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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ANECDOTES OF KING PHILIP'S WAR.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR.

In the year 1674, the number of Eliot's towns and settlements, in which industry, comfort, good order, and the best instruction, were established, amounted to more than twelve, when an unforeseen event happened, that threw a cloud over all his prospects. This was the war in which the colonists of New England were involved with Philip, son of Massasoit, the celebrated chief, and, for the last years of his life, the firm friend of the English. "O, thou sword of the wilderness, when wilt thou be quiet?" says Mather, forgetful that it was bared by the aggressions of the settlers, as well as by the fierce and restless spirit of the Indian prince. Ever since the foundation of the colonies, the former had conducted themselves, says more than one divine of the period, with great kindness to their heathen brethren. The truth of this assertion is very doubtful. The missionary took no part in the disputes, save to urge his countrymen to forbearance and peace. "We, the poor church of Naticke," he writes to them, "hearing that the honoured rulers of Plymouth are pressing and arming of soldiers to go to war with the Indians, do mourn greatly on account of it, and desire that they may not be destroyed, because we have not heard that they have done any thing worthy of death. It is your duty to offer, accept, and desire peace, and we pray you, for God's sake, and for your souls' sake, obey this word; we long to hear of a happy peace, that may open a clear passage for the gospel among that people." Simple as these words are, they unfold an affection on the part of the missionary and his converts, for those who had few claims on their regard; for Philip, and most of his chiefs, had sternly rejected all persuasions to Christianity. But Eliot was not of the sentiment of another divine, who rejoiced in the rejection of the proposals by the Indians, that "this thing was of the Lord." He saw only on one side an exquisite jealousy, roused by many wrongs, a heart burning with vindictive feelings; on the other, a sordid ambition, an unhallowed love of glory. It was a source of sorrow, that the torch of discord was first kindled by one of his own people. In the end of the year 1674, John Seusoman, a converted Indian, after having apostatized from the faith, devoted himself to the service of Philip, as secretary. He informed the English that his countrymen had resolved to adopt measures for their destruction. "He could write," says the historian, "though the king, his master, could not read."

This renegade, fearing the consequences of what he had done, returned to the protection of the settlers, and was soon after slain by two of the Indian captains. The English arrested the perpetrators of the deed, and, on a trial by jury, finding them guilty, they were executed. Philip was alarmed at the condemnation of his counsellors, and, conscious that he had given cause for suspicion, resolved to be the first in the field. He had probably long waited for an opportunity. Rash, headstrong, and vindictive, with the courage but not the talents of his father, Massasoit, the slow and artful aggressions of the settlers stung him to the quick. He began to gather his warriors around his dwelling-place, at the strong forts near the Naraganset river; he received the accession of several other tribes. In the mean time, it was said, strange sights and sounds foreboded, in many parts of the colonies, the woes that were near; the singing of bullets, and the awful passing away of drums in the air; invisible troops of horses were heard riding to and fro; and in a clear, still, sunshiny morning, the phantoms of men, fearfully flitting by! Philip, heedless of omens and dreams, sent away the women and children, and took his stand on Mount Hope, a low and beautiful eminence, on which was his strongest fort. Ere matters came to a fatal extremity, and all the evils of war were let loose on his settlements, Eliot did his utmost to turn them aside; he saw that many of his people would inevitably be involved with one party or the other. His town of Pakeunit was very near Mount Hope; he had visited the latter during the life of Massasoit, and though he felt not the same regard or esteem for his son, a friendly intercourse had subsisted between them. His applications to the colonists for peace being fruitless, he resolved to try them also on the former.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN ELIOT AND PHILIP.

A few miles only distant, the encampment of the Indians around their Mount was distinctly visible from Pakeunit; and Eliot, with two or three of his people, went to have an interview with the chieftain. Philip respected his character, though he disliked his proceedings, for he had always treated his mission with contempt and slight; among the warriors, however, both of his own and other tribes, were many who had heard Eliot preach, and had received him beneath their roof. The interview was without any success; the spirit of the Indian was made up to the desperate struggle, and all that could be done was to beseech him to spare the settlements of the converts.

The contrast between the two men must have been sufficiently striking. Philip was in the prime of life, with a frame nerved by early hardship, and the usages of savage warfare, in which he was very expert; he was dressed like his chiefs, save that he wore a silver-laced tunic, or coat, and that his arms were more rich; his chief ensign of dignity was his princely, yet cruel and gloomy features, where the thirst of revenge was stamped. The frame of the missionary was not bowed even by seventy years, though they had turned his hair white; the leathern girdle was about his loins, that he always wore, and the simple apparel that he loved; he stood among these fierce and exasperated men as calm and fearless as in his own assembly at Naticke: he could not but foresee the devastation about to be let loose on the land; that the fire and the sword would waste all his pleasant places, and scatter his converts; and he returned with a heavy heart to his home. Several of the latter afterwards sided with the forces of Philip: whether from this circumstance, or from the nearness of the settlement of Pakeunit to the camp of the prince, the colonists contracted the strongest dislike and mistrust of the Christian Indians. Eliot, when he saw there was no longer a chance of peace, exhorted his people in the above town, and at Naticke, as well as the other congregations, not to be moved by the example or seductions of either party.

CHRISTIAN INDIANS ENGAGE IN THE WAR.

The contagion was, however, too strong; and Eliot at last saw many of them also take up arms against their infidel countrymen. The order and harmony of their dwelling-places were for a time utterly blasted; on the hills around Naticke and Pakeunit the watch-fires were blazing; the war-whoops were often heard in the night; at intervals, a solitary musket, and then a signal cry, came from the neighbouring woods; and yet nearer, the poor Indians at last saw their plantations without the town, burning; for Philip began hostilities by a sudden attack on them, so that their taking up arms was partly in self-defence. After several actions, he retired from Mount Hope to the woods, swamps, and fastnesses of the interior, in the dominion of the great tribe of the Naraganset Indians, who, for his sake, had now broken treaty with the English. It was the depth of winter, yet the latter resolved to follow him to his retreats, and an army of fifteen hundred men, under the command of the Hon. J. Winslow, marched to the abode of the Indians. This was on an island of about five or six acres, the only entrance to which was upon a long tree over the water, so that but one man could pass at a time: but the water was frozen; the trees and thickets were white with their burden of snow, as was the surface of the earth, so that the smallest movement of the Indians could be seen.

Within the isle were gathered the powers of the Pequot and Naraganset tribes, with their wives, families, and valuable things; the want of leaves and thick foliage allowed no ambush, and the savage must fight openly beside his own hearth and store. It was the close of day when the colonists came up to the place; a fort, a blockhouse, and a wall that passed round the isle, proved the skill, as well as resolution, of the assailed; the frozen shores and water were quickly covered with the slain, and then the Indians fought at their doors and around their children, till all was lost, and a thousand of them fell. Philip fled with his surviving forces to a distant position, where it was impossible to follow him. Concord, one of the first settlements of Eliot, and one or two other towns, were this winter destroyed, and its poor people turned from their dwellings into all the rigours of the winter; many perished in the woods or amidst the snows, or by the secret and sudden ambushes of the enemy.

MISFORTUNES OF PHILIP.

The last defeat, in which his best fighting men were slain, had broken the power, but not the spirit, of Philip. Unable to meet the colonists in the open field, he harassed them in a thousand ways, so that, as the spring advanced, the more industrious and timid were thrown into the extremity of despair, and said, "How shall we wade through another summer like the last?" But the chief was now a wandering exile; his paternal dominion was taken; the singular friendship of Quanonchet, "the mighty sachem of the Naragansets," was his last support. The fidelity of this man was tried to the uttermost: he had received the fugitive with open arms; rallied all his forces around him; they fought, side by side, with the heroism of men on the last strand of their country; were defeated, and fled together, without a reproach or complaint on either side; they retreated yet farther into the interior, and, by their persuasions, engaged other tribes in the cause; but, at this moment, the Maquas, a powerful nation in the west, made a descent on them, and wasted their band. In spite of these disasters, they again advanced.

CLOSE OF THE WAR.

Eliot, during these troubles, was subjected to much contempt and reproach. His efforts to protect his people, and watch over their interests, were incessant; but so strong was the suspicion against them, that the colonists, not content with confining a great number of them in Long Island, inflicted on them many sufferings, and a few of the more cruel said that they were worthy of death.

But the war began to draw to a close: Quanonchet, venturing out with a few followers near the enemy, was pursued and taken. His behaviour under his misfortunes was very noble and affecting; for when repeated offers were made him of life, if he would deliver up Philip, and submit his own people to the English, he proudly rejected them. They condemned him to die, and, by a refinement of cruelty, by the hands of three young Indian chiefs. The heroic man said, "that he liked it well, for he should die before his heart was soft, or he had spoken any thing unworthy of himself."

Philip was deeply moved by the death of the chieftain, for their friendship was like that of David and Jonathan, strongest in misery and exile. He was not yet left desolate: his beloved wife and only child were with him. They had shared all his sufferings; in his flights, his inroads, his dwellings in the swamps, they seem never to have left his side. The unfortunate prince now returned to Mount Hope, the scene of his former power and happiness; it was for no purpose of defence that he came, for it was too near the English settlements, but merely to visit it once more. "He finds it," says Mather, "to be Mount Misery, Mount Confusion!"

No doubt it was so to his bleeding spirit; for, with all his savage propensities, this prince was susceptible of some of the finest feelings of our nature. He sat down mournfully on the beautiful Mount, on which were now the ruins of his fortress and camp; but he could not remain long here, for the feet of his pursuers were nigh, and he was compelled to seek his distant retreats again:--there was a greater agony in store for him than the sight of his ruined home.

Early one morning, his quarters were surprised by the English, most of his followers slain, and his wife and son made captive. The chief fled, broken-hearted, but unsubdued, leaving all he loved on earth in the hands of those who had no mercy. "This was no small torment to him," quaintly says the historian. "Wo to him that spoileth! His peag, or silver belt, the ensign of his princedom, also remained in our hands, so hardly did he escape." The measure of his woes was not yet full. The Indian princess of Pocasset was warmly attached to his cause, and had more than once aided him in his extremity; she had received him beneath her roof, soothed his sorrows, and, what was more, summoned her people to fight for him; and saved him and his people in her canoes the year before. Now, she followed him in his flight, and, as the more devout said, as if by a judgment, could not find a canoe to transport her, and, venturing over the river upon a raft, it broke under her, and she was drowned. Her body was soon after washed on shore, and the English, forgetful of all decency and delicacy to a woman of her rank, though a savage, cut off her head, and placed it on high, which, when the Indians who were her people saw, they gathered round, and gave way to the most sad and touching lamentations.

Philip now began, like Saul of old, when earth was leaving him, to look to the powers beyond it, and to apply to his magicians and sorcerers, who, on consulting their oracles, assured him that no Englishman should ever kill him. This was a vague consolation, yet it seems to have given him, for a while, a confidence in his destiny, and he took his last stand in the middle of a distant and almost inaccessible swamp. It was a fit retreat for a despairing man, being one of those waste and dismal places to which few ever wandered, covered with rank and dense vegetation. The moist soil was almost hidden by the cypress and other trees, that spread their gloomy shades over the treacherous shallows and pools beneath.

In the few drier parts, oaks and pines grew, and, between them, a brushwood so thick, that the savage could hardly penetrate: on the long rich grass of these parts, wild cattle fed, unassailed by the hand of man, save when they ventured beyond the confines of the swamp. There were wolves, deer, and other animals; and wilder men, it was said, were seen here; it was supposed that the children of some of the Indians had either been lost or left here, and had thus grown up like denizens of this wild. Here the baffled chieftain gathered his little band around him, like a lion baited by the hunters, sullenly seeking his gloomy thickets, only to spring forth more fatally; despair was his only friend; for what other was now left: his love was turned to agony; his wife was in the hand of his enemies; and would they spare her beauty? His only son, the heir of his long line, must bow his head to their yoke; his chief warriors had all fallen, and he could not trust the few who were still with him.

Quanonchet, whose fidelity and attachment were stronger than death, was in the land of spirits, chasing the shadowy deer, and solaced with many wives; for Philip, to the last, believed in the religion of his country. In this extremity, an Indian proposed to seek peace with the English;--the prince instantly laid him dead at his feet. This man had a friend, who, disgusted with the deed, soon after fled from the place to Rhode Island, where the English were recruiting their weary forces, and betrayed the place of his retreat. On this intelligence, a body of forces instantly set out.

DEATH OF PHILIP.

The night before his death, Philip, "like him in the army of Midian," says the historian, "had been dreaming that he was fallen into the hands of the English; he awoke in great alarm, and told it to his friends, and advised them to fly for their lives, for that he believed it would come to pass." The place was well suited to awake all the terrors of the imagination; to any eye but that of the savage, it was like the "valley of the shadow of death;" the cypress and oak trees hung heavy and still, over the accursed soil; the faint gleam of the pools and sluggish lakes on every side, in the starlight, and the howl of the wolf, fitfully, as if it warned that the hour was nigh. "Now, just as he was telling his dream, Captain Church, with his company, fell in upon them." They had been guided by the deserter to the swamp, and, with great difficulty, across some felled trees, into its labyrinths. The battle was fierce and short: Philip fought till he saw almost every follower fall in his defence, then turned, and fled; he was pursued by an Englishman and an Indian; and, as if the oracle was doomed to be fulfilled, the musket of the former would not go off; and the latter fired, and shot him through the heart.

With his death, all resistance ceased; his dominions fell into the hands of the colonists, and peace was restored to the settlements, but prosperity came not with it. It was a cruel blow to Eliot, nearly all whose life had been given to his beloved cause, to look around on the plantations ravaged, the dwellings empty, the defences broken, and, more than all, the spirit of his people in despair. Of twelve towns, at the beginning of the war, four only were now undestroyed.

CANONICUS.

CHICKATAUBUT.

CONDITION OF THE INDIAN WOMEN.

Polygamy is not uncommon among them; and the husband occasionally finds it necessary to administer a little wholesome castigation to his more quarrelsome or refractory squaws. But many are satisfied with one wife. The care of the tent and the whole drudgery of the family devolve on the women. They gather fuel, cook the provisions, and repair every article of dress; cultivate the ground, where any is cultivated; carry the baggage on a journey; and pitch the tent when they halt. In these and similar employments, their lordly fathers, husbands, and brothers, think it degrading to assist them, and unworthy of warriors to engage in such employments.

Mr. Catlin, whose long residence among the Indians, and careful observation of their habits, entitle his opinion to great respect, regards the assignment of drudgery to the women as no more than an equitable distribution of the labour necessary to the support of the household. He considers the toils of war and the chase, which are almost incessant, and are solely performed by the men, as a complete offset to the domestic and agricultural cares of the women. On the whole he thinks that the condition of the Indian women is as comfortable as it is possible to render it by any arrangement which would not completely change their mode of life. To withdraw the men from the chase and confine them to the culture of the ground, would render the Indians an agricultural and not a hunting people. Still the condition of the Indian woman is a miserable and degraded one,--a condition of incessant labour and care.

In none of the tribes do the women experience much tenderness; but among the Sioux they are so harshly treated, that they occasionally destroy their female infants, alleging that it is better for them to be put to death than to live as miserably as they themselves have done. Even suicide is not uncommon among them, although they believe it offensive to the Father of Life.

INDIAN EDUCATION.

The Indians never chastise their children, especially the boys; thinking that it would damp their spirits, check their love of independence, and cool their martial ardour, which they wish above all things to encourage. "Reason," say they, "will guide our children, when they come to the use of it; and before that, their faults cannot be very great." They avoid compulsory measures, and allow the boys to act with uncontrolled freedom; but endeavour, by example, instruction, and advice, to train them to diligence and skill in hunting; to animate them with patience, courage, and fortitude in war; and to inspire them with contempt of danger, pain, and death,--qualities of the highest order in the estimation of an Indian.

Ishuchenau, an old Kanza warrior, often admonished the group of young auditors who gathered around him, of their faults, and exhorted them never to tell a lie, and never to steal, except from an enemy, whom it is just to injure in every possible way. "When you become men," said he, "be brave and cunning in war, and defend your hunting grounds against all encroachments: never suffer your squaws and little ones to want; protect them and strangers from insult. On no occasion betray a friend; be revenged on your enemies; drink not the poisonous strong water of the white people, for it is sent by the bad spirit to destroy the Indians. Fear not death; none but cowards fear to die. Obey and venerate old people, particularly your parents. Fear and propitiate the bad spirit, that he may do you no harm: love and adore the Good Spirit, who made us all, who supplies our hunting grounds, and keeps all alive." After recounting his achievements, he was wont to add, "Like a decayed prairie tree, I stand alone:--the friends of my youth, the companions of my sports, my toils, and my dangers, rest their heads on the bosom of our mother. My sun is fast descending behind the western hills, and I feel it will soon be night with me." Then with hands and eyes lifted towards heaven, he thanked the Great Spirit for having spared him so long, to show the young men the true path to glory and fame.

Their opinions, in many instances, are false, and lead to corresponding errors in conduct. In some tribes, the young person is taught to pray, with various superstitious observances, that he may be a great hunter, horse-stealer, and warrior; so that thus the fountain of virtue is polluted.

The Indians are entirely unacquainted with letters; but they have a kind of picture writing, which they practise on the inside of the bark of trees, or on skins prepared for the purpose, and by which they can communicate the knowledge of many facts to each other.

The Indian names are descriptive of the real or supposed qualities of the person to whom they belong: they often change them in the course of their lives. The young warrior is ambitious of acquiring a new name; and stealing a horse, scalping an enemy, or killing a bear, is an achievement which entitles him to choose one for himself, and the nation confirms it.

SPEECH OF AN INDIAN TO JOHN ELIOT.

The following instance is very expressive of the fine use the Indians make of simple and natural images:--the speaker was dressed in a robe of several marten-skins sewed together; it was fastened to his right shoulder, and passed under his left arm: he wrapped himself up in this robe, and said--

"My heart laughs for joy on seeing myself before thee: we have all of us heard the word which thou hast sent us. How beautiful is the sun to-day! but lately it was red and angry, for our hands were stained with blood; our tomahawks thirsted for it; our women howled for the loss of their relations; at the least shriek of the birds of night, all our warriors were on foot; the serpents angrily hissed at us, as we passed. Those we left behind sang the songs of death.

"But now our whole nation laughs for joy to see us walk on the same road with thyself, to join the Father of spirits: our hearts shall make but one: come with us to the forests; come to our homes by the great river; we shall plant the tree of life, of which thou speakest, there, and our warriors shall rest beneath its leaves; and thou shalt tell us more of that land where there is no storm or death, and the sun is always bright. Will not that be good? What dost thou say to it, my father?"

RELIGION OF THE INDIANS.

Of the religion of the Indians we have no full and clear account. Indeed, of the opinions of a people who have nothing more than a few vague and indefinite notions, no distinct explanation can be given. On this subject the Indians are not communicative; and to obtain a thorough knowledge of it would require familiar, attentive, unsuspected, and unprejudiced observation. But such observation is not easily made; and a few general, and on some points uncertain, notices only can be given.

On looking at the most renowned nations of the ancient heathen world, we see the people prostrating themselves before innumerable divinities; and we are ready to conclude that polytheism is the natural belief of man, unenlightened by revelation. But a survey of the vast wilds of America will correct this opinion. For there we find a multitude of nations, widely separated from each other, all believing in One Supreme God, a great and good spirit, the father and master of life, the maker of heaven and earth, and of all other creatures. They believe themselves entirely dependent on him, thank him for present enjoyments, and pray to him for the good things they desire to obtain. They consider him the author of all good; and believe he will reward or punish them according to their deeds.

They have no regular periodical time either of private or public religious worship. They have neither temples, altars, stated ministers of religion, nor regular sacrifices; for the jugglers are connected rather with the medical art than with religious services. The Indians in general, like other ignorant people, are believers in witchcraft, and think many of their diseases proceed from the arts of sorcerers. These arts the jugglers pretend to counteract, as well as to cure natural diseases. They also pretend to predict the weather and to make rain; and much confidence is placed in their prognostications and their power.

The devotional exercises of the Indians consist in singing, dancing, and performing various mystical ceremonies, which they believe efficacious in healing the sick, frustrating the designs of their enemies, and securing their own success. They often offer up to the Great Spirit a part of the game first taken in a hunting expedition, a part of the first produce of their fields, and a part of their food. At a feast, they first throw some of the broth, and then of the meat, into the fire. In smoking, they generally testify their reverence for the Master of life, by directing the first puff upwards, and the second downwards, or the first to the rising, and the second to the setting sun: at other times they turn the pipe to every point of the compass.

They firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, and in a state of future retribution: but their conceptions on these subjects are modified and tinged by their occupations in life, and by their notions of good and evil. They suppose the spirit retains the same inclinations as when in the body, and rejoices in its old pursuits. At times, an Indian warrior, when about to kill and scalp a prostrate enemy, addresses him in such terms as the following:--

"My name is Cashegra: I am a famous warrior, and am going to kill you. When you reach the land of spirits, you will see the ghost of my father: tell him it was Cashegra sent you there." The uplifted tomahawk then descends upon his victim.

The Mandans expected, when they died, to return to the original subterraneous abode of their fathers: the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the weight of the sins of the bad will render them unable to pass. They who have behaved themselves well in this life, and been brave warriors and good hunters, will be received into the town of brave and generous spirits; but the useless and selfish will be doomed to reside in the town of poor and useless spirits.

The belief of those untutored children of nature has an influence on their conduct. Among them the grand defect is, an erroneous estimate of good and evil, right and wrong.

DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS IN 1637.

"An army of a hundred and sixty men, under the command of Captain Underhill, were despatched, and with them was Uncas, an Indian chief: when they landed from the river, they were joined by five hundred Narraganset Indians. We were now informed that the Indians had retired into two impregnable forts, one of which was the hold of Sassacus, the chief tyrant; that fierce tiger, at the very mention of whose name the Narragansets trembled, saying, "He was all one a God, nobody could kill him." The council of war determined to fall first upon the fort which they could first find; and on their silent march in the moon-shiny night, an Indian spy brought them word that the Pequots were in a profound sleep. Our guide was one Wequash, an Indian revolted from them; and now the Narragansets retired into the wood, and behind the trees--they were overcome with fear. The English advanced against the nearest fort, when a dog, that stood sentinel like another Cerberus, barking, awoke them all; their cry, when they sprung from their sleep, was dreadful to hear in the silent night; and thereupon followed a bloody encounter; many were killed; but we set fire to their huts, and a high wind caused them to be quickly consumed; many of the Indians climbed to the tops of the palisadoes, and were a mark for the bullets; some of the trees also burning threw such a fiery light, that with the howlings, and cries also, the place was like the pit of torment. Samson was not in greater distress by thirst after his exploit upon the Philistines, than was the mighty Sassacus when his strong holds were thus burned, and his barbarians dismissed from a world that was burdened with them. The next day, as we were returning, three hundred of the enemy again came up, like bears bereaved of their young; they fought, and made a fort of every swamp in the way, covering their bodies with the green boughs and the long grass, so that we were sometimes in the very midst of them, and knew it not, save by the sudden yell and the volley."

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