They said they had been the first in doing good to the English, and the English the first in doing wrong; they said when the English first came, their king’s father [Massasoit] was as a great man and the English as a little child. He constrained other Indians from wronging the English and gave them corn and showed them how to plant and was free to do them any good and had let them have a 100 times more land than now the king had for his own people. But their king’s brother, when he was king, came miserably to die by being forced into court and, as they [the Indians] judged, poisoned. And another grievance was if 20 of their honest Indians testified that a Englishman had done them wrong, it was as nothing; and if but one of their worst Indians testified against any Indian or their king when it pleased the English, that was sufficient. 

Another grievance was when their kings sold land the English would say it was more than they agreed to and a writing must be proof against all them, and some of their [Indian] kings had done wrong to sell so much that he left his people none, and some being given to drunkenness, the English made them drunk and then cheated them in bargains...

Another grievance was that the English cattle and horses still increased so that when they removed [the animals wandered] 30 miles from where the English had anything to do [owned land], they [Indians] could not keep their corn from being spoiled, they never being used to fence, and thought that when the English bought land of them they would have kept their cattle upon their own land. 

Another grievance was that the English were so eager to sell the Indians liquors that most of the Indians spent all in drunkenness and then ravened upon the sober Indians and, they did believe, often did hurt the English cattle, and their kings could not prevent it. 

I think I can clearly say that before all these present troubles broke out, the English did not possess one foot of Land in this Colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian Proprietors: Nay, because some of our people are of a covetous disposition and the Indians are, in their Straits, easily prevailed with to part with their Lands, we first made a Law that none should purchase or receive of gift any Land of the Indians without the knowledge and allowance of our Court, and penalty of a fine, five pound per Acre, for all that should be so bought or obtained. And lest yet they should be straightened, we ordered that MountHope, Pocasset & several other Necks of the best Land in the Colony (because most suitable and convenient for them) should never be bought out of their hands or else they would have sold them long since. And our neighbors at Rehoboth and Swanzy, although they bought their lands fairly of this Philip [Metacom, Wampanoag leader] and his Father [Massasoit] and Brother, yet because of their vicinity, that they might not trespass upon the Indians, did at their own cost set up a very substantial fence quite cross that great Neck between the English and the Indians and paid due damage if at any time any unruly horse or other beasts broke in and trespassed . . . And if at any time they have brought complaints before us, they had had justice impartial and speedily, so that our own people have frequently complained that we erred on the other hand in showing them overmuch favor 

Your Traders now bring scarce anything but Rum and Flour; they bring little powder and lead, or other valuable goods. The Rum ruins us. We beg you would prevent its coming such quantities by regulating the Traders. We never understood the Trade was to be for Whiskey and Flour. We desire it may be forbidden, and none sold in the Indian Country; but if the Indians will have any they may go among the inhabitants and deal with them for it. When these Whiskey Traders come, They bring thirty or forty kegs and put them down before us and make us drink, and get all the skins that should go to pay the debts we have contracted for goods bought of the Fair Traders; by this means we not only ruin ourselves but them too. These wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got the Indians in liquor, make them sell their very clothes from their backs. In short, if this practice be continued, we must be inevitably ruined.

We were told that two ministers and an Indian had been lately here ⎯ probably it was the Presbyterian [David] Brainerd and his interpreter Tatami. He had assembled the Delawares in Shikellmy’s house, and (as Shikellmy’s people told us) informed that that on Sundays they should assemble as the whites do and pray as they do. Hence he would build a house for that purpose, and stay with them two years. . . To this Shikellmy said: “We are Indians, and don’t wish to be transformed into white men. The English are our Brethren, but we never promised to become what they are. As little as we desire the preacher to become Indian, so little ought he to desire the Indians to become preachers. He should not build a house here, they don’t want one.” 

They are really better to us than we are to them. They always give us Victuals at their Quarters, and take care we are arm’d against Hunger and Thirst. We do not so by them (generally speaking) but let them walk by our Doors Hungry, and do not often relieve them. We look upon them with Scorn and Disdain, and think them little better than Beasts in Human Shape; though, if well examined, we shall find that for all our Religion and Education we possess more Moral Deformities and Evils than these Savages do, or are acquainted withal. 5 We reckon them Slaves in Comparison to us, and Intruders, as oft as they enter our Houses, or hunt near our Dwellings. But if we will admit Reason to be our Guide, she will inform us that these Indians are the freest People in the World, and so far from being Intruders upon us, that we have abandon’d our own Native Soil to drive them out and possess theirs. 

...We trade with them, it’s true, but to what End? Not to show them the Steps of Virtue and the Golden Rule, to do as we would be done by. No, we have furnished them with the Vice of Drunkenness, which is the open Road to all others, and daily cheat them in everything we sell, and esteem it a Gift of Christianity not to sell to them so cheap as we do to the Christians, as we call ourselves.