Indian New England Before the MayflowerIn offering here a highly readable yet comprehensive description of New England's Indians as they lived when European settlers first met them, the author provides a well-rounded picture of the natives as neither savages nor heroes, but fellow human beings existing at a particular time and in a particular environment. He dispels once and for all the common notion of native New England as peopled by a handful of savages wandering in a trackless wilderness. In sketching the picture the author has had help from such early explorers as Verrazano, Champlain, John Smith, and a score of literate sailors; Pilgrims and Puritans; settlers, travelers, military men, and missionaries. A surprising number of these took time and trouble to write about the new land and the characteristics and way of life of its native people. A second major background source has been the patient investigations of modern archaeologists and scientists, whose several enthusiastic organizations sponsor physical excavations and publications that continually add to our perception of prehistoric men and women, their habits, and their environment. This account of the earlier New Englanders, of their land and how they lived in it and treated it; their customs, food, life, means of livelihood, and philosophy of life will be of interest to all general audiences concerned with the history of Native Americans and of New England. |
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3rd series Abenaki Aboriginal Agriculture Algonquian artichoke baskets beans berries birch bark BMAS boiled Boston Bulletin called canoe Cape Cod century Champlain clam coast colonial colonists Connecticut Valley cooking corn cornfields crops cultivated deer Donck dried early England Indians English European feet fields fire fish fruit Garden Gookin ground Hampshire hills Hist History hunting Ibid Iroquois John Winthrop Josselyn King Philip's King Philip's War land Lescarbot Mahicans Maine maize maple sugar Martha's Vineyard Mass Massachusetts Massachusetts Archaeological Society Massachusetts Bay meat medicine modern mortar Morton Mourt's Relation Museum Narragansett natives Nipmuck North America North American Indians Pennacooks Penobscot perhaps Plants Plymouth pumpkins reported Rhode Island River Roger Williams roots sachusetts seed shell shore skin soil South southern New England Speck squash squaw stone strawberries sweet tobacco trees variety Vermont villages Voyages Wampanoag Western Abenaki wigwam wild winter women Wood York