King Philip

Negligence of the enemy.

The attack.

The conflict.

The English troops were divided into two parties, one headed by Captain Mason, and the other by Captain Underhill, who had been in command of the fort at Saybrook. They decided to make a simultaneous attack upon each of the entrances. Though the moon shone very brilliantly, rendering it almost as light as day, yet the Indians, unsuspicious of danger and soundly asleep, gave not the slightest indication of alarm until the two parties had each silently approached within a rod of the entrances. A dog was then heard to bark, and immediately one solitary voice shouted frantically, "Englishmen! Englishmen!" The entrances were merely blocked up with bushes about breast high. The assailants instantly poured a volley of bullets in upon their sleeping foes, and, sword in hand, rushed over the feeble barriers. Notwithstanding the surprise and the appalling thunder of the guns, the Pequots sprang to arms and made a fierce resistance. The two parties, advancing from the opposite entrances, forced their way along the main street, firing to the right and the left, and making fearful slaughter of their foes. They speedily swept the street clear of all opposition. The savages, however, who still vastly outnumbered their assailants, retreated into their wigwams, and, taking advantage of every covert, almost overwhelmed the compact bands of the English with a shower of arrows and javelins. The conflict was now fierce in the extreme, and for a time the issue was very doubtful. Several of the colonists were already killed, and many severely wounded.

The wigwams burned.

Massacre.

Horrors of the scene.

The wigwams, composed of the boughs and bark of trees, and covered with mats, were as dry as powder. Captain Mason, at this critical moment, shouted to his exhausted men, "Set fire to the wigwams." Torches were immediately applied; the flames leaped from roof to roof, and in a few moments the whole village was as a furnace of roaring, crackling flame. The savages, forced by the fire from their lurking-places, presented a sure mark for the bullet, and they were shot down and cut down without mercy. It was no longer a fight, but a massacre. The Indians, bewildered with terror, threw down their arms, and rushed to and fro in vain attempts to escape. Some climbed the palisades, only to present a sure target for innumerable bullets; others plunged into the eddying flames which were fiercely devouring their dwellings. For a moment their dark bodies seemed to tremble and vibrate in the glowing furnace, and then they fell as crisped embers.

Extermination.

Number of those escaping.

The heat soon became so intense and the smoke so smothering that the English were compelled to retire outside of the fort. But they surrounded the flaming fortress, and every Indian who attempted to escape was shot. In one short hour the awful deed was accomplished. The whole interior of the fort was in ashes, and all the inmates were destroyed with the exception of seven only who escaped, and seven who were taken captives. The English knew that at a short distance from them there was another fort filled with Pequot warriors. It consequently was not safe to burden their little band with prisoners whom they could neither guard nor feed. They also wished to strike a blow which would appall the savages and prevent all future outrages. Death was, therefore, the doom of all.

Amazement of the Indians.

Destitution of the English.

The Mohegans and Narragansets, who had timidly followed the English, and who had not ventured into the fort of the dreaded Pequots, stood tremblingly at a distance, gazing with dismay upon their swift and terrible destruction. The morning was cold, and a strong wind swept the bleak hills. The little army was entirely destitute of provisions, for no baggage-wagons could accompany them through the wilderness. They had hoped to obtain corn from the Indian fort, but the conflagration to which they had been unexpectedly compelled to resort had consumed every thing. Several of their number had been killed; more than twenty were severely wounded. Their surgeon and all their necessaries for the wounded were on board the vessels, which were to have sailed the night before from Narraganset Bay for Pequot Harbor. Nearly all their ammunition was consumed. At a short distance from them there was another still more formidable fort filled with fierce Pequot warriors, where Sassacus himself commanded. Thus, even in this hour of signal victory, starvation and ruin stared them in the face.

The vessels seen.

The officers met together in anxious consultation. Just then the sun rose brilliantly, and revealed the vessels but a few miles distant, sailing before a fair wind toward Pequot Harbor. These strange men, of cast-iron mould, gave expression to their joy, not in huzzas, but in prayers and thanksgivings. But in the midst of this joy their attention was arrested by another spectacle. Three hundred Pequots, like a pack of tumultuous, howling wolves, came rushing along from the other fort. They had heard the guns and seen the flames, and were hurrying to the rescue.

Attack from the Indians.

As soon as the savages came in sight of the fort, and saw its utter destruction, they stopped a moment, as if aghast with rage and despair. They howled and tore out their hair, and, by their phrensied gestures, appeared to be in a delirium of fury. They then made a simultaneous rush upon the English, resolved to take revenge at whatever sacrifice of their own lives. There were now but forty-four Englishmen in a condition to fight. Three hundred savages – seven to one – rushed upon them in demoniac rage. But European weapons, and the courage and discipline of civilized life, were equal to the emergency.

Valor of the English.

Captain Mason promptly led forward a body of chosen men, who gave the savages so warm a reception as to check their advance and cause them to recoil. These intrepid colonists, with cool, unerring aim, wasted not a bullet. Every report of the musket was the death of an Indian. The savages, thus repulsed, took refuge behind trees and rocks, and with great bravery pressed and harassed the English with every missile of savage warfare. A rear-guard was now appointed, under Captain Underhill, which kept the savages at a distance, while the whole party marched slowly toward the vessels, which were now entering Pequot Harbor.

Desertion of the Narragansets.

Retreat of the English.

Several of the English had been slain. Five were so severely wounded that they were utterly helpless, and had to be carried in the arms of their friends. Twenty others were also so disabled that, though they could with difficulty hobble along, they were unable to bear the burden of their own weapons. Nearly all the Narraganset Indians had now abandoned the English, and, with cowardice which it is difficult to explain, had retired precipitately through the woods to their own country. But the Mohegans had no place of refuge; their only safety was in clinging to the English. Captain Mason, that he might avail himself of the energies of all his men who were able to fight, employed these panic-stricken and impotent allies in carrying the wounded, four taking in their arms one man. The Indians also bore the weapons of those who were too weak to carry them themselves. In this way the colonists marched in an uninterrupted battle for several miles to their vessels. The Pequots pressed them closely, assailing them with great fierceness and bravery, sending parties in advance to form ambushes in the thickets, and shooting their barbed and poisoned arrows from behind every rock and tree. At last the colonists reached the water's side in safety, and the Pequots, with yells of rage, retired.

Grief of Sassacus.

Journey to Saybrook.

Sassacus was quite overwhelmed by this disaster. All his warriors were terror-stricken, and feared to remain in the fort, lest they should experience the same doom which had overwhelmed their companions. In their desultory wars, the loss of a few men was deemed a great disaster. To have six or seven hundred of their warriors, hitherto deemed invincible, in one hour shot or burned to ashes, was to them inexpressibly awful. In dismay, they set fire to the royal fortress and to all the adjacent wigwams, and fled into the fastnesses of the forest. Captain Mason placed his wounded on board the vessels, obtained a supply of food and a slight re-enforcement, and then commenced his march for the fort at Saybrook, which was about twenty miles distant. The Indians, whose wigwams were scattered here and there through the forest, fled in terror before him. The English, however, burned every dwelling, and destroyed all the corn-fields. At Saybrook the victorious party were received with great exultation. They then ascended the river to Hartford, and the men returned to their several families, having been absent but three weeks.

Effects of the victory.

It is impossible for us to conceive, in these days of abundance and security, the rapture which this signal victory excited through all the dwellings on the banks of the Connecticut. One half of the effective men of the colony had gone forth to the battle, while the rest remained at home, armed, and sleeplessly vigilant, to protect the women and the children from a foe demoniac in mercilessness. The issues of the conflict were doubtful. Defeat was death to all – more than death: midnight conflagration, torture, and hopeless captivity of mothers and daughters in the dark wilderness and in the wigwams of the savage. Tears of gratitude gushed from the eyes of parents and children; heartfelt prayers and praises ascended from every family altar and from every worshiping assembly.

News of the victory dispatched to Massachusetts.

New expedition.

An Indian runner was immediately dispatched to Massachusetts to carry the news of the decisive victory gained by the Connecticut troops alone. To complete the work thus auspiciously begun, Connecticut raised another band of forty men, and Massachusetts sent one hundred and twenty to meet them at Pequot Harbor. The latter part of June, four weeks after the destruction of the forts there, these two bodies met, in strong martial array, upon the ruins of the empire of Sassacus, resolved to prosecute the war to the utter extermination of the Pequots. The despairing fugitives had retired into the wilderness toward the west. The Indians, encumbered with their women and children, and destitute of food, could move but slowly. They were compelled to keep near the shore, that they might dig clams, which food was almost their only refuge from starvation.

Fugitives.

Pursuit.

Sachem's Head.

The English vigorously pursued them, occasionally shooting a straggler or picking up a few captives, whom they retained as guides. When they arrived at Saybrook, one party followed along the coast in boats, while the others, accompanied by Uncas and a band of Mohegan Indians, scoured the shore. They came at length to Menunkatuck, now called Guilford. The south side of the harbor here is formed by a long peninsula. Some Pequots, pursued by the English, ran down this neck of land, hoping that their tireless enemies would miss their track and pass by. But Uncas, with Indian sagacity, led the party on the trail. The Pequots, finding their foes upon them, plunged into the water and swam across the narrow mouth of the harbor. But another party of English was already there, who seized them as they waded to the shore. The chief of this little band of Pequots was sentenced to be shot. He was bound to a tree, and Uncas, with nervous arm, sent an arrow through his heart. The head of the savage was then cut off and placed in the crotch of a large oak tree, where it remained for many years, dried and shriveled in the sun, a ghastly memorial of days of violence and blood. From this extraordinary incident, the bluff, to the present day, bears the name of Sachem's Head.

Arrival at New Haven.

News of a camp in a swamp.

The little army pressed vigorously on, by land and by sea, some twenty miles farther west, to a place called Quinnipiac, now New Haven. Here they found a good harbor for their vessels, and they remained several days for rest. They saw the smokes of great fires in the woods, and sent out several expeditions in search of the Indians, but could find none. A Pequot, a traitor to his tribe, came in and informed them that a hundred Pequot warriors, with some two hundred men, women, and children of an adjacent tribe, had taken refuge in a large swamp about twenty-five miles west. This swamp was in the present town of Fairfield, directly back of the village. The army immediately advanced with all dispatch to the swamp. The bog was so deep and wet, and tangled with underbrush, that it seemed impossible to enter it. A few made the attempt, but they sank in the mire, and were sorely wounded by arrows shot from an invisible foe.

Surrender of Indians.

The English, with their Indian allies, surrounded the swamp. They were enabled to do this by placing their men at about twelve feet distance from each other. Several skirmishes ensued, in which a number of Indians were shot. At length the Indians who lived in that vicinity, and who had taken no part in the outrages committed against the colonists, but who, in their terror, had followed the Pequots into the swamp, sent a delegation to the English imploring quarter. The poor creatures were perishing of starvation. The fierce and haughty Pequots, however, scorned to ask for mercy. They resolved to cut their way through the enemy, or to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The English promised life to all who would surrender, and who had never shed the blood of the colonists. Two hundred men, women, and children immediately emerged from the swamp. The sachem declared that neither he nor his people had ever done any harm to the English. They were accordingly left unmolested.

Escape of the Pequots.

There were now nearly two hundred Pequots in the swamp. Night came on, and the English watched with sleepless vigilance lest they should make their escape. Toward morning a dense fog rose, adding to the gloom and darkness of the dreary scene. Availing themselves of this, the shrewd savages made several feints at different points, and then, with a simultaneous rush, made a desperate effort to break through. About seventy of the most vigorous of the warriors effected their escape; all the rest were either killed or taken prisoners.

Death of Sassacus.

Children sold into slavery.

Sassacus, with this remnant of his once powerful tribe, fled over the mountains and beyond the Hudson to the land of the Mohawks. The fierce Mohawks, regarding him and his companions as intruders, fell upon them, and they were all slain but one, who, bleeding with his wounds, made his escape. They cut off the head of Sassacus, and sent his scalp, as evidence of his death, to Connecticut. A part of his skin and a lock of his hair was sent to Boston. During these conflicts many women and children were taken prisoners. We blush to record that the boys were all sent to the West Indies, and sold into bondage. The women and girls were divided about among the colonists of Connecticut and Massachusetts as servants.

Extermination of the tribe.

The Narragansets and the Mohegans now became very valiant, and eagerly hunted through the woods for the few straggling Pequots who remained. Quite a number they killed, and brought their gory heads as trophies to Windsor and to Hartford. The Pequots had been so demoniac in their cruelty that the colonists had almost ceased to regard them as human beings. The few wretched survivors were so hunted and harassed that some fled far away, and obtained incorporation into other tribes. Others came imploringly to the English at Hartford, and offered to be their servants, to be disposed of at their pleasure, if their lives might be spared.

The motives for the deed.

Such is the melancholy recital of the utter extermination of the Pequot tribe. Deeply as some of the events in this transaction are to be condemned and deplored, much allowance is to be made for men exasperated by all the nameless horrors of Indian war. A pack of the most ferocious of the beasts of the forest was infinitely less to be dreaded than a marauding band of Pequots. The Pequots behaved like demons, and the colonists treated them as such. The man whose son had been tortured to death by the savages, whose house and barns had been burned by the midnight conflagration, whose wife and infant child had been brained upon his hearthstone, and whose daughters were, perhaps, in captivity in the forest, was not in a mood of mind to deal gently with a foe so fiendlike. We may deplore it, but we can not wonder, and we can not sternly blame.

The sunshine of peace and plenty.

This destruction of the Pequots so impressed the New England tribes with the power of the English, and struck them with so much terror, that for nearly forty years the war-whoop was not again heard. The Indian tribes had conflicts with each other, but the colonists, blessed with ever-increasing prosperity, slept in peace and safety.

In view of the exploits of the Pequot warriors, Dr. Dwight, with some poetic license, exclaims:

"And O, ye chiefs! in yonder starry home,Accept the humble tribute of this rhyme.Your gallant deeds in Greece or haughty Rome,By Maro sung, or Homer's harp sublime,Had charm'd the world's wide round, and triumph'd over time."

Chapter V

Commencement of the Reign of King Philip

1640-1674

Continued prosperity.

Establishment of Harvard College.

With peace came abundant prosperity. Emigrants flocked over to the New World. In ten years after the Pequot war the colonists had settled fifty towns and villages, had reared forty churches, several forts and prisons, and the Massachusetts colony, decidedly pre-eminent, had established Harvard College. The wilderness indeed began to blossom, and gardens, orchards, rich pastures, fields of grain, and verdant meadows cheered the eye and filled the dwellings with abundance.

Acts of violence.

Death of Miantunnomah.

There were now four English colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. There were also the germs of two more, one at Providence and the other on Rhode Island. The Indians, with the exception of illustrious individuals, were a vagabond set of perfidious and ferocious savages. They were incessantly fighting with each other, and it required all the efforts of the English to keep them under any degree of restraint. The utter extirpation of the Pequots so appalled them, that for forty years no tribe ventured to wage war against the English. Yet during this time individual Indians committed many enormous outrages of robbery and murder, for which the sachems of the tribes were not responsible. The Mohegans, under Uncas, had become very powerful. They had a fierce fight with the Narragansets. Miantunnomah was taken captive. Uncas put him to death upon Norwich plain by splitting his head open with a hatchet. The Mohegan sachem tore a large piece of flesh from the shoulder of his victim, and ate it greedily, exclaiming, "It is the sweetest meal I ever tasted; it makes my heart strong."

Marauding bands of Indians often committed murders. The efforts of the English to punish the culprits would exasperate others, and provoke new violence. Indications of combinations among the savages were frequently developed, and the colonists were often thrown into a general state of alarm, in anticipation of the horrors of another Indian war.

The war-whoop resumed.

In the year 1644, a Massachusetts colonist visiting Connecticut was murdered on the way by an Indian. The English demanded the murderer. The Indians, under various subterfuges, refused to give him up. The English, in retaliation, seized upon eight or ten Indians, and threw them into prison. This so exasperated the savages that they raised the war-whoop, grasped their arms, and threatened dire revenge. By boldness and moderation the English accomplished their ends, and the murderer was surrendered to justice. A few weeks after this an Indian entered a house in Stamford. He found a woman there alone with her infant child. With three blows of the tomahawk he cut her down, and, plundering the house, left her, as he supposed, dead. She, however, so far recovered as to describe the Indian and his dress. With great difficulty, the English succeeded in obtaining the murderer. The savages threw every possible impediment in the way of justice, and assumed such a threatening attitude as to put the colonists to great trouble and expense in preparing for war.

The United Colonies of New England.

A confederacy.

In view of such perils, in the year 1645, the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a confederacy, under the name of the United Colonies of New England. They thus entered into an alliance offensive and defensive. Each colony retained, in its domestic concerns, its own government and jurisdiction. Two commissioners from each colony formed a board for managing the common affairs of the Confederacy. This was the germ of the present Congress of the United States.

Indian conspiracy.

In the year 1646 a large number of Indians formed a conspiracy to set fire to Hartford and murder the inhabitants. An Indian who was engaged to assassinate the governor, terrified, as he remembered that every one who had thus far murdered an Englishman had been arrested and executed, revealed the plot. The Indians generally, at this time, manifested a very hostile spirit, and many outrages were perpetrated. The English did not deem it prudent to pursue and punish the conspirators, but overlooked the offense.

Indian outrages.

In the wars which the savages waged with each other, the hostile parties would pursue their victims even into the houses of the English, and cut them down before the eyes of the horror-stricken women and children. In a very dry time the Indians set fire to the woods all around the town of Milford, hoping thus to set fire to the town. With the greatest difficulty the inhabitants rescued their dwellings from the flames.

Opposition of the English to war.

In the year 1648, marauding bands of the Narragansets committed intolerable outrages against the people of Rhode Island, killing their cattle, robbing their houses, and insulting and even beating the inmates. The colonists were exceedingly perplexed to know what to do in these emergencies. The whole wilderness of North America was filled with savages. If they commenced a general war, it was impossible to predict how far its ravages might extend. The colonists were eminently men of peace. They wished to build houses, and cultivate fields, and surround their homes with the comforts and the opulence of a high civilization. They had bought their lands of the Indians fairly, and had paid for them all that the lands then were worth.

Death of Massasoit.

Massasoit died about the year 1661. He remained firm in his fidelity to the English until his death, though very hostile to the conversion of the Indians to Christianity. At one time, when treating for the sale of some of his lands in Swanzey, he insisted very pertinaciously upon the condition that the English should never attempt to draw off any of his people from their religion to Christianity. He would not recede from this condition until he found that the treaty must be broken off unless he yielded.

Changing names.

Sons of Massasoit.

Wetamoo.

As the English found many of the Indian names hard to remember and to pronounce, they were fond of giving English names to those with whom they had frequent intercourse. The Indians in general were quite proud of receiving these names. Massasoit, with that innate dignity which pertained to his imperial state, disdained to receive any other name but the one which he proudly bore as his ancestral legacy. A few years before his death, however, he brought his two sons, Wamsutta and Pometacom, to Plymouth, and requested the governor, in token of friendship, to give them English names. They were very bright, attractive young men, of the finest physical development. The governor related to Massasoit the history of the renowned kings of Macedon, Philip and Alexander, and gave to Wamsutta, the oldest, the name of Alexander, the great warrior of Asia, and to Pometacom, the younger, the less renowned name of Philip. These two young men had married sisters, the daughters of the sachem of Pocasset. The name of the wife of Alexander was Wetamoo, an unfortunate princess who became quite illustrious in subsequent scenes. The wife of Philip had the euphonious name of Wootonekanuske.