer (translator and editor), _Documents Relating to New Netherland, 1624-1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library_ (1924), 171-251, 260-276. See also A. C. Flick (editor), _History of the State of New York_ (1933), I, II.

About New England in general and the fishing business, see also C. F. Adams, _Three Episodes in Massachusetts History_ (1894), I; C. K. Bolton, _The Real Founders of New England_ (1929); I. S. Proper, _Monhegan the Cradle of New England_ (1930); Frances Rose-Troup, _John White the Patriarch of Dorchester_ (1930) and _The Massachusetts Bay Company and its Predecessors_ (1930); C. K. Shipton, _Roger Conant of Massachusetts_ (1945); and William Vaughan, _The Golden Fleece_ (London, 1626), Part III.

Footnotes

[1]Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, Treasurer (chief executive) of the Virginia Company of London, 1620-24.

[2]Thomas Jones, Captain of the _Discovery_, the ship in the service of the Virginia Company on which Pory was traveling. (Not to be confused with Christopher Jones, master of the _Mayflower_ in 1620.)

[3]Sandys was Treasurer of the Virginia Company, 1619-20, a notable Puritan and opponent of royal absolutism, influential in granting a patent to the Pilgrims and their backers permitting them to establish a “particular plantation” in Virginia, which then extended as far north as 41°, thus including the mouth of the Hudson River. John Ferrar was Deputy to the Treasurer in 1620. Sir George Yeardley, knighted and sent out as Governor to Virginia in 1619, was the candidate of Sandys’s party.

[4]Christopher Jones or John Clarke, a pilot experienced in the northern route to Virginia (on which a ship sighted land at or near Cape Cod and proceeded down the coast to Chesapeake Bay).

[5]Provincetown, Mass.

[6]Gloucester or Annisquam, Mass.

[7]“Anna” in the manuscript.

[8]Englishmen tended to translate Indian customs into feudal law. Plymouth and the territory around it had been the home of a tribal group of which Squanto was the only survivor. Neighboring Indians traditionally had no rights there. The Pilgrims interpreted the claims of Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief, as feudal overlordship over southeastern Massachusetts, so the vacant parts of it which they took up logically had to be a feudal domain of some kind.

[9]Bermudas.

[10]Romans 11:16.

[11]William Bradford.

[12]Alewives.

[13]Town Brook.

[14]The whole passage reads: “Naturam expelles furca licet, tamen usque recurret, et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.” “You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever hurry back, and, ere you know it, will burst through your foolish contempt in triumph.” Horace, “Epistles, Book I, Epistle x,” _Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica_ with English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough (Loeb Classical Library, 1932), 316, 317.

[15]Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1286-1331, formally beatified in the eighteenth century) was a Franciscan friar and missionary who traveled widely in the Far East. The story of his travels became popular in the fourteenth century, but fell from favor as it gained a reputation for embroidery. The phenomenon to which Pory refers occurred at a place described as “Moumoran” in the printed version with which Pory was probably familiar, that in Hakluyt, _Principal Navigations_ (1599), II, 57.

[16]A stream running from the Smelt Pond to Plymouth Bay, entering it at the mouth of the Jones River, about two miles northwest of Plymouth.

[17]“Skeines” in the manuscript.

[18]High tide in tidal streams.

[19]“Muskles and slammes” in the manuscript.

[20]Virginia.

[21]Delicacies.

[22]Chief town on Terceira, one of the Azore Islands, where Pory was detained a prisoner on his way to England.

[23]Raspberries.

[24]The “musky” flavor common to the muscat grape varieties. “Muskadell” in the manuscript.

[25]Pory was wrong; it is north of 41°.

[26]“Conahassit,” an old form, in the manuscript.

[27]Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag or Pocanocket Indians, who lived in the territory around present-day Bristol, R. I., which was then called Pocanocket.

[28]Pamet is present-day Truro, Nauset is the area from Eastham to the Denises, both on Cape Cod. Capawack is the island, Martha’s Vineyard.

[29]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.

[30]Canonicus, the Narragansett sachem.

[31]Netherlanders who traded around the mouth of the Hudson River before the actual founding of New Amsterdam in 1626.

[32]Whenever the king might come.

[33]“Combotant” in the manuscript.

[34]Squanto, the Pilgrims’ friend and sole survivor of the Patuxet natives, had been one of the Indians gathered by Sir Ferdinando to get information about New England. Gorges sent him back to America in 1618 or 1619 as guide to Capt. Dermer.

[35]“Monhaccke” in the manuscript. In the early seventeenth century, Iroquois Indians ranged as far east as New Hampshire.

[36]Hip-length coats of some protective strength.

[37]Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, where Pory had held land.

[38]Charts.

[39]Pacific Ocean. The French knew about the Great Lakes.

[40]Indians, quite powerful in Pory’s day, living in the lower part of the river valley of the same name.

[41]The letter was written at the fishing grounds off northern New England, probably Monhegan.

[42]In 1628 John Gibbs was master of the _Marmaduke_ in the service of the New Plymouth Adventurers.

[43]Virginia Company of London.

[44]William Vengham. He was living and selling cured fish at Monhegan (probably by arrangement with the island’s owners) in 1624, and perhaps when Pory was in the region.

[45]“Tlemmish” in the manuscript.

[46]In 1622, the Council for New England made Sir Samuel Argall its “Admiral” with the duty of excluding unlicensed operators from the Council’s territory, North America from 40° to 48°. American Antiquarian Society, _Proceedings_, Apr. 1867, 66-83.