The history of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, By a committee of the Dorchester antiquarian and historical society ...

10 HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
western parts of England, may have landed persons,
intent on trade, at different places on the shores of
Maine and Massachusetts, and we learn both from
Smith and Winslow that the attractions of Massachusetts were well known at an early period.*
The Neponset tribe of Indians, inhabiting the
Dorchester territory, may properly be regarded as
the residuary legatees of a much larger and more
important Indian nation, viz., the Massachusetts Indians, said to have occupied formerly the circle which
now makes Boston harbor, extending from Malden
round to Cohasset, which Smith calls the paradise
of these parts,t and to which was especially appropriated the name of Massachusetts. At the time of
the arrival of the Dorchester settlers (1630), Chickatabot was the chief of this tribe, whom Dudley,
writing in March, 1631,+ represents as living near
to the Massachusetts fields (Squantum farms), and
the same place is fixed by Wood on his map, drawn
in 1633, as his residence. This sachem was regarded
by Gov. Winthrop and the early settlers generally
as the most important chief about the bay, and the
assurances of friendship made by him prevented the
* The sudden disappearance of Thompson and other old settlers in
his vicinity was probably occasioned by the following cause. They
were dealers in beaver, martin and musquash furs, and other peltry, collected by the Indians in this vicinity to a large amount. Soon after the
charter, at a general court of the Massachusetts Company, holden in
London, Oct. 15, 1629, it was voted that the Company shall have the
trade of beaver and all other furs in those parts solely for the term of
seven years from this day. This order, interfering with individual enterprise, doubtless took away the occupation from the old settlers, who
forthwith betook themselves to some other locality. Oldharn-see
Young, p. 148.
t Mass. His. Col. vol. 6, 3d series, p. 118. $ Young's Mass. p. 305.