THE EXPLOIT OF MILES STANDISH.
“And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer’s wrist;
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
With wrinkled brows, with nods, and rolling eyes.”
SHAKSPEARE.
One short twelvemonth witnessed the birth and the death of Weston’s
colony. Its cradle was its grave. The Westonians, by their own
wickedness and folly, beckoned ruin and blood to be their guests. The
ears of the Pilgrims ached with listening to the Indians’ complaints
of their injustice and robberies. Not a day passed which did not
witness some woful scene of outrage.[397] Bradford and his coadjutors
talked themselves hoarse in denunciation; messengers ran themselves
footsore in carrying protests of warning, of expostulation, of
appeal.[398]
“Once,” says Cotton Mather, “in preaching to a congregation there,
one of the Pilgrims urged these settlers to approve themselves a
_religious_ community, as otherwise they would contradict the main
end of planting this wilderness; whereupon a well-known individual,
then in the assembly, cried out, ‘Sir, you are mistaken; you think
you are preaching to the people at Plymouth bay: our _main end_ was
_to catch fish_.’”[399]
The scoffers were soon to learn, under the bitter tuition of
experience, that fish are a slippery foundation for a colony to build
on—not so firm and sure as open Bibles and common schools.
The loose morality and vicious courses of their mischievous
neighbor-colonists caused the Pilgrims infinite trouble and unfeigned
grief. And now, in the midst of their anxiety on this account, a
report gave voice to the dangerous sickness of Massasoit;[400]
it was said that the great sagamore, who had been their faithful
friend, could not survive.[401] The Plymouth settlers were profoundly
sad; they were also somewhat alarmed, for Corbitant, their former
open foe, would, so they were told, clutch Massasoit’s sceptre and
wear his mantle on the chieftain’s death.[402] The Pilgrims at
once decided to send ambassadors to visit Massasoit, see if haply
something might not be done for him, and, in case of his decease, to
negotiate a new peace with the succeeding sachem.[403]
For this service Winslow and Habbamak were selected; and a gentleman
who had wintered in Plymouth, and who was desirous of seeing the
Indians in their wigwam-homes, Mr. John Hampden,[404] was, at his
urgent solicitation, permitted to bear them company.[405]
They set out at once, but had not gone very deep into the forest ere
some Indians, whom they met at a river-ford, told them that Massasoit
was dead. The envoys were shocked; and Habbamak began to wail forth
his chief’s death-song: “Oh, great sachem, Oh, great heart, with
many have I been acquainted, but none ever equalled thee.” Then
turning to his pale-face friend, he said, “Oh, Master Winslow, his
like you will never see again. He was not like other Indians, false
and bloody and implacable; but kind, easily appeased when angry, and
reasonable in his requirements. He was a wise sachem, not ashamed to
ask advice, governing better with mild, than other chiefs did with
severe measures. I fear you have not now one faithful friend left in
the wigwams of the red men.”[406] He would then break forth again in
loud lamentations, “enough,” says Winslow, “to have made the hardest
heart sob and wail.”[407]
But time pressed, and Winslow, bidding Habbamak “leave wringing of
his hands,” trudged on over the patches of snow, through the naked
forests shivering in the gusty winds of March, under the sullen
sky. Corbitant’s lodge was near; here it was hoped that fuller
intelligence might be gained. Corbitant was not at home, but his
squaw informed them that Massasoit was not yet dead, though he
could scarcely live long enough to permit his visitors to close his
eyes.[408]
Reinvigorated by this news, and persuaded that while there was
life there was hope, the envoys again pressed forward with eager
footsteps. Soon Massasoit’s wigwam was reached. A cordon of visitors
surrounded it; and so great was the crowd, that it was with
difficulty that the Pilgrims pushed through and gained an entrance.
“When they succeeded, they beheld a scene so repulsive and so
annoying as to be quite sufficient to banish whatever vitality the
sick sagamore might still possess. Not only was the lodge crammed
with filthy Indians, whose number effectually excluded all fresh air,
but the pow-wows were busied in yelling their magical incantations,
now rubbing the sick sachem, now wailing, now making frantic
gestures; so that, had the disease possessed intelligence and been
cognizant of what was taking place, it would have been effectually
frightened away. Six or eight ‘medicine-men’ were manipulating him at
once, and his ears were dinned with yells, when he should have been
perfectly quiet.”[409]
When the pow-wows had concluded their superstitious spells and
exorcisms, they told Massasoit that Winslow had come to visit him.
The sick Indian, turning on his skin couch, greeted the Englishman
kindly. Disease had almost choked him, and quite robbed him of
sight; he was indeed near death. Winslow at once conveyed the
assurance of the deep grief of the colonists at his sickness,
informed him that the pale-faces had sent physic for his restoration
to health, and offered himself to undertake the cure. These words,
being translated by Habbamak, the Indian at once and cordially
thanked Winslow, and accepted his good offices.[410]
The skilful Englishman, with a “confection of many comfortable
conserves,” soon worked a cure. The convalescent sagamore said, “Now
I know that the English are indeed my friends, and love me; while I
live I will never forget this kindness.”[411] Nobly did he keep his
word; for, after requesting “the pale-face medicine” to exercise his
skill upon others of his tribe, who were down with the same disease
which had laid him low, his gratitude was so warm that he disclosed
to the pale-face leech the fact that a wide-spread and well-matured
conspiracy was afoot to exterminate Weston’s colony, in revenge for
injuries heaped upon the Indians; that all the northeastern tribes
were in the league; and that the massacre was to cover the Pilgrims
also, lest they should avenge the fall of their neighbors. “A chief
was here at the setting of the sun,” added Massasoit, “and he told
me that the pale-faces did not love me, else they would visit me
in my pain, and he urged me to join the war party. But I said, No.
Now if you take the chiefs of the league, and kill them, it will
end the war-trail in the blood of those who made it, and save the
settlements.”[412]
Thankful to Massasoit for this disclosure, and profoundly impressed
with its importance, the envoys speedily bade the sagamore good-by,
and started for Plymouth. Reaching Corbitant’s lodge towards evening,
they decided to sleep with him. “We found him,” says Winslow, “a
notable politician, yet full of merry jests and squibs, and never
better pleased than when the like are turned again on him.”[413]
“If I were sick, as Massasoit has been,” asked he, “would Mr.
Governor send me medicine?”
“Yes,” said Winslow.
“Would you bring it?” queried Corbitant.
“Certainly,” was the reply.
At this the sachem was delighted. He resumed his questions.
“How did you dare to go so far into our hunting-grounds, with only
one pale-face and Habbamak?”
“Because,” said Winslow, “where there is true love, there can be no
fear; my heart is so upright towards the Indians, that I have no
cause to fear to go among them.”
“If you love us so much,” retorted the shrewd chief, “why is it that,
when we go to Plymouth, you stand on guard, and present the mouths of
your big guns at us?”
“Oh,” was the reply, “that’s the most honorable reception we could
give you. ’Tis the English way of saluting distinguished guests.”
“Ugh,” said Corbitant, with the peculiar Indian grunt and shrug,
“perhaps; but I don’t like such ways of shaking hands.”[414]
Having noticed that before and after each meal his guests offered
thanks, Corbitant asked them why they did it. “This led to a long
conversation upon the character and works of the great Father; on the
relations which his creatures sustain to him as their preserver and
constant benefactor, and the duties which all owe to him as such,
with which the chief seemed pleased. When the ten commandments were
recited, he approved of all save the seventh; he saw many objections
to tying a man to one woman.”[415]
“This,” says Banvard, “is a specimen of the manner in which the
Pilgrims endeavored to communicate religious truths to the minds
of their ignorant Indian neighbors. When among them, they observed
religious exercises at their meals; continued the practice of morning
and evening services; strictly regarded the Sabbath; and thus
provoked inquiries. Then, when opportunity was given, they imparted,
in a homely, familiar way, the elementary truths of the Bible.”[416]
After passing a pleasant night in Corbitant’s wigwam, the Pilgrims
resumed their journey, and after twenty-four hours’ walk reached
Plymouth.
They immediately imparted what they knew of the Indian plot to
the governor. Bradford summoned the settlers to deliberate. Upon
examination other evidence was found which corroborated Massasoit’s
disclosure; and even in the midst of this consideration, one of
Weston’s pioneers came in, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, “with a pack on his
back;” and “though he knew not a foot of the way, yet he got safe to
Plymouth by losing his way,” as he was pursued by the Indians, and
would have been caught had he travelled by the accustomed track.[417]
“He told us,” says Bradford, “how affairs stood at Wessagusset; how
miserable all were; and that he dare not tarry there longer, as, by
what he had observed, he apprehended those settlers would shortly be
all knocked in the head.”[418]
Startled by the imminence of the peril, Bradford at once despatched
Standish with a small squad of men to warn and succor the menaced
colonists. On reaching Wessagusset Standish boarded the “Swan,” which
lay moored in the harbor. Not a soul was on her. Surprised, the
Pilgrim captain fired his musket. Several colonists then ran down to
the shore. “How dare you leave your ship unguarded, and live in so
much security?” asked he. “Why,” was the reply of the colonists, who
were insensible of their peril, “we have no fear of the Indians, but
live with them, and suffer them to lodge with us, without ever having
a gun or sword, or ever needing one.”
“Well, well,” cried Standish, “if you have no occasion for vigilance,
so much the better.” He then went ashore. Pitiful was the situation
of the pioneers; four words paint the picture; filth, hunger,
disease, nakedness. “After they began to come into want,” remarks the
old Pilgrim chronicler, “many sold their clothes and bed-coverings;
others—so base were they—became servants to the Indians, and would
cut wood and fetch water for them, for a cup of corn; some fell to
stealing, and when they found the hiding-places where the natives
stored their corn, they despoiled them, and this night and day,
while the savages complained grievously. Now they were come to such
misery that some starved and some died of cold. One, in gathering
shell-fish, was so weak from hunger that he stuck fast in the mud,
and not being able to pull clear, he was drowned by the incoming
tide. Most had left their cabins and were scattered up and down
through the woods and by the water-side, here six and there ten,
grubbing for nuts and clams. By this carriage they were contemned
and scorned by the Indians as ‘pale-face squaws,’ and they insulted
over them right insolently; insomuch that many times, as they lay
thus scattered abroad, and had set a pot over a fire and filled it
with ground-nuts or shell-fish, when it was ready the natives would
come and, pushing them aside, eat it up; and at night the Indians,
to revenge their thefts, stole their blankets and left them to lie
all night in the cold. Yea, in the end, they were fain to hang one
of their own men, whom they could not reclaim from stealing, at the
dictation of the savages.”[419]
Standish at once assembled the leading colonists, and opened to them
his budget of news. The proposed massacre, the actors, all was laid
bare. As frightened now as they were blinded before, all besought him
to save them, and placed themselves in his hands. All stragglers were
called in and supplied from his stores, a pint of corn a day for each
man. This done, Standish began to dissemble; he wished to lure the
chiefs of the conspiracy into his clutches, and so fight guile with
guile.[420]
Though suspecting that their plot had been discovered, the Indians so
greatly despised the colonists that they came daily into Wessagusset,
uttering gibes and menaces loud and deep. They even ventured to
taunt Standish. One of the braves, Pecksuot, a bold fellow, but
a braggadocio, “went to Habbamak, who was with Standish as his
interpreter, and told him that he had been informed that the captain
had come to ‘kill him and his friends.’ ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘we know
it, but we neither fear him nor will we shun him; let him attack us
when he pleases, he will not surprise us.’”[421]
At other times the Indians would enter the plantation, and, in the
presence of the captain, sharpen their knives, feel their points,
and jeer. One of their chiefs, Witawamat, often boasted of the fine
qualities of his knife, on the handle of which was cut a woman’s
face; “but,” said he, “I have another at home with which I have
killed both French and English, and that hath a man’s face on it;
by-and-by these two must marry.”[422] Not long after, he said again,
holding up his knife, “By-and-by this shall see and eat, but not
speak,” in allusion to the muskets of the English, which always
reported their doings.[423]
Pecksuot was an Indian of immense muscular size and strength;
Standish was a small man. Once the brave said to the captain: “You
are a great officer, but a little man; and I am not a sachem, yet I
possess great strength and courage.”[424]
Standish quietly pocketed these insults, and awaited his chance.
It soon came. Pecksuot, Wetawamat, and two others, chiefs of the
conspiracy, were finally all entrapped in one cabin. Standish with
three comrades and Habbamak were also present. The door was secured
and a terrific death-grapple at once ensued. There were no shrieks,
no cries, no war-whoops. Nothing was heard save the fierce panting
of the combatants and the dull thud of the blows given and returned.
Habbamak stood quietly by, and meddled not. Soon the Englishmen were
successful; each slew his opponent, and Standish himself closing with
Pecksuot, snatched from the braggadocio’s neck his vaunted knife,
and plunged it into his foeman’s heart. One blow did not kill him;
frenzied and glaring, he leaped on Standish and tugged wildly at his
throat. The struggle was brief but awful, and Standish called his
whole skill into requisition to complete his victory. At length the
death-blow was dealt:
“See, his face is black and full of blood;
His eye-balls farther out than when he lived;
Staring full ghastly, like a strangled man;
His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling;
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tugged for life, and was by strength subdued.”[425]
After the tragedy was over, Habbamak said to Standish, while a smile
played over his swarthy features: “Yesterday, Pecksuot, bragging of
his strength and stature, said you were a great captain, but a little
man; but to-day I see that you are big enough to lay him on the
ground.”[426]
Standish did not pause for congratulation, nor did he care much for
it; knowing the value of promptitude, he at once headed a foray on
the neighboring Indian villages. Several skirmishes ensued; the
savages, beaten and terrified, retreated from morass to morass. The
conspiracy was buried with its originators; and many of the sachems
who had joined the league, Conacum, Aspinet, Iyanough, died from
diseases contracted in their headlong flight.[427]
This was considered the “capital exploit” of Miles Standish. It
struck such wholesome terror into the hearts of the surrounding
tribes, that, in connection with the uniform justice and kindliness
of the Pilgrims, it secured peace for half a century.[428]
The Westonians, discouraged and disgusted, resolved to break their
ranks and give up their settlement. Standish “offered to escort them
to Plymouth, and give them entertainment till Weston or some supply
should come,” says Bradford; “or if they liked any other course
better, he promised to help them all he could. They thanked him, but
most of them desired him to grant them some corn, then they would go
with their ship to the eastward, where, haply, they might hear of
Weston, or of some supply from him. That failing, since it was the
time of year for ships to frequent the fishing waters, they could
work among the fishermen till they could get passage into England. So
they shipped what they had of any value, and the captain gave them
all the corn he could—scarcely leaving himself sufficient to take
him home—and saw the colonists well out of the bay; then he himself
sailed back to Plymouth in triumph.”[429]
There the head of Wetawamat was impaled, and set up prominently in
the fort; and an Indian who had been sent in pursuit of that pioneer
who had first brought word to the Pilgrims of the condition of his
fellow-settlers, and had been himself captured, recognized it. The
Pilgrim Fathers were not revengeful; they did not love to shed blood;
so when Habbamak vouched for the friendship of this captive, he
was liberated, and sent home to tell his tribe that the colonists
loved peace, but that they could fight in case of need. Ere long the
offending red men sent peace-offerings into Plymouth, and sued for
and obtained amity.[430]
Bradford, Winslow, and the rest, kept their friends in England and
Holland as fully informed as possible of the daily history of the
colony; and of course so memorable an event as this conspiracy and
its suppression, received a profuse recital. When Robinson heard of
the rencontre, he wrote back these words, finely illustrative of his
character: “Oh, how happy a thing had it been, that you had converted
some before you killed any.”[431]
As for Weston’s colony, this was the last of it. Some of the better
of the pioneers went to Plymouth; others finally found their way
back to England. They had landed under far better auspices than the
Pilgrims. They were welcomed by fellow-countrymen, and sheltered
throughout the winter. They commenced their settlement in the summer,
when nature laughed, and the hill-sides were gay with flowers, and
the air sweet with the songs of birds. They possessed a ship. They
had been left competently provided in the wilderness. Yet they
were no sooner _settled_ than they were _unsettled_. Bankrupt and
starving, they sought safety in flight. This was the fate of a colony
whose “main end was to fish,” which was founded on no higher law than
the greed of gain.
“‘Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public,’
observed the childless Lord Bacon, with complacent self-love,
‘have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men.’ Weston’s
company, after having boasted of their strength as far superior to
Plymouth, which was enfeebled, they said, by the presence of women
and children, yet owed their deliverance to the colony that had many
women, children, and weak ones, with them.”[432]
Thus it should seem that weakness is sometimes strength. Ethics
are better buoys than numbers. Devout weakness is always stronger
than self-complacent and impious strength. Justice and a helpful
hand—these are the palladiums.
“Too happy were men, if they understood
There is no safety but in doing good.”[433]