Chapter III

It is impossible to do much more than guess at these figures because our ancestors, with tantalizing piety, regarded Praying Indians as the only ones worth counting, and they did not begin to count even these until late in the seventeenth century. Various estimates follow:

Date Authority No. of Praying Reference
Indians

1674 Richard Bourne, in About 500 (old 1 M.H.S. Coll.,
letter to Major Gookin and young) I, 196 ff.

1685 Governor Hinckley’s 944 (plus three 4 M.H.S. Coll.,
Report to Stoughton times as many V, 132 f.
and Dudley children)

1698 Rawson and 1100 (approximately 1 M.H.S. Coll.,
Danforth’s --exclusive X, 129 ff.
Report of children)

In 1763, the census of Indians of all conditions and ages shows a total of 515.

The most useful of these figures are Hinckley’s for 1685, and Rawson and Danforth’s for 1698, because they agree pretty well. It is safe to say that by 1698 (the date of Rawson and Danforth’s Report) nearly all the Cape Indians were at least nominally praying Indians, for John Freeman, in a letter to Hinckley, dated Eastham, 1685, says that most Eastham Indians do ‘frequent their meetings on the Sabbath, except aged and decrepit persons and infants and some extravagant fellows that run from one place to another.’ (4 M.H.S. Coll., V, 131 ff.) So if the number of praying Indians was about 1000 at this time, the total number, including praying and non-praying, could not have been much greater. War, civilization, rum, and most of all pestilence, had been at work reducing them to this number for the past eighty years or so. I hazard the guess that during these eighty years their number had been decreased by half, and therefore give 2000 as the pre-pestilence population. Only adults are included in these figures. If children are included, this number may be multiplied by four.