THE WORLD SINCE 1492

Quotations from William Cronin's
Changes in the Land: English Colonists and Americans in New England

The Indians are not able to make use of one fourth part of the Land, neither have they any settled places, as Townes to dwell in... [T]hey change habitation from place to place.

--Fancis Higginson (1630)

Much might they [the Indians] benefit themselves...if they were not...fettered in the chains of idleness.

--William Wood (1634)

[The Indians are] not industrious, neither [do they] have art, science, or faculty to use either the land or the commodities of it; but all spoils, rots, and is marred for want of manuring, [...and] ordering.

--Robert Cushman (1628)

Their wives are their slaves and do all the work; the men do nothing but kill beasts...

--Christopher Levett (1628)

As for the Natives in New England, they [have] no settled habitation, nor any tame Cattle to improve the land by, and soe have noe other but a Natural Right to those Countries.

--John Winthrop

In a vacant soyle, hee that taketh possession of it and bestwoeth culture and husbandry upon it, his Right it is.

--John Cotton