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Show 53 6 0 4 INDIAN LAND CESSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES [ETH.ANN.IS God hath consumed the natives with a miraculous plague, whereby the greater part of the countrey ,s loft voide of inhabitants. 4thly, Wc shall come in with the good leave of the natives.1 Wc are informed that the colony in the first year of its existence made an order that no person should trade with the Indians or hire one as a servant without license. But it is doubtful whether this would have been construed as referring to land purchases, as colonial laws prohibiting "trade" or "traffic" were not generally understood as relating to lands, though doubtless a trade in land would have been considered a violation of the law. But the point made here is that the colonists, in making this law, did not have laud purchases in view, and that no inference can be drawn from it that purchases of land had taken place. The following are some of the transactions with the Indians in reference to lands, mentioned by the old records which have been published. However, the towns referred to by Mr Oliver as having disregarded the Indian title are not all thereby cleared from this charge. How far this charge holds good as to "other places" can only be inferred from what is hereafter presented. The records of Dorchester, one of the towns mentioned, contains the following entry: Whereas there was a plantation given by the town of Dorchester unto the Indians at Ponkipog it was voted at a general town meeting the seventh of December, 1657, that the Indians shall not alienate or sell their plantation, or any part thereof, unto any English upon the loss or forfeiture of the plantation. The same day it was voted that the honored Major Atherton, Lieutenant Clap, Ensign Poster, and William Summer, are desired and empowered to lay outthe Indian plantation at Ponkipog, not exceeding six thousand acres of land. It is stated by Reverend T. M. Harris, in his account of Dorchester,2 that the first settlers were kindly received by the aborigines, who granted them liberty to settle; "but at the same time they were careful to purchase the territory of the Indians;" also that "for a valuable consideration they bought a tract of land from what is now called Rox-bury brook on the west to K"eponset river ou the south, and ou the other sides bounded by the sea." A deed was also obtained from Kitchmakin, "sachem of Massachusetts," for an addition as far as the "Great Blue Hill." Iu 1037 the general court made a second grant to the town "extending to the Plymouth line," called "the New Grant," but the purchase from the Indians was not completed until 1606, and deed obtained in 1671. The amount paid for this last purchase was $140 (£2S). If this writer, who adds, "These are pleasing evidences of the precaution used by the early settlers to make regular purchases 1 There is considerable difference between the various copies of this paper. The second paragraph, as given in the " 01d"fe\...Ui Leaflets," (12th series, number 3) is as follows: " We shall come in w" the good leave of the Natives, "who tinde benefitt already by onr neighbourhood &. learne of us to improve pt to more use, then before they could doe the whole, <fc by thin meanes wee come in by valuable purchase: for they hav of us that wth will yeild them more benefitt then all the land wcb wee have from them." In the copy ^'iven above, this is found in the fourth paragraph, abbreviated thus: " We shall come in with the ;:ood leave of the natives." 'Collections Massachusetts Uistorical Society, vol. ix, first scries, pp. 159. ICO. |