These families, or nations, as we have already said, were broken into a multitude of distinct tribes, each having, for the most part, its particular dialect, and carrying on war against every other tribe. In some instances, several tribes were confederated together, either for the purposes of defence or aggression. Their whole number has been variously estimated, but it probably did not exceed 500,000 at the time of the settlement at Jamestown, in 1607.
When our ancestors came to these shores, they found the Indians thinly scattered over the country, though occasionally gathered in considerable groups in the more fertile valleys, and along the banks of rivers, lakes, and bays. They were in the rudest state of society, without science, without arts, without any metallic instruments, without domestic animals. They raised a little corn, which the women cultivated with a clam-shell, or the shoulder-blade of the buffalo. Devouring this with savage improvidence, they obtained a precarious supply for the rest of the year by gathering nuts and roots, or by hunting and fishing. Half clad in skins, or entirely naked, they roamed from place to place, passing their lives, alternately, in stupid idleness, and the fiercest excitements of war and the chase. Ignorant of the past, and improvident of the future, most of these tribes were sunk in the lowest depths of human degradation.
Such were the occupants of the soil, when the European settlers came to establish themselves here. Throughout the continent, the Indians appear to have been at first disposed to give a hospitable reception to the strangers who visited their shores; but they were soon taught to dread, and then to hate, a people, who shot them down, subjected them to slavery, and robbed them of their property and lands, without mercy or scruple. When the settlements began along our Atlantic coast, more than a century had passed since the discovery of the continent by Columbus, and ample time had elapsed for many of the tribes to experience, and all to know, the oppressive and formidable character of these European invaders.
Though the number of the Indians in this quarter was not great, yet their skill in war, and the deep-seated jealousy and hatred of the white race, which had grown up with them, rendered them a fearful foe to feeble colonies, separated by a wide ocean from the protection and succour of their native land. The contests of our forefathers with the Indians, therefore, were full of the deepest interest to them, and abound in incidents which cannot fail to arrest the attention of every reader.