Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

‘ [393] comforted, and encouraged, and instructed, and prayed with them and for them; exhorting them to patience in their sufferings, and confirming the hearts of those disciples of Christ, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, for through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven..... In the night, about midnight, the tide serving, being the 30th of October, 1675, these poor creatures were shipped in three vessels and carried away to Deer Island above mentioned, which was distant from that place about four leagues, where I shall leave them at present.’¹ In May, 1676, many of the men having performed military service for the English, permission was granted by the General Court for the departure of the Indians from the Island. The remnant of the Natick tribe, after a temporary residence near Nonantum, returned to their own town, which was under the management of Indian officers for nearly a century, until it was incorporated as an English district in 1762. ‘From 1651 to 1762’ Natick ‘was an Indian town; and its history is little more than a picture of wild Indians making unsuccessful attempts to clothe themselves in the robes of civilization.’²

While the Christian Indians were passing through this furnace of affliction, they had a faithful friend in Gookin, who labored constantly to avert the evils to which they were exposed and to alleviate those which they suffered. In this labor of love he had the constant support of Thomas Danforth, his associate in many a hard-fought political battle on other fields. Indeed it would seem that most of the magistrates, or Court of Assistants, concurred with him in a desire to deal kindly with the praying Indians; but that they were to some extent compelled by the populace to adopt harsh measures. He says, ‘the enmity, jealousy, and clamors of some people against them put the magistracy upon a kind of necessity to send them all to the island.’³ Again, an Indian who had a certificate of fidelity from Gookin and was actually employed in the public service as a secret agent, was apprehended by Capt. Henchman, who, ‘being ignorant of the design, sent both him and his pass to the Governor, at Boston, who more to satisfy the clamors of the people than for any offence committed by this man, he was committed to the common jail .... He had committed no offence (that ever I heard of), but was imprisoned merely to still the clamors of the people, who railed much against this poor fellow, and fain would have ’