One Puritan goodwife, sternly unforgiving,
never saw a contribution taken for proselyting the Indians without
depositing in the contribution-box a number of leaden bullets, the only
tokens she wished to see ever dispersed among the red men.
Even our pious forefathers were not always quite honest in their church
contributions, and had to be publicly warned, as the records show, that
they must deposit "wampum without break or deforming spots," or "passable
peage without breaches." The New Haven church was particularly tormented by
canny Puritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken and worthless
currency with apparent Christian generosity. In 1650 the New Haven "deacons
informed the Court that the wampum which is putt into the Church Treasury
is generally so bad that the Elders to whom they pay it cannot pay it
away."
In 1651, as the bad wampum was still paid in by the pious New Haven
Puritans, it was ordered that "no money save silver or bills" be accepted
by the deacons. After this order the deacons and elders found tremendous
difficulty in getting any contributions at all, and many are the records of
the actions and decisions of the church in regard to the perplexing matter.
It should be said, in justice to the New Haven colonists, though they were
the most opulent of the New England planters, save the wealthy settlers
of Narragansett, that money of all kinds was scarce, and that the Indian
money, wampum-peag, being made of a comparatively frail sea-shell, was more
easily disfigured and broken than was metal coin; and that there was little
transferable wealth in the community anyway, even in "Country Pay.
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