be quoted, though it can hardly be said to relieve the responsibility of the English in furnishing the Indians with liquor, inasmuch as they must have taught them how to make it: —
“If it were possible, as it is not, to prevent the English selling
them strong drink, yet they have a native liberty to plant orchards
and sow grain, as barley and the like, of which they may and do
make strong drink that doth inebriate them; so that nothing can
overcome and conquer this exorbitancy but the sovereign grace
of God.”
It had still been intended that the removed Indians
should remain, and work and plant on the islands in the
harbor. But the good service done by many of them helped
a relenting feeling. The distressed condition of the old
men, the women, and the children drew pity towards them.
Good Thomas Oliver, their friend, offered to harbor them
at his place on Charles River, Cambridge. Their release
in May, 1676, was a jubilee to the poor creatures. It was
estimated that about a fourth part of all the Indians in
New England — Massachusetts numbering three thousand
— had been more or less influenced by civilization and
Christianity. It was believed by some that had it not been
for these, and had they on the other hand been leagued
with Philip, the whites would have been exterminated.
After the war the “stated places” for Indian churches in
Massachusetts were contracted to four. Occasional
stations were established for preaching, where the natives met
to fish, hunt, or gather nuts. In Plymouth colony and in
the Vineyard there were ten in each, and in Nantucket five.
In 1670 Eliot, with Cotton of Plymouth, and Mr. Mayhew,
ordained at the Vineyard Hiacoomes, the first converted
native pastor of the Indian church, — a worthy and noted
man. He had had a promising son in Harvard College. An
Indian church was soon after gathered at Mashpee, with an
English pastor. The “Praying Indians” in Massachusetts,
Plymouth, and the Vineyard, in 1674, were numbered at
30
