The seal of the Massachusetts Bay colony, in Mather's Brief History, 1676

The colony’s seal heads the order of the Governor and Council “At a Council Held at Boston, Sept. 17. 1675,” which Mather printed in his history: an Indian with a bow in one hand and an arrow, point down, in the other, standing between two small trees, a scroll from his mouth reading “Come over and help us,” and round the rim SIGILLVM GVB ET SOCIET DE MATTACHVSETS BAY IN NOVA ANGLIA. The order, three months into the war, appointed a day of public humiliation, the troubles being sent “for our sins whereby he hath been provoked”; Mather reprinted it because copies were “in but few hands.” The cut was used at Foster’s press, and Blake’s Annals of Dorchester says of John Foster, son of Capt. Hopestill Foster, that he “made the Seals or Arms of the Colony, viz an Indian with a bow and arrow.”