P
hostages, the Dutch take several Esopus women
and children captive and sell them into slavery in
the West Indies.
1661The Spanish destroy Pueblo religious
paraphernalia.
Angered by the Pueblo’s unwillingness to become
Catholic converts, Spanish officials order soldiers
to stage a series of raids on kivas, underground
structures in which the Pueblo perform religious
ceremonies. The raiders loot and burn ceremo-
nial items, including 1,600 masks representing
kachinas, the spirit beings that control the Pueblo
world.
“[The Pueblo] are totally lost,
without faith, without law,
and without devotion to the
church; they neither respect
nor obey their ministers, and
it makes one weep to see that
in such a short time they have
lost and forgotten what they
have been taught in all these
years.”
—Fray Francisco de Salazar in 1660
on the difficulty of converting
the PuebloMarch
Virginia issues identification medals to
Indian travelers.
The Virginia General Assembly passes an act that
requires all Indians leaving their villages and enter-
ing white settlements to wear medals made by the
colonists, as forms of identification. These medal
passports are only given to Indians who are consid-
ered friends of the colony.1662Metacom becomes chief of the Wampanoag.
The Massachusetts authorities call Wamsutta to
Plymouth after hearing rumors of a planned In-
dian uprising. Wamsutta became the leader of the
Wampanoag two years before on the death of his
father, Massasoit, who had long worked to main-
tain a peaceful relationship with the English (see
entries for MARCH 1621 and AUTUMN 1621).
When the new Wampanoag chief refuses, a force of
Englishmen comes to his village to compel him at
gunpoint to honor the colonists’ order. The English
berate and interrogate Wamsutta, who repeatedly
complains of feeling ill. The Massachusetts officials
finally agree to release him, but Wamsutta, on his
way home, suddenly dies. Like many other Wampa-
noag, his younger brother and successor Metacom
comes to suspect that Wamsutta was poisoned while
in Plymouth.1663John Eliot’s Massachuset Bible is published.
Missionary John Eliot (see also entry for 1651) trans-
lates the Bible for use by Massachuset Indians near
the settlements of Roxbury and Boston. The transla-
tion is the fruit of Eliot’s 15-year effort to learn the
Massachuset language and invent an orthography
so that it can be written down. He is aided by sev-
eral Massachuset translators and a Nipmuck Indian
known as James Printer, who helps set the Bible into
type. Described by Eliot as “a sacred and holy work,
to be regarded with fear, care, and reverence,” the
Massachuset Bible is the first Bible in any language to
be printed in the Americas.New France becomes a colony.
The Company of New France, a trading company
that initiated French colonization in North America