King Philip Part 4

When they arrived at Weymouth they found a large number of Indians swaggering around the wretched settlement, and treating the humiliated and starving colonists with the utmost insolence. The colonists dared not exhibit the slightest spirit of retaliation. The Indians had been so accustomed to treat the G.o.dless race at Weymouth with every indignity, that they had almost forgotten that the Pilgrims were men of different blood. As Captain Standish and his eight men landed, they were met by a mob of Indians, who, by derision and insolence, seemed to aim to provoke a quarrel. Wittuwamet, the head of the conspirators, was there. He was a stout, brawny savage, vulgar, bold, and impudent, almost beyond the conception of a civilized mind. Accompanied by a gang of confederates, he approached Captain Standish, whetting his knife, and threatening his death in phrase exceedingly contemptuous and insulting. By the side of this chief was another Indian named Peksuot, of gigantic stature and Herculean strength, who taunted the captain with his inferior size, and a.s.sailed him with a volley of barbarian blackguardism. All this it would be hard for a meek man to bear. Captain Standish was not a meek man. The hot blood of the Puritan Cavalier was soon at the boiling point. Disdaining to take advantage even of such a foe, he threw aside his gun, and springing upon the gigantic Peksuot, grasped at the knife which was suspended from his neck, the blade of which was double-edged, and ground to a point as sharp as a needle. There was a moment of terrific conflict, and then the stout Indian fell dead upon the ground, with the blood gushing from many mortal wounds. Another Englishman closed with Wittuwamet, and there was instantly a general fray. Wittuwamet and another Indian were killed; another was taken prisoner and hung upon the spot, for conspiring to destroy the English; the rest fled.

Captain Standish followed up his victory, and pursued the fugitives. A few more were killed. This unexpected development of courage and power so overwhelmed the hostile Indians that they implored peace.

The Weymouth men, thus extricated from peril, were afraid to remain there any longer, though Captain Standish told them that he should not hesitate to stay with one half their number. Still they persisted in leaving. Captain Standish then generously offered to take them with him to Plymouth, where they should share in the now almost exhausted stores of the Pilgrims. But they decided, since they had a small vessel in which they could embark, to go to Monhegan, an island near the mouth of the Kennebec River, where many English ships came annually to fish. The captain helped them on board the vessel, provided for them a supply of corn, and remained until their sail was disappearing in the distant horizon of the sea. He then returned to Plymouth, and all were rejoiced that the country was delivered from such a set of vagabonds.

The Pilgrims regretted the hasty and violent measures adopted by Captain Standish, and yet they could not, under the circ.u.mstances, severely condemn him. The Rev. Mr. Robinson, father of the Plymouth Church, wrote from Holland:

"Due allowance must be made for the warm temper of Captain Standish. I hope that the Lord has sent him among you for good, if you will but use him as you ought. I fear, however, that there is wanting that tenderness for the life of man, made after G.o.d's own image, which we ought to cherish. It would have been happy if some had been converted before any had been killed."

CHAPTER IV.

THE PEQUOT WAR.

1630-1637

Prosperity of the colonies.--Ma.s.sachusetts Colony.--Settlement of Boston.--Motives actuating the settlers.--Correspondence with the Dutch governor.--Dutch colonies.--Taking possession.--Opposition to their settlement.--Beauty of Connecticut.--The Pequots.--Sa.s.sacus.--The three powers.--Continual wars.--Power of Sa.s.sacus.--Trading expedition.--Murder of the company.--Diplomatic skill.--Indians'

account of the affair.--Friendly alliance.--Planting new colonies.--Indications of meditated hostility.--Roger Williams.--Mr.

Williams sent as emba.s.sador.--His mission.--His success.--Enmity of the Pequots.--Acts of violence.--Discovery of the murder of Captain Stone and his men.--Trading expedition to the Pequots.--John Gallop.--Valiant behavior of Captain Gallop.--Victory over the Indians.--The body of Captain Oldham.--Loss of the pinnace.--Retribution.--The expedition.--The first attack.--The English victorious.--The work of devastation.--Inefficiency of the punishment.--Exultation of Sa.s.sacus.--Scenes of blood.--Energy of Sa.s.sacus.--Vigilance of the enemy.--Siege of Saybrook.--Necessity for energetic action.--Raising an army.--Uncas sachem of the Mohegans.--Departure of the troops.--Torture of a captive.--Fortresses.--Plan of attack.--Delight of the Pequots.--Detentions.--Landing.--Cordial reception.--Re-enforcements.--Determination to proceed.--Boasting.--Continued re-enforcements.--Rapid march.--Plan of attack changed.--Ardor of the Indians cooled.--Desertions.--Repose.--Devotions of the English.--Address to the Indians.--The fort.--Negligence of the enemy.--The attack.--The conflict.--The wigwams burned.--Ma.s.sacre.--Horrors of the scene.--Extermination.--Number of those escaping.--Amazement of the Indians.--Dest.i.tution of the English.--The vessels seen.--Attack from the Indians.--Valor of the English.--Desertion of the Narragansets.--Retreat of the English.--Grief of Sa.s.sacus.--Journey to Saybrook.--Effects of the victory.--News of the victory dispatched to Ma.s.sachusetts.--New expedition.--Fugitives.--Pursuit.--Sachem's Head.--Arrival at New Haven.--News of a camp in a swamp.--Surrender of Indians.--Escape of the Pequots.--Death of Sa.s.sacus.--Children sold into slavery.--Extermination of the tribe.--The motives for the deed.--The sunshine of peace and plenty.

The energetic, yet just and conciliatory measures adopted by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in their intercourse with the Indians, were productive of the happiest results. For several years there was a period of peace and prosperity. The colony had now become firmly established, and every year emigrants, arriving from the mother country, extended along the coasts and into the interior the comforts and the refinements of civilization.

In the year 1630, ten years after the landing of the Pilgrims, a company of gentlemen of fortune and of social distinction organized a colony, upon a much grander scale than the one at Plymouth, to emigrate to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, under the name of the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony. The leaders in this enterprise were men of decidedly a higher cast of character, intellectual and social, than their brethren at Plymouth. On the 12th of June this company landed at Salem, and before the close of the year their number amounted to seventeen hundred. The tide of emigration now began to flow very rapidly, and eight or ten towns were soon settled. Toward the close of this year a few families moved to the end of the peninsula now called Boston. The dense wilderness spread around them. They reared their log huts near the beach, at the north end, and by fishing, hunting, and raising Indian corn, obtained a frugal existence. In the five following years very great accessions were made to this important colony. Thriving settlements sprang up rapidly all along the coast. The colonists appear to have been conscientious in their dealings with the natives, purchasing their lands of them at a fair price. Nearly all these men came to the wilderness of this new world inspired by as lofty motives as can move the human heart. Many of them were wealthy and of high rank. At an immense sacrifice, they abandoned the luxuries and refinements to which they had been accustomed at home, that they might enjoy in New England that civil and religious liberty which Old England no longer afforded them.

The Dutch had now established a colony at the mouth of the Hudson River, and were looking wistfully at the fertile meadows which their traders had found upon the banks of the Connecticut. The English were apprehensive that the Dutch might antic.i.p.ate them in taking possession of that important valley. In 1630 the Earl of Warwick had obtained from Charles I. a patent, granting him all the land extending west from Narraganset Bay one hundred and twenty miles. This grant comprehended the whole of the present state of Connecticut and considerable more, reaching west to the Dutch settlements on the Hudson River. Preparations were immediately made for the establishment of a small company on the Connecticut River. Governor Winthrop sent a message to the Dutch governor at New Netherlands, as New York was then called, informing him that the King of England had granted all the region of the Connecticut River to his own subjects, and requesting that the Dutch would not build there. Governor Van Twiller returned a very polite answer, stating that the authorities in Holland had granted the same country to a Dutch company, and he accordingly requested the English not to settle there.

Governor Winthrop immediately dispatched some men through the wilderness to explore the country, and several small vessels were sent to ascend the river, and, by trade, to establish friendly relations with the Indians. The Plymouth colony also sent a company of men with a frame house and boards for covering. When William Holmes, the leader of this company, had sailed up the Connecticut as far as the present city of Hartford, he found that the Dutch were before him, and had erected a fort there. The Dutch ordered him to go back, and stood by their cannon with lighted torches, threatening to fire upon him.

Mr. Holmes, an intrepid man, regardless of their threats, which they did not venture to execute, pushed boldly by, and established himself at the mouth of Little River, in the present town of Windsor. Here he put up his house, surrounded it with palisades, and fortified it as strongly as his means would allow. Governor Van Twiller, being informed of this movement, sent a band of seventy men, under arms, to tear down this house and drive away the occupants. But Holmes was ready for battle, and the Dutch, finding him so well fortified that he could not be displaced without a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, retired.

The whole region of the State of Connecticut was at this time a wilderness, covered with a dense and gloomy forest, which overshadowed both mountain and valley. There were scattered here and there a few spots where the trees had disappeared, and where the Indians planted their corn. The Indians were exceedingly numerous in this lovely valley. The picturesque beauty of the country, the genial climate, the fertile soil, and the vast variety of fish and fowl which abounded in its bays, ponds, and streams, rendered Connecticut quite an elysium for savage life.

These Indians were divided into very many tribes or clans, more or less independent, each with its sachem and its chief warriors. The Pequots were by far the most powerful and warlike among them. Their territory spread over the present towns of New London, Groton, and Stonington. Just north of them was a branch of the same tribe, called the Mohegans, under their distinguished sachem Uncas. The Pequots and the Mohegans, thus united, were resistless. It is said that, a few years before the arrival of the English in this country, the Pequots had poured down like an inundation from the forests of the north, sweeping all opposition before them, and had taken possession of the sea-coast as a conquered country.

Sa.s.sacus was the sovereign chief of this nation. The present town of Groton was his regal residence. Upon two commanding and beautiful eminences in this town, from which the eye ranged over a very extensive prospect of the Sound and the adjacent country, Sa.s.sacus had erected, with much barbarian skill, his royal fortresses. The one was on the banks of the Mystic; the other, a few miles west, on the banks of the Pequot River, now called the Thames. His sway extended over all the tribes on Long Island, and along the coast from the dominions of Canonicus, on Narraganset Bay, to the Hudson River, and spreading into the interior as far as the present county of Worcester in Ma.s.sachusetts. Thus there seem to have been, in the days of the Pilgrims, three dominant nations, with their ill.u.s.trious chieftains, who held sway over all the petty tribes in the south and easterly portions of New England. The Wampanoags, under Ma.s.sasoit, held Ma.s.sachusetts generally. The Narragansets, under Canonicus, occupied Rhode Island. The Pequots, under Sa.s.sacus, reigned over Connecticut.

These powerful tribes were jealous of each other, and were almost incessantly engaged in wars.

Sa.s.sacus had twenty-six sachems under him, and could lead into the field four thousand warriors. He was shrewd, wary, and treacherous, and with great jealousy watched the increasing power of the English, who were now spreading rapidly over the princ.i.p.al parts of New England.

In the autumn of the year 1634, just after William Holmes had put up his house at Windsor, two English traders, Captains Norton and Stone, ascended the Connecticut River in a boat, with eight men, to purchase furs of the Indians. They had a large a.s.sortment of those goods which the natives prized, and for which they were eager to barter any thing in their possession. The Indians one night, as the vessel was moored near the sh.o.r.e, rushed from an ambush, overpowered the crew, murdered every individual, and plundered and sunk the vessel. The Ma.s.sachusetts colony, which had then become far more powerful than the Plymouth, demanded of Sa.s.sacus redress and the surrender of the murderers. The Pequot chieftain, not being then prepared for hostilities, sent an emba.s.sy to Ma.s.sachusetts with a present of valuable furs, and with an artfully contrived story in justification of the deed.

The barbarian emba.s.sadors, with diplomatic skill which Talleyrand or Metternich might have envied, affirmed that the English had seized two peaceable Indians, bound them hand and foot, and were carrying them off in their vessel, no one knew where. As the vessel ascended the river, the friends of the two captives followed cautiously through the forest, along the banks, watching for an opportunity to rush to their rescue. The Indians were well acquainted with the treachery of the infamous Englishmen in stealing the natives, and transporting them to perpetual slavery. One night the English adventurers, according to the representation of the Indians, drew their vessel up to the sh.o.r.e, and all landed to sleep. At midnight, the friends of the captives watched their opportunity, and made a rush upon the English while they were asleep, killed all, and released their friends. They also stated that all the Indians engaged in the affray, except two, had since died of the small-pox.

This was a plausible story. The magistrates of Ma.s.sachusetts, men of candor and justice, could not disprove it; and as, admitting this statement to be true, but little blame could be attached to the Indians, the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts accepted the apology, and entered into friendly alliance with the Pequots. In the treaty into which he at this time entered with the Indian emba.s.sadors, the Pequots conceded to the English the Connecticut River and its immediate sh.o.r.es, if the English would establish settlements there and open trade with them.

Accordingly, arrangements were immediately made for the planting of a colony in the valley of the Connecticut. In the autumn of 1635, five years after the establishment of the Ma.s.sachusetts colony at Salem, and fifteen years after the establishment of the Plymouth colony, a company of sixty persons, men, women, and children, left the towns of Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, and Cambridge, and commenced a journey through the pathless wilderness in search of their future home. It was the 12th of October when they left the sh.o.r.es of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay.

For fourteen days they toiled along through the wilderness, driving their cattle before them, and enduring incredible hardships as they traversed mountains, forded streams, and waded through almost impenetrable swamps. On the 9th of November they reached the Connecticut at a point near the present city of Hartford. The same journey can now be taken with ease in two and a half hours. In less than a year three towns were settled, containing in all nearly eight hundred inhabitants. A fort was also erected at the entrance of the river, to exclude the Dutch, and it was garrisoned by twenty men.

The Indians now began to be seriously alarmed in view of the rapid encroachments of the English. They became sullen, and annoyed the colonists with many acts of petty hostility. There were soon many indications that Sa.s.sacus was meditating hostilities, and that he was probably laying his plans for a combination of all the tribes in a resistless a.s.sault upon the infant settlements.

The Wampanoags, under Ma.s.sasoit, were still firm in their friendship; but it was greatly feared that the Narragansets, whose power was very formidable, might be induced to yield to the solicitations of the Pequots.

Roger Williams, who had taken refuge in Rhode Island to escape from his enemies in Ma.s.sachusetts, was greatly beloved by the Indians. He had become quite a proficient in the Indian language, and by his honesty, disinterestedness, and courtesy, had particularly won the esteem of the Narragansets, in the midst of whom he resided. The governor and council of Connecticut immediately wrote to Mr.

Williams, soliciting him to visit the Narragansets, and exert his influence to dissuade them from entering into the coalition.

This great and good man promptly embarked in the humane enterprise.

Bidding a hurried farewell to his wife, he started alone in a dilapidated canoe to sail along the sh.o.r.es of Narraganset Bay upon his errand of mercy. A violent tempest arose, tumbling in such a surf upon the sh.o.r.e that he could not land, while he was every moment threatened with being swallowed up in the abysses which were yawning around him.

At length, after having encountered much hardship and surmounted many perils, he arrived at the imperial residence of Canonicus. The barbarian chieftain was at home, and it so happened that some Pequot emba.s.sadors had but a short time before arrived, and were then conferring with the Narragansets in reference to the coalition. All the arts of diplomacy of civilized and of savage life, of the wily Indian and of the sincere and honest Christian, were now brought into requisition. With heroism which was the more signal in that it was entirely unostentatious, this bold man remained three days and three nights with the savages, encountering the threats of the Pequots, and expecting every night that they would take his life before morning.

Grandeur of character always wins applause. The Indians marveled at his calm, unboastful intrepidity, and Canonicus, who was also a man of heroic mould, was so influenced by his arguments, that he finally not only declined to enter into an alliance with the Pequots, but pledged anew his friendship for the English, and engaged to co-operate with them in repelling the threatened a.s.sault.

This was an achievement of immense moment. Other distant tribes, who were on the eve of joining the coalition, intimidated by the withdrawal of the Narragansets, and by their co-operation with the English, also refused to take part in the war, and thus the Pequots were left to fight the battle alone. But the Pequots, with their four thousand merciless warriors, were a fearful foe to rush from their inaccessible retreats, with torch and tomahawk, upon the spa.r.s.e and defenseless settlements scattered along the banks of the Connecticut River.

Various acts of individual violence were perpetrated by the savages before war broke out in all its horrors. The English were anxious to avert hostilities, if possible, as they had nothing to gain from war with the natives, and their helpless families would be exposed to inconceivable misery from the barbarism of the foe.

The colonists now learned that the excuse which had been offered for the a.s.sault upon Captains Norton and Stone was a fabrication, and false in all its particulars. These men had engaged several Indians to pilot them up the river. They often stopped to trade with the natives.

One night, as they were moored alongside of the sh.o.r.e, while many of the men had gone upon the land, and the captain was asleep in the cabin, a large number of Indians made a premeditated a.s.sault, and murdered all on board. The rest, as they returned in the darkness and unsuspicious of danger, were easily dispatched.

This new evidence of the treachery of the Pequots exasperated the colonists. Still, they did not think it best to usher in a war with such powerful foes by any retaliation. The Pequots, encouraged by this forbearance, became more and more insolent. In July, 1635, John Oldham ventured on a trading expedition to the Pequot country; for the Pequots, notwithstanding all the appearances against them, still pretended to friendship, and solicited trade. One object of sending Captain Oldham upon this expedition was to ascertain more definitely the real disposition of the savages.

A few days after his departure, a man by the name of John Gallop was in a small vessel of about twenty tons, on his pa.s.sage from Connecticut to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. A strong northerly wind drove him near Manisses, or Block Island. This island is about fourteen miles from Point Judith. It is eight miles long, and from two to four wide.

To his surprise, he saw near the sh.o.r.e an English vessel, which he immediately recognized as Captain Oldham's, filled with Indians, and evidently in their possession. Sixteen savages, well armed with their own weapons, and with the guns and swords which they had taken from the English, crowded the boat.

Captain Gallop was a man of lion heart, inspirited by that Puritan chivalry which ever displayed itself in the most amazing deeds of daring, without the slightest apparent consciousness that there was any thing extraordinary in the exploit. His little vessel was considerably larger than the boat which the Indians had captured. His crew, however, consisted of only one man and two boys. And yet, without the slightest hesitancy, he immediately decided upon a naval fight with the Indians. Loading his muskets and spreading all sail, he bore down upon his foe. The wind was fair and strong, and, standing firmly at the helm, while his crew were protected by the bulwarks from the arrows and bullets of the Indians, and were ready with their muskets to shoot any who attempted to board, he guided his vessel so skillfully as to strike the smaller boat of the foe fairly upon the quarter. The shock was so severe that the boat was nearly capsized, and six of the Indians were knocked into the sea and drowned.

Captain Gallop immediately stood off and prepared for another similar broadside. In the mean time, he lashed the anchor to the bows of the vessel in such a way that the fluke should pierce the side of the boat, and serve as a grappling iron. As there were now only ten Indians to be attacked, he decided to board the boat in case it should be grappled by the fluke of his anchor. Having made these arrangements, he again came running down before a brisk gale, and, striking the boat again, tore open her side with his anchor, while at the same moment he poured in a heavy discharge of buckshot upon the terrified savages. Most of them, however, had plunged into the hold of the little pinnace, and the shot effected but little execution. A third time he ran down upon the pinnace, and struck her with such force that five more, in their turn, leaped overboard and were drowned. There were now but five savages left, and the intrepid Gallop immediately boarded the enemy. Three of the savages retreated to a small cabin, where, with swords, they defended themselves. Two were taken captive and bound. Having no place where he could keep these two Indians apart, and fearing that they might get loose, and, in co-operation with the three savages who had fortified themselves in the cabin, rise successfully upon him, Captain Gallop threw one of the Indians overboard, and he was drowned. This was rough usage; but the savages, who had apparently rendered it necessary by their previous act of robbery and murder, could not complain.

The pinnace was then stripped of her rigging and of all the goods which remained. The body of Captain Oldham was found, awfully mutilated, beneath a sail. The rest of the crew, but two or three in number, had been carried as captives by the savages on the sh.o.r.e.

Captain Gallop buried the corpse as reverently as possible in the sea, and then took the pinnace in tow, with the three savages barricaded in the cabin. Night came on, dark and stormy; the wind increased to a tempest, and it was necessary to cut the pinnace adrift. She was never heard of more.

Block Island, where these scenes occurred, belonged to the Narragansets; but many who were engaged in the murder, as if fearful of the vengeance of Canonicus, their own chieftain, fled across the Sound to the Pequot country, and were protected by them. The Pequots thus became implicated in the crime. Canonicus, on the other hand, rescued the captives taken from the boat, and restored them to their friends. The English now decided that it was necessary for them so to punish the Indians as to teach them that such outrages could no longer be committed with impunity. It was a fearful vengeance which was resolved upon. An army of one hundred men was raised, commissioned to proceed to Block Island, burn every wigwam, destroy all the corn, shoot every man, and take the women and children captive. Thus the island was to be left a solitude and a desert.

On the 25th of August, 1636, the detachment sailed from Boston. The Indians were aware of the punishment with which they were threatened, and were prepared for resistance. Captain John Endicott, who was in command of the expedition, anch.o.r.ed off the island, and seeing a solitary Indian wandering upon the beach, who, it afterward appeared, had been placed there as a decoy, took a boat and a dozen armed men, and rowed toward the sh.o.r.e. When they reached within a few rods of the beach, suddenly sixty warriors, picked men, tall, athletic, and of established bravery, sprang up from behind the sand-hills, rushed to the water's edge, and poured in upon the boat a volley of arrows.

Fortunately, the boat was so far from the land that not much injury was done, though two were seriously wounded. As the water was shoal, the colonists, musket in hand, sprang from the boat and waded toward the sh.o.r.e, piercing their foes with a well-directed volley of bullets.

Had the Indians possessed any measure of the courage of the English, the sixty savages might have closed upon the twelve colonists, and easily have destroyed them all; but they had no disciplined courage which would enable them to stand a charge. With awful yells of fury and despair, they broke and fled into the forests and the swamps.

Captain Endicott now landed his force and commenced the work of destruction. There were two Indian villages upon the island, containing about sixty wigwams each. The torch was applied, and they were all destroyed. Every canoe that could be found was staved. There were also upon the island about two hundred acres of standing corn, which the English trampled down. But not an Indian could be found. The women and children had probably been removed from the island, and the warriors who remained so effectually concealed themselves that the English sought them in vain. After spending two days upon the island, the expedition again embarked, and sailed across the Sound to the mouth of the Thames, then called Pequot Harbor. As the vessel entered the harbor, about three hundred warriors a.s.sembled upon the sh.o.r.e.

Captain Endicott sent an interpreter to inform them that he had come to demand the murderers of the English, and to obtain compensation for the injuries which the Indians had inflicted. To this the Pequots defiantly replied with a shower of arrows. Captain Endicott landed on both sides of the harbor where New London now stands. The Indians sullenly retired before him to the adjacent rocks and fastnesses, rendering it necessary for the English to keep in a compact body to guard against a.s.sault. Two Indians were shot, and probably a few others wounded. The wigwams along the sh.o.r.e were burned, and the canoes destroyed, and then the expedition again spread its sails and returned to Boston, having done infinitely more harm than good. They had merely exasperated their haughty foes. They had but struck the hornets' nest with a stick. The Connecticut people were in exceeding terror, as they knew that savage vengeance would fall mercilessly upon them.

Sa.s.sacus was a stern man of much native talent. He laughed to scorn this impotent revenge. To burn an Indian wigwam was inflicting no great calamity. The huts were reared anew before the expedition had arrived in Boston. The Pequots now despised their foes, and, gathering around their council fires, they clashed their weapons, shrieked their war-whoop, and excited themselves into an intensity of rage. The defenseless settlers along the banks of the Connecticut were now at the mercy of the savages, who were roused to the commission of every possible atrocity. No pen can describe the scenes of woe which, during the autumn and winter of 1636 and 1637, transpired in the solitudes of the wilderness. The Indians were every where in marauding bands. At midnight, startled by the yell of the savage, the lonely settler sprang to his door but to see his building in flames, to be pierced with innumerable arrows, to fall upon his floor weltering in blood, and to see, as death was stealing over him, his wife and his children brained by the tomahawk. The tortures inflicted by the savages upon their captives were too horrible to be narrated. Even the recital almost causes the blood to chill in one's veins.

Sa.s.sacus was indefatigable in his endeavors to rouse all the tribes to combine in a war of extermination.

"Now," said he, "is our time. If we do not now destroy the English, they will soon prove too powerful for us, and they will obtain all our lands. We need not meet them in open battle. We can shoot and poison their cattle, burn their houses and barns, lay in ambush for them in the fields and on the roads. They are now few. We are numerous. We can thus soon destroy them all."

Why did they not succeed in this plan? The only answer is that G.o.d willed otherwise. The Indians planned their campaign with great skill, and prosecuted it with untiring vigor. Not a boat could pa.s.s up or down the river in safety. The colonists were compelled to keep a constant guard, to huddle together in block-houses, and could never lie down at night without the fear of being murdered before morning.

Almost every night the flame of their burning dwellings reddened the sky, and the shriek of the captives expiring under demoniac torture blended with the hideous shout of the savages.