The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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over to the main-land, burning more wigwams, and had a skirmish with the Indians, killing and wounding nearly forty.
Sassacus had been at war with the Narragansetts. but had made peace with them, and tried to enlist them on his side: but Governor Winthrop sent for Miantonoma and some of the other chiefs, who visited Boston and were kindly entertained, and who made a treaty of peace and friendship with the English. The Pequods began war on the English along the Connecticut River. They killed a man close to Saybrook fort. A few days after, in October, they captured two men in a boat, cutting off their feet and hands, gashing their flesh with knives, and filling the gashes with hot ashes! They killed the settlers’ cattle, and burnt their hay-stacks. In February, 1637, ten men at work were waylaid and three of them killed: two were captured — their bodies split open and hung upon the trees. A man from Wethersfield was roasted alive! The Indians attacked that town, killed seven men, a woman, a child, and carried away two girls. The girls were not harmed, however, for the wife of the chief Mononotto became their friend and protected them.
The magistrates of Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor met in council. What should they do? Thirty English had been killed. War was upon them. They were two hundred and fifty fighting men against one thousand Pequods. A messenger was sent to Boston and Plymouth asking for aid. Massachusetts voted to send one hundred and sixty men, and Plymouth forty. Connecticut determined to act with vigor. Ninety men marched at once. Captain John Mason, who had fought against the Spaniards in Holland, commanded them. Seventy Mohegans joined them. Once they had paid tribute to the Pequods, but their chief, Uncas, had rebelled, and had placed himself under the protection of the English.
The grass was springing fresh and green on the 10th of May, when they dropped down the Connecticut from Wethersfield in their little vessels. The Pequods were on the hills, and shouted defiantly as they floated past. They reached Fort Saybrook, and were glad to find that Captain John Underbill had arrived with twenty men from Massachusetts. They were fearful that the Indians would fall upon their settlement in their absence and murder their wives and children, so twenty were sent back to protect them. Captain Underbill joined the expedition.
“You are to land at Pequod Harbor,” was the order which Captain Mason had received from the magistrate. Should he obey it? The Pequods were there, ready for him. Why land where they wanted him to? “Never go where your enemy wishes you to go,” was the maxim of Napoleon. Captain Mason thought it out one hundred and fifty years before Napoleon was born. The other officers thought they must obey the order of the magistrate. They believed in obedience; it was a duty. “We will ask Rev. Mr. Stone to pray over it,” said Captain Mason. Rev. Mr. Stone was a man of sense as well as of prayer, and the next morning he declared Captain Mason’s plan was the one to follow.
The little fleet sailed out upon Long Island Sound eastward. The Pequods behold the white sails disappearing in the distance. They shout, leap, and brandish their tomahawks. The English are afraid. They are on their way to Boston. They do not dare to fight.
Eastward all day Saturday sailed the vessels, dropping anchor at last in a harbor a short distance west of Point Judith. No one thought of marching Sunday; it was the Lord’s-day. Monday was stormy, and the waves so high that they could not approach the shore. Tuesday evening they landed on a pebbled beach. Canonicus came with two hundred Narragansetts, and an Indian who had run all the way from Providence to inform Captain Mason that Captain Patrick with men from Massachusetts were on their way, but Captain Mason would not wait; he intended to surprise the Pequods. Re had executed a flank movement, and would take them in the rear. They expected him to attack from the west; they thought that he had fled; but he would fall upon them from the east. It was forty miles to the fort that overlooked the beautiful harbor of Mystic. There were rivers to cross: there were rocks and fallen trees in the way, but onward moved the determined band, the Narragansetts and Mohegans in front, boasting of what they would do.
“Indians brave, white men afraid!” they said. Fifteen miles brought them to a fort of the Narragansetts, who would not permit the English to enter it. Captain Mason had his eyes open. If the Indians would not permit him to go into it, no Indian should come out of it during the night, to steal away and inform the Pequods that he was on the march. He surrounded it with sentinels.
The next night brought them within five miles of the Peouod fort. At sunset they came to a halt, threw themselves upon the ground and ate their supper in silence. The Mohegans and Narragansetts who had been so boastful, who led off so bravely, dropped behind, saying nothing now as to what daring deeds they would do.
Once more the little band moved on in silence and in single file, till they could hear the Indian drums beating in the fort, and the shouts of the warriors, who were dancing in savage glee over the cowardice of the English. They are thinking of the scalps and plunder they will take when they fall upon the defenceless settlers.
“Halt!” The whisper runs down the line, and the men under Captain Mason drop upon the ground, sentinels keeping watch while the others sleep.
It is two o’clock, May 24th, and Captain Mason awakes the sleepers. The full-moon is riding in the heavens, and daylight will soon be streaming up the eastern sky. The soldiers uncover their heads while the chaplain prays, and then in silence they move on. The sounds of revelry have died away. There are no Indian sentinels keeping watch in the fort that crowns the summit of the hill. There are two entrances, one on the eastern and the other on the western side, with two rows of wigwams within. The Indians are sleeping soundly; their dogs have quicker ears than they; one barks. An Indian hears a commotion; the truth flashes upon him.
“Owanux! Owanux!” — “English! English!” he shouts.
Captain Mason and sixteen men are inside the palisade, and Captain Underbill and his men are coming in on the opposite side. The warriors rush out of their wigwams. The muskets flash, arrows fly. Mason drives them against Underhill, and Underhill drives them back again.
“Burn them!” Mason shouts, and springs into a wigwam and takes up a firebrand. A warrior draws his bow to send an arrow through his heart, but a soldier swings his sword and cuts the bowstring. The captain holds the brand against the wigwam, and in an instant it is ablaze. The wind sweeps the fire down the line of wigwams. There are six hundred Indians in the fort — warriors, squaws, and papooses. Humanity has no place in this fight. Old and young alike go down — some shot, others cut down by the sword, others roasted in the flames. The Mohegans and Narragansetts who have been outside the fort come in and finish the work. Seven escape, and seven only are taken prisoners. When the sun rises, its beams fall upon nearly six hundred ghastly corpses blackened by the flames. Two of the English have been killed, twenty wounded, out of the seventy-seven composing the party. It was a narrow escape, that of Lieutenant Bull’s — the piece of hard cheese he had in his pocket stopping the arrow. John Dyer and Thomas Stiles each had arrows shot through their neck-cloths.
It was only a few miles to the other fort, but Captain Mason could not go over to attack it. His provisions were gone, his men exhausted. One-third were wounded or broken down. He must carry them to the vessels, which were miles away. He knew that the warriors of the other fort would soon be upon him, and wisely began his return. The Indians of the other fort made their appearance. The forest echoed their bowlings; but Captain Mason, hiring the Narragansetts to carry the wounded, kept them at bay, and reached the sea-shore. The vessels came and took them on board, bearing them safely to their homes
A great blow had been struck. The Pequods lost all heart. Sassacus fled, and was killed by the Mohawks. In a few weeks the once powerful tribe was widely dispersed. Some of the captives were taken to the West Indies and sold into slavery by the Massachusetts people No one questioned the rightfulness of such an act. If it was right to enslave negroes, why was it not right to sell Indians taken in war?
The blow struck terror to the heart of every Indian in New England; and for a long period the settlers lived in peace and security in the Connecticut Valley, and everywhere else east of the Hudson River.
The next year Theophilus Eaton and Rev. John Davenport, of London, with a party of colonists, settled New Haven. They were rich, and purchased the land of the Indians. They agreed that only members of the church should have any voice in public affairs. They chose Eaton for their governor.
Thus