Caleb Arnold Wall (1821 -1898) was of Worcester, Massachusetts, was a local historian and author, who in 1893 wrote the short pamphlet on the history of thel Nipmuc Indian tribe, entitled "The Nipmuck Indians."
The Nipmuc or Nipmuck people are descendants of the indigenous Algonquian peoples of Nippenet, 'the freshwater pond place', which corresponds to central Massachusetts and immediately adjacent portions of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The tribe were first encountered by Europeans in 1630, when John Acquittamaug arrived with maize to sell to the starving colonists of Boston, Massachusetts.
Of the friendly relations between the Pilgrims and the Nipmuc, Wall writes:
"To show that in the beginning of the coming here of the white settlers from the old world there was a friendly feeling, which might have been made lasting between them and the Indians, we have only to refer to the circumstance, among other records of the early time, that the greeting, "Welcome, Englishmen ! Welcome, Englishmen!" were the first words which the Pilgrim Fathers heard from the lips of a son of the American forest. It was the voice of Samoset, a Wampanoag chief, who had learned a few English words from some fishermen whom he had come across before he had met any of the new comers with whom he had dared to hold communication or speak to."
The Nipmuc or Nipmuck people are descendants of the indigenous Algonquian peoples of Nippenet, 'the freshwater pond place', which corresponds to central Massachusetts and immediately adjacent portions of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The tribe were first encountered by Europeans in 1630, when John Acquittamaug arrived with maize to sell to the starving colonists of Boston, Massachusetts.
Of the friendly relations between the Pilgrims and the Nipmuc, Wall writes:
"To show that in the beginning of the coming here of the white settlers from the old world there was a friendly feeling, which might have been made lasting between them and the Indians, we have only to refer to the circumstance, among other records of the early time, that the greeting, "Welcome, Englishmen ! Welcome, Englishmen!" were the first words which the Pilgrim Fathers heard from the lips of a son of the American forest. It was the voice of Samoset, a Wampanoag chief, who had learned a few English words from some fishermen whom he had come across before he had met any of the new comers with whom he had dared to hold communication or speak to."
