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• 1 2017-05-29T18:40:41+00:00 Gookin's Letter Regarding James Printer's Nephew 19 Contributed by Maggie King image_header 2018-04-18T20:51:12+00:00

  Honred sr                                                                                                        224a
  I have according to the Councell’s [Council’s] order clothed
  fitted & furnished with apparel 2 indian boys
  for yor messenger; And have sent them down
  by my sonne Samuel Gookin who hath dispersed
  the mony for their clothing [which] coming to –
  fifty three shillings four pence [which] please to
  order the treasurer to satisfy him: I have
  no more to ad at present. But my due report
  presented remaining-
  My sonne will present a pticular acct of the disbursement-
  please to order some pson
  to receive them [torn] [and] keep
  them safe [lest?] [torn: they?] [may]
  Slipp away being possibly afraid
  to go for England – But I pray
  [God] [they] not bee put in prison for
  now [they] are cleane [and] free from
  vermin.

  From Massachusetts Archives, volume 30, manuscript # 224a, October 18, 1676

  This letter deals with the preparations involving the transport of Annaweekin’s son and another boy to England by Daniel Gookin and his son, Samuel. After King Philip’s War, Native children whose parents were killed or taken captive were frequently bound to labor as indentured servants in English homes. The letter above references two “indian boys.” At least one of the boys was a son of Annaweekin, brother of James Printer (Nipmuc). Both of Annaweekin’s sons are mentioned in a document located in Neil Salisbury’s edited version of the Mary Rowlandson captivity narrative. A Memorandum of Indian Children Put Forth into Service to the English dated August 10, 1676, names two sons of “Annaweeken.” Only one of the boys is named and aged specifically, “Joseph…aged about 11 yeares,” who was “taken from Capt [Thomas] Prentice & sent up Mr Stoughton.” The other boy (age unknown) was sent to “old Goodman Myles of Dedham.”[1] Daniel Gookin was interested in sending the boys to England as proof that the English were taking good care of Native children to justify colonial enterprise through warfare. It is mentioned that the boys were to be sent with Stoughton to England.[2] Parts of the document are also referenced in Jenny Hale Pulsipher’s book, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England.[3]

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  [1] “A Memorandum of Indian Children Put Forth into Service to the English, August 10, 1676,” in The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson with Related Documents, ed. Neal Salisbury (Boston: Beford/St. Martin’s, 1997), 144.
  [2] “Indian Children,” 144.
  [3] Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 97, 198-9, 317.