Beschreibung:

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, WAMPANOAG TRIBE]. QUECHATOSET OF MANOMET, Sachem . Manuscript document signed (with his inked "V"), countersigned by two other Indians, Ponfot and "Quompanum or Great Tom" (each with his mark), Plymouth, Massachusetts, 16 November 1671. 1 page, 4to, 180 x 140mm. (7 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.), integral blank, written in a clear English court hand, verso with 1771 docket by John Cotton, certifying that the deed was recorded "with the records of deeds in the last Colony book for the Government of Plymouth," paper with a few small losses (not affecting text), remnants of wax seal, minor soiling, tipped into an open mat along with two engravings and enclosed under UV-40 plexiglas in a large giltwood frame . Unexamined out of frame. THE SACHEM QUECHATASET SELLS LAND ON CAPE COD TO PILGRIM RICHARD BOURNE, FOUR YEARS BEFORE THE OUTBREAK OF KING PHILIP'S WAR Quechatoset (d.1674), Sachem of the Upper Cape branch of the powerful Wampanoag tribe and two fellow tribesmen deed a tract of tribal land to Richard Bourne. Bourne had been ordained in 1670 by John Eliot (the "Indian Apostle"). An associate of pilgrim fathers John Alden and Myles Standish, Bourne settled near Sandwich, close to the Indian town of Manomet, where Quechatoset resided. (Quechatoset did not become a convert to Christianity, although many of his tribe did.) The document reads: "Know all men by these presents that I, Quechatoset of Manomet Sachem, have sold unto Richard Bourne of Sandwich, a certayn swamp...for one pound ten shillings...I doe acknowledg myself therewith satisfied -- that is for all the trees, poles or what ever groweth there or is standing there either dry or green trees...in... this swamp lying or being at a place called Mont Puhlomuh -- neare unto a place called Nariguanchet...All which the forementioned trees, poles, dry or green, stand up or lying downe or any young brush or what ever is upon the land or swamps I say I...doe by these presents sell and alienate from myself [and] my heires...for ever...the confirmation of the premises & every part and parcell thereof I...set my hand and seale..." The Wampanoag tribe, under the Sachem Massasoit (d.1661) controlled present-day Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and Rhode Island; Massasoit himself resided at Pokanoket, near Bristol, Rhode Island on Narragansett Bay. At the date of the present document, Chief Quechatoset and the Wampanoags were accustomed to the European colonists; the first had landed at Plymouth more than fifty years earlier. But a son of Massasoit, Philip, would soon launch the bloody Indian rebellion known as King Philip's War (1675-76), which resulted in the enslavement or death of virtually all the members of the unfortunate Wampanoags. Documents signed by the Sachem Quechatoset are rare on the market. The Sang collection, gathered many years ago, contained two examples countersigned by John Alden; one of those was later part of the collection of the Hon. J. William Middendorf III (sale, Christie's New York, 17 May 1989, lot 254, $11,000).