born white." [Footnote: Smith, Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 19.] On the
other hand the natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in latitude
4l Degrees 40' are described by the first explorers of that region
in substantially the same terms. Brereton, who accompanied Gosnold
in his first voyage to the Elisabeth islands and the main land
opposite, in 1602, mentions the natives there, as being of a
complexion or color "much like a dark olive." [Footnote: Purchas, IV.
1652.] Martin Fringe who visited Martha's Vineyard the next year and
constructed there a barricade where the "people of the country came
sometimes, ten, twentie, fortie or three score, and at one time one
hundred and twentie at once," says, "these people are inclined to a
swart, tawnie or chesnut colour, not by nature but accidentally."
[Footnote: Ibid, IV, 1655.] And Roger Williams, partaking of the
same idea as Pringe, that the swarthy color was accidental,
testifies, almost in the same language as Captain Smith, that the
Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of
them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were
born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the
authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians
existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the
people of the two sections claimed to have been visited in this
voyage.

Of an equally absurd and preposterous character is the statement
made in reference to the condition in which the plants and
vegetation were found. The grape particularly is mentioned in a
manner which proves, beyond question, that the writer could not have
been in the country. The dates which are given for the exploration
are positive; and are conclusive in this respect. The Dauphiny is
represented as having left Madeira on the 17th of January, and