The King Of The Moassons

T he Indian Monarch Bashaba, called Bessabes by Lescarbot, was born near the middle of the sixteenth century in the heart of the great Maine wilderness.  His countrymen were known as Etechemins.  The name of his empire has been variously transcribed by different writers as Moasson, Moashan and Mawooshen, and was bounded on the east by the Saint Croix, on the west by Saco River and on the south by the sea.  Beyond the latter stream lay the territories of the warlike Tarratines, while between the kingdom and Massachusetts lay the district of Epistoman.  The only persons mentioned as relatives of the king were his son Amniquin, who ruled on the Sagadahoc with Sabenaw, and a brother Sasanoa whose name is perpetuated in that of a river on the southern boundary of Woolrich.            Bashaba had a great many subjects, as well as allies in time of war, and some of his lords could muster at leas 1500 bowmen.  He also had many enemies, especially the bloodthirsty Tarratines, who were also styled Souriquois by the French and lived in western Nova Scotia.  On the other side he was often harassed by the Sockhigones, or Sokokis, who later leaders were the Higons of Saco.  The southern Mohawks sometimes penetrated into the district.  The country was a difficult one to defend against invasion on account of its many rivers and the sea, all of which afforded avenues for sudden approach and speedy retreat.  The nation was accredited by Gorges with more intelligence than any of the other northern continent.  Such superior development might have resulted from their dangerous environment which kept them constantly alert.              Bashaba was first mentioned by David Ingram, a sailor who claimed to have been marooned on the Atlantic coast in 1568.  The narrator was put ashore in the Gulf of Mexico, with fifty-two companions in a starving condition.  He and a few associates became separated from the others and traveled north.  The story, reduced to writing in 1583 and mentioned by Hakluyt the next year, must have been his own or derived from some ancient mariner who had had actual contact with the geography of Sagadahoc.  At any rate, Ingram reported that while on his way from "Sabino" to "Pemaquit" he observed a conspicuous island lying to seaward which he was told by a native boatman was inhabited by subjects of Bashaba.  The isolated colony appears to have consisted of Indian fishermen on Monhegan.              June 8, 1605, Captain George Waymouth, who had anchored his ship Archangel in Saint George's River, was approached by seven Indians from the east, only one of whom his party had ever seen.  These strangers were messengers from Bashaba, who had learned of his advent and desired to meet and trade with him in person.  The savages pointed eastward to indicate the king's residence and signified in other ways that their chief had a large stock of furs and tobaccos for exchange.  Since Waymouth was then holding some of their tribe under the hatches as captives he declines to have any interviews with their chief.            During that same year Champlain was conducted to the "rapids of Norumbega" in Penobscot River and remained there while some of his guides advanced several miles to notify Bashaba of his approach.  Later a meeting was arranged at the metropolis which was situated opposite the mouth of the Kenduskeag River, in Brewer.  In the presence of native nobility, comprising about thirty sagamores, the Frenchmen were feasted upon venison and other wild game, while the dignitaries sang, danced and smoked tobacco all of that day and the ensuing night.  When the conference was finally terminated, the visitors had become greatly impressed with the importance of "the new nation," and both parties expressed satisfaction with their mutual understandings.            In 1607 Bashaba and his sylvan domain were again mentioned by Gorges in his brief account of the adventures of the Popham colony at Sagadahoc.  In that connection it was stated that President George Popham, as soon as the site for a plantation had been selected at the mouth of the river, dispatched Captain Gilbert, in company with Skidwaros as guide, to make a "thorough discovery of the rivers and habitations of the natives."  On that occasion the exploring party was importuned by Sasanoa, Abermot and other influential sachems, to pay its respects to Bashaba who as royal host expected friendly overtures to be made by the strangers rather than himself.  After the president had failed to reach Penobscot, on account of unfavorable weather and cross winds at sea, the king sent his son to trade with the new colony for furs.
            Four years later Bashaba was once mentioned by Biard, a French missionary, who was urged by natives to settle at Kenduskeag and did examine the location at the confluence of the two rivers.  He then described the gathering of natives as "the finest assemblage" of savages he had yet seen.  At that time there were in the city about three hundred inhabitants, living in eighteen wigwams and employing eighty canoes and a boat.  He described the most prominent Sagamore as "Betsabes, a man of great discretion and prudence."  According to the account of the affair, the natives danced, sang and harangued, but evinced many nobler traits and more refinement of character than a majority of his own countrymen, with whom these savages afterward intermarried.              Early accounts of a large city at Kedesquit, the French rendering of Kenduskeag, are hardly confirmed by later writers and description of the place, first called Norumbega by the Spaniards, was much exaggerated, as were the power and affluence, as were the power and affluence of contemporary monarchs.  In the census figures, furnished by Purchase and based upon returns from the voyages covering the period from Gosnold to the abandonment of Sagadahoc colony, Bashaba's capitol contained sixty wigwams and two hundred and fifty warriors at the later date.  Evidently, the metropolis the contained about one thousand persons.  When Biard was present in 1611 the population had dwindled, probably on account of tribal wars, disease and the somewhat nomadic habits of the inhabitants.            Gorges asserted that a great war had prevailed for some years between the king and the Etechemins and the hostile Tarratines of Nova Scotia, who were jealous of their French trade, and that, in 1616, the latter surprised and killed old Bashaba.  They also carried away his women and much property of value.  The French, on the other hand, maintained that the Indian monarch was murdered by the English, who were in the country that summer, and that the decedent was succeeded by Asticou.            The nation's business, however, became disrupted for want of capable management and civil war ensued among the great sachems, who destroyed each other and ruined the estates.  About a dozen dukedoms were thereby annihilated.              In 1617famine prevailed in the empire, followed by a mysterious fatigue that persisted for three years and resulted in great mortality.  Captain John Smith, whose informant was Thomas Dermer, reported that less than twenty persons had survived in the country between Casco and Penobscot bays and that the same ratios prevailed to the east and west of that region.