Just as settlers faced difficulties and disappointment in Virginia, New England often proved less than advertised. Even those driven by religious motivations still had to raise enough food to eat. The following letter from an unnamed English migrant in the settlement of Watertown in Massachusetts Bay colony, written in 1631 to his father, William Pond, reveals the economic issues that settlers faced and their perceptions of Indians.

I know, loving father, and do confess that I was an undutiful child unto you when I lived with you and by you, for the which I am much sorrowful and grieved for it, trusting in God that He will guide me that I will never offend you so anymore, and I trust in God that you will forgive me for it.

My writing this unto you is to let you understand what a country this New England is, where we live. Here are but few Indians, a great part of them died this winter, it was thought it was of the plague. They are a crafty people, and they will cozen and cheat, and they are a subtle people. And whereas we did expect great store of beaver, here is little or none to be had. . . . They are proper men and clean-jointed men, and many of them go naked with a skin about their loins, but now some of them get Englishmen’s apparel. And the country is very rocky and hilly, and there is some champion ground, and the soil is very flete [fruitful]. And here is some good ground and marsh ground, but here is no Michaelmas. Spring cattle thrive well here, but they give small store of milk. The best cattle for profit is swine, and a good swine is here at five pounds’ price, a goose is worth two pounds, a good one got. Here is timber good store, and acorns good store, and here is good store of fish, if we had boats to go for and lines to serve fishing. Here are good stores of wild fowl, but they are hard to come by. It is harder to get a shot than it is in old England. And people here are subject to disease, for here have died of the scurvy and of the burning fever nigh too hundred and odd. Besides, as many lyeth lame, and all Sudbury men are dead but three, and [some] women and some children, and provisions are here at a wonderful rate. . . .

If this ship had not come when it did, we had been put to a wonderful strait, but thanks be to God for sending of it in. I received from the ship a hogshead of meal, and the Governor telleth me of a hundred-weight of cheese, the which I have received part of it. I humbly thank you for it. I did expect two cows, the which I had none, nor I do not earnestly desire that you should send me any, because the country is not so [suitable] as we did expect it. Therefore, loving father, I would entreat you that you would send me a firkin of butter and a hogshead of malt unground, for we drink nothing but water, and a coarse clothe of four pounds price, so it be thick. For the freight, if you of your love will send them I will pay the freight. For here is nothing to be got without we had commodities to go up to the East parts amongst the Indians to truck, for here where we live, here is no beaver. Here is no cloth to be had to make no apparel, and shoes are at five shillings a pair for me, and that cloth that is worth two shillings eight pence a yard is worth here five shillings. So I pray, father, send me four or five yards of cloth to make us some apparel. And, loving father, though I be far distant from you, yet I pray you remember me as your child. And we do not know how long we may subsist, for we cannot live here without provisions from old England. Therefore, I pray, do not put away your shop stuff, for I think that in the end, if I live, it must be my living. For we do not know how long this plantation will stand, for some of the magnates that did uphold it have turned off their men and have given it over. . . .

So here we may live if we have supplies every year from old England, otherwise we cannot subsist. I may, as I will, work hard, set an acre of [English] wheat, and if we do not set it with fish (and that will cost 20 shillings), if we set it without fish, they shall have but a poor crop. So, father, I pray, consider of my case, for here will be but a very poor being—no being—without, loving father, your help with provisions from old England. I had thought to have come home in this ship, for my provisions were almost all spent, but that I humbly thank you for your great love and kindness in sending me some provisions, or else I should and might have been half famished. But now I will—if it please God that I have my health—I will plant what corn I can.

Source: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2nd ser., vol. 8 (Boston, 1892–1894), 471–73.