addressed the judges in words of authority. "I am come here to warn
you," said he, "that ye shed no more innocent blood." He was instantly
seized and dragged off to jail. After three months he was brought to
trial before the Court of Assistants. The magistrates debated for more
than a fortnight as to what should be done. The air was thick with
mutterings of insurrection, and they had lost all heart for their
dreadful work. Not so the savage old man who presided, frowning gloomily
under his black skull cap. Losing his patience at last, Endicott smote
the table with fury, upbraided the judges for their weakness, and
declared himself so disgusted that he was ready to go back to England.
[27] "You that will not consent, record it," he shouted, as the question
was again put to vote, "I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment."
Christison was condemned to death, but the sentence was never executed.
In the interval the legislature assembled, and the law was modified. The
martyrs had not died in vain. Their cause was victorious. A revolution
had been effected. The Puritan ideal of a commonwealth composed of a
united body of believers was broken down, never again to be restored.
The principle had been admitted that the heretic might come to
Massachusetts and stay there.

It was not in a moment, however, that these results were fully realized.
For some years longer Quakers were fined, imprisoned, and now and then
tied to the cart's tail and whipped from one town to another. But these
acts of persecution came to be more and more discountenanced by public
opinion until at length they ceased.

It was on the 25th of May, 1660, just one week before the martyrdom of
Mary Dyer, that Charles II. returned to England to occupy his father's
throne. One of the first papers laid before him was a memorial in behalf
of the oppressed Quakers in New England. In the course of the following
year he sent a letter to Endicott and the other New England governors,
ordering them to suspend proceedings against the Quakers, and if any
were then in prison, to send them to England for trial. Christison's
victory had already been won, but the "King's Missive" was now partially
obeyed by the release of all prisoners. As for sending anybody to
England for trial, that was something that no New England government
could ever be made to allow.

Charles's defence of the Quakers was due, neither to liberality
of disposition nor to any sympathy with them, but rather to his
inclinations toward Romanism. Unlike in other respects, Quakers and
Catholics were alike in this, that they were the only sects which the
Protestant world in general agreed in excluding from toleration. Charles
wished to secure toleration for Catholics, and he could not prudently
take steps toward this end without pursuing a policy broad enough to
diminish persecution in other directions, and from these circumstances
the Quakers profited. At times there was something almost like a
political alliance between Quaker and Catholic, as instanced in the
relations between William Penn and Charles's brother, the Duke of York.
[Sidenote: The "King's Missive"] [Sidenote: Why Charles II. interfered
to protect the Quakers]

Besides all this, Charles had good reason to feel that the governments
of New England were assuming too many airs of sovereignty. There were
plenty of people at hand to work upon his mind. The friends of Gorton
and Child and Vassall were loud with their complaints. Samuel Maverick
swore that the people of New England were all rebels, and he could prove
it. The king was assured that the Confederacy was "a war combination,
made by the four colonies when they had a design to throw off their
dependence on England, and for that purpose." The enemies of the New
England people, while dilating upon the rebellious disposition of
Massachusetts, could also remind the king that for several years that
colony had been coining and circulating shillings and sixpences with the
name "Massachusetts" and a tree on one side, and the name "New England"
with the date on the other. There was no recognition of England upon
this coinage, which was begun in 1652 and kept up for more than thirty
years. Such pieces of money used to be called "pine-tree shillings";
but, so far as looks go, the tree might be anything, and an adroit
friend of New England once gravely assured the king that it was meant
for the royal oak in which his majesty hid himself after the battle of
Worcester!

Against the colony of New Haven the king had a special grudge. Two of
the regicide judges, who had sat in the tribunal which condemned his
father, escaped to New England in 1660 and were well received there.
They were gentlemen of high position. Edward Whalley was a cousin of
Cromwell and Hampden. He had distinguished himself at Naseby and Dunbar,
and had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general. He had commanded at
the capture of Worcester, where it is interesting to observe that the
royalist commander who surrendered to him was Sir Henry Washington, own
cousin to the grandfather of George Washington. The other regicide,
William Goffe, as a major-general in Cromwell's army, had won such
distinction that there were some who pointed to him as the proper person
to succeed the Lord Protector on the death of the latter. He had married
Whalley's daughter. Soon after the arrival of these gentlemen, a royal
order for their arrest was sent to Boston. If they had been arrested and
sent back to England, their severed heads would soon have been placed
over Temple Bar. The king's detectives hotly pursued them through the
woodland paths of New England, and they would soon have been taken but
for the aid they got from the people. Many are the stories of their
hairbreadth escapes. Sometimes they took refuge in a cave on a mountain
near New Haven, sometimes they hid in friendly cellars; and once, being
hard put to it, they skulked under a wooden bridge, while their pursuers
on horseback galloped by overhead. After lurking about New Haven and
Milford for two or three years, on hearing of the expected arrival
of Colonel Nichols and his commission, they sought a more secluded
hiding-place near Hadley, a village lately settled far up the
Connecticut river, within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Here the
avengers lost the trail, the pursuit was abandoned, and the weary
regicides were presently forgotten. The people of New Haven had been
especially zealous in shielding the fugitives. Mr. Davenport had not
only harboured them in his own house, but on the Sabbath before their
expected arrival he had preached a very bold sermon, openly advising
his people to aid and comfort them as far as possible. [28] The colony,
moreover, did not officially recognize the restoration of Charles II. to
the throne until that event had been commonly known in New England for
more than a year. For these reasons the wrath of the king was specially
roused against New Haven, when circumstances combined to enable him at
once to punish this disloyal colony and deal a blow at the Confederacy.
We have seen that in restricting the suffrage to church members New
Haven had followed the example of Massachusetts, but Connecticut had
not; and at this time there was warm controversy between the two younger
colonies as to the wisdom Of such a policy. As yet none of the colonies
save Massachusetts had obtained a charter, and Connecticut was naturally
anxious to obtain one. Whether through a complaisant spirit connected
with this desire, or through mere accident, Connecticut had been prompt
in acknowledging the restoration of Charles II.; and in August, 1661,
she dispatched the younger Winthrop to England to apply for a charter.
Winthrop was a man of winning address and of wide culture. His
scientific tastes were a passport to the favour of the king at a time
when the Royal Society was being founded, of which Winthrop himself was
soon chosen a fellow. In every way the occasion was an auspicious one.
The king looked upon the rise of the New England Confederacy with
unfriendly eyes. Massachusetts was as yet the only member of the league
that was really troublesome; and there seemed to be no easier way to
weaken her than to raise up a rival power by her side, and extend to it
such privileges as might awaken her jealousy. All the more would such
a policy be likely to succeed if accompanied by measures of which
Massachusetts must necessarily disapprove, and the suppression of
New Haven would be such a measure. [Sidenote: New Haven annexed to
Connecticut]

In accordance with these views, a charter of great liberality was at
once granted to Connecticut, and by the same instrument the colony of
New Haven was deprived of its separate existence and annexed to its
stronger neighbour. As if to emphasize the motives which had led to this
display of royal favour toward Connecticut, an equally liberal charter
was granted to Rhode Island. In the summer of 1664 Charles II. sent a
couple of ships-of-war to Boston harbour, with 400 troops under command
of Colonel Richard Nichols, who had been appointed, along with Samuel
Maverick and two others as royal commissioners, to look after the
affairs of the New World. Colonel Nichols took his ships to New
Amsterdam, and captured that important town. After his return the
commissioners held meetings at Boston, and for a time the Massachusetts
charter seemed in danger. But the Puritan magistrates were shrewd, and
months were frittered away to no purpose. Presently the Dutch made war
upon England, and the king felt it to be unwise to irritate the people
of Massachusetts beyond endurance. The turbulent state of English
politics which followed still further absorbed his attention, and New
England had another respite of several years. [Sidenote: Founding of
Newark]

In New Haven a party had grown up which was dissatisfied with its
extreme theocratic policy and approved of the union with Connecticut.
Davenport and his followers, the founders of the colony, were beyond
measure disgusted. They spurned "the Christless rule" of the sister
colony. Many of them took advantage of the recent conquest of New
Netherland, and a strong party, led by the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of
Branford, migrated to the banks of the Passaic in June, 1667, and laid
the foundations of Newark. For some years to come the theocratic idea
that had given birth to New Haven continued to live on in New Jersey. As
for Mr. Davenport, he went to Boston and ended his days there. Cotton
Mather, writing at a later date, when the theocratic scheme of the early
settlers had been manifestly outgrown and superseded, says of Davenport:
"Yet, after all, the Lord gave him to see that in this world a
Church-State was impossible, whereinto there enters nothing which
defiles."

The theocratic policy, alike in New Haven and in Massachusetts, broke
down largely through its inherent weakness. It divided the community,
and created among the people a party adverse to its arrogance and
exclusiveness. This state of things facilitated the suppression of
New Haven by royal edict, and it made possible the victory of Wenlock
Christison in Massachusetts. We can now see the fundamental explanation
of the deadly hostility with which Endicott and his party regarded the
Quakers. The latter aimed a fatal blow at the very root of the idea
which had brought the Puritans to New England. Once admit these heretics
as citizens, or even as tolerated sojourners, and there was an end of
the theocratic state consisting of a united body of believers. It was a
life-and-death struggle, in which no quarter was given; and the Quakers,
aided by popular discontent with the theocracy, even more than by the
intervention of the crown, won a decisive victory.

As the work of planting New England took place chiefly in the eleven
years 1629-1640, during which Charles I. contrived to reign without a
parliament, so the prosperous period of the New England Confederacy,
1643-1664, covers the time of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and
just laps on to the reign of Charles II. By the summary extinction of
the separate existence of one of its members for the benefit of another,
its vigour was sadly impaired. But its constitution was revised so as
to make it a league of three states instead of four; and the Federal
Commissioners kept on holding their meetings, though less frequently,
until the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684. During
this period a great Indian war occurred, in the course of which this
concentration of the military strength of New England, imperfect as it
was, proved itself very useful. In the history of New England, from the
restoration of the Stuarts until their final expulsion, the two most
important facts are the military struggle of the newly founded states
with the Indians, and their constitutional struggle against the British
government. The troubles and dangers of 1636 were renewed on a much more
formidable scale, but the strength of the people had waxed greatly in
the mean time, and the new perils were boldly overcome or skilfully
warded off; not, however, until the constitution of Massachusetts had
been violently wrenched out of shape in the struggle, and seeds of
conflict sown which in the following century were to bear fruit in the
American Revolution. [Sidenote: Breaking down of the theocratic policy]
[Sidenote: Weakening of the Confederacy]




CHAPTER V.

KING PHILIP'S WAR.


For eight-and-thirty years after the destruction of the Pequots, the
intercourse between the English and the Indians was to all outward
appearance friendly. The policy pursued by the settlers was in the
main well considered. While they had shown that they could strike with
terrible force when blows were needed, their treatment of the natives in
time of peace seems to have been generally just and kind. Except in the
single case of the conquered Pequot territory, they scrupulously paid
for every rood of ground on which they settled, and so far as possible
they extended to the Indians the protection of the law. On these points
we have the explicit testimony of Josiah Winslow, governor of Plymouth,
in his report to the Federal Commissioners in May, 1676; and what
he says about Plymouth seems to have been equally true of the other
colonies. Says Winslow, "I think I can clearly say that before these
present troubles broke out, the English did not possess one foot of land
in this colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the
Indian proprietors. Nay, because some of our people are of a covetous
disposition, and the Indians are in their straits easily prevailed with
to part with their lands, we first made a law that none should purchase
or receive of gift any land of the Indians without the knowledge and
allowance of our Court .... And if at any time they have brought
complaints before us, they have had justice impartial and speedy, so
that our own people have frequently complained that we erred on the
other hand in showing them overmuch favour." The general laws of
Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as of Plymouth bear out what
Winslow says, and show us that as a matter of policy the colonial
governments were fully sensible of the importance of avoiding all
occasions for quarrel with their savage neighbours. [Sidenote: Puritans
and Indians]

There can, moreover, be little doubt that the material comfort of the
Indians was for a time considerably improved by their dealings with the
white men. Hitherto their want of foresight and thrift had been wont to
involve them during the long winters in a dreadful struggle with famine.
Now the settlers were ready to pay liberally for the skin of every
fur-covered animal the red men could catch; and where the trade thus
arising did not suffice to keep off famine, instances of generous
charity were frequent. The Algonquin tribes of New England lived chiefly
by hunting, but partly by agriculture. They raised beans and corn, and
succotash was a dish which they contributed to the white man's table.
They could now raise or buy English vegetables, while from dogs and
horses, pigs and poultry, oxen and sheep, little as they could avail
themselves of such useful animals, they nevertheless derived some
benefit. [29] Better blankets and better knives were brought within
their reach; and in spite of all the colonial governments could do to
prevent it, they were to some extent enabled to supply themselves with
muskets and rum. [Sidenote: Trade with the Indians]

Besides all this trade, which, except in the article of liquor, tended
to improve the condition of the native tribes, there was on the part of
the earlier settlers an earnest and diligent effort to convert them
to Christianity and give them the rudiments of a civilized education.
Missionary work was begun in 1643 by Thomas Mayhew on the islands of
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The savages at first declared they were
not so silly as to barter thirty-seven tutelar deities for one, but
after much preaching and many pow-wows Mayhew succeeded in persuading
them that the Deity of the white man was mightier than all their
_manitous._ Whether they ever got much farther than this toward a
comprehension of the white man's religion may be doubted; but they were
prevailed upon to let their children learn to read and write, and even
to set up little courts, in which justice was administered according to
some of the simplest rules of English law, and from which there lay an
appeal to the court of Plymouth. In 1646 Massachusetts enacted that the
elders of the churches should choose two persons each year to go and
spread the gospel among the Indians. In 1649 Parliament established the
Society for propagating the Gospel in New England, and presently from
voluntary contributions the society was able to dispose of an annual
income of £2000. Schools were set up in which agriculture was taught as
well as religion. It was even intended that Indians should go to Harvard
College, and a building was erected for their accommodation, but as none
came to occupy it, the college printing-press was presently set to work
there. One solitary Indian student afterward succeeded in climbing to
the bachelor's degree,--Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck of the class of 1665. It
was this one success that was marvellous, not the failure of the scheme,
which vividly shows how difficult it was for the white man of that day
to understand the limitations of the red man. [Sidenote: Missionary
work: Thomas Mayhew]

The greatest measure of success in converting the Indians was attained
by that famous linguist and preacher, the apostle John Eliot. This
remarkable man was a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge. He had come
to Massachusetts in 1631, and in the following year had been settled as
teacher in the church at Roxbury of which Thomas Welde was pastor. He
had been distinguished at the university for philological scholarship
and for linguistic talent--two things not always found in
connection--and now during fourteen years he devoted such time as he
could to acquiring a complete mastery of the Algonquin dialect spoken by
the Indians of Massachusetts bay. To the modern comparative philologist
his work is of great value. He published not only an excellent Indian
grammar, but a complete translation of the Bible into the Massachusetts
language,--a monument of prodigious labour. It is one of the most
instructive documents in existence for the student of Algonquin speech,
though the Massachusetts tribe and its language have long been extinct,
and there are very few scholars living who can read the book. It has
become one of the curiosities of literature and at auction sales of
private libraries commands an extremely high price. Yet out of this rare
book the American public has somehow or other within the last five
or six years contrived to pick up a word which we shall very likely
continue to hear for some time to come. In Eliot's Bible, the word which
means a great chief--such as Joshua, or Gideon, or Joab--is "mugwump."


It was in 1646 that Eliot began his missionary preaching at a small
Indian village near Watertown. President Dunster, of Harvard College,
and Mr. Shepard, the minister at Cambridge, felt a warm interest in the
undertaking. These worthy men seriously believed that the aborigines
of America were the degenerate descendants of the ten lost tribes of
Israel, and from this strange backsliding it was hoped that they might
now be reclaimed. With rare eloquence and skill did Eliot devote himself
to the difficult work of reaching the Indian's scanty intelligence and
still scantier moral sense. His ministrations reached from the sands of
Cape Cod to the rocky hillsides of Brookfield. But he soon found that
single-handed he could achieve but little over so wide an area, and
accordingly he adopted the policy of colonizing his converts in village
communities near the English towns, where they might be sequestered from
their heathen brethren and subjected to none but Christian influences.
In these communities he hoped to train up native missionaries who might
thence go and labour among the wild tribes until the whole lump of
barbarism should be leavened. In pursuance of this scheme a stockaded
village was built at Natick in 1651 Under the direction of an English
carpenter the Indians built log-houses for themselves, and most of them
adopted the English dress. Their simple government was administered by
tithing-men, or "rulers of tens," chosen after methods prescribed in the
book of Exodus. Other such communities were formed in the neighbourhoods
of Concord and Grafton. By 1674 the number of these "praying Indians,"
as they were called, was estimated at 4000, of whom about 1500 were in
Eliot's villages, as many more in Martha's Vineyard, 300 in Nantucket,
and 700 in the Plymouth colony. There seems to be no doubt that these
Indians were really benefited both materially and morally by the change
in their life. In theology it is not likely that they reached any higher
view than that expressed by the Connecticut sachem Wequash who "seeing
and beholding the mighty power of God in the English forces, how they
fell upon the Pequots, ... from that time was convinced and persuaded
that our God was a most dreadful God;" accordingly, says the author of
"New England's First Fruits," "he became thoroughly reformed according
to his light." Matters of outward observance, too, the Indians could
understand; for we read of one of them rebuking an Englishman "for
profaning the Lord's Day by felling of a tree." The Indian's notions of
religion were probably confined within this narrow compass; the notions
of some people that call themselves civilized perhaps do not extend much
further. [Sidenote: Villages of Christian Indians]

From such facts as those above cited we may infer that the early
relations of the Puritan settlers to the Algonquin tribes of New England
were by no means like the relations between white men and red men in
recent times on our western plains. During Philip's War, as we shall
see, the Puritan theory of the situation was entirely changed and our
forefathers began to act in accordance with the frontiersman's doctrine
that the good Indians are dead Indians. But down to that time it is
clear that his intention was to deal honourably and gently with his
tawny neighbour. We sometimes hear the justice and kindness of the
Quakers in Pennsylvania alleged as an adequate reason for the success
with which they kept clear of an Indian war. This explanation, however,
does not seem to be adequate; it does not appear that, on the whole, the
Puritans were less just and kind than the Quakers in their treatment of
the red men. The true explanation is rather to be found in the relations
between the Indian tribes toward the close of the seventeenth century.
Early in that century the Pennsylvania region had been in the hands
of the ferocious and powerful Susquehannocks, but in 1672, after a
frightful struggle of twenty years, this great tribe was swept from the
face of the earth by the resistless league of the Five Nations. When
the Quakers came to Pennsylvania in 1682, the only Indians in that
neighbourhood were the Delawares, who had just been terribly beaten by
the Five Nations and forced into a treaty by which they submitted to be
called "women," and to surrender their tomahawks. Penn's famous treaty
was made with the Delawares as occupants of the land and also with the
Iroquois league as overlords. [30] Now the great central fact of early
American history, so far as the relations between white men and red
men are concerned, is the unshaken friendship of the Iroquois for the
English. This was the natural consequence of the deadly hostility
between the Iroquois and the French which began with Champlain's defeat
of the Mohawks in 1609. During the seventy-three years which intervened
between the founding of Pennsylvania and the defeat of Braddock there
was never a moment when the Delawares could have attacked the Quakers
without incurring the wrath and vengeance of their overlords the Five
Nations. This was the reason why Pennsylvania was left so long in quiet.
No better proof could be desired than the fact that in Pontiac's war,
after the overthrow of the French and when Indian politics had changed,
no state suffered so much as Pennsylvania from the horrors of Indian
warfare. [Sidenote: Why Pennsylvania was so long unmolested by the
Indians]

In New England at the time of Philip's War, the situation was very
different from what it was between the Hudson and the Susquehanna. The
settlers were thrown into immediate relations with several tribes whose
mutual hostility and rivalry was such that it was simply impossible to
keep on good terms with all at once. Such complicated questions as that
which involved the English in responsibility for the fate of Miantonomo
did not arise in Pennsylvania. Since the destruction of the Pequots we
have observed the Narragansetts and Mohegans contending for the foremost
place among New England tribes. Of the two rivals the Mohegans were
the weaker, and therefore courted the friendship of the formidable
palefaces. The English had no desire to take part in these barbarous
feuds, but they could not treat the Mohegans well without incurring the
hostility of the Narragansetts. For thirty years the feeling of the
latter tribe toward the English had been very unfriendly and would
doubtless have vented itself in murder but for their recollection of
the fate of the Pequots. After the loss of their chief Miantonomo their
attitude became so sullen and defiant that the Federal Commissioners, in
order to be in readiness for an outbreak, collected a force of 300 men.
At the first news of these preparations the Narragansetts, overcome with
terror, sent a liberal tribute of wampum to Boston, and were fain to
conclude a treaty in which they promised to behave themselves well in
the future.

It was impossible that this sort of English protectorate over the native
tribes, which was an inevitable result of the situation, should be other
than irksome and irritating to the Indians. They could not but see that
the white man stood there as master, and even in the utter absence
of provocation, this fact alone must have made them hate him. It is
difficult, moreover, for the civilized man and the savage to understand
each other. As a rule the one does not know what the other is thinking
about. When Mr. Hamilton Gushing a few years ago took some of his Zuni
friends into a hotel in Chicago, they marvelled at his entering such a
mighty palace with so little ceremony, and their wonder was heightened
at the promptness with which "slaves" came running at his beck and call;
but all at once, on seeing an American eagle over one of the doorways,
they felt that the mystery was solved. Evidently this palace was the
communal dwelling of the Eagle Clan of palefaces, and evidently Mr.
Gushing was a great sachem of this clan, and as such entitled to lordly
sway there! The Zunis are not savages, but representatives of a remote
and primitive phase of what Mr. Morgan calls the middle status of
barbarism. The gulf between their thinking and that of white men is
wide because there is a wide gulf between the experience of the two.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the situation in New England] [Sidenote: It is
hard for the savage and the civilized man to understand one another]

This illustration may help us to understand an instance in which the
Indians of New England must inevitably have misinterpreted the actions
of the white settlers and read them in the light of their uneasy fears
and prejudices. I refer to the work of the apostle Eliot. His design in
founding his villages of Christian Indians was in the highest degree
benevolent and noble; but the heathen Indians could hardly be expected
to see anything in it but a cunning scheme for destroying them.

Eliot's converts were for the most part from the Massachusetts tribe,
the smallest and weakest of all. The Plymouth converts came chiefly
from the tribe next in weakness, the Pokanokets or Wampanoags. The more
powerful tribes--Narragansetts, Nipmucks, and Mohegans--furnished very
few converts. When they saw the white intruders gathering members of the
weakest tribes into villages of English type, and teaching them strange
gods while clothing them in strange garments, they probably supposed
that the pale-faces were simply adopting these Indians into their white
tribe as a means of increasing their military strength. At any rate,
such a proceeding would be perfectly intelligible to the savage mind,
whereas the nature of Eliot's design lay quite beyond its ken. As the
Indians recovered from their supernatural dread of the English, and
began to regard them as using human means to accomplish their ends,
they must of course interpret their conduct in such light as savage
experience could afford. It is one of the commonest things in the world
for a savage tribe to absorb weak neighbours by adoption, and thus
increase its force preparatory to a deadly assault upon other
neighbours. When Eliot in 1657 preached to the little tribe of Podunks
near Hartford, and asked them if they were willing to accept of Jesus
Christ as their saviour, their old men scornfully answered No! they had
parted with most of their land, but they were not going to become the
white man's servants. A rebuke administered to Eliot by Uncas in 1674
has a similar implication. When the apostle was preaching one evening in
a village over which that sachem claimed jurisdiction, an Indian arose
and announced himself as a deputy of Uncas. Then he said, "Uncas is not
well pleased that the English should pass over Mohegan river to call
_his_ Indians to pray to God." [31]

Thus, no matter how benevolent the white man's intentions, he could not
fail to be dreaded by the Indians as a powerful and ever encroaching
enemy.

Even in his efforts to keep the peace and prevent tribes from taking the
warpath without his permission, he was interfering with the red man's
cherished pastime of murder and pillage. The appeals to the court at
Plymouth, the frequent summoning of sachems to Boston, to explain
their affairs and justify themselves against accusers, must have been
maddening in their effects upon the Indian; for there is one sound
instinct which the savage has in common with the most progressive
races, and that is the love of self-government that resents all outside
interference. All things considered, it is remarkable that peace should
have been maintained in New England from 1637 to 1675; and probably
nothing short of the consuming vengeance wrought upon the Pequots could
have done it. But with the lapse of time the wholesome feeling of dread
began to fade away, and as the Indians came to use musket instead of bow
and arrow, their fear of the English grew less, until at length their
ferocious temper broke forth in an epidemic of fire and slaughter that
laid waste the land. [Sidenote: It is remarkable that peace should have
been so long preserved]

Massasoit, chief sachem of the Wampanoags and steadfast ally of the
Plymouth colonists, died in 1660, leaving two sons, Wamsutta and
Metacom, or as the English nicknamed them, Alexander and Philip.
Alexander succeeded to his father's position of savage dignity and
influence, but his reign was brief. Rumours came to Plymouth that he was
plotting mischief, and he was accordingly summoned to appear before the
General Court of that colony and explain himself. He seems to have gone
reluctantly, but he succeeded in satisfying the magistrates of his
innocence of any evil designs. Whether he caught cold at Plymouth or
drank rum as only Indians can, we do not know. At any rate, on starting
homeward, before he had got clear of English territory, he was seized by
a violent fever and died. The savage mind knows nothing of pneumonia or
delirium tremens. It knows nothing of what we call natural death. To
the savage all death means murder, for like other men he judges of the
unknown by the known. In the Indian's experience normal death was by
tomahawk or firebrand; abnormal death (such as we call natural)
must come either from poison or from witchcraft. So when the honest
chronicler Hubbard tells us that Philip suspected the Plymouth people of
poisoning his brother, we can easily believe him. It was long, however,
before he was ready to taste the sweets of revenge. He schemed and
plotted in the dark. In one respect the Indian diplomatist is unlike his
white brethren; he does not leave state-papers behind him to reward
the diligence and gratify the curiosity of later generations; and
accordingly it is hard to tell how far Philip was personally responsible
for the storm which was presently to burst upon New England. [Sidenote:
Deaths of Massasoit and Alexander] [Sidenote: Philip's designs]

Whether his scheme was as comprehensive as that of Pontiac in 1763,
whether or not it amounted to a deliberate combination of all red men
within reach to exterminate the white men, one can hardly say with
confidence. The figure of Philip, in the war which bears his name, does
not stand out so prominently as the figure of Pontiac in the later
struggle. This may be partly because Pontiac's story has been told by
such a magician as Mr. Francis Parkman. But it is partly because the
data are too meagre. In all probability, however, the schemes of
Sassacus the Pequot, of Philip the Wampanoag, and of Pontiac the Ottawa,
were substantially the same. That Philip plotted with the Narragansetts
seems certain, and the early events of the war point clearly to a
previous understanding with the Nipmucks. The Mohegans, on the other
hand, gave him no assistance, but remained faithful to their white
allies.

For thirteen years had Philip been chief sachem of his tribe before the
crisis came. Rumours of his unfriendly disposition had at intervals
found their way to the ears of the magistrates at Plymouth, but Philip
had succeeded in setting himself right before them. In 1670 the rumours
were renewed, and the Plymouth men felt that it was time to strike, but
the other colonies held them back, and a meeting was arranged between
Philip and three Boston men at Taunton in April, 1671. There the crafty
savage expressed humility and contrition for all past offences, and
even consented to a treaty in which he promised that his tribe should
surrender all their fire-arms. On the part of the English this was an
extremely unwise measure, for while it could not possibly be enforced,
and while it must have greatly increased the irritation of the Indians,
it was at the same time interpretable as a symptom of fear. With ominous
scowls and grunts some seventy muskets were given up, but this was all.
Through the summer there was much uneasiness, and in September Philip
was summoned to Plymouth with five of his under-sachems, and solemnly
warned to keep the peace. The savages again behaved with humility and
agreed to pay a yearly tribute of five wolves' heads and to do no act of
war without express permission.

For three years things seemed quiet, until late in 1674 the alarm was
again sounded. Sausamon, a convert from the Massachusetts tribe, had
studied a little at Harvard College, and could speak and write English
with facility. He had at one time been employed by Philip as a sort of
private secretary or messenger, and at other times had preached and
taught school among the Indian converts at Natick. Sausamon now came to
Plymouth and informed Governor Winslow that Philip was certainly engaged
in a conspiracy that boded no good to the English. Somehow or other
Philip contrived to find out what Sausamon had said, and presently
coming to Plymouth loudly asseverated his innocence; but the magistrates
warned him that if they heard any more of this sort of thing his
arms would surely be seized. A few days after Philip had gone home,
Sausamon's hat and gun were seen lying on the frozen surface of
Assowamsett Pond, near Middleborough, and on cutting through the ice his
body was found with unmistakable marks of beating and strangling. After
some months the crime was traced to three Wampanoags, who were forthwith
arrested, tried by a mixed jury of Indians and white men, found guilty,
and put to death. On the way to the gallows one of them confessed
that he had stood by while his two friends had pounded and choked the
unfortunate Sausamon. [Sidenote: Murder of Sausamon]

More alarming reports now came from Swanzey, a pretty village of some
forty houses not far from Philip's headquarters at Mount Hope. On Sunday
June 20, while everybody was at church, a party of Indians had stolen
into the town and set fire to two houses. Messengers were hurried from
Plymouth and from Boston, to demand the culprits under penalty of
instant war. As they approached Swanzey the men from Boston saw a sight
that filled them with horror. The road was strewn with corpses of men,
women, and children, scorched, dismembered, and mangled with that
devilish art of which the American Indian is the most finished master.
The savages had sacked the village the day before, burning the houses
and slaying the people. Within three days a small force of colonial
troops had driven Philip from his position at Mount Hope; but while
they were doing this a party of savages swooped upon Dartmouth, burning
thirty houses and committing fearful atrocities. Some of their victims
were flayed alive, or impaled on sharp stakes, or roasted over slow
fires. Similar horrors were wrought at Middleborough and Taunton; and
now the misery spread to Massachusetts, where on the 14th of July the
town of Mendon was attacked by a party of Nipmucks. [Sidenote: Massacres
at Swanzey and Dartmouth, June, 1675]

At that time the beautiful highlands between Lancaster and the
Connecticut river were still an untrodden wilderness. On their southern
slope Worcester and Brookfield were tiny hamlets of a dozen houses each.
Up the Connecticut valley a line of little villages, from Springfield
to Northfield, formed the remotest frontier of the English, and their
exposed position offered tempting opportunities to the Indians. Governor
Leverett saw how great the danger would be if the other tribes should
follow the example set by Philip, and Captain Edward Hutchinson was
accordingly sent to Brookfield to negotiate with the Nipmucks. This
officer was eldest son of the unfortunate lady whose preaching in Boston
nearly forty years before had been the occasion of so much strife. Not
only his mother, but all save one or two of his brothers and sisters
--and there were not less than twelve of them--had been murdered by
Indians on the New Netherland border in 1643; now the same cruel fate
overtook the gallant captain. The savages agreed to hold a parley and
appointed a time and place for the purpose, but instead of keeping tryst
they lay in ambush and slew Hutchinson with eight of his men on their
way to the conference. [Sidenote: Murder of Captain Hutchinson]

Three days afterward Philip, who had found home too hot for him, arrived
in the Nipmuck country, and on the night of August 2, took part in a
fierce assault on Brookfield. Thirty or forty men, with some fifty women
and children--all the inhabitants of the hamlet--took refuge in a large
house, where they were besieged by 300 savages whose bullets pierced the
wooden walls again and again. Arrows tipped with burning rags were
shot into the air in such wise as to fall upon the roof, but they who
crouched in the garret were watchful and well supplied with water, while
from the overhanging windows the volleys of musketry were so brisk and
steady that the screaming savages below could not get near enough to the
house to set it on fire. For three days the fight was kept up, while
every other house in the village was destroyed. By this time the Indians
had contrived to mount some planks on barrels so as to make a kind of
rude cart which they loaded with tow and chips. They were just about
setting it on fire and preparing to push it against the house with long
poles, when they were suddenly foiled by a heavy shower. That noon the
gallant Simon Willard, ancestor of two presidents of Harvard College, a
man who had done so much toward building up Concord and Lancaster that
he was known as the "founder of towns," was on his way from Lancaster to
Groton at the head of forty-seven horsemen, when he was overtaken by a
courier with the news from Brookfield. The distance was thirty miles,
the road scarcely fit to be called a bridle-path, and Willard's years
were more than threescore-and-ten; but by an hour after sunset he had
gallopped into Brookfield and routed the Indians who fled to a swamp ten
miles distant. [Sidenote: Attack on Brookfield]

The scene is now shifted to the Connecticut valley, where on the 25th of
August Captain Lothrop defeated the savages at Hatfield. On the 1st of
September simultaneous attacks were made upon Deerfield and Hadley, and
among the traditions of the latter place is one of the most interesting
of the stories of that early time. The inhabitants were all in church
keeping a fast, when the yells of the Indians resounded. Seizing their
guns, the men rushed out to meet the foe; but seeing the village green
swarming on every side with the horrid savages, for a moment their
courage gave way and a panic was imminent; when all at once a stranger
of reverend aspect and stately form, with white beard flowing on his
bosom, appeared among them and took command with an air of authority
which none could gainsay. He bade them charge on the screeching rabble,
and after a short sharp skirmish the tawny foe was put to flight. When
the pursuers came together again, after the excitement of the rout,
their deliverer was not to be found. In their wonder, as they knew not
whence he came or whither he had gone, many were heard to say that
an angel had been sent from heaven for their deliverance. It was the
regicide William Goffe, who from his hiding-place had seen the savages
stealing down the hillside, and sallied forth to win yet one more
victory over the hosts of Midian ere death should come to claim him in
his woodland retreat. Sir Walter Scott has put this pretty story into
the mouth of Major Bridgenorth in "Peveril of the Peak," and Cooper has
made use of it in "The Wept of Wish-ton-wish." Like many other romantic
stories, it rests upon insufficient authority and its truth has been
called in question. [32] But there seems to be nothing intrinsically
improbable in the tradition; and a paramount regard for Goffe's personal
safety would quite account for the studied silence of contemporary
writers like Hubbard and Increase Mather. [Sidenote: The mysterious
stranger of Hadley]

This repulse did not check for a moment the activity of the Indians,
though for a long time we hear nothing more of Philip. On the 2d
of September they slew eight men at Northfield and on the 4th they
surrounded and butchered Captain Beers and most of his company of
thirty-six marching to the relief of that village. The next day but
one, as Major Robert Treat came up the road with his 100 Connecticut
soldiers, they found long poles planted by the wayside bearing the heads
of their unfortunate comrades. They in turn were assaulted, but beat off
the enemy, and brought away the people of Northfield. That village was
abandoned, and presently Deerfield shared its fate and the people were
crowded into Hadley. Yet worse remained to be seen. A large quantity of
wheat had been left partly threshed at Deerfield, and on the 11th of
September eighteen wagons were sent up with teamsters and farmers to
finish the threshing and bring in the grain. They were escorted by
Captain Lothrop, with his train-band of ninety picked men, known as the
"Flower of Essex," perhaps the best drilled company in the colony. The
threshing was done, the wagons were loaded, and the party made a night
march southward. At seven in the morning, as they were fording a shallow
stream in the shade of overarching woods, they were suddenly overwhelmed
by the deadly fire of 700 ambushed Nipmucks, and only eight of them
escaped to tell the tale. A "black and fatal" day was this, says the
chronicler, "the saddest that ever befell New England." To this day the
memory of the slaughter at Bloody Brook survives, and the visitor to
South Deerfield may read the inscription over the grave in which Major
Treat's men next day buried all the victims together. The Indians now
began to feel their power, and on the 5th of October they attacked
Springfield and burned thirty houses there. [Sidenote: Ambuscade at
Bloody Brook, September 12]

Things were becoming desperate. For ten weeks, from September 9 to
November 19, the Federal Commissioners were in session daily in Boston.
The most eminent of their number, for ability and character, was the
younger John Winthrop, who was still governor of Connecticut. Plymouth
was represented by its governor, Josiah Winslow, with the younger
William Bradford; Massachusetts by William Stoughton, Simon Bradstreet,
and Thomas Danforth. These strong men were confronted with a difficult
problem. From Batten's journal, kept during that disastrous summer, we
learn the state of feeling of excitement in Boston. The Puritans had
by no means got rid of that sense of corporate responsibility which
civilized man has inherited from prehistoric ages, and which has been
one of the principal causes of religious persecution. This sombre
feeling has prompted men to believe that to spare the heretic is to
bring down the wrath of God upon the whole community; and now in Boston
many people stoutly maintained that God had let loose the savages, with
firebrand and tomahawk, to punish the people of New England for ceasing
to persecute "false worshippers and especially idolatrous Quakers."
Quaker meetings were accordingly forbidden under penalty of fine and
imprisonment. Some harmless Indians were murdered. At Marblehead two
were assaulted and killed by a crowd of women. There was a bitter
feeling toward the Christian Indians, many of whom had joined their
heathen kinsmen in burning and slaying. Daniel Gookin, superintendent of
the "praying Indians," a gentleman of the highest character, was told
that it would not be safe to show himself in the streets of Boston.
Mrs. Mary Pray, of Providence, wrote a letter recommending the total
extermination of the red men.

The measures adopted by the Commissioners certainly went far toward
carrying out Mrs. Pray's suggestion. The demeanour of the Narragansetts
had become very threatening, and their capacity for mischief exceeded
that of all the other tribes together. In July the Commissioners had
made a treaty with them, but in October it became known in Boston
that they were harbouring some of Philip's hostile Indians. When the
Commissioners sharply called them to account for this, their sachem
Canonchet, son of Miantonomo, promised to surrender the fugitives
within ten days. But the ten days passed and nothing was heard from the
Narragansetts. The victory of their brethren at Bloody Brook had worked
upon their minds, so that they no longer thought it worth while to keep
faith with the white men. They had overcome their timidity and were now
ready to take part in the work of massacre. [33] The Commissioners soon
learned of their warlike preparations and lost no time in forestalling
them. The Narragansetts were fairly warned that if they did not at once
fulfil their promises they must expect the utmost severities of war. A
thousand men were enlisted for this service and put under command of
Governor Winslow, and in December they marched against the enemy. The
redoubtable fighter and lively chronicler Benjamin Church accompanied
the expedition.

The Indians had fortified themselves on a piece of rising ground, six
acres in extent, in the middle of a hideous swamp impassable at most
seasons but now in some places frozen hard enough to afford a precarious
footing. They were surrounded by rows of tall palisades which formed a
wall twelve feet in thickness; and the only approach to the single door