Nine Years a Captive/Introduction

The following narrative of the captivity of John Gyles among the Indians of the St. John River, independently of its interest as a tale of human suffering and endurance, is of great value as a means of illustrating the manners and customs of the Indian tribes of Acadie. It is this consideration which is mainly the cause of its republication now, for it is the only authentic narrative that is known to exist of any lengthened residence among the savage tribes of Acadie during the seventeenth century, the period of their greatest power and greatest activity. Without it we might form a tolerable conjecture of the mode of life of the aborigines of our country, but the narrative of Gyles, in its simple and truthful quaintness, introduces us to those barbarous people as they actually were, tells us how they lived, what privations they endured, shows us, in short, the Indian stripped of his paint and feathers and without those romantic surroundings amid which writers of poetry and some historians have delighted to depict him. By the light of such a narrative, we are able to perceive how wretched was the lot of an Acadian Indian, even during the period when his very name carried terror to the hearts of the settlers of New Hampshire and Maine. Modern civilization may have degraded him in some respects, but it has elevated him in others. It has rescued him from the danger of starvation to which in his pristine state he was constantly exposed, and also from the cruel necessity of abandoning the aged and feeble of his kindred to perish, when unable longer to supply their own wants or endure the constant journeys necessitated by the nature of their nomad life.

A vast deal of nonsense has been written about the North American Indians, and perhaps on no point have the writers who conceive their vague fancies to be solemn facts, exhausted their rhetoric to a greater extent than in regard to the supposed inevitable doom of the Red Man, which they conceive to be his utter extinction. If, as appears to be the belief in some of the Western United States, the proper thing to do with every Indian is to shoot him, then of course the extinction of the race would seem to be inevitable, but fortunately this simple policy is not likely to be universally adopted. There is no ​reason whatever why the Indians of this continent should perish from the face of the earth, unless it is to be found in the lawless brutality, treachery and bad faith of white men. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, thanks to a policy of justice which protects men from murder and violence, no matter what their color, the Indians are increasing in numbers. I am firmly convinced, after a pretty thorough investigation of every available original authority, that there are more Indians in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia now than there ever were during any part of either the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. It is doubtful if both the Malicites and Micmacs together ever could have brought 800 warriors into the field during the historical period. In point of fact, that number of warriors never was assembled together in Acadie at any one time. When Membertou, the Micmac, in 1607 collected all his forces to attack the Armouchquois at Chouakoet, (Saco) his whole force amounted to only 400 men, and there were never more than 300 Malicites engaged in any of the numerous raids they made on the English settlements. Even the Iroquois or five nations, which included the Mohawks, the most formidable Indian Confederacy in North America, never numbered more than 2,500 warriors.

The Indians of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, two provinces which formed a part of the ancient French Province of Acadie, all belonged to the great Algonquin family or nation, but were divided into two tribes. The Souriquois or Micmacs occupied the whole of the peninsula of Nova Scotia and the Gulf Shore of New Brunswick as far North as Gaspe. The Etchemins or Malicites possessed the whole of the line of the St. John River and inland as far as Riviere du Loup, and along the sea shore westward to the Penobscot. The people now known as the Penobscot Indians, the Passamaquoddy Indians, the Abenaquis of the Province of Quebec and the Indians now living on the St. John River are all Etchemins or Malicites and regard themselves as one people. The Malicites were a warlike race, as subtle and savage as any tribe on the continent, and lying, as they did, on the flank of the New England settlements, which they constantly attacked, their destruction was a consummation devoutly prayed for but never accomplished by the descendants of the Pilgrim fathers. Even the laurels which Capt. Church had gained in King Philip's war withered when he came to Acadie, and his triumphs were restricted to the burning of the dwellings and barns of the inoffensive French habitants of Chignecto and Minas. The Micmacs of Acadie ​were usually the allies of the Malicites and frequently sent warriors to take part in their expeditions against Maine.

The Indian war, in the course of which John Gyles was taken, was the second great Indian war in which the people of Eastern New England took part. It is known in history as King William's war, from the English monarch in whose reign it took place, as the first Indian war is known as King Philip's war from the name of the Indian Sagamore who banded his countrymen against the whites. King William's war was commenced in 1688 and lasted ten years. It was a ruinous contest. All the Indian tribes eastward of the Merrimack, including the Micmacs, took part in it. Every town and settlement in Maine except Wells, York, Kittery and the Isle of Shoals was over-run. A thousand white people were killed or taken prisoners and an untold number of domestic animals destroyed. Like nearly every other war, which the Indians have waged against the Whites, the latter were responsible for its origin. Several causes, some remote and some immediate, combined to invest this contest with a more than ordinary degree of ferocity. One of the former illustrates in a remarkable manner that long remembrance of an injury which is characteristic of savages. In 1676, towards the close of King Philip's war, Major Waldron, the Commander of the Militia, at Dover, had made a peace with 400 of the Eastern Indians and they were encamped quietly near his house, and regarded him as their friend and father. Two companies of troops, under Captains Sill and Hawthorne, soon afterwards arrived at Dover and they together with Major Waldron contrived a treacherous scheme to make the Indians prisoners. Waldron proposed to the Indians to have a review and a sham fight after the English mode; and summoning his own men, they in conjunction with the two companies formed one party, and the Indians another. After manœuvring for some time Major Waldron induced the Indians to fire the first volley, and the instant this was done they were surrounded by the soldiers and the whole 400 of them made prisoners. About half of them were afterwards set at liberty, but more than 200 Indians who had taken part in the war were sent to Boston, where a number of them were hanged and the remainder sold into slavery. This despicable act of treachery the Indians never forgot or forgave. It was a base deed which in after years brought its own punishment. The Indians learned the lesson and improved upon it. Thirteen years later Major Waldron was slain by the Indians, under circumstances which involved a breach of faith and ​of the laws of hospitality equal to his own, and, after the lapse of nearly ninety years, the Ottawas captured Machilmackinac by a device exactly modeled on Waldron's exploit; thus the evil seed sown by him bore its legitimate fruit.

The war was, however, precipitated by another needless outrage the infamy of which belongs to Andross the Governor of New England. In 1667 the Baron de St. Castine, who had been an officer in the Carignan Regiment in Canada, settled on a point of land on the eastern bank of the Penobscot River, near the town which now bears his name. He married a daughter of the Malicite Sagamore Madockawando and built a trading house where he did a large and profitable business with the Indians, among whom he was regarded with a degree of reverence that almost amounted to worship. It would have been prudent to have kept on good terms with such a man, but Andross, in April, 1688, thought proper to land with a party of men from the Rose frigate and rob Castine's house and fort, an act which so provoked the latter that he very soon gave the people of New England cause to curse the folly of their Governor. In a short time, mainly owing to his influence, the tribes of Acadie and Eastern Maine were allied and in arms against the English and the war commenced, one episode of which is described in the narrative in the following pages. I have given it in the exact language of the writer, but have added such notes as appeared to be necessary to the proper understanding of the interesting story of Mr. Gyles.