13 Names and distribution of Indian groups: Most historical accounts rely on Gookin (1792:147–49), including the standard reference, Salwen (1978:160–76). See also Bragdon 1996:20–25; Russell 1980:19–29; Salisbury 1982:13–30 passim; Vaughan 1995:50–58.
14 Dawnland: Stewart-Smith 1998:49.
15 Slow movement into New England: Bragdon 1996:57–58 (salt marshes, 1000 B.C.); Wilkie and Tager eds. 1991:10–11 (maps of distribution through time of known paleo-Indian archaeological sites); Fagan 2000:101–04 (low carrying capacity of postglacial areas); Petersen 2004. On a continental scale, the New England indigenous groups were so small that one conscientious continental survey doesn’t even mention them (Fagan 1991).
16 Patchwork environment: Cronon 1983:19–33 (“tremendous variety,” 31).
17 Glottochronology: Glottochronology was invented in the 1960s by U.S. linguist Morris Swadesh, a controversial figure who spent much of his career in Mexico after his colorful political views cost him his passport during the McCarthy period. The technique was the subject of his posthumously printed magnum opus, The Origin and Diversification of Language (Swadesh ed. 1971). Glottochronology tries to ascertain how long ago two languages diverged from a common ancestor language, as French and Italian did from Latin. To accomplish this, Swadesh drew up a list of one hundred basic terms, such as “ear,” “mother,” and “vomit.” When two languages are closely related, Swadesh argued, their words for these terms will resemble each other. For example, the French and Italian for “ear” are oreille and orecchio, terms similar enough to suggest that these languages split off from each other relatively recently. On average, Swadesh claimed, the words on the Swadesh list change at a rate of 14 percent every one thousand years. Thus if two languages have similar entries for seventy-nine of the hundred words on the Swadesh list, they broke off from a common ancestor about 1,500 years ago. Unsurprisingly, Swadesh’s ideas have been criticized. Especially implausible is the notion that linguistic change occurs at a constant, universal rate. Nonetheless researchers use glottochronology, partly because of the lack of alternatives, and partly because the basic idea intuitively seems correct (Swadesh 1971, 1952; Hymes 1971, 1960:5–6).
18 Glottochronological analysis of Algonquian languages: Fiedel 1987; Goddard 1978; Mulholland 1985.
19 Diverse New England communities: This description relies on the surveys of evidence in Petersen and Cowrie 2002; Bragdon 1996:55–79 (“no name,” 58–59). Bragdon (1996:39) adopts the term “conditional sedentism” for the coastal communities (coined in Dunford 1992). For the growth of coastal communities, see Robinson 1994. In the past, some have argued that coastal Indians practiced little agriculture (Ceci 1990a), but Petersen and Cowrie assemble evidence to refute this.
20 Coastal diet: Little and Schoeninger 1995; Kavasch 1994.
21 Description of Patuxet: Author’s visit; James ed. 1963:7 (“Pleasant for air,” alewives), 75–76; Winslow 1963b:8–43; Anon. ed. 1963:xx–xxi (map of area in 1613 by Champlain). In these years big areas along the coastline had neatly planted maize fields, traces of which survived even into the twentieth century (Delabarre and Wilder 1920:210–14).
22 Wetus, meals, and domestic style: Morton 1637:24–26; Wood 1977:86–88, 112 (“warmer,” 112); Bragdon 1996:104–07; Gookin 1792:149–51 (“so sweet,” 150–51). “The best sort” of wetus, Gookin said, were “covered very neatly, tight, and warm, with barks of trees”—“warm as the best English houses” (150). Clearly, the homes of the wealthy in England were not leaky or drafty, but in that deforested land even the rich could not afford the plentiful fires that kept Indians warm (Higginson 1792:121–22).
23 2,500 calories/day: Bennett 1955:table 1; Braudel 1981–84 (vol. 1):129–45 (European calorie levels).
24 Indian and European views on children: Kupperman 2000:153–56; Williams 1936:29 (spoiling); Denys 1908:404; Ariés 1962 (European views).
25 Games: Wood 1977:103–06.
26 Character, training, and pniese: Salisbury 1989:229–31; Wood 1977:91–94 (“He that speaks,” 91; “Beat them,” 93 [I have modernized “winch,” an obsolete form of “flinch”]); Winslow 1624:55–56; James ed. 1963:77; Kittredge ed. 1913:151, quoted in Axtell 1981:44.
27 Sachems: Wood 1977:97–99; Winslow 1624:56–60; Gookin 1792:154–55; Salisbury 1982:42–43; Dunford 2001:32–37; Johnson 1993: chap. 3. To the north, sachems were called sagamores, a distinction I am ignoring.
28 Population increase, attendant social change, and rise of political tensions: On the one hand, there is surprisingly little archaeological evidence for coastal agriculture (Ceci 1990a); on the other, there are multiple colonial reports that the seacoast was thick with farms. This scenario is an attempt to reconcile the apparently contradictory evidence (Bragdon 1996:146–53). See also Johnson 1993: chap. 3; Thomas 1979:24–44 (“The political scene,” 30); Metcalf 1974; and esp. Petersen and Cowrie 2002.
29 Indigenous warfare as less bloody: Hariot 1588:36–37; Williams 1936:188 (“farre less”); Hirsch 1988; Kupperman 2000:106–09; Russell 1980:187–94; Vaughan 1995:37–41. One reason for the low casualties, Williams observed, was that Indians fought “with [so much] leaping and dancing, that seldome an Arrow hits.” (Evidently, the games of archery dodgem paid off.) Some activists have claimed that scalping was actually invented by white colonists. But European visitors witnessed the practice in the 1530s and 1540s, before any colonies existed north of Florida. “Hanging, disemboweling, beheading, and drawing and quartering were commonplace” in Europe, James Axtell observed, but not scalping. Each continent had its own forms of mutilation, and “it hardly seems worth arguing” which was worse (Axtell 1980:463).
30 Early European exploration: Some of the vast literature includes Kupperman 1997a; Bourque and Whitehead 1994; Quinn 1974: chap. 1; Salisbury 1982:51–54; Axtell 1994:154–55 (Corte-Real).
31 Verrazzano as first visitor: In his popular book, 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America, Gavin Menzies, a British ex–naval officer, argues that in that year a huge fleet led by warrior eunuchs sailed from China to the Americas. After the fleet lost many ships to Caribbean reefs, it had to leave off “several thousand men and concubines” in Rhode Island. They were supposed to be picked up by subsequent expeditions, but the emperor who sponsored the expedition died, and his successor was not interested in globetrotting. The stranded Chinese melted into the local population. Verrazzano noted that the peoples of Rhode Island were more “beautiful” than other Indians, which to Menzies is evidence that they were not Indians. So enchanting is the image of 500-foot-long Chinese junks in New England that I am sorry to report that few researchers other than Menzies believe it (Menzies 2003:281–96 [“several thousand,” 291]).
32 Verrazzano’s account: Wroth ed. 1970:71–90, 133–43 (“densely populated,” 137; “little bells,” 138; “irksome clamor,” 139; “showing,” “barbarous,” 140); Axtell 1992:156–57.
33 Indians’ physical appearance: Gookin 1792:152–53 (“one part,” 153); Higginson 1792:123; Morton 1632:32 (“as proper”); Wood 1977:82–83 (“more amiable,” 82, “torture,” 83); Russell 1980:30–32. See also the drawings of Algonquians further south by John White (Hulton 1984). Differences between colonial and native ways of treating the body are explored in Kupperman 2000: chap. 2 (bow string, 55–56), and Axtell 2000:154–58.
34 Popularity of Indian hairstyles: Kupperman 1997b:225 (“lovelocks”); Higginson 1792:123.
35 Indian views of Europeans: Jaenen 2000 (weak, 76; ugly, 77; sexually untrustworthy, 83; Micmac, 85; dirty, handkerchiefs, 87); Axtell 1988; Stannard 1992:5 (Indian cleanliness). As a rule, only wealthy Europeans bathed—commoners wiped themselves with rags when they could.
36 Two hundred British ships: Cell 1965.
37 Champlain’s exploration: Biggar ed. 1922–36 (vol. 1):349–55, 397–401. See also, Salisbury 1982:62–66, and the enjoyable Parkman 1983 (vol. 1):191–93, 199.
38 Gorges and Maine: Gorges 1890a:204–07; Salisbury 1982:92–9
4. I have followed Salisbury rather than wholly accept Gorges’s account, which is confused and confusing. Unlike Plymouth colony, the Maine expedition did not land in winter with no food. It lost only two members the first winter, whereas death and illness so beset the Pilgrims that in their first few months ashore they usually had only a few functioning people.
39 Pring: Pring 1905:51–63.
40 Smith and Pocahontas: The best retelling of the Pocahontas story I have come across is Gunn Allen 2003. A similar, briefer account is Richter 2001:70–78. An enjoyable nonscholarly account of Smith and Virginia is Milton 2000.
41 Smith in New England, Hunt kidnaps Tisquantum: Arber and Bradley eds. 1910 (vol. 1):192–205, 256–57 (“great troupes,” “fortie,” 205); (vol. 2):697–99; Bradford 1981:89–90; Winslow 1963b:52; 1963c:70; Gorges 1890a:209–11 (“worthlesse,” 209; “warre,” 211).
42 French sailors killed or enslaved: Winship 1905:252 (shipwreck); Winslow 1963c:27–28 (finding body); Bradford 1981:92; Hubbard 1848:54–55; Adams 1892–93:6–10.
43 Billington: Bradford 1981:259–60 (hanging, “profanest”), 97 (runaway), 173–74; Bradford 1906:13 (“knave”); Winslow 1963b:31 (shooting gun in ship); Winslow 1963d:69–72 (runaway); Prince 1855:291 (contempt charge); A. C. Mann 1976; Dillon 1975:203 (“troublesome”).
44 Framing my ancestor: My grandfather told me that Billington was an excellent hunter and trapper. With this independent source of food, he could ignore colonial edicts. To take him down a peg, my grandfather claimed, the powers that be sent men to rob his traps. Billington caught on. He lay in wait and discovered a thief in the act. The thief shot at him. My ancestor, a much better shot, returned fire, with predictably lethal consequences. This story is unlikely but not impossible. The Billingtons were among the few families to survive the first winter intact, suggesting that John may indeed have been a fine hunter. And the Pilgrims’ contemporary reputation for ridding themselves of religiously unsympathetic people was so widespread that in 1664 the poet Samuel Butler mocked the practice in his popular satire Hudibras: “Our brethren of NEW ENGLAND use / Choice malefactors to excuse, / And hang the guiltless in their stead, / Of whom the Churches have less need” (Canto II, lines 409–12).
45 Actual first executions: During the catastrophic “starving time” (winter 1609–10) in Jamestown, according to colony governor George Percy, “one of our Colline murdered his [pregnant] wyfe Ripped the childe outt of her woambe and threw itt into the River and after chopped the Mother in pieces and salted her for his foode.” Percy had the man tortured and executed (Percy 1922:267). In March 1623 a man at Wessagusset, a rival Massachusetts colony, was hanged for stealing maize from an Indian family (Morton 1632:108–10; Bradford 1981:129). Bradford calls Billington’s execution “the first” in Plymouth (259), so my family can claim that our ancestor was the first person of European descent hanged in the Cape Cod area. I am arbitrarily not including the French and Spaniards in Florida who executed each other by the score in the 1560s.
46 No idea where they were heading: According to Bradford, their intended destination was “some place about Hudson’s River” (Bradford 1981:68), an assertion backed up by the diplomat John Cory, who surveyed Plymouth in 1622 on behalf of British investors (James ed. 1963:5–6). But they had earlier tried to obtain permission to settle in what is now New England, so some historians have argued that it is possible that they were going there. One theory is that the Dutch, who then had possession of the Hudson, bribed the Mayflower’s captain to steer them away (Morton 1669:11–12). In any case, they gave little evidence of knowing where they were going (Rutman 1960). Smith’s claims, which seem to be true, are reported in Arber and Bradley eds. 1910 (vol. 2):891–92.
47 Pilgrim incompetence: Most of this catalog of error is lifted from Bates 1940:112–13.
48 Half the Pilgrims died: Accompanied by about 30 crew members, 102 people set sail. One died en route, but a child was born before landfall, the wonderfully named Oceanus Hopkins, making the party 102 again. Of these, 44 died before spring. Among them was Bradford’s wife, Dorothy, thought to have drowned herself by leaping off the Mayflower rather than face the unknown continent (Deetz and Deetz 2000:39, 59–60).
49 Robbing Indian graves and houses: Bradford 1981:73–75; Winslow 1963b:19–29 (“providence,” 26). Later the Pilgrims did try to compensate the Indians for the theft (Winslow 1963c:61–62).
50 English vs. continental financing for colonies, British colonists’ flakiness and helplessness: Kupperman 2000:3–4, 11–15, 148 (“utterly,” 13); Cell 1965.
51 Inability to understand climate: The confusion is especially surprising given that a number of British visitors had kept careful track of the weather (e.g., Anon. 1979).
52 Time of drought: Stahle et al. 1998.
53 Thoreau’s disdain: Thoreau 1906 (vol. 4):295–300 (“A party,” 300).
54 Tisquantum’s travels in New England: Baxter 1890:103–10 (“appears to,” 106); Gorges 1890a:212–25; 1890b:26–30; Dermer 1619 (“void,” 131). The line from The Tempest is in act 2, scene 2.
55 “Indians themselves”: Panzer 1995:118–19 (text of Sublimis Deus, Paul III). 60 Slany: Cell 1965:615.
56 Epidemic: Morton 1637:22–24 (“died,” 23; “Golgotha,” 23); Hubbard 1848:54–55 (French sailor’s curse); Spiess and Spiess 1987; Snow 1980:31–42; Snow and Lanphear 1988. Salisbury (1982:103–05) suggests that the disease was the plague, but Snow and Lanphear point out that this requires a chain of transmission that would have trouble getting established. According to John Smith, “where I had seene 100 or 200 Salvages [in 1614], there is scarce ten to be found [in 1620]” (Arber and Bradley eds. 1910 [vol. 2]:259). The Pilgrims may have seen evidence of the original disease carrier. One of the corpses they exhumed on Cape Cod had blond hair and was buried in a wrap of sailor’s canvas (Winslow 1963b:27–28).
57 “The idea”: Gunn Allen 2003:30.
58 Mather’s experiment: Mather 1820 (vol. 1):507.
59 Wampanoag spiritual and political crises: Salisbury 1989:235–38 (“their deities,” 236).
60 Plymouth and more than fifty villages: Pyne 1982:45–48; Cronon 1983:90.
61 Bradford and Gorges quotes: Anon. 1792:246 (attrib. to Bradford); Gorges, 1890b:77. From today’s point of view, these opinions were both unfortunately sanguine and unfortunately common. Viz., John Winthrop, first governor of the rival colony in Massachusetts Bay, describing in May 1634 the legal implications of the loss of many natives to smallpox: “The Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess” (Winthrop 1976:116); or Cotton Mather calmly explaining that the land had been swept free “of those pernicious creatures [Indians], to make room for better growth [Europeans]” (quoted in C. F. Adams 1892–93 [vol. 1]:12).
62 “Could make [the] English”: Pratt 1858:485.
63 “He thinks we may”: Winslow 1963b:58.
64 Indians and guns: Chaplin 2001:111–12; Percy 1905–07:414 (all Jamestown quotes).
65 Indian technology: Rosier 1605:21 (canoes); Kupperman 2000:166–68 (shoes); Bourque and Whitehead 1994:136–42 (Indian shallops). To some readers, the notion that European technology did not determine the outcome of the culture clash may seem absurd. Compare, though, the difference between the colonial histories of the Americas and Africa. The indigenous inhabitants of both places had technology that is often described as wildly inferior. And both places were the target of sustained colonial enterprises by the same nations. In the Americas, though, the Indians were rapidly defeated. “The Indians die so easily that the bare look and smell of a Spaniard causes them to give up the ghost,” a missionary commented in 1699 (quoted in Crosby 2003b:37). Yet the majority of Africa—which had, if anything, an even more “inferior” technological base—did not fall until the late nineteenth century. Technology was not a dominant factor.
66 Massasoit’s negotiations: Winslow 1963b:43–59; Deetz and Deetz 2000:61–62.
67 Tisquantum’s machinations, death: Bradford 1981:108–09 (“came runni
ng,” “and he thought,” “all was quiet”), 125–26 (Tisquantum’s death); Morton 1637:103–05; Winslow 1963a:82 (thanksgiving); Humins 1987; Salisbury 1989; Shuffelton 1976.
68 Massasoit’s son and war in 1675: The best short account I have encountered is the first section of Schultz and Tougias 1999. See also Richter 2001:90–109; Vaughan 1995:308–22; Salisbury 1982: Chap. 7.
69 Indian slavery: Lauber 1913:esp. 109–11, 122–30; Cook 1973:19–21 (1,000 sold); Gallay 2002 (25–50,000,299); Newell 2003, 2009; Philbrick 2006:xiv-xv, 252–53, 320–21; Guasco 2007 (early Indian slavery in New England).
70 1633 epidemic: Snow and Lanphear 1998.
3 / In the Land of Four Quarters
1 Pizarro’s body: Maples and Browning 1994:213–19.
2 Ezell thesis: Ezell 1961.
3 Dobyns in Peru and Mexico: Interviews, Dobyns; Dobyns 2004; Jones 2010.
4 Prescott as first full history: As opposed to colonial-era accounts.
5 Politicization of Andean studies: Beyers 2001. Among the better known examples (and actually a pretty good book) is Baudin 1961. 73 Dobyns’s 1963 article: Dobyns 1963.
6 Comparison of Inka realm to other states in 1491: Fernández-Armesto 2001:390–402 (“imperial potential,” 395).
7 Inka realm as empire: Peruvian historian María Rostworowski de Diez Canseco has argued that because the term “empire” has “Old World connotations”—it implies a sophisticated center that dominates “barbarians” on the periphery, as was the case for Rome—it should not be applied to the Inka, who overran societies bigger and more cosmopolitan than themselves (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1999:x). Although one can see what she means, the word is now used loosely to describe a situation in which “a core polity gains control over a range of other societies” (D’Altroy 2002:6). And the Inka did exactly that.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus Page 49