Part 4 (2/2)

the pet.i.tioners ask eas.e.m.e.nt of taxes and extension into the Natick region in order to have means to provide for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, and say:

”Wee are not Ignorant that by reason of the present Distressed Condition of those that dwell in these Frontier Towns, divers are meditating to remove themselves into such places where they have not hitherto been conserned in the present Warr and desolation thereby made, as also that thereby they may be freed from that great burthen of public taxes necessarily accruing thereby, Some haveing already removed themselves.

b.u.t.t knowing for our parts that wee cannot run from the hand of a Jealous G.o.d, doe account it our duty to take such Measures as may inable us to the performance of that duty wee owe to G.o.d, the King, & our Familyes” (Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cxiii, p. 1).

[42:3] In a pet.i.tion of 1658 Andover speaks of itself as ”a remote upland plantation” (Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cxii, p. 99).

[42:4] Ma.s.sachusetts Province Laws, i, p. 402.

[43:1] Convenient maps of settlement, 1660-1700, are in E. Channing, ”History of the United States,” i, pp. 510-511, ii, end; Avery, ”History of the United States and its People,” ii, p. 398. A useful contemporaneous map for conditions at the close of King Philip's War is Hubbard's map of New England in his ”Narrative” published in Boston, 1677. See also L. K. Mathews, ”Expansion of New England,” pp. 56-57, 70.

[44:1] Weeden, ”Economic and Social History of New England,” pp. 90, 95, 129-132; F. J. Turner, ”Indian Trade in Wisconsin,” p. 13; McIlwain, ”Wraxall's Abridgement,” introduction; the town histories abound in evidence of the significance of the early Indian traders' posts, transition to Indian land cessions, and then to town grants.

[44:2] Weeden, _loc. cit._, pp. 64-67; M. Egleston, ”New England Land System,” pp. 31-32; Sheldon, ”Deerfield,” i, pp. 37, 206, 267-268; Connecticut Colonial Records, vii, p. 111, ill.u.s.trations of cattle brands in 1727.

[44:3] Hutchinson, ”History” (1795), ii, p. 129, note, relates such a case of a Groton man; see also Parkman, ”Half-Century,” vol. i, ch. iv, citing Maurault, ”Histoire des Abenakis,” p. 377.

[45:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp. 4, 84, 85, 87, 88.

[45:2] Hoosatonic.

[45:3] Connecticut Records, iv, pp. 463, 464.

[45:4] Ma.s.sachusetts Colony Records, v, p. 72; Ma.s.sachusetts Province Laws, i, pp. 176, 211, 292, 558, 594, 600; Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp. 7, 89, 102. Cf. Publications of this Society, vii, 275-278.

[45:5] Sheldon, ”Deerfield,” i, p. 290.

[46:1] Judd, ”Hadley,” p. 272; 4 Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, ii, p. 235.

[46:2] Farmer and Moore, ”Collections,” iii, p. 64. The frontier woman of the farther west found no more extreme representative than Hannah Dustan of Haverhill, with her trophy of ten scalps, for which she received a bounty of 50 (Parkman, ”Frontenac,” 1898, p. 407, note).

[46:3] For ill.u.s.trations of resentment against those who protected the Christian Indians, see F. W. Gookin, ”Daniel Gookin,” pp. 145-155.

[47:1] For example, Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxx, p. 261; Bailey, ”Andover,” p. 179; Metcalf, ”Annals of Mendon,” p. 63; Proceedings Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp. 504-519. Parkman, ”Frontenac” (Boston, 1898), p. 390, and ”Half-Century of Conflict”

(Boston, 1898), i, p. 55, sketches the frontier defense.

[48:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cvii, p. 155.

[48:2] _Ibid._, cvii, p. 230; cf. 230 a.

[48:3] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxviii, p. 156.

[48:4] Sheldon, ”Deerfield,” i, p. 189.

[48:5] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, 46-48, 131, 134, 135 _et pa.s.sim_.

[50:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, p. 107: cf. Metcalf, ”Mendon,” p.

130; Sheldon, ”Deerfield,” i, p. 288. The frontier of Virginia in 1755 and 1774 showed similar conditions: see, for example, the citations to Was.h.i.+ngton's Writings in Thwaites, ”France in America,” pp. 193-195; and frontier letters in Thwaites and Kellogg, ”Dunmore's War,” pp. 227, 228 _et pa.s.sim_. The following pet.i.tion to Governor Gooch of Virginia, dated July 30, 1742, affords a basis for comparison with a Scotch-Irish frontier:

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