THE PEQUOD WAR, AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN CAROLINA,
GEORGIA, AND PHILADELPHIA.
WE left the New England colonies on the eve of the first great Indian
war, which originated in the jealousy of the Pequods――a fierce race
living between the Narragansetts and Mohegans of New England and the
Iroquois of the East――at the sudden influx of foreigners into the
fertile districts of Connecticut. Although, strictly speaking, it is
scarcely within our province, we will give an outline of this terrible
struggle, affording, as it does, a typical example of the general
policy pursued toward each other by the natives and settlers in the
New World.
As early as 1634, a Captain Stone had been murdered, with all his
crew, off Fort Good Hope, a Dutch outpost of Connecticut; and in the
two years which followed, aggressions and robberies on the part of
the Pequods were of frequent occurrence. The crisis was not reached,
however, until 1636, when our old friend, Captain Oldham, fell a
victim to the fury of the Indians. The details of this second tragedy
will never be known, and it is more than possible that the outrage may
not have been altogether unprovoked, the captain having been a man of
hasty temper, disposed to carry matters with the natives with a very
high hand.
Oldham was last seen alive starting in a vessel of his own on a
trading excursion up the Connecticut River, and a little later a
fisherman named Gallop, at work on Block Island, caught sight of the
boat drifting out to sea, crowded with Indians, who were evidently
at a total loss how to manage their capture. In a moment Gallop,
accompanied by one man and two boys, started in pursuit; the vessel
was boarded, and, without pausing to inquire into the rights of the
matter, the four newcomers laid about them right and left, till the
Indians were driven off, leaving many of their number dead or dying
on the deck.
This summary vengeance inflicted, Gallop looked about him for its
justification, and found Oldham and his men lying in their own blood,
covered with ghastly wounds. The news of their death spread like
wildfire far and near; and though, to the calm judgment of lookers-on,
reconciliation with the Pequods still seemed possible to those who
were exposed to a fate such as that which had overtaken the Puritan
captain, nothing short of the extermination of the whole tribe of the
offenders appeared to meet the necessities of the case. The colonial
leaders, however, observed the forms of civilized warfare, and, before
a blow was struck, formally demanded the yielding up of the murderers
of Stone and Oldham, with the restitution of all property stolen from
the whites. As we know, those who had slain Oldham had most of them
shared his fate. Evasive answers were returned as to the murderers of
Stone and the stolen property, and it appeared evident that nothing
could be accomplished by negotiation.
In August, 1636, hostilities commenced by the dispatch to Block Island
of one hundred men, under the command of John Endicott of Salem, whose
orders were that he should kill all the Pequod warriors he met with,
but spare their women and children. A landing was effected on Block
Island in the midst of a shower of arrows, and a fierce struggle
ensued, in which only one Englishman was wounded. The Indians were
hopelessly defeated, and fled into woods and fields of the island,
where they were soon overtaken by the English, who put them to death
without mercy. Not content with this wholesale slaughter, Endicott
also burned two villages of sixty wigwams each, the stacks of maize in
the course of being harvested, and all the standing corn, so that the
unlucky Pequods who had escaped the sword would be compelled either to
starve or to flee their country.
The massacre of Block Island over, Endicott repaired to the mainland,
where dwelt the warriors who had murdered Stone. Halting at the mouth
of the Pequod River, now the Thames, the English leader sent a message
to the natives, demanding that Sassacus, their chief, should be
sent to him immediately; and when no answer was returned, the attack
was begun. As on Block Island, the natives fell an easy prey to the
well-armed white men; and having slain all he found, and burned their
villages, Endicott set sail for Boston, where he arrived safely, after
an absence of one month only.
Illustration: JOHN ENDICOTT.
Thanksgivings were held in all the churches, in gratitude for the
“signal mercy” which had preserved the little band of avengers, of
whom two only had been left behind, in their terrible work; but that
work had in reality only begun. The unhappy survivors of the “signal
mercy,” driven to bay, had joined the inland members of their tribe,
and the tale of the two massacres at which Endicott had presided
roused a deadly enmity against the whites throughout the length and
breadth of Pequod land; nay more, even the Narragansetts and the
Mohegans, who had long since sworn allegiance to the English, and were
the bitter foes of the Pequods, began to show signs of making common
cause with the sufferers. Had they done so, the very existence of
the colonies would have been in peril, and the history of the United
States of America might never have begun.
It was our old friend, Roger Williams, who saved from extermination
the brethren who had cast him out from among them. More familiar
than any other emigrant with the ways of the Indian, he read the
signs of the times truly, and determined, at whatever risk to
himself, to prevent the coalition of the Pequods with the Mohegans
and Narragansetts. To quote his own account of the matter――“The
Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hand, and, scarce
acquainting my wife, to ship myself, all alone, in a poor canoe, and
to cut through a stormy wind with great seas, every minute in hazard
of life, to the sachem’s (the Narragansett chief’s) house. Three days
and nights,” he adds, “my business forced me to lodge and mix with
the bloody Pequod ambassadors (come to agree on the terms of alliance
against the whites), whose hands and arms, methought, reeked with the
blood of my countrymen.”
At the end of the three days Williams had effected his purpose, and,
instead of an alliance with the Pequods, the Narragansetts had made
a new treaty with the English. The Mohegans followed their example,
and, their forces augmented by many a dusky warrior, the white men of
Connecticut, under Captain John Mason, shortly sallied forth once more
against the common foe, their destination this time being the chief
stronghold of the Pequods, a fort near the present town of Stringbow,
on the Pawcatuk River. The fort was surprised at night, and though the
Indians fought with desperate courage, and at one time seemed likely
to be victorious, they were finally overwhelmed. Their wigwams were
then set on fire, and six hundred men, women, and children perished in
the flames. The morning broke on a scene of terrible misery; yet the
cup of Pequod disaster was not yet full. As the English, who had again
lost but two men, were resting from their horrible night’s work, six
hundred native warriors were seen advancing proudly toward the ruins
of their homes.
Arrived within sight of their desolate village, the unhappy Pequods
are said to have paused for one moment in silent agony, and then, with
a yell of rage and despair, to have swept down upon the invaders, many
of whom were slain in the first onslaught, though the final result
to the Pequods was but a repetition of previous struggles. All but
a little remnant were slain without mercy, and, returning red-handed
to Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut, the victors were joined
by a number of recruits from Massachusetts, whose arrival had been
delayed by the excitement caused in the parent colony by the expulsion
of Anne Hutchinson for heresy.
Thus reënforced, the Connecticut settlers hunted the survivors of the
original owners of the soil down like beasts of prey. Their chief,
Sassacus, fled in his despair to the Mohawks, who betrayed his trust
by murdering him, and sending his scalp to the English; and in July,
1637, five months after the beginning of the war, the last scene of
the long tragedy took place in a swamp where stands the modern town
of Fairfield. Three hundred Pequod warriors were there surrounded,
and while many were slain and some few escaped, two hundred were taken
prisoners alive. In spite of their eager entreaties for death, the
unhappy men were sent, some of them to the Bermudas as slaves, and
the remainder dispersed among the Mohegans and Narragansetts, to be
to them “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
While the Pequod war was still in progress, a fresh colony arrived at
Boston from England, including John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton,
men of wealth and social station, whom the Massachusetts authorities
would gladly have retained among them. There were, however, now no
good lands to spare for new-comers near the old settlements, and it
was absolutely necessary for them to seek some other home. At the
close of the war, therefore, Eaton and Davenport led their little band
into Connecticut, where a tract of land, south of the settlement of
Saybrook, had been already purchased for them of the native chief for
“twelve coats of English cloth, twelve alchemy spoons, twelve hatchets,
twelve hoes, two dozen knives, twelve porringers, and four cases of
French knives and scissors.”
Originally called Quinniack, or Quinnepaca, the new settlement shortly
received the name of New Haven, and grew with a rapidity hitherto
unknown in colonial annals. From among its wealthy members, one after
another went forth to found new towns in its neighborhood, until, in a
very short time, Connecticut was colonized all along the shore and far
inland. This great movement was further supplemented by the constant
arrival of new recruits, alike from the mother country and the elder
colonies of Massachusetts, and we soon find the English pushing their
outposts as far south as the Hudson, gradually displacing the Dutch,
and again driving the Indians to desperation. In 1643, the settlements
in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut formed that league,
under the title of the United Colonies of New England, for mutual
protection against the Dutch, French and Indians, which may be looked
upon as the opening of the first chapter of the political history
of the United States; but for the continuation of that history we
must refer our readers to the many volumes on the subject already
in existence. Our task being to trace the gradual opening up of
new districts, we must leave the infant federation to fight out its
battles, alike with its European neighbors, the schismatics within
its own borders, and the true owners of the disputed territories,
unwatched by us. We return once more to the South, to find the
districts between Virginia and Florida occupied under the name of
Carolina, so-called in honor of Charles IX. of France, by a few
non-conformists from England and Virginia, who had gathered about the
promontory aptly named Cape Fear (N. lat. 33° 48′) where they hoped
to work out their own salvation, free from the temptation of the world
they had renounced. Their expectations were, as a matter of course,
disappointed. After the English Restoration, Charles II. re-asserted
his claim to that part of America long known under the general name
of South Virginia, and granted the fertile districts between Albemarle
Sound (N. lat. 35° 59′), and the river St. John (N. lat. 30° 23′), to
eight of his favorite noblemen, the terms of concession making them
absolute sovereigns within the limits named.
The result of this arbitrary proceeding was a mighty influx of
emigrants, from every part of Great Britain and its dependencies,
to the fruitful lands which had long been claimed as their exclusive
property by the Spaniards. The original proprietors were literally
crowded out by “gay cavaliers” and rapacious planters, who soon made
the very name of white man hateful in the ears of the unfortunate
Indians. Under the governorship of the terrible Seth Sothel, a man
whose name will live forever as that of the most infamous of many
reckless rulers of Carolina, the natives were hunted down on every
side, and sold as slaves to West Indian planters, while those among
the emigrants who retained any reverence for the human or divine had
their feelings outraged at every turn.
Not until the 18th century was considerably advanced did the
Carolineans obtain any relief from this terrible state of things.
Petition after petition was sent to the mother country by the unhappy
sufferers, setting forth how the Indians were “assaulted, killed,
destroyed, and taken” under the sanction of the law; how even the
clergy openly led the most dissolute lives, etc., etc. The breaking
out of an Indian war in 1715 seems to have been the first thing to
arouse the home authorities to the dangers threatening their vast
possessions in the West. The revolt was crushed with an iron hand, the
survivors of the natives taking refuge in the swamps of Florida, and
in 1721, George I. consented to take the government of Carolina into
his own hands.
A few years later, the lands granted to the eight noblemen by Charles
II. were bought up by the Crown for some £28,000; and from that time
the colony grew rapidly in prosperity and importance, extending its
settlements as far south as the Savannah river, across which went
forth pioneers into the state afterward called Georgia, in honor of
the English monarch, long before the first body of emigrants from the
mother country landed on its shores. Thus, as New England and Virginia
may be said to have been the parents of Carolina, the new-born colony
became in its turn the founder of the infant community of Georgia. It
was in 1732 that this, the youngest but one of the original thirteen
states of the Union, was first settled by a colony from England, under
the leadership of the now famous Oglethorpe, who, like John Eliot in
the North, made it his chief object to conciliate the Indians.
Soon after the arrival of the emigrants from Europe, Oglethorpe
succeeded in bringing about a congress between the so-called Creek
Indians and the English, near the site of the modern Savannah, at
which meeting peace was solemnly made between the dark warriors and
their pale-faced guests. This treaty between the Creek Indians and the
whites was succeeded by one with the Cherokees dwelling on the north
of the new settlements, and as a policy of a similar kind was pursued
with regard to religious refugees from other English settlements,
Georgia shortly became a kind of harbor of refuge for all who were
suffering in mind, body or estate. Its progress in worldly prosperity,
though slow, was sure; and, when the treaty of 1763 concluded a war
of triumph for the English, it had extended its limits far away to the
South, the West, and the North-west, in spite of many a bloody contest,
now with the Spanish, and now with the various Indian tribes in the
West.
Illustration: WILLIAM PENN.
We have now accounted for the first appearance of the white man in
all the districts of North America bordering on the Atlantic seaboard,
and are free to turn our steps inland, joining, as our first hero in
this new field, the great Quaker, William Penn. He was the founder
of the “Keystone State,” which forms the connecting link between the
first French settlements on the Great Lakes and those of the Dutch and
English in the United States.
It was in 1681, after a stormy career in England, that Penn first
turned his attention to the New World, and obtained from the English
Crown, in lieu of a large sum of money due to him from it, a grant
of an extensive tract of land, encroaching alike on the boundaries of
New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It was included between the 40th
and 43d degrees of north latitude, and was bounded on the east by the
Delaware, already connected with so many thrilling memories.
Determined, with that rigid sense of honesty which characterized his
sect, to appropriate nothing unfairly, Penn, before he started himself,
sent out agents to purchase from the Indians the land upon which he
proposed settling; and all things being thus prepared for his advent,
he set sail from England, arriving at Newcastle, on the Delaware, in
October, 1682. Here he was most enthusiastically received, his fame
as a sufferer for righteousness’ sake, and as an eager philanthropist,
having preceded him.
A day of general rejoicing was succeeded by a solemn leave-taking of
the colonists, and then, embarking on the broad waters of the Delaware,
Penn made what resembled a royal progress from one station to another,
till he came, toward the end of November, to the borders of his
own dominions. His first act on landing in Pennsylvania, as the new
districts had already been christened, was to hold a solemn meeting
with the Indian chiefs, and make with them that treaty of peace which
was followed by such excellent results for his people. Beneath a large
elm tree at Shackamaxon, on the site of the modern Kensington, the
sons of the forest, hitherto accustomed to very different treatment
from the white man, awaited the approach of him whom they looked upon
as a messenger from the Great Spirit in awe-struck silence. As Penn
approached, the oldest sachem rose and bade him welcome, adding that
the nations of the Delaware were ready to listen to his words.
“We meet,” replied Penn, as he stood a little in advance of the chief
of his colonists, “on the broad pathway of good works and good will;
no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness
and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide
their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ.
The friendship between you and me I will not compare to a chain, for
that the rains might rust, or a falling tree break. We are the same
as if one man’s body were divided into two parts; we are all one flesh
and blood.”
This speech, which has become historical, and is proudly quoted in
every account of the founding of Philadelphia, appealed direct to the
very hearts of those to whom it was addressed. Here, at last, was one
who owned true fellowship with them, who would feel as they felt, who
would protect them, and, better still, whom they themselves could aid.
Again their spokesman stood forth, and, in the name of every tribe,
from the Schuylkill and the Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Juniatta,
replied, “We will live in love with Father Onas (the native name given
to Penn) and his children, as long as moon and sun shall endure.” The
treaty between the two parties was then signed, the Indians adding the
emblem of their tribes to the names of the white men; presents were
exchanged, and the solemn scene was at an end. We may add, however,
that the peace thus cemented was, unlike most compacts with the sons
of the soil, preserved inviolate as long as the Quakers ruled in
Pennsylvania, and to it was mainly due the unexampled rapidity of the
growth of the new settlement.
Illustration: PENN’S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS.
Penn’s next care, after his interview with the Indians, was to call
together the emigrants――the greater number of whom were of his own
religious persuasion――and present them with their constitution,
framed so as to insure alike political and religious freedom; a fact
resulting in the flocking to his settlement of persecuted members of
every sect from the New England and Virginia colonies. In January,
1683, the foundations were laid, on the west bank of the Delaware
and at the mouth of the Schuylkill, of that fair town, now the second
in importance in the Union, called Philadelphia, or the “City of
Brotherly Love,” the streets of which were named after the groves of
chestnut, pine, and walnut trees through which they ran.
Before the end of its first year, the infant city contained eighty
houses, and four years after its foundation it numbered 2,000
inhabitants. As the years rolled on, and the mineral and agricultural
wealth of the western districts of Pennsylvania became more and more
fully revealed, town after town sprang up within its boundaries. In
the beginning of the 18th century, we find John Harris founding the
beautiful Harrisburg, under a grant from Penn, in the midst of the
magnificent scenery on the left bank of the Susquehanna, and though
the French and Indian war which broke out in 1754 checked for a moment,
as it were, the laying out of new cities, the now flourishing town of
Pittsburg rose on the site of Fort Duquesne, at the junction of the
Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, as soon as the victory of Forbes in
1758 established the power of the British.
Illustration: THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR.
In 1774, the quarrels between the mother country and her now mighty
American colonies――of which the most thrilling incidents were the
Stamp Act riots of Boston in 1768, and the revolt against the payment
of the tea dues in the same city in 1773, when the boys of Boston,
disguised as Indians, flung the cargoes of tea into the sea to prevent
the payment of the tax――resulted in the War of Independence, during
which, strange to say, took place those first explorations of Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Ohio which were to add so greatly to the power of the
American Union about to be formed. But before we join the pioneers
of the new era of discovery in the West, we must turn once more to
the South, to bring our account of the work of the French down to the
important date we have reached in the history of their English rivals
in the East.
Illustration: INDIAN ORNAMENTS.