kept--and seized them. Then, when all were passed to the waiting
braves, the Sachem crept over to the sleeping Captain Stone, and, with
one swift blow, brained him with his hatchet. Immediately his followers
rushed to the small room where the crew were peacefully eating, and,
aiming at them through the window, shot at those who were nearest. All
leaped to their feet and made a rush for the door in order to grapple
with their assailants. Three lay groaning upon the floor, as the rest
rushed upon the vindictive savages who, using their knives and spears,
cut at the sailors with cruel vengeance. A desperate struggle commenced.
The whites and Pequots struggled back and forth upon the narrow deck,
which now grew slippery with blood. More than one savage was knocked
overboard, but, as they outnumbered the crew, it was plainly evident
that the outcome of the struggle would be in their favor. Suddenly,
a loud report was heard. The decks flew asunder from the force of an
explosion below. The splitting timbers belched outwards upon the blue
waters of the quiet stream, and, with a muffled roar, both red men and
white were shot into the water. Some clung to the wreckage, some hung
on to the canoe and boats, as--in lurid flames and black smoke--the
remains of the little schooner were burned to the water's edge. But,
although hurled into the water, most of the Pequots escaped, were
picked up by their companions, and paddled back in the canoes and
ship's boats to complete the massacre. When night came, only a few
charred timbers, floating upon the surface of the Connecticut, were
left to mark the scene of the tragedy.
This was in 1633, when the Puritans were well established at Plymouth
and Boston, and were continually pushing into the interior to find
good farm lands. Sassacus was Chief Sachem of the warlike Pequots,
and, in spite of this massacre, sent a messenger to the Governor of
Massachusetts--in the year following--to gain his friendship and
alliance. His emissary brought two large bundles of sticks with him
and a large quantity of wampum. "I will give as many skins of the
beaver and otter as I send pieces of wood," was the message which King
Sassacus sent to the Chief Executive of Massachusetts, "and I wish your
friendship and allegiance. Will you sign a treaty with me?"
"I return you a fine moose-skin coat," answered the Governor to this
request, "but I cannot make a treaty with you unless you send proper
warriors for me to treat with, and enough of them. Furthermore, your
men have murdered Captain Stone, my friend, and I can make no peace
with you until you deliver to me the Pequots who killed him and his
men."
Sassacus was a warrior of high renown. He had twenty-six sachems, or
war captains, under his control, and could muster--at any time--seven
hundred warriors. His residence was upon the Atlantic, at Groton,
Connecticut, and near the Mystic River he had a splendid stronghold,
situated upon a verdant eminence, which gradually descended to the
waters of the sparkling stream. He and his men looked upon the English
as intruders, who had no right to come to the soil of Connecticut. But,
as the intrepid Sassacus had warred with the Dutch at New York, so that
they had cut off his trade with them, he wished to now gain the good
will of the English, near Boston. The Pequots were men of the utmost
independence of spirit and had conquered most of the smaller tribes
lying around them. They called these people whom they captured "women"
and "cowards."
"Your Captain Stone took two of our men," said the emissary from
Sassacus. "He detained them by force and made them pilot him up the
river. The Captain and the crew then landed, taking the guides on
shore, with their hands bound behind them. The Pequots next fell upon
the white men and killed them. The vessel, with the remainder of the
crew, was blown up, I do not know why, nor wherefore."
This was a pretty good story, and as the Governor of Massachusetts
could not substantiate his own side, he was inclined to believe it, for
he had no means of proving its falsity. So a treaty was concluded, with
the following terms:
I. The English to have such land in Connecticut as they needed,
provided they would make a settlement there; and the Pequots to render
them all the assistance that they could.
II. The Pequots to give the English four hundred fathoms of wampum,
forty beaver and thirty otter skins, and to surrender the two murderers
whenever they should be sent for.
III. The English to send a vessel immediately, to trade with them, as
friends, but not to fight them, and the Pequots would give them all
their custom.
Having signed this document, the emissary from Sassacus and his
companion started back on their five days' journey to the habitation
of their Chief. But, unfortunately for them, the Pequots were then at
war with the Narragansetts, and a party of about two hundred and fifty
warriors of the latter tribe had come as far as Neponset (the boundary
between Milton and Dorchester) for the avowed purpose of waylaying
and killing the two Pequots on their way home. Learning of this, the
Governor sent an armed force to request a visit from these Narragansett
braves, and two Sachems--with about twenty men--obeyed the summons.
"We have been hunting around the country," said they, "and came to
visit the Indians at Neponset, according to old custom. We meant no
harm to the Pequots. They can go home in safety." And they kept good
this promise, so that the two Pequots made their return trip in perfect
security.
For two years white settlers moved into Connecticut, and took up farms
in the most fertile places. But the Indians were soon unfriendly. An
Englishman named Oldham, who had been trading in Connecticut, was
murdered by a party of Block Island braves, several of whom were
said--by the frontier settlers--to have taken refuge among the Pequots,
who gave them ample protection. When the Governor of Massachusetts
heard of this, he was exceedingly wroth, for Oldham was a resident of
Dorchester and was a friend of his. So, ordering Captain Endicott of
the State Militia to appear before him, he said:
"I commission you, good sir, to put to death the redskins of Block
Island, with ninety of our soldiers. Spare the women and children,
but bring them away and take possession of the Island. Then go to the
Pequots and demand the murderers of Captain Stone, Oldham, and other
Englishmen who have been killed, and one thousand fathom of wampum for
damages. Also get some of their children as hostages, which, if they
refuse, you must take by force."
Endicott was not long in starting upon his mission, and soon had
captured Block Island and burned the villages of the natives. He then
sailed for Pequot Harbor, where a warrior of the army under Sassacus
came out in a canoe to demand who the intruders were. The River Thames,
where now the rival crews of Yale and Harvard struggle for supremacy
on the water, emptied into this harbor, and upon either bank were the
homes of the Indians.
"I wish to see Sassacus, your Chief," said Endicott.
"He has gone to Long Island," the Indian replied.
"Then I wish to speak with the next in authority," continued the leader
of the Massachusetts troops, "and I wish to have the murderers of
Oldham given up to my care."
The Pequot brave did not reply and paddled to the shore, followed
by the English troops, who landed and stood--fully armed--a short
distance from the beach. The Indians in numbers gathered around them,
but the head Sachem did not put in an appearance. "He will come," said
the fellow who had been in the canoe, "if you English will lay down
your arms. We will, at the same time, leave our bows and arrows at a
distance."
But Endicott grew angry at this, as he believed it to be a pretext for
gaining time. "Begone, you Pequots," he thundered. "You have dared the
English to come and fight you, and we are ready." The Indians withdrew
to a short distance, and then the leader of the whites ordered his men
to advance. A shower of arrows poured upon them, as they did so, but
the English discharged a hot volley which killed several and wounded
fully twenty of the redskins. At this they fled, while the troops
pressed on to their village and burned it to the ground.
At night the little army returned to the five ships which had brought
them, and next day they went ashore upon the west side of the river
and burned all the wigwams and smashed all the canoes of the Pequots'
families who lived upon the bank of the Thames. The Indians shot at
them from behind rocks and trees, but their arrows did little damage,
and so, with the loss of not a single man, the troops set sail for
Boston. "They came home all safe," says a historian, "which was a
marvelous providence of God, that not a hair fell from the head of any
of them, nor were there any sick or wounded in the little army."
Sassacus was now infuriated with the whites. In retaliation for this
attack upon his people, he ordered war upon the white settlers of
Connecticut. The forts and settlements of the English were assaulted
in every direction. No boat could pass up and down the Connecticut
River in safety. The hard-working farmers could neither hunt, fish,
nor cultivate their lands. People went armed to their work in the
fields and to church on Sunday, while a guard was stationed outside
the meeting houses during service. At the mouth of the Connecticut
River, the English had a fortification, called Fort Saybrook. In
October five of the garrison were surprised and killed, as they were
carrying in some hay from a field near by. Not long afterwards several
vessels were captured, and the sailors were tortured by the Pequots.
Saybrook Fort was besieged, the outhouses were burned, and the few
cattle that were not killed often came in at night with the arrows of
the Pequot warriors sticking in their sides. Early in March four of
the garrison were caught outside the walls of the fort and massacred,
while a horde of red warriors surrounded the stockade on all sides,
challenging the English to come out and fight in the open, mocking them
with catcalls, groans, hisses, and imitations of the screams of those
whom they had captured, and boasting that the Pequots would soon drive
all the English into the sea. They would often rush up to the gate in
the endeavor to gain an entrance, but a discharge of grapeshot from a
cannon made them retreat into the timber.
It is said that a Puritan, or a New Englander, is slow to anger, but
once get him aroused and he will fight as no other man can fight
on earth. This is what put an end to Sassacus. For when the savage
marauders threatened Agawam (Springfield), Hartford and Windsor, and
carried off several women from Wethersfield, the Massachusetts colony
sent an army of ninety men to Saybrook Fort, commanded by Captain John
Mason, an experienced and able soldier. A body of Mohegan Indians,
under Uncas, joined them here, for they were unfriendly to Sassacus, as
he and his savage Pequots had often killed the members of this tribe.
They were to prove of little value in the campaign, but their presence
added a spirit of confidence to the English soldiers.
At the head of the Mystic River, where now is the thriving town of
Stonington, Connecticut, Sassacus had his principal fortification. It
was really a large Indian town, surrounded by a stout palisade, and was
crowded with men, women and children. Mason decided to attack it, but,
being a good soldier, determined to throw the watchful Pequots off his
scent. He, therefore, first sailed down to the Pequot (Thames) River,
and pretended to land at its mouth. The savages were closely watching
him, and when, instead of landing, he bore away to the southward and
coasted along the Narragansett Bay, the natives thought that he was in
retreat. "Ugh! Ugh!" said the warriors. "He little heart. He no fight!
We brave men. We can beat all the English in the country!"
But Mason was a shrewd campaigner, and dropping anchor at a point in
the bay, where he was protected from the prying eyes of the Pequot
scouts, he lay to for some time, and then landed his soldiers through
the heavy surf which was then raging. Marching inland, he stopped at
a fort of the friendly Narragansetts, under Canonicus and Miantonomo,
who were cold and distrustful, saying: "We doubt that such a small
body of you English can carry the strong palisades of Sassacus. But
we will help you when you advance upon them tomorrow." Mason had so
little confidence in the word of these allies that he surrounded the
fort, that evening, with a strong guard, fearing that the Indians would
betray his approach to the Pequots.
Next day the little army of white soldiers pushed on through the woods
in the direction of the great Pequot stronghold, where the followers
of Sassacus were resting in fancied peace and security. It was a hot
day--the 25th of May--and the warriors were much oppressed by their
heavy armor breastplates and the weight of their ponderous flintlocks.
They forded the Pawcatuck River and camped at a place called Porter's
Rocks, at the head of the Mystic River, which was but two miles from
the Pequot encampment. Scouts crept near the palisades that evening,
and heard the sounds of songs and laughter within, for the redskins
were having a big feast. Perfectly unconscious of the peril that
lurked so near them, some of the braves were boasting that the English
had fled without striking a blow to avenge the death of thirty white
settlers whose scalps hung in the wigwams of the Pequot braves. They
danced, sang, and caroused until late in the night.
Mason passed among his men, and said: "Sleep lightly. Arouse yourselves
at the first flush of dawn. When you strike the Indians, fight like
bloodhounds. Give no quarter, for they have given no quarter to our
people."
Deep sleep hung over the Indian camp, as at daybreak the Puritan army
started for the stockade. Guided by Uncas--the Mohegan chief--and
Wequash, a Pequot who had turned traitor to his tribe, they were soon
led to the outskirts of the sleeping village. A hush of deep quiet
hung over the habitations of Sassacus and his people. Robins piped
from the trees. Song-sparrows trilled from the verdant underbrush,
and the flute-like call of thrushes came from the depth of the wood,
now beautiful with the fresh green of early spring. It hardly seemed
possible that scenes of dreadful carnage would soon be enacted in the
midst of this quiet beauty, but silently and cautiously the men with
iron breastplates surrounded the circular stockade. Behind them, their
Indian allies formed a circle, but advanced with no show of courage
or enthusiasm. The garrison slept peacefully on, when suddenly a dog
barked, and a Pequot warrior, leaping to his feet in alarm, cried out,
"Owanux! Owanux!"--"Englishmen! Englishmen!"
In front of Mason was a barricade of brush heaps at one entrance to
the village. Opposite this was another opening, and, as the stout
yeomen rushed in one doorway, led by Mason, an equal body penetrated
the other, cheered on by Underhill. The Pequot braves seized their
bows and arrows in a vain endeavor to stem the onslaught, while the
women and children--in terror--endeavored to hide themselves beneath
anything that would cover them, or to escape between the lines and
gain the protection of the forest. Hoarse cries rose in the misty air.
Muskets crashed, children screamed, and, with exultant war whoops, the
followers of Uncas shot their arrows into the Pequots, who huddled
together like sheep, in confusion and dismay. "We must burn them!"
shouted Mason, now full of the heat of battle, and seizing a glowing
brand from some smouldering ashes, he thrust it between the sticks of a
wigwam. In a moment the mats, with which it was covered, were alight,
and the tepee blazed upwards in smoke and fire. Many soldiers followed
his example, so that soon the yelling mass of warriors were surrounded
by black smoke and curling flames.
In an unyielding circle, the English pressed in upon the Pequot
braves. The flames crackled, women shrieked, children cried, and above
the rattling of the firearms sounded the vindictive yelping of the
followers of Uncas. Seventy wigwams were soon black in smoke, while
fully five hundred Pequots were struck down as they endeavored to get
past the line of the Puritan troops. The broad swords of the soldiers
thrust this way and that with terrible ferocity. Back, back, they
pressed the cringing and desperate redskins, who again and again threw
themselves upon the ranks of the Puritans in a vain endeavor to get
through to the safety of the forest. Sassacus, himself, was not there,
but his people were receiving an awful chastisement for attacking the
peaceful settlers of Connecticut. They battled desperately for their
lives. They strove manfully to penetrate the cordon of steel which
pressed in upon them, but it was in vain. Within an hour's time fully
six hundred of them lay dead or dying upon the sod, while only seven
escaped and seven were taken captive.
News of the disaster was quickly brought to Sassacus, who, fortunately
for himself, was in the next Pequot stronghold, some miles distant.
Dispatching immediately three hundred warriors to the scene of carnage,
they pursued the English very closely for six miles, on their march
to their ships, which had sailed to the mouth of the Pequot (Thames)
River. The Narragansett warriors who had come on with Mason's men had
already deserted. Uncas and his Mohegans still remained faithful, and
helped to carry the wounded back to the ships. Underhill protected
the rear of the white army as it retreated, and, according to his own
account, killed and wounded near a hundred of the ferocious Pequots,
who burned to avenge the slaughter of the morning. A third of Mason's
men were used up from wounds or exhaustion, but all arrived safely at
the ocean side, where not only were the ships, but also a reinforcement
of forty men from Boston. Before night closed in, all were on board and
safe from the attacks of the Pequots, who shook their fists at them
from the shore and yelled vindictively at them, as the white sails
filled in the gentle breeze.
The war was not over by any means. All through the summer skirmishes
were had with the Indians. Uncas and his Mohegans, with a few English,
were scouring the shores near the sea for the purpose of cutting off
stragglers, when they came upon a Pequot Sachem and a few of his men,
not far from the harbor of Guilford, Connecticut. They pursued them,
and, as the south side of the harbor is formed by a long neck of land,
the Pequots went out upon it, hoping that their pursuers would pass
by. But Uncas, who saw the stratagem, ordered some of his Mohegans to
give chase, which the enemy observed and so jumped into the water and
swam over to the mouth of the harbor. There they were captured by the
English soldiers, who ran around to head them off. Uncas, himself, is
said to have shot the chief sachem with an arrow, to have cut off his
head, and set it in the crotch of a large oak tree near the water. The
skull remained here for many years, and thus the name of Sachem's-Head
has ever since been given to this beautiful harbor.
A large number of the Pequots now deserted Sassacus to his fate and
took refuge among the Indians of New York. Some even threatened
to destroy him for bringing down upon them the anger of the white
settlers, and nothing but the entreaty of his chief counsellor
prevented him from being killed by his own people. Realizing that he
could no longer hold his own against the whites, he destroyed his fort,
and, with several hundred of his best men, retreated towards the Hudson
River. To kill or capture him was the main object of the Colonists,
and, two captured Pequots having had their lives spared on condition
that they would guide the English to him, a good-sized force now pushed
on towards the retreating members of the once powerful Pequot tribe.
At last the Indians were overtaken near Fairfield, Connecticut, and a
fierce fight took place in a swamp. The red men fought with the courage
of despair, and sixty or seventy succeeded in forcing their way through
the ranks of their assailants; but about two hundred were captured.
Sassacus, himself, escaped. Those Pequots who had not been slain were
hunted like wild beasts by the other Indians of the Narragansett and
Mohegan tribes, and weekly their heads were brought in to Windsor
and Hartford. Finally, the entire tribe was obliterated, and the few
remaining braves were permitted to live with those tribes which they
had called "cowards" and "women."
Sassacus was driven from swamp to swamp, by night and by day. Even his
own men hunted him and endeavored to take his life. One Pequot who was
freed by the English, on condition that he would find and betray this
great chief, finally succeeded in finding him. Creeping upon him in
one of his solitary camps, he was about to fire his musket, when he
was overcome by the majestic look of the great Sachem. "I could not
pull the trigger," he told the English, "for my chief looked like all
one God. I could not touch a hair of his head." Thus the once powerful
redskin escaped and fled to the Mohawks in New York, where he arrived
with five hundred pounds of wampum and several of his best captains and
bravest men. But here there was to be no peace for the fugitive. He
and his men were treacherously murdered by a party of warlike Mohawks,
and his scalp sent to Connecticut as a present to the English. A lock
of his hair was soon carried to Boston, where it was exhibited in a
window upon the streets, as a sure proof of the death of this once
powerful enemy to the whites.
Uncas--the Mohegan ally of the Connecticut settlers--continued to live
at peace with the Colonists, although granting nearly all his land away
for a very small consideration. Thus, in 1641, he gave away several
thousand acres for the possession of four coats, two kettles, four
fathoms of wampum, four hatchets and three hoes. In 1659 he gave all
his lands, with all his corn, to his old comrade and friend, Major John
Mason, with whom he had stormed the Pequot fort on the Mystic. He lived
to be a very old man, and a remnant of his tribe still exists today
near Norwich, Connecticut, and are the only natives still lingering
upon the soil of the state.
Sassacus defied the English and was exterminated. Uncas befriended
them and lived a peaceful existence. Of the two, he led the more quiet
life, but one cannot but admire the fierce, fighting spirit of Sassacus
and regret that he met such a miserable end. No direct descendants of
either now exist, for, upon an old Indian gravestone at Mohegan, a
genial carver has left the following inscription:
"Here lies the body of Sun-seeto
Own son to Uncas, grandson to Oneko,
Who were the famous Sachems of Mohegan:
But now they are all dead.
I think it is Werheegen" (which means "all is well"
or "good news" in the Mohegan language).
Certainly, the whites were glad to see the race exterminated. It left
the country to their own civilization, and they developed it according
to their own desires. Now brick and wooden houses, great factories, and
roaring mills stand where the red men once had their thin wigwams; and
where they once battled furiously with the stout Colonists, jangling
trolley cars rush by in cheerful indifference to the dim records of
history.
MASSASOIT: THE GREAT SACHEM OF THE WAMPANOAGS
AND FRIEND OF THE PURITANS
While the English were gradually settling their plantations on the
James River in Virginia and were encroaching upon the land held by the
Indians, other Englishmen, driven from home by religious persecution,
and wishing to found a colony in the newly discovered country, had
crossed the blue Atlantic to the rocky shore of Massachusetts, where
they had landed, built their log houses, and had begun to wrest a
living from a stern and unproductive soil. They were Pilgrims and were
of a religious sect called Puritans, which was most unpopular in their
native country. All were men of sturdy, vigorous natures.
These adventurers first went ashore upon the fifteenth day of November,
and a few walked up and down until the sun began to draw low, when they
hastened out of the woods in order that they might enter their boat
which was drawn up upon the beach. By the time that they reached it, it
was nearly dusk, so, after setting a watch, those who had landed lay
down to rest.