HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The Grave of Miantonomoh.

[1640-1643]

The Dutch, too, as we have to some extent seen already, felt the horrors
of Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel,
avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute from
them as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The
savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the
Dutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked.
Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This roused
their revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited the
colony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Reward
was offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian never
forgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty years
before had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, and
while there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of an
unoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and his
assembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. The
following year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampum
was indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged by
the savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their young
men and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. But
remonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and at
Corlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just below
Broadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleeping
and unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, none
spared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number of
eleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Only
near the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governor
appointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. The
sale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for a
time secured.

Soon, however, the redskins along the Hudson were again up in arms. The
noted Underhill, who with Mason had been the scourge of the Pequots,
came to the fight with fifty Englishmen as allies of the Dutch. Not
waiting to be attacked, the Indians laid waste the settlements, even
threatening Fort Amsterdam itself. At a place now known as Pelham Neck,
near New Rochelle, lived the famous but unfortunate Mrs. Hutchinson, a
fugitive from the persecuting zeal of Massachusetts. Here the implacable
savages butchered her and her family in cold blood. Her little
granddaughter alone was spared, and led captive to a far-off wigwam
prison. Only at Gravesend, on Long Island, was a successful stand made,
and that by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody, another exile from religious
persecution, who with forty stout-hearted men defended her plantation
and compelled the savages to beat a retreat.

[1645]

The colony was in extremity. New Haven refused to aid, because, as a
member of the New England confederacy, it could not act alone, and
because it was not satisfied that the Dutch war was just. An appeal was
made by Kieft's eight advisers to both the States-General and the West
India Company in Holland. The sad condition of the colonists was fully
set forth, and the responsibility directly ascribed to the mismanagement
of Kieft. At the same time, undismayed by the gloomy outlook, the
courage of the sturdy Dutchmen rose with the emergency. Small parties
were sent out against the Connecticut savages in the vicinity of
Stamford. Indian villages on Long Island were surprised and the natives
put to the sword. In two instances at least the victors disgraced
humanity by torturing the captured.

In these engagements Underhill was conspicuous and most energetic.
Having made himself familiar with the position of the Indians near
Stamford, he sailed from Manhattan with one hundred and fifty men,
landed at Greenwich, and, marching all day, at midnight drew near the
enemy. His approach was not wholly unannounced, for the moon was full.
The fight was desperate and bloody. The tragedy that had made memorable
the banks of the Mystic in the destruction of the Pequot fort was now
almost equalled. After the example of his old comrade Mason, Underhill
fired the village. By flame, shot, or sword more than five hundred human
beings perished.

While New Netherland was awaiting some message of cheer from Holland, a
company of Dutch soldiers came from Curacoa, but they did little to
follow up the successes already gained. Again the Eight sent a memorial
to the company, boldly condemning the conduct of the director and
demanding his recall. Their remonstrances were at last heeded, and the
removal of the unpopular governor resolved upon. In 1647 Kieft set sail
for Holland, but the ship was wrecked, and he with nearly all on board
was drowned.

It was high time for a change. In the two years, 1643-45, while sixteen
hundred Indians had been slain, Manhattan had become nearly depopulated.
In 1645 peace was concluded, not only with the smaller tribes in the
vicinity, but also with the powerful Mohawks about Fort Orange, and
finally with all the Indians belonging to the Five Nations or
acknowledging their authority. A pleasing incident of this treaty was
the promise of the Indians to restore the eight-year-old granddaughter
of Mrs. Hutchinson, a promise which they faithfully performed in 1646.
The great compact was made under the shadow of the Fort Amsterdam walls,
and the universal joy was expressed by a day of thanksgiving.

Totem or Tribe Mark of the Five Nations.

[1650-1660]

An interval of peace for ten years was now enjoyed, when the killing of
a squaw for stealing some peaches led to an attack by several hundred of
the infuriated savages upon New Amsterdam. They were repulsed here, but
crossing to the shore of New Jersey they laid waste the settlements
there. Staten Island, too, was swept with fire and sword. One hundred
people were slain, 150 more taken captive, 300 made homeless. Peace was
again effected and maintained for three years, when fresh quarrels
began. It was not until 1660 that a more general and lasting treaty was
brought about, on which occasion a Mohawk and a Minqua chief gave
pledges in behalf of the Indians, and acted as mediators between the
contending parties.

PERIOD II.

ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

1660--1763

CHAPTER I.

NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS

[1660]

The Commonwealth in England went to pieces at the death of Oliver
Cromwell, its founder. The Stuart dynasty came back, but, alas!
unimproved. Charles II. was a much meaner man than his father, and James
II. was more detestable still. The rule of such kings was destined to
work sad changes in the hitherto free condition of Massachusetts. This
colony had sympathized with the Commonwealth more heartily than any of
the others. Hither had fled for refuge Goffe and Whalley, two of the
accomplices in the death of Charles I. Congregational church polity was
here established by law, to the exclusion of all others, even of
episcopacy, for whose sake Charles was harrying poor Covenanters to
death on every hillside in Scotland. Nor would his lawyers let the king
forget Charles I.'s attack on the Massachusetts charter, begun so early
as 1635, or the grounds therefor, such as the unwarranted transfer of it
to Boston, or the likelihood that but for the outbreak of the Civil War
it would have been annulled by the Long Parliament itself. Obviously
Massachusetts could not hope to be let alone by the home government
which had just come in.

At first the king, graciously responding to the colony's humble
petition, confirmed the charter granted by his father; but no sooner had
he done so than the hot royalists about him began plotting to overthrow
the same, and their purpose never slumbered till it was accomplished.
Massachusetts was too prosperous and too visibly destined for great
power in America to be suffered longer to go its independent way as
hitherto.

King Charles II.

[1661]

The province--as yet, of course, excluding Plymouth with its twelve
towns and five thousand inhabitants--contained at this time, 1660, about
twenty-five thousand souls, living in fifty-two towns. These were nearly
all on the coast; Dedham, Concord, Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlborough,
and the Connecticut Valley hamlets of Springfield, Hadley, and
Northampton being the most noteworthy exceptions. Though agriculture was
the principal business, fishing was a staple industry, its product going
to France, Spain, and the Straits. Pipe-staves, fir-boards, much
material for ships, as masts, pitch and tar, also pork and beef, horses
and corn, were shipped from this colony to Virginia, in return for
tobacco and sugar either for home consumption or for export to England.
Some iron was manufactured. The province enjoyed great prosperity.
Boston stood forth as a lively and growing centre, and an English
traveller about this time declared some of its merchants to be "damnable
rich."

As their most precious possession the colonists prized their liberties,
which they claimed in virtue of their original patent. In a paper which
it put forth on June 10, 1661, the General Court asserted for the colony
the right to elect and empower its own officers, both high and low, to
make its laws, to execute the same without appeal so long as they were
not repugnant to those of England, and to defend itself by force and
arms when necessary, against every infringement of its rights, even from
acts of Parliament or of the king, if prejudicial to the country or
contrary to just colonial legislation. In a word Massachusetts, even so
early, regarded itself to all intents and purposes an independent State,
and would have proclaimed accordingly had it felt sufficiently strong.

[1664]

Manifestly the king would not grant so much. On the occasion of his
confirming the charter he demanded that the oath of allegiance be taken
by the people of the colony; that justice be administered there in his
name; and that the franchise be extended to all freemen of sufficient
substance, with the liberty to use in worship, public and private, the
forms of the English Church. The people obeyed but in part, for they
would not even appear to admit the king's will to be their law. The
franchise was slightly extended, in a grudging way, but no new religious
privileges were at this time conceded. Unfortunately political and
religious liberty were now in conflict. It was worse for the Baptists
and Quakers that the king favored them, and the treatment which they
received in the colony inclined them to the royalist side in the
controversy.

In July, 1664, commissioners arrived in Boston with full authority to
investigate the administration of the New England charters. Such a
procedure not being provided for in the Massachusetts document, the
General Court, backed by the citizens almost to a man, successfully
prevented complainants from appearing before the commission. The
commissioners having summoned the colony as defendant in a certain case,
a herald trumpeted proclamation through the streets, on the morning set
for the trial, inhibiting all from aiding their designs. The trial
collapsed, and the gentlemen who had ordered it, baffled and disgusted,
moved on to New Hampshire, there also to be balked by a decree of the
Massachusetts Governor and Council forbidding the towns so much as to
meet at their behest.

[1668]

Vengeance for such defiance was delayed by Charles II.'s very vices.
Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timid
and too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They often
discussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words.
Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert its
authority in Maine, against rule either by the king or by Sir Ferdinanda
Gorges's heir as proprietary.

Its charter had assigned to the colony land to a point three miles north
of the Merrimac. Bold in the favor of the Commonwealth, the authorities
measured from the head-waters of that river. But Plymouth had originally
claimed all the territory west of the Kennebec, and had sold it to
Gorges. Charles II. favored the Gorges heirs against Massachusetts, and
for some years previous to 1668 Massachusetts' power over Maine had been
in abeyance. Ten years later, in 1678, to make assurance doubly sure,
Massachusetts bought off the Gorges claimants, at the round price of
twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling.

[1673]

From 1641 Massachusetts had borne sway in New Hampshire as well,
ignoring John Mason's claim under Charles I.'s charters of 1629 and
1635, still urged by one of Mason's grandsons, backed by Charles II.
Here Massachusetts was beaten. In July, 1679, New Hampshire was
permanently separated from her, and erected into a royal province, of a
nature to be explained in a subsequent chapter, being the earliest
government of this kind in New England.

[1662]

These territorial assumptions on the part of Massachusetts much
increased the king's hostility. This probably would not have proved
fatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchants
and manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared was
becoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcement
of the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a cruel
degree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony,
it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation of
the charter, so that English law might become immediately valid in
Massachusetts, colonial laws to the contrary notwithstanding.
Accordingly, in 1684, the charter was vacated and the colonists ceased
to be free, their old government with its popular representation giving
way to an arbitrary commission.

The other New England colonies--Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and
New Haven--had made haste to proclaim Charles II. so soon as restored to
the throne, and to begin carrying on their governments in his name. That
beautiful and able man, the younger Winthrop, sped to London on
Connecticut's behalf, and, aided by his colony's friends at court, the
Earls of Clarendon and Manchester and Viscount Say and Seal, in 1662
secured to Connecticut, now made to include New Haven, a charter so
liberal that it continued till October 5, 1818, the ground law of the
State, then to be supplanted only by a close vote. Under this paper,
which declared all lands between the Narragansett River and the Pacific
Ocean Connecticut territory, Connecticut received every whit of that
right to govern itself which Charles was so sternly challenging in the
case of Massachusetts.

John Winthrop the Younger.

From this time on, as indeed earlier, Connecticut was for many years
perhaps the most delightful example of popular government in all
history. Connecticut and New Haven together had about ten thousand
inhabitants. Their rulers were just, wise, and of a mind truly to serve
the people. Here none were persecuted for their faith. Education was
universal. Few were poor, none very rich. Nearly all supplies were of
domestic production, nothing as yet being exported but a few cattle.

Under the second Charles Rhode Island fared quite as well as
Connecticut. This was remarkable, inasmuch as the little colony of three
thousand souls, in their four towns of Providence, Newport, Portsmouth,
and Warwick, insisted on "holding forth the lively experiment"--and it
proved lively indeed--"of full liberty in religious concernments."
Charles did not oppose this, and Clarendon favored it, a motive of both
here, as with Connecticut, being to rear in New England a power friendly
to the Crown, that should rival and check Massachusetts. Both these
commonwealths were granted absolute independence in all but name. No
oath of allegiance to the king was demanded. Appeals to England were not
provided for.

[1680]

Though having no quarrel with the king, the two southern colonies were
not without their trials. Connecticut, besides continual fear of the
Dutch and the Indians, was much agitated by the controversy over the
question whether children of moral parents not church members should be
baptized, a question at length settled affirmatively by the so-called
Half-Way Covenant. It also had its boundary disputes with Massachusetts,
with Rhode Island--for Connecticut took the Narragansett River of its
charter to be the bay of that name--and with New York, which, by the
Duke of York's new patent, issued on the recovery of that province from
the Dutch in 1674, reached the Connecticut River. During England's war
with Holland, 1672-74, all the colonies stood in some fear of Dutch
attacks.

[1685]

Rhode Island had worse troubles than Connecticut. It, too, had boundary
disputes, serious and perpetual; but graver by much were its internal
feuds, caused partly by the mutual jealousy of its four towns, partly by
the numerous and jarring religious persuasions here represented.
Government was painfully feeble. Only with utmost difficulty could the
necessary taxes be raised. Warwick in particular was for some time in
arrears to John Clark, of Newport, for his invaluable services in
securing the charter of 1663. Quakers and the divers sorts of Baptists
valiantly warred each against other, using, with dreadful address, those
most deadly of carnal weapons, tongue and pen. On George Fox's visit to
the colony, Roger Williams, zealous for a debate, pursued the eminent
Quaker from Providence to Newport, rowing thither in his canoe and
arriving at midnight, only to find that his intended opponent had
departed, The latter's champion was ready, however, and a discussion of
four days ensued.

Sir Edmond Andros.

Before its sentence of death reached Massachusetts Charles II. was no
more, and James II., his brother, had ascended the throne. It was for a
time uncertain what sort of authority the stricken colony would be
called to accept. Already, as Duke of York, James II. had been
Proprietary of Maine east of the Kennebec (Sagadahoc), as well as of
Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Now that he had the problem of
ruling Massachusetts to solve, it naturally occurred to the king to make
Sir Edmond Andros, already governor of New York, master also over the
whole of English America from the Saint Croix to the Delaware.

In southern New England the reign of Andros wrought no downright
persecution. He suspended the charters, and, with an irresponsible
council in each colony, assumed all legislative as well as
administrative power. Rhode Island submitted tamely. Her sister colony
did the same, save that, at Hartford, according to good tradition, in
the midst of the altercation about delivering the charter, prolonged
into candle-light, suddenly it was dark, and the precious document
disappeared to a secure place in the hollow trunk of an oak. This tree,
henceforth called the Charter Oak, stood till prostrated by a gale on
August 20, 1856.

The Charter Oak at Hartford.

But in Massachusetts the colonists' worst fears were realized. Andros,
with a council of his own creation, made laws, levied taxes, and
controlled the militia. He had authority to suppress all
printing-presses and to encourage Episcopacy. In the latter interest he
opened King's Chapel to the Prayer Book. His permission was required for
any one to leave the colony. Extortionate fees and taxes were imposed.
Puritans had to swear on the Bible, which they regarded wicked, or be
disfranchised. Personal and proprietary rights were summarily set at
naught, and all deeds to land were declared void till renewed--for
money, of course. The citizens were reduced to a condition hardly short
of slavery.

[1688]

There is no describing the joy which pervaded New England as the news of
the Revolution of 1688 flew from colony to colony. Andros slunk away
from Boston, glad to escape alive. Drums beat and gala-day was kept. Old
magistrates were reinstated. Town meetings were resumed. All believed
that God had interposed, in answer to prayer, to bring deliverance to
his people from popery and thraldom.

This revolution, ushering in the liberal monarchy of William and Mary,
restored to Rhode Island and Connecticut their old charter governments
in full. New Hampshire, after a momentary union with Massachusetts
again, became once more a royal province. As to Massachusetts itself, a
large party of the citizens now either did not wish the old state of
things renewed, or were too timid to agree in demanding back their
charter as of right. Had they been bold and united, they might have
succeeded in this without any opposition from the Crown. Instead, a new
charter was conferred, creating Massachusetts also a royal province, yet
with government more liberal than the other provinces of this order
enjoyed. The governor was appointed by the Crown, and could convene,
adjourn, or dissolve the Legislature. With the consent of his council he
also created the judges, from whose highest sentence appeal could be
taken to the Privy Council. The governor could veto legislation, and the
king annul any law under three years old.

[1690-1697]

If in these things the new polity was inferior to the old, in two
respects it was superior; Suffrage was now practically universal, and
every species of religious profession, save Catholicism, made legal.
Also, Massachusetts territory was enlarged southward to take in all
Plymouth, eastward to embrace Maine (Sagadahoc) and Nova Scotia. Maine,
henceforth including Sagadahoc, that is, all land eastward to the Saint
Croix, remained part of Massachusetts till March 15, 1820, when it
became a member of the Union by itself. Nova Scotia, over which Phips's
conquest of Port Royal in 1690 had established a nominal rather than a
real English authority, was assigned to France again by the Treaty of
Ryswick, 1697.

Box in which the Connecticut Charter was kept.

CHAPTER II.

KING PHILIP'S WAR

[1675]

Simultaneously with the Stuart Restoration another cloud darkened the
New England sky. Since the Pequot War, Indians and whites had in the
main been friendly. This by itself is proof that our fathers were less
unjust to the red men than is sometimes charged. They did assume the
right to acquire lands here, and they had this right. The Indians were
not in any proper sense owners of New England. They were few--by 1660
not more numerous than the pale-faces--and, far from settling or
occupying the land, roamed from place to place. Had it been otherwise
they, as barbarians, would have had no such claim upon the territory as
to justify them in barring out civilization. However, the colonists did
not plead this consideration. Whenever districts were desired to which
Indians had any obvious title, it was both law and custom to pay them
their price. In this, Roger Williams and William Penn were not peculiar.
If individual white men sometimes cheated in land trades, as in other
negotiations, the aggrieved side could not, and did not, regard this as
the white man's policy.

Yet little by little the Indians came to distrust and hate the rival
race. It did not matter to the son of the forest, even if he thought so
far, that the neighborhood of civilization greatly bettered his lot in
many things, as, for instance, giving him market for corn and peltry,
which he could exchange for fire-arms, blankets, and all sorts of
valuable conveniences. The efforts to teach and elevate him he
appreciated still less. As has been said, he loved better to disfurnish
the outside of other people's heads than to furnish the inside of his
own. What he felt, and keenly, was that the newcomers treated him as an
inferior, were day by day narrowing his range, and slowly but surely
reducing his condition to that of a subject people. Dull as he was, he
saw that one of three fates confronted him: to perish, to migrate, or to
lay aside his savage character and mode of life. Such thoughts frenzied
him.

The beautiful fidelity of Massasoit to the people of Plymouth is already
familiar. His son Alexander, who succeeded him, was of a spirit
diametrically the reverse. Convinced that he was plotting with the
Narragansets for hostile action, the Governor and Council of Plymouth
sent Major Winslow to bring him to court--for it must be remembered that
Massasoit's tribe, the Pokanokets, had through him covenanted, though
probably with no clear idea of what this meant, to be subject to the
Plymouth government. Alexander, for some reason, became fatally ill
while at Plymouth under arrest, dying before reaching home. The Indians
suspected poison.

His brother Philip now became sachem. Philip already had a grudge
against the whites, and was rendered trebly bitter by the indignity and
violence, if nothing worse, to which Alexander had been subjected. He
resolved upon war, and in 1675 war was begun.

We shall never certainly know to what extent Philip was an organizer. We
believe correct the view of Hubbard, the contemporary historian, that he
had prepared a wide-spread and pretty well arranged conspiracy among
the main tribes of New England Indians, which might have been fatal but
for "the special providence of God," causing hostilities to break out
ere the savages were ready. Palfrey challenges this view of the case,
but on insufficient grounds.

One Sausaman, an educated Indian, previously Philip's secretary, had
left him and joined the Christian Indians settled at Natick. There were
by this time several such communities, and also, according to Cotton
Mather, many able Indian preachers. At the risk of his life, as he
insisted, Sausaman had warned the Plymouth magistrates that danger
impended. He was soon murdered, apparently by Philip's instigation. At
least Philip never denied this, nor did he after this time ever again
court friendly relations with Plymouth, which he had constantly done
hitherto. On the contrary, re-enforcements of strange Indians, all ready
for the war-path, were continually flocking to his camp, squaws and
children at the same time going to the Narraganset country, manifestly
for security.

The Plymouth authorities, preparing for war, yet sent a kind letter to
the sachem advising him to peace. In vain. At Swanzey, the town nearest
Mount Hope, Philip's home, Indians at once began to kill and ravage, and
Majors Bradford and Cudworth marched thither with a force of Plymouth
soldiers. A Massachusetts contingent re-enforced them there, and they
prepared to advance. Seeing it impossible to hold his own against so
many, Philip crossed to Pocasset, now Tiverton, and swept rapidly round
to Dartmouth, Middleborough, and Taunton, burning and murdering as he
went. He then retired again to Tiverton, but in a few days started with
all his warriors for central Massachusetts.

Here the Nipmucks, already at war, which indicated an understanding
between them and the Pokanokets, had attacked Mendon. The day after
Philip joined them there was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks and
their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly
entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege
in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the
nick of time.

The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield,
Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having to
be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushed
from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in
church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected
assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to
tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared,
placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evident
acquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages were
driven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for their
deliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, General
Goffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell.
He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he had
so often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God's
people.

From Hadley a party went to Deerfield to bring in the wheat that had
been left when the town was deserted. Ninety picked men, the "flower of
Essex," led by Captain Lothrop, attended the wagons as convoy. On their
return, about seven o'clock in the morning, by a little stream in the
present village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memory
of the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, then
ripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered upon
them. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regain
them. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his company
escaped alive. A monument marks the spot where this tragic affair
occurred.

The Monument at Bloody Brook.

So early as July, 1675, Massachusetts and Connecticut, acting for the
New England Confederation, had effected a treaty with the strong tribe
of the Narragansets in southern Rhode Island, engaging them to remain
neutral and to surrender any of Philip's men coming within their
jurisdiction. This agreement they did not keep. After the attacks on
Springfield and Hatfield in October, great numbers of the Pokanoket
braves came to them, evidently welcomed. To prevent their becoming a
centre of mischief, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth despatched
a thousand men to punish the Narragansets. They met the foe at the old
Palisade, in the midst of a dense swamp in what is now South Kingstown,
Rhode Island. The terrible cold which rendered this Narraganset campaign
so severe had turned the marsh into a bridge, and at once on their
arrival the soldiers, weary and hungry as they were from their long
march, and spite of its being Sunday, advanced to the attack.
Massachusetts was in front, then Plymouth, then Connecticut. Long and
bitter was the fight. The Indians, perfect marksmen, took deadly aim at
the leaders. Five captains were killed outright and as many more
mortally wounded. The fort was taken, re-taken, and taken again, the
whites at last, to make sure work, setting fire to the wigwams. The
storming party lost in killed and wounded one-fifth of its number. This
Swamp Fight, as it was called, broke forever the strength of the
Narragansets, the tribe and its allies dispersing in all directions.

Goffe at Hadley.

[1676]

In 1676 central Massachusetts was again aflame. Lancaster was sacked and
burned, its inhabitants nearly all either carried captive or put to
death with indescribable atrocities. Mrs. Rowlandson, wife of the
Lancaster Minister, also her son and two daughters, were among the
captives. We have this brave woman's story as subsequently detailed by
herself. Her youngest, a little girl of six, wounded by a bullet, she
bore in her arms wherever they marched, till the poor creature died of
cold, starvation, and lack of care. The agonized mother begged the
privilege of tugging along the corpse, but was refused. She with her son
and living daughter were ransomed, after wandering up and down with the
savages eleven weeks and five days.

From Mrs. Rowlandson's narrative we have many interesting facts touching
the Indians' habits of life. They carried ample stores from Lancaster,
but soon squandered them, and were reduced to a diet of garbage, horses'
entrails, ears, and liver, with broth made of horses' feet and legs. The
liver they seemed to prefer raw. Their chief food was ground-nuts. They
also ate acorns, artichokes, beans, and various sorts of roots. They
especially delighted in old bones, which, being heated to drive out
maggots and worms, they first boiled for soup, then ground for use as
meal.

The captive lady often saw Philip. At his request she made a shirt and a
cap for his son, for which he paid her. Says Hubbard, "Such was the
goodness of God to these poor captive women and children that they found
so much favor in the sight of their enemies that they offered no wrong
to any of their persons save what they could not help, being in many
wants themselves. Neither did they offer any uncivil carriage to any of
the females, nor ever attempt the chastity of any of them." So soon as
negotiations were opened for Mrs. Rowlandson's release, Philip told her
of this, and expressed the hope that they would succeed. When her ransom
had arrived he met her with a smile, saying: "I have pleasant words for
you this morning; would you like to hear them? You are to go home
to-morrow," Twenty pounds were paid for her, raised by some ladies of
Boston, aided by a Mr. Usher.

Hostilities now bore southeastward. Philip was in his glory. All the
towns of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts were in terror, nearly
all in actual danger. At Medfield twenty whites were killed. Deserted
Mendon was burned. Weymouth was attacked, and eleven persons were
massacred in the edge of Plymouth. In Groton and Marlborough every house
was laid in ashes, as were all in lower Rhode Island up to Warwick, and
in Warwick all but one. Sachem Canonchet of the Narragansets drew into
ambush at Pawtuxet a band of Plymouth soldiers, of whom only one
escaped. Canonchet was subsequently taken by Captain Denison and
executed. Rehoboth lost forty houses, Providence nearly as many.

The Connecticut Valley was invaded afresh. Springfield, Hadley,
Northampton, and Hatfield were once more startled by the war-whoop and
the whiz of the tomahawk. Captain Turner, hearing of an Indian camp at
the falls of the Connecticut, now called by his name, in Montague,
advanced with a troop of one hundred and eighty horse, arriving in sight
of the encampment at daylight. Dismounting and proceeding stealthily to
within sure shot, they beat up the Indians' quarters with a ringing
volley of musketry. Resistance was impossible. Those who did not fall by
bullet or sword rushed to the river, many being carried over the falls.
Three hundred savages perished, the English losing but one man. A large
stock of the enemy's food and ammunition was also destroyed. Though so
splendidly successful, the party did not return to Hadley without
considerable loss, being set upon much of the way by Indians who had
heard the firing at the falls and sped to the relief of their friends.
Turner was killed in the meadows by Green River; his subordinate,
Holyoke, then commanding the retreat.

[1678]

Turner's victory brought the war to a crisis. The red men lacked
resources. The whites had learned the secrets of savage warfare. They
could no longer be led into ambush, while their foe at no time during
the war ventured to engage them in open field. Large parties of Indians
began to surrender; many roving bands were captured. Hostilities
continued still many months in Maine, the whites more and more uniformly
successful, till the Treaty of Casco, April 12, 1678, at last terminated
the war.

Hunted by the English backward and forward, Philip was at last driven to
his old home upon Mount Hope. Here Captain Church, one of the most
practised of Indian fighters, surprised him on the morning of August 12,
1676, encamped upon a little upland, which it is believed has been
exactly identified near a swamp at the foot of the mountain. By
residents in the neighborhood it is known as Little Guinea. At the first
firing Philip, but partially dressed, seized gun and powder-horn and
made for the swamp, Captain Church's ambush was directly in his front.
An Englishman's piece missed fire, but an Indian sent a bullet through
the Great Sachem's heart.

In this fearful war at least six hundred of the English inhabitants
either fell in battle or were murdered by the enemy, A dozen or more
towns were utterly destroyed, others greatly damaged, Some six hundred
buildings, chiefly dwelling-houses, were consumed by fire, and over a
hundred thousand pounds of colonial money expended, to say nothing of
the immense losses in goods and cattle.

Not without propriety has the Pokanoket chief been denominated a king.
If not a Charlemagne or a Louis XIV., he yet possessed elements of true
greatness. While he lived his mind evidently guided, as his will
dominated and prolonged, the war. This is saying much, for the Indian's
disinclination to all strenuous or continuous exertion was pronounced
and proverbial. Philip's treatment of Mrs. Rowlandson must be declared
magnanimous, especially as, of course, he was but a savage king, who
might reasonably request us not to measure him by our rules. The other
party to the war we have a right to judge more rigidly, and just
sentence in their case must be severe. Philip's sorrowing, innocent wife
and son were brought prisoners to Plymouth, and their lot referred to
the ministers. After long deliberation and prayer it was decided that
they should be sold into slavery, and this was their fate.

CHAPTER III.

THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT

[1675]

The home life of colonial New England was unique. Its like has appeared
nowhere else in human history. Mostwise it was beautiful as well. In it
religion was central and supreme. The General Court of Plymouth very
early passed the following order: "Noe dwelling-howse shal be builte
above halfe a myle from the meeting-howse in any newe plantacion without
leave from the Court, except mylle-howses and ffermehowses." In laying
out a village the meeting-house, as the hub to which everything was to
be referred, was located first of all. The minister's lot commonly
adjoined. Then a sufficiency of land was parcelled off to each
freeholder whereon to erect his dwelling. Massachusetts from the first,
and Plymouth beginning somewhat later, also made eminent provision for
schools--all in the interest of religion.

The earliest residences were necessarily of logs, shaped and fitted more
or less rudely according to the skill of the builder or the time and
means at his disposal. There was usually one large room below, which
served as kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor, and on the
same floor with this one or two lodging-rooms. An unfinished attic
constituted the dormitory for the rising generation. A huge stone
chimney, terminating below in a still more capacious fireplace, that
would admit logs from four to eight feet in length, conveyed away the
smoke, and with it much of the heat. This involved no loss, as wood was
a drug. Communicating with the chimney was the great stone baking-oven,
whence came the bouncing loaves of corn-bread, duly "brown," the
rich-colored "pompion" pies, and the loin of venison, beef, or pork.

Over these bounties--and such they were heartily esteemed, however
meagre--often as the family drew around the table, its head offered
thanks to the heavenly Giver. Each morning, after they had eaten, he
read a goodly portion of God's Word, never less than a chapter, and
then, not kneeling but standing, led his household in reverent and
believing prayer for protection, guidance, stimulus in good, and for
every needed grace. What purity, what love of rectitude, what strength
of will did not the builders of America carry forth from that family
altar! He who would understand the richest side and the deepest moving
forces of our national life and development must not overlook those New
England fireside scenes.

[1688-1700]

Prayers ended, the "men folks" went forth to the day's toil. It was
hard, partly from its then rough character, partly from poverty of
appliances. For the hardest jobs neighbors would join hands, fighting
nature as they had to fight the Indians, unitedly. Farming tools, if of
iron or steel, as axe, mattock, spade, and the iron nose for the digger
or the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did the
bake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs,
cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a few
may yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the village
carpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes.
Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and the
entire state of a New England farmer's home had become somewhat more
lordly than the above picture might indicate. The colonists made much
use of berries, wild fruits, bread and milk, game, fish, and shellfish.
The stock wandered in the forests and about the brooks, to be brought
home at night by the boys, whom the sound of the cow-bell led. In autumn
bushels upon bushels of nuts were laid by, to serve, along with dried
berries and grapes, salted fish and venison, as food for the winter.
Every phase and circumstance of this pioneer life reminded our fathers
of their dependence upon nature and the Supreme Power behind nature,
while at the same time the continual need and application of neighbor's
co-operation with neighbor brought out brotherly love in charming
strength and beauty.

But to old New England religion, as a clerical, public, and organized
affair, there is a far darker side. In the eighteenth century belief in
witchcraft was nearly universal. In 1683 one Margaret Matron was tried
in Pennsylvania on a charge of bewitching cows and geese, and placed
under bonds of one hundred pounds for good behavior. In 1705 Grace
Sherwood was ducked in Virginia for the same offence. Cases of the kind
had occurred in New York. There was no colony where the belief in
astrology, necromancy, second sight, ghosts, haunted houses and spots,
love-spells, charms, and peculiar powers attaching to rings, herbs,
etc., did not prevail. Such credulity was not peculiar to America, but
cursed Europe as well. It seemed to flourish, if anything, after the
Reformation more than before. Luther firmly believed in witchcraft. He
professed to have met the Evil One in personal conflict, and to have
vanquished him by the use of an inkstand as missile. Perhaps every land
in Europe had laws making witchcraft a capital crime. One was enacted in
England under Henry VIII., another in James I.'s first year, denouncing
death against all persons "invoking any evil spirit, or consulting,
covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any
evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in
any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise
hurting any person by such infernal arts." A similar statute was
contained in the "Fundamentals" of Massachusetts, probably inspired by
the command of Scripture, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This
law, we shall see, was not a dead letter.

No wonder such a law was of more effect in New England than anywhere
else on earth. The official religion of the Puritans was not only
superstitious in general but gloomy in particular, and most gloomy in
New England. Its central tenet, here at least, seemed to be that life
ought to furnish no joy, men seeking to "merit heaven by making earth a
hell." Sunday laws were severe, and rigidly enforced from six o'clock
Saturday evening till the same hour the next. Not the least work was
allowed unless absolutely necessary, nor any semblance of amusement.
Boys bringing home the cows were cautioned to "let down the bars softly,
as it was the Lord's day." Sunday travellers were arrested and fined.
Men might be whipped for absence from church. A girl at Plymouth was
threatened exile as a street-walker for smiling in meeting. Increase
Mather traced the great Boston fire of 1711 to the sin of Sunday labor,
such as carrying parcels and baking food. In Newport, some men having
been drowned who, to say good-by to departing friends, had rowed out to
a ship just weighing anchor, Rev. John Comer prayed that others might
take warning and "do no more such great wickedness."

Sermons were often two hours long; public prayer half an hour. Worse
still was what went by the name of music--doggerel hymns full of the
most sulphurous theology, uttered congregationally as "lined off" by the
leader--nasal, dissonant, and discordant in the highest imaginable
degree. The church itself was but a barn, homely-shaped, bare, and in
winter cold as out-of-doors. At this season men wrapped their feet in
bags, and women stuffed their muffs with hot stones. Sleepers were
rudely awakened by the tithing-man's baton thwacking their heads; or, if
females, by its fox-tail end brushing their cheeks. Fast-days were
common. Prayer opened every public meeting, secular as well as
religious. The doctrine of special providences was pressed to a
ridiculous extreme. The devil was believed in no less firmly than God,
and indefinitely great power ascribed to him. The Catechism--book second
in authority only to the Bible--contained of his Satanic Majesty a cut,
which children were left, not to say taught, to suppose as correct a
likeness as that of Cromwell, which crowned the mantels of so many
homes.