A Brief History of the United States Part 12

Then (1622), under the lead of Opekan'kano, an attack was made along the whole line of settlements in Virginia, and in one day more than three hundred whites were ma.s.sacred, their houses burned, and much property destroyed. The blow was a terrible one; but the colonists rallied and waged such a war against the enemy that for more than twenty years there was no great uprising.

But in 1644 Opekankano (then an old and grizzled warrior) again led forth his tribes, and in two days killed several hundred whites. Once more the settlers rallied, swept the Indian country, captured Opekankano, and drew a boundary across which no Indian could come without permission. If he did, he might be shot on sight. [10]

EARLY INDIAN WARS IN NEW ENGLAND.--In New England the experience of the early settlers was much the same. Murders by the Pequot Indians having become unendurable, a little fleet was sent (1686) against them. Block Island was ravaged, and Pequots on the mainland were killed and their corn destroyed. Sa.s.sacus, sachem of the Pequots, thereupon sought to join the Narragansetts with him in an attempt to drive the English from the country; but Roger Williams persuaded the Narragansetts to form an alliance with the English, and the Pequots began the war alone. In the winter (1636-37) the Connecticut River settlements were attacked, several men killed, and two girls carried off.

DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.--In May, 1637, a force of seventy-seven colonists from Connecticut and Ma.s.sachusetts, led by John Mason and John Underhill, marched to the Pequot village in what is now the southeast corner of Connecticut. Some Mohicans and Narragansetts went along; but when they came in sight of the village, they refused to join in the attack. The village was a cl.u.s.ter of wigwams surrounded by a stockade, with two narrow openings for entrance. While some of the English guarded them, the rest attacked the stockade, flung torches over it, and set the wigwams on fire. Of the four hundred or more Indians in the village, but five escaped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.]

KING PHILIP'S WAR.--For thirty-eight years the memory of the destruction of the Pequots kept peace in New England. Then Philip, a chief of the Wampanoags, took the warpath (1675) and, joined by the Nipmucks and Narragansetts, sought to drive the white men from New England. The war began in Rhode Island, but spread into Ma.s.sachusetts, where town after town was attacked, and men, women, and children ma.s.sacred. Roused to fury by these deeds, a little band of men from Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut in the dead of winter stormed the great swamp fortress of the Narragansetts, destroyed a thousand Indians, and burned the wigwams and winter supply of corn. The power of the Narragansetts was broken; but the war went on, and before midsummer (1676) twenty villages had been attacked by the Nipmucks. But they, too, were doomed; their fighting strength was destroyed in two victories by the colonists. In August Philip was shot in a swamp. These victories ended the war in the south, but it broke out almost immediately in the northeast, and raged till the summer of 1678.

During these three years of war New England suffered terribly. Twelve towns had been utterly destroyed, forty had been partly burned, and a thousand men, besides scores of women and children, had perished. As for the New England Indians, their power was gone forever. [11]

INDIAN WARS IN NEW NETHERLAND.--The Dutch in New Netherland were on friendly terms with the Iroquois, to whom they sold fire-arms; but the Tappans, Raritans, and other Algonquin tribes round about New Amsterdam were enemies of the Iroquois, and with these the Dutch had several wars.

One (1641) was brought on by Governor Kieft's attempt to tax the Indians; another (1643-45) by the slaughter, one night, of more than a hundred Indians who had asked the Dutch for shelter from their Mohawk enemies.

Many Dutch farmers were murdered, and a great Indian stronghold in Connecticut was stormed one winter night and seven hundred Indians killed.

[12] After ten years of peace the Indians rose again, killed men in the streets of New Amsterdam, and harried Staten Island; and again, after an outbreak at Esopus, there were several years of war (1658-64).

IN NORTH CAROLINA some Algonquin tribes conspired with the Tuscarora tribe of Iroquois to drive the white men from the country, and began horrid ma.s.sacres (1711). Help came from South Carolina, and the Tuscaroras were badly beaten. But the war was renewed next year, and then another force of white men and Indians from South Carolina stormed the Tuscaroras' fort and broke their power. The Tuscaroras migrated to New York and were admitted to the great Iroquois confederacy of the Five Nations, which thenceforth was known as the Six Nations. [13]

IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--Among the Indians who marched to the relief of North Carolina were men of the Yam'a.s.see tribe. That they should turn against the people of South Carolina was not to be expected. But the Spaniards at St. Augustine bought them with gifts, and, joined by Creeks, Cherokees, and others, they began (in 1715) a war which lasted nearly a year and cost the lives of four hundred white men. They, too, in the end were beaten, and the Yama.s.sees fled to Florida.

The story of these Indian wars has been told not because they were wars, but because they were the beginnings of that long and desperate struggle of the Indian with the white man which continued down almost to our own time. The march of the white man across the continent has been contested by the Indian at every step, and to-day there is not a state in the Union whose soil has not at some time been reddened by the blood of both.

WHAT WE OWE TO THE INDIAN.--The contact of the two races has greatly influenced our language, literature, and customs. Five and twenty of our states, and hundreds of counties, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, and bays, bear names derived from Indian languages. Chipmunk and coyote, moose, opossum, racc.o.o.n, skunk, woodchuck, tarpon, are all of Indian origin. We still use such expressions as Indian summer, Indian file, Indian corn; bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe of peace. To the Indians we owe the canoe, the snowshoe, the toboggan, lacrosse. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn in hills, just as it is planted to-day, and long before the white man came, the Indians ate hominy, mush, and succotash, planted pumpkins and squashes, and made maple sugar.

SUMMARY

1. The Indians were divided into tribes, and the tribes into clans.

2. Each tribe had its own language or dialect, and usually lived by itself.

3. Members of a clan traced descent from some common imaginary ancestor, usually an animal. The civil head of a clan was the sachem; the military heads were the chiefs.

4. As the clans were united into tribes, so the tribes were in some places joined in confederacies.

5. The chief occupations of Indian men were hunting and waging war.

6. Their ways of life varied greatly with the locality in which they lived: as in the wooded regions of the East or on the great plains of the West; in the cold country of the North or in the warmer South.

7. The growth of white settlements, crowding back the Indians, led to several notable wars in early colonial times, in all of which the Indians were beaten:-- In Virginia: uprisings in 1622 and in 1644; border war in 1676.

In New England: Pequot War, 1636-37; King Philip's War, 1675-78.

In New Netherland: several wars with Algonquin tribes.

In North Carolina: Algonquin-Tuscarora uprising, 1711-13.

In South Carolina: Yama.s.see uprising, 1715-16.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I, pp. 85-94, 141-146.

[2] The sign or emblem of this ancestor, called the totem, was often painted on the clothing, or tattooed on the body. On the northwest coast, it was carved on a tall pole, made of a tree trunk, which was set up before the dwelling.

[3] Scientists have grouped the North American tribes into fifty or more distinct families or groups, each consisting of tribes whose languages were probably developed from a common tongue. East of the Mississippi most of the land was occupied by three groups: (1) Between the Tennessee River and the Gulf of Mexico lived the Muskho'gees (or Maskoki), including the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes. (2) The Iroquois (ir-o-kwoi'), Cherokee', and related tribes occupied a large area surrounding Lakes Erie and Ontario, and smaller areas in the southern Appalachians and south of the lower James River. (3) The Algonquins and related tribes occupied most of the country around Lakes Superior and Michigan, most of the Ohio valley, and the Atlantic seaboard north of the James River, besides much of Canada.

[4] Read Fiske's _Discovery of America_, vol. I, pp. 72-78.

[5] The manner of drying was called "jerking." Jerked meat would keep for months and was cooked as needed. Sometimes it was pounded between stones and mixed with fat, and was then called pemmican.

[6] Fire for cooking and warming was started by pressing a pointed stick against a piece of wood and turning the stick around rapidly. Sometimes this was done by twirling it between the palms of the hands, sometimes by wrapping the string of a little bow around the stick and moving the bow back and forth as if fiddling. The revolving stick would form a fine dust which the heat caused by friction would set on fire.

[7] A game of football is thus described: "Likewise they have the exercise of football, in which they only forcibly encounter with the foot to carry the ball the one from the other, and spurn it to the goal with a kind of dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honor of it. But they never strike up one another's heels, as we do, not accounting that praiseworthy to purchase a goal by such an advantage."

[8] One who was with Smith in Virginia has left us this account of what took place when the Powhatan was crowned (p. 42): "In a fair plain field they made a fire before which (we were) sitting upon a mat (when) suddenly amongst the woods was heard ... a hideous noise and shouting. Then presently ... thirty young women came out of the woods ... their bodies painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all differing. Their leader had a fair pair of buck's horns on her head, and an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows at her back, a bow and arrows in her hand. The next had in her hand a sword, another a club ... all horned alike.... These fiends with most h.e.l.lish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing.... Having spent near one hour on this masquerade, as they entered in like manner they departed."

[9] Read Longfellow's _Hiawatha_.

[10] Thirty-one years later another outbreak occurred, and for months burning and scalping went on along the border, till the Indians were beaten by the men under Nathaniel Bacon (p. 94).

[11] Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 128-133, 211-226, 235-236.

[12] Read Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, Vol. I, pp. 177-180, 183-188.

[13] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. II, pp. 298-304.

CHAPTER IX

THE FRENCH IN AMERICA

While English, Dutch, and Swedes were settling on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, the French took possession of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. Though the attempt of Cartier to plant a colony on the St. Lawrence failed (p. 30), the French never lost interest in that part of the world, and new attempts were made to plant colonies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANADA (NEW FRANCE) AND ACADIA.]

THE FRENCH IN NOVA SCOTIA.--All failed till De Monts (d'mawng) and Champlain (sham-plan') [1] came over in 1604 with two shiploads of colonists. Some landed on the sh.o.r.e of what is now Nova Scotia and founded Port Royal. The others, led by De Monts, explored the Bay of Fundy, and on an island at the mouth of a river planted a colony called St. Croix. The name St. Croix (croy) in time was given to the river which is now part of the eastern boundary of Maine. One winter in that climate was enough, and in the spring (1605) the coast from Maine to Ma.s.sachusetts was explored in search of a better site for the colony. None suited, and, returning to St.

Croix, De Monts moved the settlers to Port Royal.

QUEBEC FOUNDED.--This too was abandoned for a time, and in 1607 the colonists were back in France. Champlain, however, longed to be again in the New World, and soon persuaded De Monts once more to attempt colonization. In 1608, therefore, Champlain with two ships sailed up the St. Lawrence and founded Quebec. Here, as was so often the case, the first winter was a struggle for life; when spring came, only eight of the colonists were alive. But help soon reached them, and France at last had secured a permanent foothold in America. The drainage basin of the St.

Lawrence was called New France (or Canada); the lands near Port Royal became another French colony, called Acadia.

EXPLORATION OF NEW FRANCE.--Champlain at once made friends with the Indians, and in 1609 went with a party of Hurons to help fight their enemies, the Iroquois Indians who dwelt in central New York. [2] The way was up the St. Lawrence and up a branch of that river to the lake which now bears the name of Champlain. On its western sh.o.r.e the expected fight took place, and a victory, due to the fire-arms of Champlain and his companions, was won for the Hurons. [3] Later Champlain explored the Ottawa River, saw the waters of Lake Huron, and crossed Lake Ontario. But the real work of French discovery and exploration in the interior was done by Catholic priests and missionaries.

THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES.--With crucifixes and portable altars strapped on their backs, these brave men pushed boldly into the Indian country.

Guided by the Indians, they walked through the dense forests, paddled in birch-bark canoes, and penetrated a wilderness where no white man had ever been. They built little chapels of bark near the Indian villages, and labored hard to convert the red men to Christianity. It was no easy task.

Often and often their lives were in danger. Some were drowned. Some were burned at the stake. Others were tomahawked. But neither cold nor hunger, nor the dangers and hardships of life in the wilderness, could turn the priests from their good work. One of them toiled for ten years among the Indians on the Niagara River and the sh.o.r.es of Lake Huron; two others reached the outlet of Lake Superior; a fourth paddled in a canoe along its south sh.o.r.e.