The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1897-04-16
BY CHARLES L. SIMPLIFY.

As the financial question is at the
present time engrossing the attention
of all political parties, and the extra
session of Congress recently convened
has principally been engaged in the
discussion and passage of new tariff
bill, it will be of interest to vacate for a
brief period the political fielu of the
nineteenth century and carry ourselves
back to the dim past of one hundred
aud twenty, TO two hundred and fifty
years ago and review the means of ex-
change and barter employed among
tie early settlers of the country.
Long before the advent of the white
man the American savages had deck
ed themselves with beads. Some of
these were of such metals as were cas-
lily worked; Others of small shells
strung together, or of bits of
wood polished and colored. The most
perfect of these were called from the
Indian dialect "wampum-peak," o
more simple, ''wampum" or 'peak'
This wampum was made by the she'll
fish eaters along the coast, who wrought
highly polished and well-drilled beads
of dark cOlors from the eye of the hard
clam shell or common oyster shell, and
white ones worth half as much from
other parts of the same shell. Before
the introduction of iron by the Eure-
pean settlers the indians painfully Dor
ed the holes through the shells with
stone avis ana strung them upon the
tendons of animals.
Wampum was widely distributed.
Between Canada and Carolina its use
appears TO have been known to all the
coast tribes except those of tue New
England peninsula north of Marian
gansett Bay. These last received it in
the way OF trade from the Plymouth
settlers. 1t was wrought in the great
est variety of forms by the Virginia
tribes, who INDUCED their fancy by
varying the strings of white and purple
peak with large tubes and pipes two or
three iuches long and thicker than
the beads. With the common white
and dark wampum the Indians made
their coronets, necklaces, bracelets,
belts, carriers and pendants tor the ears.
With it they plated aud tied up their
hair and decorated their finest gar
ments. In the Powhatan Confederacy
brides were purchased with wampun;
marriage was performed by breaking
a wampum-stick over the heals of the
couple, and at funeral the beads were
scattered among the people. In the
north wampum was hung dangling be-
fore the eyes of the baby, bound hand
and foot to his portable crib. The IrI-
quois tied strings of white wampum
about the neck of the white dog, which
was burned as sin offering at their
religious festivals. No confession of
sin, no solean ceremony of any sort
was complete without its presence.
Messages sent between the tribes were
always accompanied with presents of
belts and shells. The dead were not
allowed to travel TO the Land of the
Great Spirit" without their strings Of
wampum, but when the trade with
the white man commenced to give
new valuation TO these shells MANY
needy and hard up" savages opened
the tombs of their ancestors and the
wampum therein contained soon pass
ed into the chest of the trader in ex-
change for cloth and rum.
1t soon commenced to be a means of
barter between the settlers and the In
dams. The shell heap on Long Island
became "lhe mine of New Netherland,"
al vii n &c of
rency of beaver skins, soon became the
only money besides silver and gold
that would pass current in all the
American colonies. Accounts were
rendered in fathOms of it; unstrung
beads passed as small change. In sew
eral colonies Indian money was legal
tender and the price of bread was
many times regulated in this eoin by
law. Rich men boarded it ia the eel
lar by the barrelful White and IT,
dian rogues counterfeited it and | am
told that some of our forefathers COM
mitted gross sin" by disposing of
the counterfeit beads on Sunday by
dropping them into the contribution
plate.
So long as it took days labor of an
Indian TO produce fifteen cents worth
of wampum, and as long as a definite
number of fathOms of wampum could
be exchanged for certain number of
beaver skins. and as long as beaver
skins were priced in the European
markets and passed current for money
IN every American colony, the value of
shell money could not depreciate. In
the Iudian country the wampum-
beaver currency was preferred to gold
and silver, and for space of thirty
years 1t held an unbroken sway among
the cOionists. There came time.
however, when wampum began to de-
cline and gradually fell into disuse as
a current medium.
Owing TO scarcity ofmoney in Eng
land trade was often carried on by bar
ter and the system extended to the
new world. In New England a fat
sheep, fat hog and a bushel of ap-
piles were taken as a yearly rental.
In 1914 each family was required to
pay a peck of corn to help poor schol-
airs at Harvard, and / read of fines col
lected In malt, of taxes paid in beef,
pork, grain, hides, cheese, tallow, bees
wax, dry fish and even in live cattle.
In the year 1857 bingham, Mass,
paid Its rate in milk-pails, and there
was lawsuit on the Delaware in 1879
about debt all payable in "pompkinsn
lpumpSlns), aud all the principal
Kind OF produce was legal tender In
pennsylvania in 1888. In one of the
Long Island towns the assessors fixed
the rate at which cattle of various
kinds should pass current. In South
America rice was used in paving