Read Ebook: The boys' book of Indian battles and adventures with anecdotes about them by Blake Alexander Vietts Dubious Author Blake John Lauris Dubious Author

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ho showed a willingness to be placed under his care. His application was successful; and the Indians, having received a grant of land on which they might build a town, and enjoy the Christian instruction which they desired, met together, and gave their assent to several laws which he had framed, to enforce industry and decency--to secure personal and domestic comfort.

The ground of the town having been marked out, Eliot advised the Indians to surround it with ditches and a stone wall; gave them instruments to aid these objects, and such rewards, in money, as induced them to work hard. It was a strange and novel thing to see these men of the wilderness, to whom a few months previous all restraint was slavery, and their lakes and forests dearer than the palaces of kings, submit cheerfully to this drudgery of bricks and mortar--chief as well as serf; the very hands that were lately red with slaughter, scooping the earth at the bidding of Eliot, from morn to night. He soon had the pleasure of seeing Nonanetum completed.

The progress of civilization which followed, was remarkable for its extent and rapidity: the women were taught to spin, and they soon found something to send to the nearest markets all the year round: in winter they sold staves, baskets, and poultry; in spring and summer fish, grapes, strawberries, &c.

In the mean while, he instructed the men in husbandry, and the more simple mechanical arts: in hay-time and harvest, he went forth into the fields with them. All this was not done in a day, for they were neither so industrious nor so capable of hard labour as those who had been accustomed to it from early life.

AN INDIAN FUNERAL AT NONANETUM.

LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.

Captain John Lovewell, of Dunstable, raised a volunteer company and met with great success. At one time he fell in with an Indian trail and pursued it till he discovered them asleep on the bank of a pond. They were all killed, and their scalps, stretched upon hoops, served to decorate their triumphal return. They, of course, received the bounty, which amounted to ten pounds.

Lovewell, having augmented his company to 46 men, again set out with the intention of attacking an Indian town on the Saco. They built a fort on the Great Ossapy pond, and then proceeded, leaving one of their number sick, and eight men to guard the fort.

When about 22 miles from the fort they rested on the banks of a pond, where they discovered a single Indian at a distance, on a point of land, and rightly judging that he was attached to a large party of Indians, Lovewell determined to advance and attack them. Accordingly the whole company threw off their packs in one place among the brakes; and, to gain the advantage, the men were spread so as partially to surround the water. Lovewell had, however, mistaken the position of the Indians, who were already on his track, and coming to the place where the packs were deposited, by counting them discovered the number of English to be less than their own. They, therefore marched to assault the English in the rear, and actually hemmed them in between the mouth of a brook, a rocky point, a deep bog, and the pond. The company, completely surrounded, fought desperately till nightfall, when the Indians, tired of the conflict, moved off. The number of killed and wounded amounted to 23, Lovewell being among the former. The remainder of the party returned to the fort which had been deserted, in consequence of the arrival of one of Lovewell's men who fled at the beginning of the fight, and reported all the rest killed. After resting, they started for home, where they arrived, to the great joy of their friends, after enduring the severest hardships. The survivors were liberally compensated, and the widows and families of the slain were provided for by the government of the province.

COTTON MATHER'S ACCOUNT OF THE INDIANS OF HIS TIME.

"These shiftless Indians," says Mather, "their housing is nothing but a few mats tied about poles fastened into the earth, where a good fire is their bed-clothes in the coldest season: their diet has not a greater dainty; a handful of meal and a spoonful of water being their food for many days; for they depend on the produce of their hunting and fishing, and badly cultivated grounds: thus they are subject to long fastings. They have a cure for some diseases, even a little cave: after they have terribly heated it, a crew of them go and sit there with the priest, looking in the heat and smoke like so many fiends, and then they rush forth on a sudden, and plunge into the water: how they escape death, instead of getting cured, is marvellous; they are so slothful, that their poor wives must plant, and build, and beat their corn. All the religion they have is a belief in many gods, who made the different nations of the world, but chiefly in one great one of the name of Kicktan, who dwelt in the south-west regions of the heavens, who created the original parents of mankind, who, though never seen by the eye of man, was entitled to their gratitude, that we have in us immortal souls, which, if good, should go to a splendid entertainment with Kicktan; but, otherwise, must wander about in a restless horror for ever."

THE VALIANT OLD MOHAWK.

On one occasion, when Count Frontignac succeeded in capturing a Mohawk fort, it was found deserted of all its inhabitants except a sachem in extreme old age, who sat with the composure of an ancient Roman in his capitol, and saluted his civilized compeer in age and infirmity, with dignified courtesy and venerable address. Every hand was instantly raised to wound and deface his time-stricken frame and while French and Indian knives were plunged into his body, he recommended to his Indian enemies rather to burn him with fire, that he might teach their French allies how to suffer like men. "Never, perhaps," says Charlevoix, "was a man treated with more cruelty; nor ever did any endure it with superior magnanimity and resolution."

OPECHANCANOUGH'S LAST WAR.

Opechancanough was by no means backward in taking advantage of the repose afforded by the treaty of 1632. For the long period which elapsed between its conclusion and his final effort, in 1644, he was industriously occupied in making preparations for a renewal of hostilities. An opportunity at length presented itself for executing his long-cherished purpose. The colony was involved in intestine dissensions. An insurrection had taken place in consequence of the unpopularity of the governor, and at a moment when the people were occupied with internal disorders and heedless of danger from without, their great enemy struck a powerful and almost fatal blow.

He was now advanced to extreme old age, being supposed to have numbered nearly a hundred years, but the powers of his mind were still so vigorous, that he was the leading spirit of a confederacy embracing all the Indian tribes distributed over a space of country six hundred miles in extent. Unable to walk, he was borne in a litter to the scene of action and thus led his warriors to the attack. Such was the skill with which his measures had been concerted that the whole force of the Indians commenced their operations upon the entire line of the frontier at the same instant of time, with the intention of carrying a war of extermination down to the sea, and thus annihilating the colony at a single blow. In two days, five hundred persons had fallen in the massacre. Of course, every operation of industry was instantly abandoned, and all who were able to bear arms were embodied to oppose so terrible an invasion. Governor Berkeley, at the head of a chosen force, consisting of every twentieth man in the colony, marched into the enemy's country, and thus gave him the first check. Of the details of the campaign, in consequence of the confusion and distress prevailing at the time, no details are furnished by the contemporary historians. Beverly's account, the only one which survived the ravages of the time, is meagre and unsatisfactory. One result of the war, however, is sufficiently well attested, since it terminated the horrors of the season. This was the capture of the aged Opechancanough, who was surprised and taken prisoner by a squadron of horse under the command of Governor Berkeley, who forthwith conducted him in triumph to James-Town.

It was the governor's intention to have sent this remarkable person to England; but he was shot after being taken prisoner, by a soldier, in resentment of the calamities he had inflicted on the province. He lingered under the wound for several days, and died with the pride and firmness of an old Roman. Indignant at the crowds who came to gaze at him on his deathbed, he exclaimed; "If I had taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have exposed him as a show to the people." Perhaps he remembered that he had saved the life of Captain Smith, and forgot the numberless instances in which he had exposed other prisoners to public derision and lingering torture.

After the decease of their great enemy, the colonists had no difficulty in concluding a treaty with the Indians, which gave tranquillity to the province for a long term of years.

THE BURNING OF SCHENECTADY.

The incursions of the Indians on our frontiers in early times were usually the result of Spanish influence in the South, or French influence in the North. The French reduced the incitement of Indian hostilities to a complete system, and their officers and soldiers were not ashamed to accompany the savages in their murdering and marauding expeditions into New England and New York. Among all the recorded instances of this kind, none appears to have been attended with more atrocious circumstances of cruelty and rapine, than the burning of Schenectady. This affair is marked by many traits of the very worst description. The inhumanity of murdering in their beds the very people who had formerly relieved their wants, is, perhaps, without a parallel.

In 1690, Count de Frontignac, governor general of Canada, sent out three expeditions against the American colonies. The first of these proceeded against Schenectady, then a small village, situated on the Mohawk river. This party, after wandering for twenty-two days through deserts rendered trackless by snow, approached the village of Schenectady in so exhausted a condition, that they had determined to surrender themselves to the inhabitants as prisoners of war. But, arriving at a late hour on an inclement night, and hearing from the messengers they had sent forward that the inhabitants were all in bed, without even the precaution of a public watch, they exchanged their intention of imploring mercy to themselves, for a plan of nocturnal attack and massacre of the defenceless people, to whose charity their own countrymen had once been so highly indebted. This detestable requital of good with evil was executed with a barbarity which, of itself, must be acknowledged to form one of the most revolting and terrific pictures that has ever been exhibited of human cruelty and ferocity. Dividing themselves into a number of parties, they set fire to the village in various places, and attacked the inhabitants with fatal advantage when, alarmed by the conflagration, they endeavoured to escape from their burning houses. The exhausted strength of the Frenchmen appeared to revive with the work of destruction, and to gather energy from the animated horror of the scene. Not only were all the male inhabitants they could reach put to death, but women were murdered, and their infants dashed on the walls of the houses. But either the delay caused by this elaborate cruelty, or the more merciful haste of the flames to announce the calamity to those who might still fly from the assassins, enabled many of the inhabitants to escape. The efforts of the assailants were also somewhat impeded by a sagacious discrimination which they thought it expedient to exercise. Though unmindful of benefits, they were not regardless of policy: and of a number of Mohawk Indians who were in the village, not one sustained an injury. Sixty persons perished in the massacre, and twenty-seven were taken prisoners. Of the fugitives who escaped half naked, and made their way through a storm of snow to Albany, twenty-five lost their limbs from the intensity of the frost. The French, having totally destroyed Schenectady, retired loaded with plunder from a place where, we think, it must be acknowledged that even the accustomed atrocities of Indian warfare had been outdone.

REMARKABLE CUSTOM OF THE NATCHES.

The Natches were a very considerable nation; they formed several villages, that were under some peculiar chief, and these obeyed one superior of the whole nation. All these chiefs bore the name of suns; they adored that luminary, and carried his image on their breasts, rudely carved. The manner in which the Natches rendered divine service to the sun has something solemn in it. The high-priest got up at break of day, and marched at the head of the people with a grave pace, the calumet of peace in his hand. He smoked in honour of the sun, and blew the first mouthful of smoke towards him; when he rose above the horizon, they howled by turns after the high-priests, and contemplated it with their arms extended to heaven. They had a temple in which they kept up an eternal fire.

So proud were these chiefs, who pretended to trace their origin to the sun, that they had a law, by which every Natchez, who had married a girl of the blood of the suns, must follow her in death, as soon as she had breathed her last. There was an Indian, whose name was Etteacteal; he dearly loved a daughter of one of these suns, and married her; but the consequence of this honour had nearly proved very fatal to him. His wife fell sick: he watched over her day and night, and with many tears he besought her not to die, and they prayed together to Wachil, or the sun, that he would spare her life; at last he saw her at the point of death, and then he fled: for the moment she ceased to breathe, he was to be slain. He embarked in a piragua on the Mississippi, and came to New Orleans. He put himself under the protection of M. de Bienville, the then governor, who interested himself for him with the Natches; they declared that he had nothing more to fear.

Etteacteal, being thus assured, resolved to return to his nation; and, without settling among them, made several voyages thither; he happened to be there, when the chief called the Stung Serpent, brother to the head of the nation, died; he was a relation of the late wife of Etteacteal, and the people resolved to make the latter pay his debt, and arrested him. When he found himself in the hut of the grand chief of war, he gave vent to the excess of his grief.

The favourite wife of the deceased Stung Serpent, who was likewise to be sacrificed, and who saw the preparations for her death with firmness, hearing the complaints and groans of Etteacteal, said to him, "Art thou no warrior?" he said, "Yes, I am one." "However," said she, "thou criest, life is dear to thee; and as that is the case, it is not good that thou shouldst go along with me--go with the women." Etteacteal replied, "True, life is dear to me: it would be well if I walked yet on earth; wait, O wait till the death of the great sun, and I will die with him." "Go thy way," she said, "it is not fit that thou die with me, and thy heart remain behind on earth; the warriors will obey my word, for now, so near to the Spirit of life, I am full of power: go away, and let me see thee no more." He did not stay to have this order repeated; he disappeared like lightning. Three old women, two of whom were his relations, offered to pay his debt; their age and their infirmities had disgusted them with life, none of them had been able to walk for a great while; but the hair of the two that were related to Etteacteal, was no more grey than that of young women; the third was a hundred and twenty years old; they were sacrificed in the evening, at the going down of the sun.

Moved by these words, a noble woman came to join herself to the favourite wife, of her own accord, being engaged, she said, by the friendship she bore the Stung Serpent, to follow him into the other world. The Europeans called her the Haughty Lady, on account of her majestic deportment, and proud and beautiful features: on this account the French officers regretted very much her resolve, and strove to dissuade her from it, but in vain: the moving sight filled them all with grief and horror.

PONTIAC.

Great as were many of the western Indian warriors, none was greater than Pontiac, a chief whose fame was not only spread throughout America, but widely diffused in Europe. He was the chief of all the Indians on the chain of lakes: the Ottawas, to which he belonged, the Miamis, Chippewas, Wyandots, Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, Shawanese, Ottagamies, and Mississagas, all of which tribes afterwards were led by Tecumseh. Pontiac is said to have possessed a majestic and princely appearance, so pleasing to the Indians, and this in part accounts for his popularity among them.

THE IDOL OF THE PEORIAS.

"We arrived at the village of the Peorias, allies of the Illinois, through a fine large meadow, which is many leagues long. This village is situated on the banks of a little river, and surrounded with great pales and posts: there are many trees on the banks, and the huts are built beneath them. When we arrived there, I inquired for the hut of the grand chief: I was well received by him and his first warriors. They had just been beaten by the Foxes, their mortal enemies, and were now holding a consultation about it. A young Indian lighted the calumet of peace; then they brought me a dish of maize flour, called sagamit?, sweetened with the syrup of the maple-tree; and afterwards a dessert of dry fruits, as good as Corinth raisins. The next day I saw a great crowd in the plain: they were for making a dance in favour of their new Manitou; the high priest had a bonnet of feathers, like a crown, on his head. I was at the door of the temple of their false deity; he begged me to go in. Judge of my astonishment, for this is the picture of their Manitou: his head hung upon his breast, and looked like a goat's; his ears and his cruel eye were like those of a lynx, with the same kind of hair; his feet, hands, and thighs were in form something like those of a man.

"The Indians found him in the woods, at the foot of a ridge of mountains, and the priests had persuaded them to adopt him for a divinity. This general assembly was called, to invoke his protection against their enemies. I let the Indians know that their Manitou was an evil genius; as a proof of it, I said that he had just permitted the nation of Foxes, their most cruel enemies, to gain a victory over them, and they ought to get rid of him as soon as possible, and be revenged on him. After a short time, they answered, 'Hou? nigei?, tinai lab?,'--'we believe thee, thou art in the right.' They then voted that he should be burnt; and the great priest, after some opposition, pronounced his sentence, which, according to the interpreter's explanation, was in these terms: 'O thou, fatal to our nation, who has wrongfully taken thee for her Manitou! thou hast paid no regard to the offerings which we have made thee, and hast allowed our enemies, whom thou dost plainly protect, to overcome us; therefore our old men, assembled in council, have decreed, with the advice of the chief of the white warriors, that to expiate thy ingratitude towards us, thou shalt be burnt alive.' At the end of this sentence, all the assembly said, 'Hau, hau,' which signified 'yes.'

"As I wished to get this monster, I went to the priest, made him a small present, and bid my interpreter tell him that he should persuade his countrymen, that if they burnt this evil genius, there might arise one from his ashes that could be fatal to them; that I would go on purpose across the great lake, to deliver them from it. He found my reasons good, and got the sentence changed, so that it was strangled. I got it instantly dissected, in order to bring it to France, where its skeleton is now in the cabinet of natural history of M. de Fayolles. The assembly dispersed, and returned to their village by the river side. In the evening you might see them sitting in groups at their doors, and on the shore, with many fires made of the branches of the trees, whose light was on the water and the grove; while some of them danced the dance of war, with loud shrieks, that were enough to strike an awe into the heart."

DEATH OF A MOHAWK CHIEF.

MURDER OF MISS MACREA.

Mr. Jones, an officer of the British army, had gained the affections of Miss Macrea, a lovely young lady of amiable character and spotless reputation, daughter of a gentleman attached to the royal cause, residing near Fort Edward; and they had agreed to be married. In the course of service, the officer was removed to some distance from his bride, and became anxious for her safety and desirous of her company. He engaged some Indians, of two different tribes, to bring her to camp, and promised a keg of rum to the person who should deliver her safe to him. She dressed to meet her bridegroom, and accompanied her Indian conductors; but by the way, the two chiefs, each being desirous of receiving the promised reward, disputed which of them should deliver her to her lover. The dispute rose to a quarrel; and, according to their usual method of disposing of a disputed prisoner, one of them instantly cleft the head of the lady with his tomahawk. This simple story, sufficiently tragical and affecting in itself, was blazoned in the American newspapers with every amplification that could excite the imagination or touch the heart; and contributed in no slight degree to embitter the minds of the people against those who could degrade themselves by the aid of such allies. The impulse given to the public mind by such atrocities more than counterbalanced any advantages which the British derived from the assistance of the Indians.

AN INDIAN IN COLLEGE.

The first serious disappointment which John Eliot, the Indian Apostle, experienced, was in his efforts for the instruction of the Indian youth in the classic languages; many of the ablest and most promising among them were set apart for this purpose; his ambition was to bring them up "with our English youth in university learning." Where was the use of this? Eliot's best purposes were prone to be carried to excess. He gave away a whole year's salary, at a wretched cottage, while his wife was probably expecting it at home for household demands. He had learned his Indians to read and write; many could read English well; and now he wished to give them a polite education, that must have sat as gracefully on them as the full-sleeved gown and bands of the divine. Considerable sums were expended in their board and education: a substantial building of brick, which cost between three and four hundred pounds, was erected; it was large enough to accommodate twenty scholars. It must have been Spartan discipline to the heads as well as hearts of the poor Indians, to labour morn and night through the Greek and Roman authors, to try to discover and relish the beauties of style and the splendour of imagery. No doubt, their thoughts sometimes fled away to their deserts, where their fathers roved in dignity and freedom, and books never came. The design might be praiseworthy, but Providence did not smile upon it, most of these young men died when they had made great proficiency in their studies, as if the languages wore out their hearts; others abandoned their books, even when they were prepared to enter Harvard College, in the town of Cambridge; their patience was probably exhausted, and the boon of literary dignity could lure them no further. A few of these, passing from one extreme to the other, burst their bonds at once; and as if mind and body panted together to be free, hastened back to the wilderness again, into its wigwams and swamps; where neither Homer nor Ovid was like to follow them.

"These circumstances proved very discouraging to the godly in New England," says a contemporary. "Some were so far affected by them, as to conceive that they were manifest tokens of the Divine disapprobation. Mr. Eliot, however, whose faith was more vigorous, considered them merely as trials, to which they ought to submit without reluctance." In consequence of the death and failure of those who entered the aforesaid building, it was soon after chiefly occupied by the English. Only one of these Indian students appears to have obtained his degree at Harvard College; and at the conclusion of two Latin and Greek elegies, which he composed on the death of an eminent minister, subscribed himself "Cheesecaumuk, Senior Sophista." What an incongruous blending of sounds!

Eliot at last saw his error, and, instead of the classics, applied with fresh ardour to his more useful translations, of which the circulation was so rapid, that he printed a fresh edition of the "Practice of Piety." He also soon after established a lecture at Naticke, in which he explained the leading doctrines of theology and logic: here he was on safe ground, and his labours were eminently useful. During the summer months they assembled eagerly once a fortnight, and many of them gained much knowledge; yet he was far from being satisfied with his oral instructions, and he printed a thousand copies of a logic primer, and made little systems of all the liberal arts, for the use of the Indians. The same minds that had pined and sunk beneath the study of the classic tongues, embraced these things with ardour.

AN INDIAN WARRANT.

Judge Davis, in his Appendix to the Memorial, observes, that the employment of the more intelligent and energetic Indians as rulers, was particularly grateful to them. He had often heard of amusing anecdotes of the Indian rulers. The following warrant is recollected, which was issued by one of these magistrates, directed to an Indian constable, and will not suffer in comparison with our more verbose forms.

'I, Hihoudi, you Peter Waterman, Jeremy Wicket, quick you take him, fast you hold him straight you bring him before me, Hihoudi.'

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

This gentleman figures, in the early history of our country, as the most strenuous promoter of colonization, the most wise founder, and the most active governor, of colonies. In New England he acted as discoverer and settler; in Virginia he sustained both these characters, as well as that of the most efficient and able governor of the first permanent colony. When he landed upon the soil, he was a private citizen; but the misgovernment of others soon made it necessary to call him to the office of governor.

Under his directions James-Town was fortified by such defences as were sufficient to repel the attacks of the savages; and, by dint of great labour, which he was always the foremost to share, the colonists were provided with dwellings that afforded shelter from the weather, and contributed to restore and preserve their health. Finding the supplies of the savages discontinued, he put himself at the head of a detachment of his people, and penetrated into the country; and by courtesy and liberality to the tribes whom he found well disposed, and vigorously repelling the hostilities of such as were otherwise minded, he obtained for the colony the most abundant supplies.

In the midst of his successes he was surprised on an expedition, by a hostile body of savages, who, having succeeded in making him prisoner, after a gallant and nearly successful defence, prepared to inflict on him the usual fate of their captives. His eminent faculties did not desert him on this trying occasion. He desired to speak with the sachem or chief, and, presenting him with a mariner's compass, expatiated on the wonderful discoveries to which it had led, described the shape of the earth, the vastness of its lands and oceans, the course of the sun, the varieties of nations, and the singularity of their relative positions, which made some of them antipodes to the others.

With equal prudence and magnanimity he refrained from all solicitations for his life, which would only have weakened the impressions which he hoped to produce. The savages listened with amazement and admiration. They had handled the compass, and viewing with surprise the play of the needle, which they plainly saw, but found it impossible to touch, from the intervention of the glass, this marvellous object prepared their minds for the reception of those vast impressions by which their captive endeavoured to gain ascendency over them.

For an hour after he had finished his harangue, they seem to have remained undecided; till their habitual sentiments reviving, they resumed their suspended purpose, and, having bound him to a tree, prepared to dispatch him with their arrows. But a stronger impression had been made on their chief; and his soul, enlarged for a season by the admission of knowledge, or subdued by the influence of wonder, revolted from the dominion of habitual ferocity. This chief was named Opechancanough, and destined at a future period to invest his barbarous name with terror and celebrity. Holding up the compass in his hand, he gave the signal of reprieve, and Smith, though still guarded as a prisoner, was conducted to a dwelling where he was kindly treated, and plentifully entertained. But the strongest impressions pass away, while the influence of habit remains.

After vainly endeavouring to prevail on their captive to betray the English colony into their hands, they referred his fate to Powhatan, the king or principal sachem of the country, to whose presence they conducted him in triumphal procession. The king received him with much ceremony, ordered a plentiful repast to be set before him, and then adjudged him to suffer death by having his head laid on a stone and beat to pieces with clubs. At the place appointed for this barbarous execution, he was again rescued from impending fate by the interposition of Pocahontas, the favourite daughter of the king, who, finding her first entreaties disregarded, threw her arms around the prisoner, and declared her determination to save him or die with him. Her generous affection prevailed over the cruelty of her tribe, and the king not only gave Smith his life, but soon after sent him back to James-Town, where the beneficence of Pocahontas continued to follow him with supplies of provisions that delivered the colony from famine.

ANECDOTES OF KING PHILIP'S WAR.

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