Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE ABORIGINES A Concensus of modern scientific opinion favors the belief that the so-called American Indian race represents the autochthonous people or aborigines of the great American continent. Referring to the origin of the American Indians, Professor Pritchard says: The era of their existence as a distinct and insulated race must probably be dated as far back as that time which separated into nations the inhabitants of the Old World, and gave to each branch of the human family its primitive language and individuality. The origin of the Amerinds of America has still to be sought amid the sources of the various races of mankind from primeval times. The Indian tribes of New England belonged to the great Algonquian Confederacy—the most widely extended of all the North American Indians, their territory stretching along the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Pamlico Sound, and westward, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains. The three principal Massachusetts tribes were the Massachusetts or Naticks, the Nipmucks, and the Wampanoags, the latter under the dominance of Mas- sasoit when the Pilgrims arrived, and, at that time, the third greatest nation in New England. The island of Nantucket, when first settled by the whites, was occupied by two tribes whose names have not been preserved. One occupied the west end of the island, and was supposed to have come from the mainland by way of Martha's Vineyard. The other lived at the east end, and is said to have come direct from the mainland. The two tribes were independent and were, at a time, hostile to each other. The tribe which came from Martha's Vineyard was subject to the Wampanoags.' With regard to the number of Indians occupying the island when the whites arrived the statements vary considerably, ...