A Narragansett Leader Complains of English Encroachment (1642)
. . . [O]ur fathers had plenty of deer and skins, our plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and of turkies, and our coves full of fish and fowl. But these English having gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be starved. . . .
Credits: 1642. Leift Lion Gardner His Relation of the Pequot Wars, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 1st Ser., Vol. 3 (1833), pp. 154-155.