HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND.
CHAP. I. Several Conjectures of their Original.
§. 1. CONCERNING the original of the Savages, or Indians, in New-England, there is nothing of certainty to be concluded. But yet, as I conceive, it may rationally be made out, that all the In|dians of America, from the straits of Magellan and its adjacent islands on the south, unto the most northerly part yet discovered, are origin|ally of the same nations or sort of people. Whatever I have read or seen to this purpose, I am the more confirmed therein. I have seen of this people, along the sea coasts and within land, from the degrees of 34 unto 44 of north latitude; and have read of the Indians of Magel|lanica, Peru, Brasilia, and Florida, and have also seen some of them; and unto my best apprehension, they are all of the same sort of people.
The colour of their skins, the form and shape of their bodies, not and eyes, demonstrate this. Their skins are of a tawny colour, not unlike the tawny Moors in Africa; the proportion of their limbs, well formed; it is rare to see a crooked person among them. Their hair is black and harsh, not curling; their eyes, black and dull; though I have seen, but very rarely, a grey-eyed person among them, with brownish hair. But still the difficulty yet remains, whence all these Americans had their first original, and from which of the sons of Noah they descended, and how they came first into these parts; which is separated so very far from Europe and Africa by the Atlantick ocean, and from a great part of Asia, by Mar del Zur, or the South sea; in which sea Sir Francis Drake, that noble hero, in his famous voyage about the world, sailed on the west o•• America, from the straits of Ma|gellan, lying about 52 degrees of south latitude, unto 38 degrees of north latitude; where he possessed a part of the country, and received subjection from those very tractable Indians, in the right of the English nation, and his sovereign prince, the famous queen Elizabeth, then reigning, and her successors, and gave it the name of New Albion; which country lies west northerly of Massachusetts in New England; for Boston lies in 42° 30'. and New Albion in 48° of north latitude, which is near six degrees more northerly.
There are divers opinions about this matter.
§. 2. First, some conceive that this people are of the race of the ten tribes of Israel, that Salmanasser carried captive out of their own country, A. M. 3277, of which we read in II. Kings, xviii. 9—12; and that God hath, by some means or other, not yet discovered, brought them into America; and herein fulfilled his just threatening against them, of which we may read, II. Kings, xvii. from 6. to the 19 verse; and hath reduced them into such we••••l blindness and bar|barism,