University of Virginia Library


175

CANTO FIRST.

I.

The morning air was freshly breathing,
The morning mists were wildly wreathing;
Day's earliest beams were kindling o'er
The wood-crowned hills and murmuring shore.
'Twas summer; and the forests threw
Their checkered shapes of varying hue,
In mingling, changeful shadows seen,
O'er hill and bank, and headland green.
Blithe birds were carolling on high
Their matin music to the sky,
As glanced their brilliant hues along,
Filling the groves with life and song;
All innocent and wild and free
Their sweet, ethereal minstrelsy.
The dew-drop sparkled on the spray,
Danced on the wave the inconstant ray;
And moody grief, with dark control,
There only swayed the human soul!

II.

With equal swell, above the flood,
The forest-cinctured mountain stood;

Mount Hope appears to have been called by the Indians Mont Haup, or Montaup; and has been thence easily corrupted into its present name. It has given occasion for many pleasant puns to Mr. Hubbard and Cotton Mather. As when Philip fled there in his last exigency, it is called Mount Hope, rather Mount Misery—“Lucus a non lucendo,” &c. It is called Haup throughout the poem; improperly, I believe—Transeat cum cæteris. The following description is pretty correct; although somebody has been playing a hoax upon the worthy meditator among the tombs; first, as to the name of the hill: secondly, as to the fact of Philip's choosing the most conspicuous situation he could possibly select when he most needed concealment; and, thirdly, as to the circumstance of his droll exhibition on the occasion of his death. That there is no foundation for this tradition seems evident from the account of Captain Church himself, extracted in the notes to the Sixth Canto.

“King Philip, as he is usually called, erected his wigwam on a lofty and beautiful rise of land in the eastern part of Bristol, which is generally known by the name of Mount Hope. According to authentic tradition, however, Mon Top was the genuine aboriginal name of this celebrated eminence. To this there was no doubt an appropriate meaning; but it cannot, at present, be easily ascertained.

“From the summit of this mount, which is, perhaps, less than three hundred feet above high-water mark, it is said, that in a clear day every town in Rhode-Island may be seen. The towering spires of Providence in one direction, those of Newport in another, the charming village of Bristol, the fertile island of Poppasquash, fields clothed with a luxuriant verdure as far as the eye can stretch, irregular meandering waters intersecting the region to the west, Mount Hope bay on the east, and distant lands with various marks of high cultivation, form, in the aggregate, a scene truly beautiful and romantic.

“The late Lieutenant-Governor Bradford, in early life, knew an aged squaw, who was one of Philip's tribe, was well acquainted with this sagamore in her youthful days, and had often been in his wigwam. The information through her is, therefore, very direct, as to the identical spot where he fixed his abode. It was a few steps south of Captain James De Wolf's summer-house, near the brow of the hill, but no vestige of the wigwam remains. The eastern side of this hill is very steep, vastly more so than that at Horse Neck, down which the intrepid Putnam trotted his sure-footed steed, in manner worthy of a knight of the tenth century, in time of the revolutionary war, and wonderfully escaped his pursuing enemy.

“When Church's men were about to rush upon Philip, he is said to have evaded them by springing from his wigwam as they were entering it, and rolling, like a hogshead, down the precipice which looks towards the bay.

“Having reached the lower part of this frightful ledge of rocks without breaking his bones, he got upon his feet, and ran along the shore in a north-easterly direction about a hundred rods, and endeavoured to screen himself in a swamp, then a quagmire, but now terra-firma.

“Here the sachem of Mon Top, long the magormissabib of the New-England colonies, was shot, on the 12th of August, 1676, by Richard, one of his Indians, who had been taken a little before by the noted Captain Church, and was become his friend and soldier.

“The ledge of rocks, forming the precipice before mentioned, extends for a considerable distance nearly parallel with the shore of the bay. In a certain situation between the site of the wigwam and the place where Philip received his death wound, and where the solid mass of quartz, which forms the basis of Mon Top, is nearly perpendicular and forty or fifty feet high, is a natural excavation of sufficient dimensions to afford a convenient seat. It is five or six feet from the ground, and is known by the name of Philip's Throne. A handsome grass plat of small extent lies before it. At the foot of the throne is a remarkably fine spring of water, from which proceeds a never-failing stream. This is called Philip's Spring.

“On that throne, tradition says, Philip used often to sit in regal style, his warriors forming a semicircle before him, and give law to his nation.”— Rev. T. Alden's Collection of Epitaphs, Pentade I., vol. iv.


Its eastward cliffs, a rampart wild,
Rock above rock sublimely piled.

176

What scenes of beauty met his eye,
The watchful sentinel on high!
With all its isles and inlets lay
Beneath the calm, majestic bay;
Like molten gold, all glittering spread,
Where the clear sun his influence shed;
In wreathy, crispëd brilliance borne,
While laughed the radiance of the morn.
Round rocks, that from the headlands far
Their barriers reared, with murmuring war,
The chafing stream, in eddying play,
Fretted and dashed its foamy spray;
Along the shelving sands its swell
With hushed and equal cadence fell;
And here, beneath the whispering grove,
Ran rippling in the shadowy cove.
Thy thickets with their liveliest hue,
Aquetnet green!

Aquetnet was the Indian name for the island now called Rhode Island.—New-England's Memorial, 116.

were fair to view;

Far curved the winding shore, where rose
Pocasset's hills

The Pocasset shore, now called Tiverton, is opposite Mount Hope.

in calm repose;

Or where descending rivers gave
Their tribute to the ampler wave.
Emerging frequent from the tide,
Scarce noticed mid its waters wide,
Lay flushed with morning's roseate smile,
The gay bank of some little isle;
Where the lone heron plumed his wing,
Or spread it as in act to spring,
Yet paused, as if delight it gave
To bend above the glorious wave.

III.

Where northward spread the unbounded scene,
Oft, in the valley's bosom green,
The hamlets' mouldering ruins showed,
Where war with dæmon brand had strode.

177

By prostrate hedge and fence o'erthrown,
And fields by blackening hillocks known,
And leafless tree, and scattered stone,
The midnight murderer's work was shown.
Oft melting in the distant view
The cot sent up its incense blue,
As yet unwrapp'd by hostile fire;
And, mid its trees, some rustic spire,
A peaceful signal, told that there
Was sought the God of peace in prayer.
The Wampanoag from the height
Of Haup, who strained his anxious sight,
To mark if foes their covert trace,
Beheld, and curs'd the Christian race!

IV.

Now two-score years of peace had pass'd

“As for the rest of the Indians, ever since the suppression of the Pequods, in the year 1637, until the year 1675, there was always in appearance amity and good correspondence on all sides; scarce an Englishman was ever known to be assaulted or hurt by any of them until after the year 1674,” &c.—Hubbard's Narrative of the Indian Wars in New-England, &c.


Since in the west the battle yell
Was borne on every echoing blast,
Until the Pequots' empire fell;

“The Pequots, or Pequods, were a people seated in the most southerly bounds of New-England; whose country the English of Connecticut jurisdiction doth now for the most part possess. This nation were a very warlike and potent people about forty years since; at which time they were in their meridian. Their chief sachem held dominion over divers petty sagamores; as over part of Long Island, over the Mohegans, and over the sagamores of Quinapeake, yea, over all the people that dwelt upon Connecticut river, and over some of the most southerly inhabitants of the Nipmuck country, about Quinabaag. The principal sachem lived at or about Pequot, now called New-London. These Pequots, as old Indians relate, could in former times raise four thousand men fit for war; and held hostility with their neighbours that lived bordering upon them to the east and north, called the Narragansitts, or Nechegansitts; but now they are few, not above three hundred men; being made subject unto the English, who conquered and destroyed most of them, upon their insolent deportment and just provocation, anno 1638.”—Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians in New-England; first printed from the original manuscript, at Boston, in 1792.

“Historians have treated of the Pequots and Moheagans as two distinct tribes, and have described the Pequot country as lying principally within the three towns of New-London, Groton, and Kensington. All the tract above this, as far north and east as has been described, they have represented as the Moheagan country. Most of the towns in this tract, if not all of them, hold their lands by virtue of deeds from Uncas, or his successors, the Moheagan sachems. It is, however, much to be doubted, whether the Mohegans were a distinct nation from the Pequots. They appear to have been a part of the same nation, named from the place of their situation. Uncas was evidently of the royal line of the Pequots, both by his father and mother; and his wife was daughter of Tatobam, one of the Pequot sachems. He appears to have been a petty sachem, under Sassacus, the great prince of the nation. When the English first came to Connecticut, he was in a state of rebellion against him, and of little consequence among the Indians. The Pequots were by far the most warlike nation in Connecticut, or even in New-England, &c. Their principal fort was on a commanding and most beautiful eminence in the town of Groton, a few miles south-easterly from Fort Griswold. This was the royal fortress, where the chief sachem had his residence. He had another fort near Mystic river, a few miles to the eastward of this, called Mystic fort. The Pequots, Moheagans, and Nehantics, could doubtless muster a thousand bowmen.”—Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 42.

The Mahiccanni,” says Mr. Heckewelder, “have been called by so many names that I was at a loss which to adopt, so that the reader might know what people were meant. Lookiel calls them ‘Mohicans,’ which is nearest to their real name Mahiccanni, which, of course, I have adopted. The Dutch called them Mahicanders; the French Mourigans, and Mahingans; the English, Mohiccons, Mohuccans, Mohegans, Muhheekanew, Schaticooks, River Indians.

They are called Muhhekaneews, by Dr. Edwards, in his “Observations” on their language, published at New-York, 1801. The old historians of New-England term them Moheags, Moheaks, and Mohegins, &c. I have adopted in the text the mode of writing it which seemed most euphonious. These people were one of the most martial and important tribes of the great family to which the Delawares belonged, called Lenopi by Mr. Jefferson, in his “Notes on Virginia,” and Lenni Lenape, by Mr. Heckewelder. The latter author agrees with the venerable historian of Connecticut, as to the Mohicans being the same race with the Pequods.

I have thought it necessary to make the foregoing extracts in relation to the people, who, after their decisive overthrow, mentioned in the text, always took part with the English against Philip. But as the events, recapitulated in the fourth and sixth following stanzas, were merely premised, as explanatory of the allusions made in the poem, it is unnecessary to give much more than references to the authors who have recorded them.


And Sassacöus,

The name of the Pequod sagamore is thus written, without the diæresis, by the Rev. Mr. Hubbard. The accent is, however, placed on the first syllable, in a poem by Governor Winthrop, preserved in the “Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.” “At Sassacus' dread name,” &c.

The Pequods quarrelled with the colonists at an early period of the settlement: and, after a hollow treaty of peace, which they entered into in the year 1636, they protected certain of the Narragansetts who had murdered some of the English on Block-Island. This led to a war, in the course of which the Narragansetts, with the versatile and jealous policy of Indian nations, made their own peace with the English, and refused to assist the Pequods. They appear, however, to have experienced some compunction when the Pequod fort was attacked by the English on the 26th May, 1637; when, after a vigorous and desperate resistance by the savages, the fort was fired by Captain Mason's men, sixty or seventy wigwams burnt, and seven hundred of the miserable Pequods destroyed. The Narragansetts were mere spectators on this occasion. They either felt, or pretended, an unconquerable fear of Sassacus, whom they called invincible; saying, “he was all one god.” Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, who, as has been already mentioned, was in a state of revolt against the great sagamore when the English first settled in Connecticut, was their guide to the fortress of his enemy; and ever after, with wary and more consistent policy than belonged to his brethren, adhered to the interests of his new allies. Sassacus fled to the Mohocks (termed Mohogs and Maquas by the old historians), who murdered him and sent his scalp to the conquerors.—See Trumbull's History of Connecticut, and the authorities there quoted; also Hubbard's Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians, first published, by authority, at Boston, 1677. New-England's Memorial, Boston printed, Newport reprinted, 1777. Prince's Chronological History of New-England, Boston, 1736. Mather's Magnalia, Book VII. &c.

now no more,

Lord of a thousand bowmen, fled;
And all the chiefs, his boast before,
Were mingled with the unhonoured dead.
Sannap and Sagamore were slain,
On Mystic's banks, in one red night;
The once far-dreaded king in vain
Sought safety in inglorious flight;
And reft of all his regal pride,
By the fierce Maqua's hand he died.
Long o'er the land, with cloudless hue,
Had peace outspread her skies of blue;
The blood-stained axe was buried long;
Till Metacom his war-dance held,

“The Paukanawkutts were a great people heretofore. They lived to the east and northeast of the Narragansitts; and their chief sachem held dominion over divers other petty sagamores, upon the island of Nantuckett, and Nope, or Martha's Vineyard, of Nawsett, of Mannamoyk, of Sawkattukett, Nobsquasitt, Matakees and several others, and some of the Nipmucks. Their country, for the most part, falls within the jurisdiction of New-Plimouth colony. This people were a potent nation in former times; and could raise, as the most credible and ancient Indians affirm, about three thousand men. They held war with the Narragansitts, &c. This nation, a very great number of them, were swept away by an epidemical and unwonted sickness, an. 1612 and 1613, about seven or eight years before the English arrived in those parts to settle the colony of New-Plimouth. Thereby Divine Providence made way for the peaceable and quiet settlement of the English in those nations. What this disease was that so generally and mortally swept away, not only those, but other Indians, their neighbours, I cannot well learn. Doubtless it was some pestilential disease. I have discoursed with some old Indians, that were then youths; who say, that the bodies all over were exceeding yellow, describing it by a yellow garment they showed me, both before they died, and afterward.”—Gookin.

Of this people, the Wampanoags, or Wampanoogs, &c. (as it is differently written), seem to have been the immediate clan or family of old Massasoit, or Massasoiet, or Woosamequen, the father of Metacom, or Metacomet, called King Philip by the English. The latter, however, signs his treaties, “Philip, Sachem of Pokanoket, his mark, P.”

“When Plimouth colony was first planted, within three monettes after their first landing, March 16, 1620, Massasoit, the chief sachem of all that side of the country, repaired to the English at Plimouth, and entered into a solemn league upon sundry articles, printed in N. E. Memorial, 1669, p. 24. The words are as followeth,” &c.—Hubbard, old edition 7. Edition of 1814, p. 56.

“The which league the same sachim, Sept. 25, 1630, a little before his death, coming with his eldest son [Mooanam or Wamsutta], afterward called Alexander, did renew with the English at the court of Plimouth, for himself and his son, and their heirs and successors; and after that he came to Mr. Brown's, that lived not far from Mount Hope, bringing his two sons, Alexander and Philip, with him, desiring that there might be love and amity after his death between his sons and them, as there had been betwixt himself and them in former times: yet it is very remarkable that this Massasoit, called also Woosamequen (how much soever he affected the English, yet) was never in the least degree any wayes well affected to the religion of the English, but would have had them engaged never to attempt to draw away any of his people from their old Pagan superstition and devilish idolatry,” &c.—Idem.

“After the death of this Woosamequen, or Massasoit [about 1656], his eldest son succeeded him about twenty years since, Alexander by name, who, notwithstanding the league he had entered into with the English, together with his father, in the year 1639, had neither affection to the Englishmen's persons, nor yet to their religion, but had been plotting with the Narhagansets to rise against the English, of which the governour and council of Plimouth being informed, they presently sent for him to bring him to the court; the person to whom that service was committed was a prudent and resolute gentleman, the present governour of the said colony, who was neither afraid of danger, nor yet willing to delay in a matter of that moment. He forthwith, taking eight or ten stout men with him well armed, intended to have gone to the said Alexander's dwelling, distant at least forty miles from the governour's house, but by a good providence he found him whom he went to seek at an hunting-house, within six miles of the English towns, where the said Alexander, with about eighty men, were newly come in from hunting, and had left their guns without doors, which Major Winslow, with his small company, wisely seized, and conveyed away, and then went into the wigwam, and demanded Alexander to go along with him before the governour, at which message he was much appalled, but being told by the undaunted messenger, that if he stirred or refused to go he was a dead man; he was, by one of his chief counsellors, in whose advice he most confided, perswaded to go along to the governour's house, but such was the pride and height of his spirit, that the very surprizal of him raised his choler and indignation, that it put him into a feaver, which, notwithstanding all possible means that could be used, seemed mortal; whereupon intreating those that held him prisoner, that he might have liberty to return home, promising to return again if he recovered, and to send his son as hostage till he could do so; on that consideration he was fairly dismissed, but dyed before he got half-way home.”—Idem. Our author then makes a sort of apology for the treatment of Alexander. He says it was never urged as a cause of offence by the said Alexander's brother, by name Philip, commonly for his ambitious and haughty spirit nicknamed King Philip. Nothing, he says, could have induced the said Philip to make war on the English, “besides the instigation of Satan, that either envied at the prosperity of the Church of God here seated, or else fearing lest the power of the Lord Jesus, that had overthrown his kingdome in other parts of the world, should do the like here, and so the stone taken out of the mountain without hands should become a great mountain itself, and fill the whole earth, no cause of provocation being given by the English.”

Thus died of a broken heart the proud-spirited brother of Philip. Cotton Mather, who treats the Netops, as he calls them, with very little ceremony, condescends to mention, that “Alexander was treated with no other than that humanity and civility which was always essential to the major-general; nevertheless, the inward fury of his own guilty and haughty mind threw him into such a fever as cost him his life.”—Magnalia, Book VII. Ecclesianum prœlia, or the Wars of the Lord, p. 45, a. and b.

To him succeeded Metacom, or King Philip, anno 1662; “who,” as the learned, but quaint, annalist goes on to state, “after he had solemnly renewed his covenant of peace with the English, most perfidiously broke it by making an attempt of war upon them in the year 1671, wherein being seasonably and effectually defeated, he humbly confessed his breach of covenant, and subscribed articles of submission, &c. Indeed, when the Duke of Archette, at his being made governour of Antwerpe castle, took an oath to keep it faithfully for King Philip of Spain; the officer that gave him his oath used these odd words, If you perform what you promise, God help you; if you do it not, the devil take you body and soul! And all the standers by cried, Amen. But when the Indian King Philip took an oath to be faithful unto the government of New-England, nobody used these words unto him; nevertheless, you shall anon see whether these words were not expressive enough of what became of him.”—Idem, p. 45, b.

It would be too troublesome, as well as unnecessary, to give even a sketch of the life of Philip up to the time when the poem commences. A connected account of the sachem's adventures may be found in Mather's Magnalia, Increase Mather's Brief History, &c.; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i.; and Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i. The following note in Holmes's American Annals does justice to his character, and makes proper allowance for the measures taken by the English.

“The death of Philip, in retrospect, makes different impressions from what were made at the time of the event. It was then considered as the extinction of a virulent and implacable enemy; it is now viewed as the fall of a great warrior, a penetrating statesman, and a mighty prince. It then excited universal joy and congratulation, as a prelude to the close of a merciless war; it now awakens sober reflections on the instability of empire, the peculiar destiny of the aboriginal race, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven. The patriotism of the man was then overlooked in the cruelty of the savage; and little allowance was made for the natural jealousy of the sovereign, on account of the barbarities of the warrior. Philip, in the progress of the English settlements, foresaw the loss of his territory, and the extinction of his tribe; and made one mighty effort to prevent those calamities. Our pity for his misfortunes would be still heightened, could we entirely rely on the tradition (mentioned by Calendar, 73), that Philip and his chief old men were at first averse to the war; that Philip wept with grief at the news of the first English who were killed; and that he was pressed into the measures by the irresistible importunity of his young warriors. The assurance, on the other hand, of the equity of our ancestors, in giving the natives an equivalent for their lands, is highly consoling. The upright and pious Governor Winslow, in a letter dated at Marsfield, 1st May, 1676, observes: ‘I think I can clearly say, that before these present troubles broke out, the English did not possess one foot of land in this colony, but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors. We first made a law that none should purchase, or receive of gift, any land of the Indians, without the knowledge and allowance of our court. And lest yet they should be streightened, we ordered that Mount Hope, Pocasset, and several other necks of the best land in the colony, because most suitable and convenient for them, should never be bought out of their hands.’ See Hubbard's Narrative (where this important letter is inserted entire), and Hazard, Coll. ii. 531-534.” —Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. p. 365.

Whatever wrongs Philip may have sustained during his life, from the arms and pens of his enemies, it seems that his shade will be fully propitiated in the present day. He will have Mr. Southey for his bard; and has already had Mr. Irving for his biographer. To those who have had occasion to examine the rude annals of the earlier settlers in the east, it must surely be a matter of admiration to see with what facility and grace the author of Knickerbocker has extricated and made use of all the prominent and interesting particulars in the history of that period.


And round the flaming pyre the song
Of vengeance and of death was yelled.

178

The steeps of Haup reverbed afar
The Wampanoägs' shout for war;
Fiercely they trim their crested hair,

“Then she called for the Mount Hope men, who made a formidable appearance, with their faces painted, and their hair trimmed up in comb-fashion, with their powder-horns and shot-bags at their backs; which among that nation is the posture and figure of preparedness for war.” Thomas Church's “Entertaining History of King Philip's War,” &c. Boston, 1716. Newport, reprinted, 1772. By comb-fashion, is meant a crest, from the forehead to the back of the head. “The priests in Secota,” says Purchas, “haue their haire on the crowne like a combe, the rest being cut from it: only a foretop on their forehead is left, and that combe. They are great wisards.” Purchas's Pilgrim, Part 3d, p. 949. “Table 2, is an Indian man in his summer dress. The upper part of his hair is cut short, to make a ridge which stands up like the comb of a cock, the rest is either shorn off, or knotted behind his ear.” History of Virginia, second edition, London, 1822; said in a manuscript note, in the copy belonging to the New-York Historical Library, to be by one Robert Beverly.


The sanguine battle stains prepare,
And martial gear, while over all
Proud waves the feathery coronal.
Their peäg belts

The author last mentioned calls the wampum beads peak; it is generally written peag. “The women of distinction,” says he, “wear deep necklaces, pendants, and bracelets, made of small cylinders of the conque-shell, which they call peak.” The white beads were made from the hollow of conchs; the purple, which were most prized, from muscle-shells. They were strung on leather. Colden's History of the Five Nations. Heckewelder, &c. And see a subsequent note to this Canto.

are girt for sight,

Their loaded pouches slung aright,
The musket's tube is bright and true,
The tomahawk's edge is sharped anew,
And counsels stern and flashing eyes
Betoken dangerous enterprise.

V.

The red fire is blazing;

“It being now about sun-setting, or near the dusk of the evening, the Netops came running from all quarters loaden with the tops of dry pines, and the like combustible matter, making a huge pile thereof, near Mr. Church's shelter, on the open side thereof; but by this time supper was brought in, &c.; but by the time supper was over, the mighty pile of pine knots and tops, &c. was fired, and all the Indians, great and small, gathered in a ring round it. Awashonks, with the oldest of her people, men and women mixed, kneeling down, made the first ring next the fire, and all the lusty stout men, standing up, made the next, and then all the rabble in a confused crew surrounded on the outside. Then the chief captain stepped in between the rings and the fire, with a spear in one hand, and a hatchet in the other, danced round the fire, and began to fight with it, making mention of all the several nations and companies of Indians in the country that were enemies to the English; and at naming of every tribe, he would draw out and fight a new fire-brand, and at finishing his fight with each particular fire-brand, would bow to him and thank him; and when he had named all the several nations and tribes, he stuck down his spear and hatchet, and came out; and another stept in and acted over the same dance, with more fury, if possible, than the first; and when about half a dozen of their chiefs had thus acted their parts, the captain of the guard stept up to Mr. Church, and told him, ‘They were making soldiers for him,’” &c. Church's History, p. 49, 50.

ring compassing ring,

They whirled in the war-dance, and circuiting sing;
And the chieftans, in turn to the pile as they go,
In each brand saw a warrior, each gleed was a foe;
Revenge on the whites and their allies they swear,
Mohegans, Niantics, and Pequots they dare,
And sla in he dream of their ire;
The hills of Pocasset replied to their call,
And their Queen sent her chiefs and her warriors all,

Weetamoe, the sunk squaw, or squaw sachem of the Pocassets, was a kinswoman of Philip. Captain Church was hard beset by her people, at the breaking out of the war. She is not to be confounded with Awashonks, squaw sachem of the Seaconets, who dwelt southerly from the Pocasset Indians.


To the rites of the lurid fire.

VI.

Thro' Narraganset's countless clan

“East of Connecticut were the Narraganset Indians: these were a numerous and powerful body. When the English settled Plymouth, their fighting men were reckoned at three or four thousand; fifty years after this time they were estimated at two thousand. The Pequots and Narragansets maintained perpetual war, and kept up an implacable animosity between them.” Trumbull, I. 43. This jealousy was a great source of safety to the English, both in the Pequot war, when they were joined by the Narragansets, and in the war with Philip, when the Pequods (or Mohegans) assisted them in exterminating the Narragansets. The Niantics, or Nehantics, were a branch of the Narragansets who joined the English interest, under their sachem Aganemo. For a further account of the Narragansets, see Gookin.


The secret wildfire circling ran;
In northern wilds, the gathering word
The tributary Nipnets heard.

“On the northeasterly and northern part of the colony were the Nipmuck Indians. Their principal seat was about the great ponds in Oxford, in Massachusetts, but their territory extended southward into Connecticut more than twenty miles.” Trumbull, I. 43. These people are also called Nipnets by Hubbard; it has been already mentioned that they were tributary to the Pawkanawkutts. The situation of all these tribes is thus briefly given by Hubbard. “The seacoast, from the pitch of Cape Cod to the mouth of Connecticut river, [was] inhabited by several nations of Indians, Wampanoogs (the first authors of the present rebellion), Narragansetts, Pequods, Mohegins, and the more inland part of the country by the Nipnets (a general name for all inland Indians betwixt the Massachusetts and Connecticut river).”


Busy and quick, to their errand true,
The messengers of mischief flew,
Noiseless as speeds the painted dart,
In the thicket's shade, to the quarry's heart,
That scares not in its passage fleet
The woodland hosts from their green retreat.

179

VII.

But Sausaman untimely slain,

Sausaman was the son of Christian Indians, but apostatized, and became King Philip's secretary, who, as Dr. Mather sarcastically remarks, could not even read. A letter dictated by Philip, and written by Sausaman, is preserved in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. ii. p. 40. Sausaman afterward returned to the English, and became an instructer among the Indians. In the year 1674, he informed the governor of Plymouth that Philip was plotting with all the Indian nations, to destroy the English. Little notice was taken of this communication at first. But Sausaman was soon after found murdered on Assawamsett pond, at a place now called Middleborough, Massachusetts. When he was missed, the neighbours sought for and found the dead body, which had been put under a hole in the ice; but his hat and gun, being left, led to the discovery. “A jury was impanelled,” says C. Mather, “and it was remarkable, that one Tobias, a counsellor of King Philip's, whom they suspected as the author of this murder, approaching to the dead body, it would still fall a bleeding afresh, as if it had been newly slain, &c. Afterward an Indian, called Patuckson, gave his testimony, that he saw this Tobias, with certain other Indians, killing of John Sausaman, &c. Hereupon Tobias, with two other Indians, being apprehended, they were, after a fair trial, by a jury consisting half of English and half of Indians, convicted, and so condemned; and though they were all successively turned off the ladder at the gallows, utterly denying the fact, yet the last of them happening to break or slip the rope, did, before his going off the ladder again, confess that the other Indians did really murder John Sausaman, and that he was himself, though no actor in it, yet a looker on. Things began by this time to have an ominous aspect.” —Math. Magnalia, VII. 46. a. See also Hubbard, new edition, 66–71. Church, 9. Increase Mather, 2, and the Postscript to the same; also the Postscript in the old edition of Hubbard, apologizing for the justness of the war, &c.

Philip, conscious to his own guilt, pusht on the execution of his plot as fast as he could; he armed his men, and sent away their women [to the Narragansets], and entertained many strange Indians that flocked in unto him from several parts of the country, and began to be tumultuous.”—C. Mather ubi supra.

Thus broke out King Philip's war, which terminated in almost the total extermination of his allies. Happily for the settlers, it commenced prematurely. The sachem's plans were general, and deeply laid. The Narragansets had promised to rise with four thousand men, according to Hubbard. It is unnecessary to make any particular references on the miseries of war, alluded to in Stanza VII.


Kindled too soon the fatal train.
From where with mild, majestic pride,
Their peaceful, and abounding tide
Quunihticut's broad waters pour
Even to the ocean's sounding shore—
Began one universal strife,
One murderous hunt for human life.
The wexing moon oft waned anew,
Ere grass upon the war-path grew:
On every gale the war-whoop rung;
From every grove the ambush sprung;
The hamlet's blaze, the midnight yell,
Ceased not the desperate strife to tell,
Till o'er the land, with blood defiled,
Went forth a voice of wailing wild;
A voice of mourning and of pain,
Their youngest and their bravest slain.

VIII.

Full high the savage pride was raised,
Till Narraganset's fortress blazed.

In the winter of 1675–6 the commissioners of the United Colonies determined to attack the Narraganset fortress, situated near Pawcatuck river, “on an elevated ground, or piece of upland, of perhaps three or four acres, in the middle of a hideous swamp; about seven miles nearly due west from Narraganset south ferry.”—Church, 29. The following account of that tragical business is the most full and perspicuous.

“The next morning (Dec. 19th), at the dawning of the day, they commenced their march towards the enemy, who were in a swamp at about fifteen miles distance. The troops proceeded with great spirit, wading through the snow, in a severe season, until nearly one o'clock, without fire to warm or food to refresh them, except what had been taken on the way. At this time they had arrived just upon the seat of the enemy. This was upon a rising ground, in the centre of a large swamp. It was fortified with palisades, and compassed with a hedge without, nearly of a rod's thickness. The only entrance which appeared practicable was over a log, or tree, which lay up five or six feet from the ground. This opening was commanded in front by a kind of log-house, and on the left by a flanker. As soon as the troops entered the skirts of the swamp, they discovered an advanced party of the enemy, upon whom they immediately fired. The enemy returned the fire, and retired before them, until they were led to the very entrance by the block-house. Without reconnoitering the fort, or waiting for the army to march up and form for the attack, the Massachusetts troops, led on by their officers with great courage, mounted the tree and entered the fort; but they were so galled from the block-house, and received such a furious and well-directed fire from almost every quarter, that after every exertion of skill and courage of which they were capable, they were obliged to retreat out of the fort. The whole army pressed forward with the utmost courage and exertion, but such were the obstructions from the swamp and the snow, that it was a considerable time before the men could all be brought up to action. Captains Johnson and Davenport, and many brave men of the Massachusetts, were killed. The Connecticut troops, who formed in the rear, coming up to the charge, mounted over the log before the blockhouse, the captains leading and spiriting up the men in the most undaunted manner. About the same time that the main body of the Connecticut troops were forcing their way by the blockhouse, a few bold men ran round to the opposite part of the fort, where they found a narrow spot where there were no palisades, but a high and thick hedge of trees and brush. The sharpness of the action in the front had drawn off the enemy from this part, and climbing over unobserved, they ran down between the wigwams, and poured a heavy and well-directed fire upon the backs of the enemy, who lay wholly exposed to their shot. Thus assaulted in front and rear, they were driven from the flanker and blockhouse. The captains crying out, they run, the men pressed so furiously upon them that they were forced from that part of the fort. The soldiers without rushed in with great spirit, and the enemy were driven from one covert and hiding-place to another, until the middle of the fort was gained; and after a long and bloody action they were totally routed, and fled into the wilderness. As they retired, the soldiers set fire to the wigwams, about six hundred of which were instantly consumed. The enemy's corn, stores, and utensils, with many of their old men, women, and children, perished in the conflagration. It was supposed that three hundred warriors were slain, besides many wounded, who afterward died of their wounds and with the cold. Nearly the same number were taken, with three hundred women and children. From the number of wigwams in the fort, it is probable that the whole number of the Indians was nearly four thousand. Those who were not killed in battle, or did not perish in the flames, fled to a cedar swamp, where they spent the night without foot, fire, or covering. It was, nevertheless, a dearly-bought victory. Six brave captains fell in the action, and eighty men were killed or mortally wounded. A hundred and fifty were wounded, who afterward recovered. After the fatiguing march, and hard-fought battle of three hours, in which the troops had been exercised, the army, just at the setting of the sun, having burnt and destroyed all in their power, left the enemy's ground; and carrying about two hundred dead and wounded men, marched back, sixteen or eighteen miles, to head-quarters. The night was very cold and stormy. The snow fell deep, and it was not until midnight, or after, that the army got in. Many of the wounded, who otherwise might have recovered, died with the cold,” &c.—Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i. p. 338–340. See also Mather's Magnalia, 49, 50. Hubbard, 130–133. Increase Mather, 20. Captain Church was severely wounded in this action. “He was struck with three bullets, one on his thigh, which was near half cut off as it glanced on the joint of his hip-bone; another through the gatherings of his breeches and drawers, with a small flesh-wound; a third pierced his pockets, and wounded a pair of mittens that he had borrowed of Captain Prentice; being wrapped up together, had the misfortune of having many holes cut through them with one bullet; however, he made shift to keep on his legs,” &c.—Church, 27. This kind of defensive armour seems to have been not unusual in those chivalrous days. “Mr. Gill was struck with a musket-ball on the side of his belly; but being clad with a buff coat, and some thickness of paper under it, it never broke his skin.”—Church, 11.


When bleak December sheeted o'er
The wilderness with mantle hoar,
Reckless within their hold assailed,
They saw the avenging army pour,
Beheld their boasted bulwarks scaled.
The white men made their entrance good,
All slippery with their comrades' blood;
A thousand wigwams kindling sent
Their glare along the firmament;
The sun declining from his noon,
Faded, a dim, wan circle soon;
The heavens, around that lurid light
Frowned like the realms of central night;

180

Far, far around, the gleening snow
Was ruddy with the unnatural glow;
Where the dun column wreathing rolled,
Red flowed the river's tides below.
Amid the slaughtered, in their hold,
Stifling, in vain their warriors bold
Each blazing sconce in fury sought,
Poured on the foe their deadly shot,
Or in mad leaps of torture broke
Thro' sulphurous fire and volumed smoke;—
While uproar, flame, and deafening yell
Made the scene seem the vault of hell,
Where, writhing wild in penance dire,
Fiends danced mid pyramids of fire!
Nor ceased the musket roar, the shout,
The obstreperous clamours of the rout,
Till gathering night with shades profound
Of gloom and horror closed around.
Tracked by their blood along the snow,
Returned the victors, sad and slow;—
But, where the smoking ruins show
The prostrate citadel—one heap
Of smouldering ashes, broad and deep,
Where friend or husband none may trace,
The pride of Narraganset's race,
The grisly trophy of the fray,
A holocaust for freedom lay!

IX.

Stabbed in the heart of all their power,
The voice of triumph from that hour
Rose faintly, mid the heathen host,
Sunk was their pride, and quelled their boast.
Broken and scattering wide and far,
Feebly they yet maintained the war.

181

Spring came; on blood alone intent,
Men o'er her flowers regardless went;
Thro' cedar grove and thicket green,
The serried steel was glistening sheen;
Earth lay untilled; the deadly chase
Ceased not of that devoted race,
Till of the tribes whose rage at first

The jealousies of the confederated Indians among themselves hastened their separation, and consequent destruction in detail. “This quarrel proceeded to that height, that from that time forward those several Indians that had for so long a time been combined together resolved now to part, and every one to shift for themselves, and return to their own homes; Philip to Mount Hope, and the Narragansets to their own country again; the Nipnets and the River [Connecticut] Indians bending their course westward, others northward,” &c.—Hubbard, 211. C. Mather says their demons deserted them. See notes to Canto III.

Of the once powerful nation of the Narragansets, Mr. Hubbard, immediately after the war, says, “there is none of them left on that side of the country, unless some few, not exceeding seventy in number, that have sheltered themselves under the inhabitants of Rhode-Island, as a merchant of that place, worthy of credit, lately affirmed to the writer hereof. It is considered by what degrees they have been consumed and destroyed.”— Hubbard, new edit., p. 158. Most of the persecuted tribes went westward, and were never heard of thereafter. Some settled among the Moheagans, on the Hudson river. An incredible number were executed at different places.


In one o'erwhelming deluge burst,
No trace the inquiring eye could find,
Save in the ruins left behind.
Like wintry torrent they had poured,
O'er mounds and rocks it raved and roared,
Dashed in blind fury where it broke,
In showery spray and wavy smoke;
And now, sad vestige of its wrath,
Alone was left its wasted path.

X.

Stark thro' the dismal fens they lie,
Or on the felon gibbet high
Their mangled members hung proclaim
Their constancy—their conquerors' shame.
Ah! happier they, who in the strife
For freedom fell, than o'er the main,
Those who in slavery's galling chain

“After this,” says Church, “Dartmouth's distresses required succour, great part of the town being laid desolate, and many of the inhabitants killed; the most of Plymouth forces were ordered thither; and coming to Russel's garrison at Ponoganset, they met with a number of the enemy that had surrendered themselves prisoners on terms promised by Captain Eels of the garrison, and Ralph Earl, who persuaded them (by a friend Indian he had employed) to come in. And had their promises to the Indians been kept, and the Indians fairly treated, it is probable that most, if not all the Indians in those forts had soon followed the example of the Indians who had now surrendered themselves; which would have been a good step towards finishing the war. But in spite of all that Captains Eels, Church, or Earl, could say, argue, plead, or beg, somebody else that had more power in their hands improved it; and without any regard to the promises made them on their surrendering themselves, they were carried away to Plymouth, there sold, and transported out of the country, being about eight-score persons.”

In another place, the narrator says, “They met the general, and presented him with eighteen of the enemy they had captivated. The general, pleased with the exploit, gave them thanks, particularly to Mr. Church, the mover and chief actor of the business, and sending two of them (likely boys) a present to Boston; smiling at Mr. Church, told him that he made no doubt his faculty would supply them with Indian boys enough before the war was ended.”

Again; “Captain Church hastening with his prisoners through the woods to Plymouth, disposed of them all, except only one Jeffery, who proved very ingenuous and faithful to him, in informing him where other parcels of Indians harboured,” &c.—E.


Still bore the load of hated life,—
Bowed to base tasks their generous pride,
And scourged and broken-hearted died!
The remnant of the conquered band,
Submissive, at the victor's hand,
As for a boon of mercy, crave
A shred of all their father's land,
A transient shelter and a grave.
Or far where boundless lakes expand,
With weary feet the exiles roam,
Until their tawny brethren gave
The persecuted race a home.

182

XI.

But Metacom, the cause of all,
Last of his host, was doomed to fall.
Unconquered yet, when at his side
His boldest and his wisest died;
When all whom kin or friendship made

Philip's uncle Uncompoën, sometimes called Uncomdaen, was slain July 31st, 1676, and his sister taken prisoner at the same time. On the 2d of August, he narrowly escaped from Captain Church, leaving his peag, wife, and son. His friends of any distinction among the other tribes had been killed before, viz., Canonchet, Pomham, Matoonas, &c.


To his fallen fortunes dear were dead;
Beggared in wealth and power; pursued
A sentenced wretch, thro' swamp and wood;—
Yet he escaped—tho' he might hear
The hunters' uproar round him wake,
And bullets whispered death was near;

Among Philip's other hair-breadth deliverances, the following is recorded by Captain Church; it happened on Taunton river, near Bridgewater. “Next morning Captain Church moved very early with his company, which was increased by many of Bridgewater that enlisted under him for that expedition, and by their piloting, soon came very still to the top of the great tree which the enemy had fallen across the river; and the captain spy'd an Indian sitting on the stump of it on the other side of the river, and he clapp'd his gun up, and had doubtless despatched him, but that one of his own Indians called hastily to him not to fire, for he believed it was one of their own men; upon which the Indian upon the stump looked about, and Captain Church's Indian seeing his face, perceived his mistake, for he knew him to be Philip, clapp'd up his gun and fired, but it was too late, for Philip immediately threw himself off the stump, leap'd down a bank on the side of the river, and made his escape.”—Church, 62.


O'er bank and stream, thro' grove and brake
He led them, fleet as mountain deer,
Nor yet his limbs had learned to quake,
Nor his heart caught the taint of fear.

XII.

His covert to his foes unknown,
With such worn train as war had spared,
Once more to Haup the chief repaired,
Of all his line the home and throne.
There, where the spirits of the dead
Seemed flitting through each moonlight glade,—
Where pageant hosts of glory fled
In mockery rose with vain parade,—
In gloomy grandeur o'er his head,
Where forests cast congenial shade,—
Brooding mid scenes of perished state,
He mused to madness on his fate.
South from the tarlëd swamp that spread
Below the mount, an upland rose;

Philip was now upon a little spot of upland, that was in the south end of the miry swamp, just at the foot of the mount, which was a spot of ground that Captain Church was well acquainted with.”—Idem, 70.


Where towering elms all gray with eld,
And birchen thickets close concealed
The hunted race from quest of foes.

183

Beneath, their screen the elders threw,
And fern and bramble rankly grew;
By simple nature wisely taught
Such covert still the savage sought:
So in her leafy form the hare
Sits couched and still, when down the gale,
Of hounds and horns the mingling blare
She hears in tones of terror swell.
So spreads, beneath the liquid surge,

“The Indians,” says C. Mather, “covered themselves with green boughs, a subtilty of the same nature, though not of the same colour, that they affirm to be used by the cuttle-fish.”


To shun the approaching monster's gorge,
The wary fish its inky blood,
And dies with rayless hue the flood.

XIII.

Beside the mountain's rugged steeps,
The Sachem now his council keeps;
Though straitened in that hopeless stound,
Begirt with fear and famine round,
Resolved himself on daring deed,
He listened reckless of their rede.
Once more within their ancient hold,
How dwindled from their pomp of old!
Toilworn and few and doubtful met
The Paniese

The counsellors of the Indian kings in New-England were termed the Paniese. These were not only the wisest, but largest and bravest men to be found among their subjects. They were the immediate guard of their respective sachems, who made neither war nor peace, nor attempted any weighty affair, without their advice.” “These paniese, or ministers of state, were in league with the priests, or powaws. To keep the people in awe, they pretended, as well as the priests, to have converse with the invisible world, and that Hobbamock often appeared to them.”—Trumbull.

in their council state.

High rose the cliffs; but proud above
The regal oaks their branches fling,
Arching aloft with verdant cove,
Where thick their leaves they interwove,
Fit canopy for woodland king.
Vines, with tenacious fibres, high
Clomb o'er those rocks luxuriantly;
Oft o'er their rugged masses gray,
With rustling breeze the wild flowers play;
While at the base their purple hues,
Impearled with morning's glittering dews,
Bloomed round the pile of rifted stone,
Which, as in semblance of a throne,

184

The hand of Nature there had placed;
And rambling wild, where lower still
Bubbled and welled a sparkling rill,
These simple flowers its margin graced.
Clear as the brightest steel to view,
Thro' mossy turf of greenest hue,
Its lymph that gushing fountain spread:—
And still though ages since have sped,
That little spring is seen;
It bears his name whose deeds of dread
Disturbed its margin green;
As pure, as full, its waters rise,
While those who once its peace profaned,
Have pass'd, and to the stranger's eyes
Nor trace, nor memory hath remained.
Smooth lay the turf before the seat,
Sprinkled with flow'rets fair and sweet;
The violet and the daisy gay,
And goldcups bright like spangles lay.
Thick round the glade the forest grew,
Whose quivering leaves and pillars through,
The eye might catch the sparkling ray,
Where sea-gulls wheeled in mazy play.

XIV.

There met the council, round the throne,
Where he, in power, in thought alone,
Not like the sentenced outlaw sate,
The abandoned child of wayward fate,
But as of those tall cliffs a part,
Cut by some bolder sculptor's art,
The imaged God, erect and proud,
To whom the simple savage bowed.
His was the strength the weak that sways;
The glance the servile herd obeys;

185

The brow of majesty, where thought
And care their deepest lines had wrought,
And told, like furrows broad that mark
The giant ash-tree's fretted bark,
How stormy years, with forceful sway,
Will wear youth's scarless gloss away.
Shorn were his locks, whose ample flow
Had else revealed him to the foe;
And travel-stained the beaver spoils,
That sheathed his martial limbs below.
But seemed it that he yet would show,
Even mid the hunter's closing toils,
Some splendours of his former state,
When in his royalties he sate.

“The moon now shining bright, he saw him [Annawon] at a distance coming with something in his hands, and coming up to Captain Church, he fell upon his knees before him, and offered him what he had brought, and speaking in plain English, said, “Great Captain, you have killed Philip, and conquered his country; for I believe that I and my company are the last that war against the English, so suppose the war is ended by your means; and therefore these things belong unto you.” Then opening his pack, he pulled out Philip's belt, curiously wrought with wompom, being nine inches broad, wrought with black and white wompom, in various figures and flowers, and pictures of many birds and beasts. This, when hung upon Captain Church's shoulders, reached his ankles; and another belt of wompom he presented him with, wrought after the former manner, which Philip was wont to put upon his head; it had two flags on the back part, which hung down on his back; and another small belt with a star upon the end of it, which he used to hang on his breast; and they were all edged with red hair, which Annawon said they got in the Mohog's country. Then he pulled out two horns of glazed powder, and a red cloth blanket. He told Captain Church these were Philip's royalties, which he was wont to adorn himself with when he sat in state.”—Church, p.84. I have seen a cape made of feathers, said to have been Philip's, and a pouch of the same materials, at Brown College, in Providence. The Antiquarian Society in Rhode-Island profess, I believe, to have his scull.


For round his brow with symbols meet,
In wampum wrought with various die,
Entwined a studded coronet,
With circling plumage waving high.
Above his stalworth shoulders set
A feathery-woven mantle lay,
Where many-tinctured pinions gay
Sprinkled the raven's plumes of jet.
Collar beneath and gorget shone,
The peäg armlets and the zone,
That round with fretted shell-work graced,
Clipped with broad ring his shapely waist.
And all war's dread caparison,
Horn, pouch, and tomahawk were slung;
And wide, and far descending hung,
Quaintly embossed with bird and flower,
The belt that marked the Sachem's power.

XV.

Know ye the Indian warrior race?
How their light form springs in strength and grace.

186

Like the pine on their native mountain side,
That will not bow in its deathless pride;
Whose rugged limbs of stubborn stone
No flexuous power of art will own,
But bend to heaven's red bolt alone!
How their hue is deep as the western die
That fades in Autumn's evening sky;
That lives for ever upon their brow,
In the summer's heat, and the winter's snow;
How their raven locks of tameless strain,
Stream like the desert courser's mane:
How their glance is far as the eagle's flight,
And fierce and true as the panther's sight:

I am well aware that there is, properly, no such American animal; but it is a better sounding word, in poetry, than cat of the mountain, &c. I have also called a couguar a tiger, in the sixth Canto, to avoid a repetition of the word.


How their souls are like the crystal wave,
Where the spirit dwells in his northern cave;

“About thirty miles below the falls of St. Anthony, at which I arrived the tenth day after I left Lake Pepin, is a remarkable cave of an amazing depth. The Indians term it Wakon-teebe, that is, the Dwelling of the Great Spirit. The entrance into it is about ten feet wide, the height of it five feet. The arch within it is near fifteen feet high and about thirty feet broad. The bottom of it consists of fine clear sand. About twenty feet from the entrance begins a lake, the water of which is transparent, and extends to an unsearchable distance; for the darkness of the cave prevents all attempts to acquire a knowledge of it. I threw a small pebble towards the interior parts of it with my utmost strength: I could hear that it fell into the water, and notwithstanding it was of so small a size, it caused an astonishing and horrible noise that reverberated through all those gloomy regions. I found in this cave many Indian hieroglyphics, which appeared very ancient, for time had nearly covered them with moss, so that it was with difficulty I could trace them. They were cut in a rude manner upon the inside of the walls, which were composed of a stone so extremely soft that it might easily be penetrated with a knife; a stone everywhere to be found near the Mississippi. The cave is only accessible by ascending a narrow steep passage that lies near the brink of the river.”—Carver's Travels, p. 39, 40.


Unruffled in its caverned bed,
Calm lies its glimmering surface spread;
Its springs, its outlet unconfess'd,
The pebble's weight upon its breast
Shall wake its echoing thunders deep,
And when their muttering accents sleep,
Its dark recesses hear them yet,
And tell of deathless love or hate!

XVI.

The council met; each bosom there
Pregnant with doubt or with despair;
And each wan eye and hollow cheek
The waste of toil and famine speak;
Yet o'er the dew-webbed turf reclined,
Silent they sate; and stranger's eye
Had deemed, in idle mood resigned
To nature's sweet tranquillity,
They lay to catch the mingling sound
Of woods and waters murmuring round;—

187

That the robin carolling blithe they heard,
Or the breeze the shivering leaves that stirred.
Among their eagle plumes it played,
And with their cinctures dalliance made;
But customed were they to control
The cradled whirlwinds of the soul;
And calm was every warrior's mien,
As if there a feast of love had been.

XVII.

Ill could the fiery Sachem brook
That gloomy, never-changing look.
Though long inured to mazy wile,
Through all the thousand lakes of guile,
His secret skiff had held its course,
And shunned each torrent's eddying force,
Yet ever would the fiery soul
Through all the circles dart,
Which, like the ice around the pole,
Begirt the Indian heart.

XVIII.

Up started Metacom;—the train
Of all his wrongs,—his perished power,—
His blasted hopes,—his kindred slain,—
His quenchless hate which blazed in vain,
So fierce in its triumphant hour,
But now to his own heart again
Withdrawn, but ran like liquid flame
Boiling through all his fevered frame,—
All, all seemed rushing on his brain:—
Each trembling fibre told the strife,
Which quelled that storm with madness rife,
Gathering in horrors o'er his brow,
And flashing wildly bright below.
While o'er his followers faint and few,
On inquest stern his glances flew,

188

Across his quivering lips in haste
A smile of bitterness there pass'd;—
As if a beam from the lamp had stole
That burnt within his inmost soul,
As in a deep, sepulchral cell,—
It seemed with transient curl to tell,
How in his triumph or his fall,
He doubted, and he scorned them all!
But silence straight the Sachem broke,
And thus his taunt abrupt he spoke—

XIX.

“Still do we live? to yonder skies
Yet does our warm breath buoyant rise,

“Whither is that breath flown, which a few hours ago sent up smoke to the Great Spirit?”—Carver's Travels, p. 282. The usual Indian metaphors for war and peace are generally known.—“Straight roads, smooth waters, clear sky, smoking the white calumet on a beaver blanket under the tree of peace, the war kettle,” &c. &c. are terms familiar to all who have looked into Colden's History of the Five Nations, Carver's Travels, &c. I have not, therefore, thought it needful to make any note on particular expressions of this description. The following list of metaphors is extracted from Heckewelder, and comprises, I believe, most of those employed in the text.

“‘The sky is overcast with dark blustering clouds.’ We shall have troublesome times; we shall have war.—‘A black cloud has arisen yonder.’ War is threatened from that quarter, or from that nation.—‘The path is already shut up.’ Hostilities have commenced; the war is begun.—‘The rivers run with blood.’ War rages in the country.—‘To bury the hatchet.’ To make or conclude a peace.—‘To lay down the hatchet, or to slip the hatchet under the bedstead.’ To cease fighting for a while, during a truce; or, to place the hatchet at hand, so that it may be taken up again at a moment's warning.—‘The hatchet you gave me was very sharp.’ As you have satisfied me, I have done the same for you; I have killed many of your enemies.—‘Singing birds.’ Tale-bearers, story-tellers, liars.—‘Don't listen to the singing of the birds which fly by.’ Don't believe what stragglers tell you.—‘To kindle a council fire at such a place.’ To appoint a place where the national business is to be transacted; to establish the seat of government there.—‘I will place you under my wings.’ (Meaning under my arm-pits.) I will protect you at all hazards; you shall be perfectly safe; nobody shall molest you.—‘Suffer no grass to grow on the war-path.’ Carry on the war with vigour.—‘To open a path from one nation to another, by removing the logs, brush, and briers out of the way.’ To invite the nation to which the path leads to a friendly intercourse; to prepare the way to live on friendly terms with them.—‘I have covered yon spot with fresh earth; I have raked leaves, and planted trees thereon;’ means, literally, I have hidden the grave from your eyes; and figuratively, you must now be cheerful again!—‘To bury deep in the earth’ (an injury done). To consign it to oblivion.”— Heckewelder, p. 125, 126, 127, 128, 129.


To that Great Spirit, who ne'er inhales
Incense from all the odorous gales,
In the world of warrior souls, more blest,
Than that respired from the freeman's breast!
Yet do we live? or struck by fear,
As the wretch by subtle sorcerer near,

“It is incredible to what a degree the superstitious belief in witchcraft operates on the mind of an Indian. The moment his imagination is struck with the idea he is bewitched, he is no longer himself. Of this extraordinary power of their conjurers, of the causes which produce it, and the manner in which it is acquired, they have not a very definite idea. The sorcerer, they think, makes use of some deadening substance, which he conveys to the person he means to ‘strike,’ in a manner which they can neither understand nor describe. The person thus ‘stricken’ is immediately seized with an unaccountable terror. His spirits sink, his appetite fails, he is disturbed in his sleep, he pines and wastes away, or a fit of sickness seizes him, and he dies at last a miserable victim to the workings of his own imagination.”—Heckewelder, 229–231. See also Carver, Charlevoix, Bartram, Hearne, &c. referred to in Dr. Jarvis's discourse on the religion of the Indian tribes, &c. delivered before the N.Y. Historical Society, December 20, 1819. And see notes to Canto IV. Dr. Jarvis, p. 51, takes notice of the mistake, made by Carver and others, in confounding the jongleurs, or jugglers (in English), with the priests. The expression, sorcerer, made use of in the text, alludes to the former order. I have generally, however, termed them pow-wahs, and their brethren, who followed the more regular practice, prophets. It is somewhat singular that Mr. Southey, in one of his ‘Songs of the North-American Indians,’ should put the French term jongleur in the mouth of a native.


Palsied and pining, must we lie
In yon dark fen, and dimly spy
Our fathers' hills, our native sky:—
Like the coward ghosts, whom the bark of stone

“They believe (the Chepewyans) that immediately after their death they pass into another world, where they arrive at a large river, on which they embark in a stone canoe, and that a gentle current bears them on to an extensive lake, in the centre of which is a most beautiful island; and that in the view of this delightful abode, they receive that judgment for their conduct during life which terminates their final state and unalterable allotment. If their good actions are declared to predominate, they are landed upon the island, where there is to be no end to their happiness; which, however, according to their notions, consists in an eternal enjoyment of sensual pleasure and carnal gratification. But if their bad actions weigh down the balance, the stone canoe sinks at once, and leaves them up to their chins in water, to behold and regret the reward enjoyed by the good, and eternally struggling, but with unavailing endeavours, to reach the blissful island from which they are excluded for ever.”—Mackenzie's Voyages, p. 84, New-York edit. 1802.


Leaves in the eternal wave to moan,
And wail for ever, as they descry
The blissful isle they can come not nigh;
Where the souls of the brave from toil released,
Prolong the chase, the dance, the feast,
And fill the sparkling chalice high,
From the springs of immortality!
Say, has oblivion kindly come,
To veil remembrance in its gloom?
Have ye forgot, that whilome here,
Your fathers drove the bounding deer;
When now, so works the Evil One,
Like heartless deer their children run;—

189

Or trembling in their darksome lair,
While fear's cold dews gush full and fast,
One venturous glance no longer dare
Round on their native forests cast.
The hunters came, the charm they brought;

It is said in Bartram's Travels that the deer are enticed by the olive leaves.


The tempting lure the senseless sought,
And tamely to the spoiler gave
The ancient birthright of the brave!

XX.

“Oblivion? O! the films of age
Shall shroud yon sun's resplendent eye.
And waning in his pilgrimage,
His latest beam in heaven shall die,
Ere on the soil from whence we fled,
The story of our wrongs be dead!
Could the tall trunk of peace once more
Lift its broad foliage on our shore;
And on the beaver robe outspread
Our remnant rest beneath its shade;
From stainless bowls and incense high
Amid the blue and cloudless sky;
Mark round us waves unrimpled flow,
And o'er green paths no bramble grow;—
Say where in earth profoundly deep,
Should all our wrongs in darkness sleep?
What art the sod shall o'er them heap;
And rear the tree whose verdant tower
Aloft shall build, beneath embower,—
Till men shall pass and shall not know
The secrets foul that rest below?
The memory ne'er can die, of all
For blood, for vengeance that can call,
While feels a red man in his breast
The might, the soul his sires possess'd,
Toil, death, and danger can defy,
Look up to heaven, and proudly cry,

190

Eternal and Almighty One,
Father of all! I am thy son!

XXI.

“Poor, crouching children of the brave!
Lo! where the broad and sparkling wave
Anointed once the freeman's shore,
Your father's tents arise no more.
There lie your masters in their pride;
And not so thick, o'er torpid tide,
The blessed light that beams on earth
Warms the coiled vipers into birth,
And not so loathsome do they spread
Their slime along its sedgy bed,
As glittering on my aching eyes,
The white man's homes accursed rise!
I rave;—and ye are cold and tame;
Forget ye Massasoiet's shame?
Forget ye him, who, snared and caught,
Soared on the chainless wings of thought,
A lowly captive might not be,
For his heart broke, and he was free!
Last, poorest of a mighty race,
Proscribed, devoted to the chase,
I hold this cumbrous load of life,
Avenging powers! from you;
The remnant of its dreary strife
To hoarded vengeance due!
But ye—live on; and lowly kneel,
And crouching kiss the impending steel,
Which, in mere weariness of toil,
Full sated with you kinsmen's spoil,
May haply grant the boon to live;—
For this your cringing taubut

“Thank you.”—Heckewelder.

give;

And o'er your father's hallowed grave
Drag the foul members of the slave!

191

O slaves! the children of the free!
The hunted brute cries shame on ye!
At bay each threatening horn he turns,
As fierce the enclosing circle burns;—

“Les chasseurs se rangent sur quatre lignes, qui forment un très grand quarré, et commencent par mettre le feu aux herbes, qui sont séches alors, et fort hautes; puis, à mesure que le feu gagne, ils avancent en se reserrant. Les bœufs, qui craignent extrêmement le feu, fuyent toujours, et se trouvent à la fin si serrés les uns contre les autres, qu'on les tuë ordinairement jusqu'au dernier.” “Quand il [le bœuf] est blessé il est furieux, et se retourne sur les chasseurs.”—Charlevoix, tom. iii. 131.


And ye are baited in your lair,
And will ye fight not for despair?”

XXII.

Thus spoke the Sachem in his ire,
Bright anger blazing in his eye;
And, as the bolt of living fire
Streams through the horrors of the sky,
Kindling the pine, whose flames aspire
In one red pyramid on high,
In all his warriors, as he spoke,
The rising fury fiercely woke;
Each tomahawk, in madness swayed,
Gleamed mid the forest's quivering shade;
Loud rose the war-whoop, wild and shrill;
The frowning rock, the towering hill
Prolonged the indignant cry:
Far o'er the stilly æther borne,
By the light pinions of the morn,
It fell on the lonely traveller's ear,
Round on the wilderness in fear
He gazed with anxious eye;
On distant wave the wanderer well
Knew the loud larum terrible,
And trembled at the closing swell,
As slow its echoes die.

XXIII.

“'Tis well—no more,” the Sachem said,
“The Spirit hears your answer made.
But who art thou, whose arm alone
Hangs nerveless at thy side?

192

Who mak'st thyself mid warriors one,
And, dog-like, hast no single tone,
To swell their shout of pride?
Son of a base and recreant band!
Who from the common tyrant's hand,
Took the war-hatchet, blood died pledge
Of peace between them and our foe,
And proved too well how keen its edge;—
Its temper well their brethren know.
Miantonimo's honoured head

I know not if the quantity of this word be correct. Miantonimo was the chief sachem of the Narragansets, and was defeated and taken prisoner in a pitched battle with Uncas, who cut off his head and sent it to the English. They stuck it on a pole, in terrorum, anno 1643. Canonchet was Miantonimo's son. He was captured in 1676 by the Connecticut forces and their Indian confederates, the Mohegans and Niantics, under their sachem, old Ninigret. Canonchet was one of the most gallant chieftains of that day. A very interesting account, too long to be inserted, is given of his capture, in Hubbard, p. 159–162. He was honourably shot by some Mohegans of his own rank. Mr. Irving has mentioned him in his life of Philip. Panoquin was the friend of Canonchet, and also a sub-sachem among the Narragansets.—Hubbard. Mather's Magnalia. Increase Mather, &c.


Our laggard vengeance will upbraid;—
Canonchet and Panoquin, slain
By coward hands, look forth in vain,
From their eternal towers, to spy
Mohegan ghosts go wandering by;—
For blood a thousand heroes cry,
Whose bones, untombed, dishonoured lie:
No kindred hands, with reverent care,
Those relics from the waste shall bear;
Ne'er from his path shall traveller turn,
Beside their grassy mound to mourn;

“But on whatever occasion they [the Indians' mounds] may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians: for a party passing, about thirty years ago, through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry; and having staid about for some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey.”—Jefferson's Notes, p. 161, 162.


Nor, prostrate stretched beside their grave,
Sighing shall say—there sleep the brave!
And shalt thou live, and mingle here
With those their memory who revere?”

XXIV.

Young Agamoun, by many a snare
Of fame, revenge and promise fair,
Long since from the Mohegan shore
The Sachem and his warriors bore:
Then the young hero's heart beat high,
With all the patriot's sympathy;—
Fierce as the battle god,

“Il paroît, madame, que dans ces chansons on invoque le dieu de la guerre, que les Hurons appellent Areskoui et les Iroquois Agreskoué. Je ne sçai pas quel nom ou lui donne dans les langues Algonquines.” “L'Areskoui des Hurons et l'Agreskoué des Iroquois est dans l'opinion de ces peuples le Souverain Etre, et le Dieu de la Guerre.”—Charlevoix, III. 207–344. I do not know, any better than Father Charlevoix, the name of the war-god among the Lenapé; but find a totally different word for the verb to make war, which, in the Iroquois, is derived from the name of the deity. The New-England Indians, I believe, had no such person in their mythology. The word is, therefore, improperly put into King Philip's mouth. Mr. Campbell writes it Ariouski, in “Gertrude of Wyoming.”

for fight

Collecting his unconquered might,

193

Along the war-path of the heaven,
Revealed in red and sulphurous levin,
Rolling his gloomy clouds afar,
Exulting at the scent of war;—
So he went forth, in strength and youth,
And hailed hope's paltering form as truth:
But years had passed since hope grew cold;
False was the fraudful tale she told;
Ambition's dream and promise high
Were but the song of birds flown by!
He saw his marshalled tribe oppose
Their brethren, as their mortal foes;
He saw their scanted numbers fail,
Like autumn's leaves on winter's gale;
Until, his hopes, his followers gone,
The western chief remained alone.
Mistrust and jealousy had torn
A noble heart by fortune worn;
From council and from power estranged,
He saw the Sachem's visage changed;
The silver chain, in earthly dust,
Had caught the stains of human rust;
Till in the hour of adverse fate,
Its links were snapp'd for e'er by hate.

XXV.

So where at first, with gurgling rush,

“I observed that the main body of the Fox river came from the southwest, that of the Ouisconsin from the north-east. That two such rivers should take their rise so near each other, and after running different courses, empty themselves into the sea, at a distance so amazing (for the former, having passed through several great lakes, and run upwards of two thousand miles, falls into the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and the other, after joining the Mississippi, and having run an equal number of miles, disembogues itself into the Gulf of Mexico), is an instance scarcely to be met in the extensive continent of North America. I had an opportunity, the year following, of making the same observations on the affinity of various head branches of the waters of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi [which] in some places approached so near that I could have stepped from the one to the other.”—Carver's Travels, p. 28.


The founts of mighty rivers gush,
So near the kindred streamlets flow,
Their pebbly channels murmuring through,
Their distance at a stride the child
May measure, as he gambols wild:
Each, mingling with its countless tides,
O'er earth's unequal bosom glides,
Through adverse climes and distant realms,—
And when their tribute ocean whelms,

194

With stranger name each stream appears,
Disgorged in different hemispheres.
Untainted yet by crime and wo,
While nature's generous currents flow,
Thro' sympathy's luxuriant mould,
Hearts, side by side, their course may hold;
But parted on the wastes of time,
How soon forgot that earlier clime!

XXVI.

“Speak! traitor, speak! thy thoughts unfold!
Be thy cloaked treasons instant told!
Whizzes in air the venomed dart,
Ere yet it rankles in the heart;—
Prepared to sting the lurking snake
His monitory hiss will wake;
Hiss, serpent, hiss!”
The Sachem spoke:
Resentment rising seemed to choke
The words of wrath that forth had broke:
But conscience lent her bland relief,
And calmly spoke the injured chief.
—“Whate'er of private feud my heart
To my tongue's language might impart,
I learned to bury and to hide,
When battling on my country's side.
Who, when her sacred cause inspires,
Enkindles at polluted fires,
Where unclean spirits hold retreat,
Where none but the impure may meet,
His passions base, revenge or pride,—
Curs'd be that guilty parricide!
O noteless in the songs of same,
A beacon blaze his recreant name
Hovering for ever may it be
O'er the dull fens of infamy!

195

The stem must crack

“They will not suffer any belonging to them to fetch such things as are necessary, even fire, from these retreats, though the want is attended with the greatest inconvenience. They are also so superstitious as to think, if a pipe-stem cracks, which among them is made of wood, that the possessor has lighted it at one of these polluted fires,” &c.—Carver's Travels, p. 152. This alludes to a particular custom, to which the simile in the text has no reference. See, also, for that custom, Adair's History of the North American Indians. M'Kenzie's History of the Fur Trade, p. 87. Star in the West, by Dr. Boudinot &c. and the notes to Canto IV.

—the cause must fail,

If such unholy warmth prevail!
But wherefore more? ye've known me long,
Ye saw me when your cause was strong—
Ye proved me when your hopes were weak,
If ye have found me wanting, speak!

XXVII.

“Here if we linger, what remains?
Inglorious death, accursed chains!
Ah! tho' the bleak and sheeted blast
Round Haup's bare cliffs its shroud shall cast,
And sweep in howling, wild affray
The sere and shivering leaves away,
Again its dæmons far will fly,
When milder spirits rule the sky;
The moon of birds her horns will show,
The bough will bud, the fountain flow:
But Metacom, thy second spring
No Weko-lis shall ever sing!

“The Indians say that when the leaf of the white oak, which puts forth in the spring, is of the size of the ear of a mouse, it is time to plant corn; they observe that now the whipperwill has arrived, and is continually hovering over them, calling out his Indian name ‘Wekolis,’ in order to remind them of the planting time, ‘Hackihack!’ go to planting corn!”—Heckewelder, p. 305. Carver, mentioning the same circumstance, says, the Indians term the bird “Muckawiss.”—p. 310.


Once Pawkanawkut's warriors stood,
Thick as the columns of the wood;
On shores and isles, unconquered men
Called Massasoiet father, then:—
The blasting wind with poisoned breath

The mortality among the Indians, previous to the coming of the English, has been mentioned before, in the note from Gookin, on the Pawkanawkutts. And see notes to Canto III.


Brought on its withered pinions death,
Ere bade the Owannox

This was the name given to the English by the Indians. Thus, when the enemy approached Mystic Fort, the sentry of the Pequods cried out, O wanux! O wanux! or, as C. Mather has it, Wannux! Wannux!—Magnalia, VII. 42.

o'er the deep

Their castle-barks triumphant sweep:—
Past is the Autumn of our pride,
When every leaf with blood was died:—
And now dread Winter's troop alone
Shriek round our power and promise gone!
From earth when nations perish, ne'er
Again their leaflets shall appear.
The stranger, in the after time,
Weets not of glory's earlier clime!

196

Perchance, like yon dwarf firs that grow
Rooted in rocky cleft on high,
As things above, or joy or wo,
That frown against the beauteous sky,—
Of all our tribes, the heirs of want,
A feeble few our land may haunt;
The gloomy ghosts of dead renown

Is, I perceive, borrowed from Young,—

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
All point to earth, and hiss at human pride!

Awhile from sire to son go down;
And as with spectral visit say
That here the red men once had sway!

XXVIII.

“Veiling in gloom his awful face,
The Spirit smiles not on our race,
As once he smiled with beams of bliss,
Ere discord's snakes were heard to hiss.
One council fire

One house, one fire, and one canoe, is to say that they constituted together one people, one family.”—Heckewelder, 79.

the nations knew;

One ample roof o'er all was spread;
The stately tree beside it grew,
The skies of blue rose overhead.
Once on our wampum-belts how fair
The stainless lines of peace were wrought,
And all the sacred symbols there
With wise and friendly meaning fraught!
Once circling far the glittering chain
Begirt the sea, the isles, the main;
The belt is broke; the chain is riven,
And we are left by angry heaven!
Fraught with our weal and with our wo,
The tide of fate runs deep and slow;
On to eternity it rides,
Mysterious as the wave,
Where Huron disembogues its tides,

I transcribed these lines hastily, without referring to their precise allusion. The second line may be stricken out, without injuring the sense of the passage. Those, however, who are disposed to be captious, are perfectly welcome to all the blunders I may have committed, here and elsewhere.

“I had like to have omitted a very extraordinary circumstance relative to these straits (Michillimackinack). According to observation, made by the French, while they were in possession of the fort, although there is no diurnal flood or ebb to be perceived in these waters, yet, from an exact attention to their state, a periodical alteration in them has been discovered. It was observed that they rose by gradual, but almost imperceptible degrees, till they had reached the height of about three feet. This was accomplished in seven years and a half; and in the same space they as gently decreased, till they had reached their former situation; so that in fifteen years they had completed this inexplicible revolution.”—Carver, p. 92.


That slowly rises, slow subsides,
As cycles find their grave.

197

Full low our country's best blood runs,
And few and feeble are her sons;
Will ye the desperate venture try,
And leave the dreary channel dry?

XXIX.

“Wild are the wolds and deep the woods
That girdle far our western floods.
There merrily the red deer roam,
There may we fight ourselves a home!
Yet may submission purchase peace,”
“Cease,” cried the furious Sachem, “cease!”
For long had died the war-whoop's strain,
The warrior's fire was quenched again.
As the last moanings of the gale
Sigh out the tempest's sad farewell,
The whirlwind wakened by their lord
In mournful murmurs died;
And thro' that melancholy horde
Sunk all their wakened pride.

XXX.

“Traitor, enough! thy wish is given!
Go howl around the walls of heaven!

“He,” the Prophet, “likewise told me, that departed souls always went southward; and that the difference between the good and bad was this—that the former were admitted into a beautiful town, with spiritual walls, or walls agreeable to the nature of souls; and that the latter would for ever hover round those walls, and in vain attempt to get in,” &c.—Diary of David Brainerd.—E. See also Carver, p. 251. M'Kenzie, &c. &c.


There's ample room, apostate! there;
Go thou that company to share
Of spectres vile, whom doom decreed
Proclaims the dastard traitor's meed.
For aye those guilty shadows speed
Swift thro' that misty land,
On feverish chase, which end hath none,
Whose phantom game shall ne'er be won,
Till retribution shall be done;—
Go, then, to join the band!

198

Seal with thy blood the covenant made,
When Uncas first our rights betrayed.
The white man's arms

Cotton Mather thus pathetically laments the introduction of fire-arms among the Indians. “After this the Land rested from War for forty Years together, even until the Sins of the Land called for a new Scourge; and the Indians, by being taught the use of Guns, which hitherto they had not learnt, were more capable to be made the instruments of inflicting it. The English Interest in America must at last, with Bleeding Lamentations, cry out Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis. For after this, the Auri sacra Fames, that cursed Hunger of Lucre, in the diverse Nations of Europeans here, in diverse Colonies bordering upon one another, soon furnished the Savages with Tools to destroy those that furnish'd them;—Tools pregnant with infernal flame,” &c.—Magnalia, VII. 44. The Dutch sold great quantities of fire-arms to the Indians.

are best employed,

Their recreant proselyte destroyed.”

XXXI.

He said, and from beside him caught
The tube with deadly vengeance fraught;—
Then instant forth Ahauton stood
(He too of the Mohegan blood),
But short the raving Sachem broke
The words the intercessor spoke.
“By Sassacöus' honoured bones,

This mode of expression is, I believe, improper for an Indian. The author last quoted has this curious remark, speaking of the destruction of the Pequod fort. “When they came to see the ashes of their friends mingled with the ashes of the fort, and the bodies of so many of their Country terribly Barbikew'd, where the English had been doing a good morning's work, they Howl'd, they Roar'd, they stamp'd, they tore their hair; and though they did not Swear (for they knew not how!) yet they Curs'd, and were the Pictures of so many Devils in Desperation.”—Magnalia, VII. 43.


Where'er, untombed in sacred stones,
In the fierce Maquas clime

The Indians in the western parts of Connecticut were tributary to the Mohawks. The cry of “a Mohawk! a Mohawk!” struck them with universal panic. The Mohawks announced their coming by the shout, “We are coming, we are coming, to suck your blood!” See Colden's History, vol. i. p. 3., and Trumbull, p. 56. These conquerors made a descent upon Philip's confederates, during this war, and destroyed numbers of them. See the notes to Canto III.

they lie—

No more, or with him shalt thou die!”
Then on his friend the sentenced chief
Cast a last look intent and brief;
It bade Ahauton not to dare
The wolf's wild fangs within his lair,
But life for nobler vengeance bear.
Stern lowered the Wampanoägs round,
Subdued beneath their chieftain's frown;
Breathed to the doom of death no sound,
While Agamoun knelt calmly down,
Unblenched and firm; awhile his gaze
The horde, the earth, the heaven surveys,
As giving them his last good-bye:—
“Brothers! behold a warrior die!
For kindred let the white men grieve;
To those who love me, all I leave
Is the large legacy of hate!
True as the ball that drinks my blood,
Mohegan warriors shall make good
To Metacom and his the debt.

199

Escape be yours;—but O! if won,
Beware!” he spoke no more,
For closely now the levelled gun
Was placed his heart before.

XXXII.

That Philip killed an Indian for proposing terms of peace, and that the brother, or friend, of the deceased, betrayed the sachem's haunts to the English, are historical facts, recorded by all the contemporary historians of that day. Cotton Mather says,—“A man belonging to Philip himself, being disgusted at him for killing an Indian, who had propounded an expedient of peace with the English, ran away from him to Rhode Island, where Captain Church was then recruiting of his weary forces.”—Magnalia, VII. 45. “One of Philip's men (being disgusted at him, for killing an Indian, who had propounded an expedient for peace with the English), ran away from him, and coming to Road Island, informed,” &c.—Increase Mather, p. 46. “Such had been his inveterate malice and wickedness against the English, that, despairing of mercy from them, he could not hear that any thing should be suggested to him about a peace, insomuch as he caused one of his confederates to be killed, for propounding an expedient of peace; which so provoked some of his company, not altogether so desperate as himself, that one of them (being near of kin to him that was killed), fled to Road Island,” &c.—Hubbard, old edit. p. 103. See Captain Church's account in a note to Canto III. As to the mode of Agamoun's execution, it is, I believe, justifiable.

“The Sachem was not only examiner, judge, and executioner, in all criminal cases, but in all matters of justice between one man and another. The Sachem whipped the delinquent, and slit his nose, in cases which required these punishments; and he killed the delinquent, unless he were at a great distance. In this case, in which execution could not be done with his own hands, he sent his knife, by which it was effected. The Indians would not receive any punishment that was not capital, from the hands of any except their Sachems. The Sachems were so absolute in their government, that they contemned the limited authority of the English governors.”—Trumbull, p. 52, 53.

“In the time of Bacon's rebellion, one of these Werowances [Virginia Sachems], attended by several others of his nation, was treating with the English in New Kent county, about a Peace; and during the time of his Speech, one of his Attendants presum'd to interrupt him, which he resented as the most unpardonable Affront that could be offered him, and therefore he instantly took his Tomahawk from his girdle, and split the Fellow's head, for his presumption. The poor Fellow dying immediately upon the spot, he commanded some of his men to carry him out, and went on again with his Speech where he left off, as unconcern'd as if nothing had happen'd.”—History of Virginia, p. 194.

A moment's pause intensely still,—
A quick, cold, deep and silent thrill,—
The steel gives fire,—the chieftain fell,—
The death-shot's sound his only knell,
And a low murmur's smothered tone
His parting requiem alone!

XXXIII.

“Take, Areskoui! take thine own!”—
With voice subdued the Sachem said,—
“A braver offering never bled,
To thee in battle's gory bed!
And I could mourn the recreant thought
By which so dear a life was bought,
But that I may not waste a sigh,
On foul, infectious treachery.
Brothers, away! not yet the foe
These our last haunts of safety know;
Till better days, our watch-word be
Hope, vigilance, and secrecy.”

XXXIV.

They raise the bleeding corse, and back
Hold to their dark retreat the track;
With Metacom remains alone
The brave, the generous Annawon.

See a note to Canto V.


“Brother and friend,”—the Sachem cried,
“The only friend my fortunes know,
When all by kin, by love allied,
Are captive to the unpitying foe,—

200

Or unavenged, are journeying slow
To that far world where spirits go:—
O friend! my trust is firm in thee,
As in his dream the initiate's faith;

See a subsequent note to this Canto.


Calm is thy soul in victory,
And bold when comes the hour of scaith.
Yon trembling herd it is not meet
Should read our final purpose yet;
Their courage is an old year's flame,

“The Indians esteem the old year's fire as a most dangerous pollution, regarding only the supposed holy fire, which the Archimagus annually renews for the people.”—Adair, p. 22.


Polluted and unworth the name;
Terror alone their hearts must sway—
For this the brave has bled to-day.
But I must fly—my native earth,—
My father's throne and council-hearth;—
I, of the peerless eagle race,
Must fly the hawk's unwonted chase,—
The insatiate hawk

“The Cheerake Indians have a pointed proverbial expression, signifying ‘The great hawk is at home.’”—Adair, p. 17, speaking of the Indian contempt of avarice.

—who all will have,

Nor yields his victim e'en a grave!
Since childhood's earlier moons were dead,

The following extracts relate to what some writers call “making black boys,” and Mr. Heckewelder, “the initiation of boys.” See the notes to Dr. Jarvis's discourse; and to the Fourth Canto.

“I do not know how to give a better name (initiation of boys) to a superstitious practice which is very common among the Indians, and, indeed, is universal among those nations that I have become acquainted with. By certain methods which I shall presently describe, they put the mind of a boy in a state of perturbation, so as to excite dreams and visions; by means of which they pretend that the boy receives instructions from certain spirits or unknown agents as to his conduct in life, that he is informed of his future destination, and of the wonders he is to perform in his future career throughout the world.

“When a boy is to be thus initiated, he is put under an alternate course of physic and fasting, either taking no food whatever, or swallowing the most powerful and nauseous medicines, and occasionally he is made to drink decoctions of an intoxicating nature, until his mind becomes sufficiently bewildered, so that he sees, or fancies that he sees, visions, and has extraordinary dreams, for which, of course, he has been prepared beforehand. He will fancy himself flying through the air, walking under ground, stepping from one ridge or hill to the other across the valley beneath, fighting and conquering giants and monsters, and defeating whole hosts by his single arm. Then he has interviews with the Mannitto, or with spirits, who inform him of what he was before he was born, and what he will be after his death. His fate in this life is laid entirely open before him, the spirit tells him what is to be his future employment, whether he will be a valiant warrior, a mighty hunter, a doctor, a conjuror, or a prophet. There are even those who learn, or pretend to learn, in this way, the time and manner of their death.

“When a boy has been thus initiated, a name is given to him analogous to the visions that he has seen, and to the destiny that is supposed to be prepared for him. The boy, imagining all that happened to him while under perturbation to have been real, sets out in the world with lofty notions of himself, and animated with courage for the most desperate undertakings. They could always cite numerous instances of valiant men, who, in former times, in consequence of such dreams, had boldy attacked their enemy with nothing but the Tamahican in their hand, had not looked about to survey the number of their opponents, but had gone straight forward, striking all down before them.”—Heckewelder, p. 238–9.

The extract which follows, is, perhaps, as satisfactory an explanation of this singular custom, as any that has been given since the author's time. The same, or similar rites, being used by the Indians of the north, probably gave occasion to the same superstition among the settlers there, as was entertained by those of the south; namely, that the savages sacrificed their children to Moloch, or the Devil.

“The Indians have their altars and places of sacrifice. Some say, they now and then sacrifice young children: but they deny it, and assure us, that when they withdraw their children, it is not to sacrifice them, but to consecrate them to the service of their god. Smith tells of one of these Sacrifices in his time, from the Testimony of some People who had been Eye-witnesses. His Words are these.” Here follows a quotation from Smith, referred to in the notes to Dr. Jarvis's Discourse. He then proceeds; “I take this story of Smith's to be only an example of Huskanawing, which, being a ceremony then altogether unknown to him, he might easily mistake some of the Circumstances of it.

“The solemnity of the Huskanawing is commonly practis'd once every fourteen or sixteen years, or oftener, as their young Men happen to grow up. It is an Institution or Discipline which all young Men must pass, before they can be admitted to be of the Number of the great Men, Officers, or Cockarouses of the Nation; whereas by Captain Smith's Relation, they were only set apart to supply the Priesthood. The whole ceremony of Huskanawing is performed after the following manner:—

“The choicest and briskest young Men of the Town, and such only as have acquired some Treasure by their Travels and Hunting, are chosen out by the Rulers to be Huskanawed; and whoever refuses to undergo this Process, dares not remain among them. Several of those odd preparatory Fopperies are premis'd in the Beginning, which have been before related; but the principal Part of the Business is, to carry them into the Woods, and there keep them under Confinement, and destitute of all Society, for several Months; giving them no other Sustenance, but the Infusion or Decoction of some poisonous, intoxicating Roots; by virtue of which Physick, and by the severity of the Discipline which they undergo, they become stark staring Mad: In which raving Condition they are kept eighteen or twenty Days. During these Extremeties, they are shut up, Night and Day, in a strong Inclosure, made on Purpose, one of which I saw, belonging to the Pamaunkie Indians, in the year 1694. It was in Shape like a Sugar-loaf, and every way open like a lattice, for the air to pass through. In this Cage, thirteen young men had been Huskanaw'd, and had not been a Month set at liberty when I saw it. Upon this Occasion it is pretended, that these poor Creatures drink so much of that Water of Lethe, that they perfectly lose the Remembrance of all former Things, even of their Parents, their Treasure, and their Language. When the Doctors find that they have drank sufficiently of the Wysoccan (so they call this mad Potion), they gradually restore them to their senses again, by lessening the Intoxication of their Diet; but before they are perfectly well, they bring them back into their Towns, while they are still wild and crazy, through the Violence of the Medicine. After this they are very fearful of discovering any thing of their former Remembrance; for if such a thing should happen to any of them they must immediately be Huskanaw'd again. Thus they unlive their former Lives, and commence Men, by forgetting that they ever have been Boys. The Indians pretend that this violent Method of taking away the Memory, is to release the Youth from all their childish Impressions, and from that strong Partiality to Persons and Things which is contracted before Reason comes to take place.”— History of Virginia, p. 175, 176, 177, 178, 179.


When I forgot what things had been,
And claimed to rank with warrior men—
Of mortal foe I knew no dread.
Had nature made these limbs to quail
At danger's front, the white men ne'er
Had chilled them with the spells of fear;—
For, in those hours when dreams prevail,—
When on the boy's bewildered eyes
The future's shadowy visions rise,
I learn'd to fear nor wound nor fate
From those pale offspring of the east:—
This too oft sung the illumined priest,

“One thing,” says Dr. Mather, “which imboldened King Philip in all his Outrages, was an assurance which his Magicians, consulting their Oracles, gave him, that no Englishman should ever kill him; and indeed if any Englishman might have had the honour of Killing him, he must have had a good measure of Grace to have repressed the Vanity of Mind whereto he would have had some Temptations. But this will not extend the Life of that Bloody and Crafty Wretch above half his days!”—Magnalia, VII. p. 54.


When heaven he might interrogate,
Ere the Manittos' voices ceased.
This have I felt, when slaughter fell
Shrieked in my ear its murderous yell;—

201

This in the kindling battle's mell,
In deathful stour was proven well;—
This have my widowed fortunes found,
When all I love lie cold around;—
When like a blasted trunk, alone,
Leaf, blossom, bud, and scion gone,
I stand,—the fire, the axedefy,
And swift-consuming bolts on high.
It is not fear!—but o'er my heart
The shade of sorrow oft will fly;—
And though from these fair scenes to part
Might ask the tribute of a sigh,—
That sigh, the last, the only one,
Becomes not Massasoiet's son!

XXXV.

“But let this pass;—by fraud or force,
Through Nipnet tribes we hold our course;
Yamoyden

A word euphonized by my deceased friend, I believe, from some more uncouth name. All the letters, however, belong to the alphabet of these Indians. The rude sound of the Indian names was distressing to the writers of Philip's age, as appears from several remarks of Mather, and others. The author of some verses, meant to be complimentary, prefixed to Hubbard's Narrative, calls them,

“Names uncouth which ne'er Minshew could reduce,
By's Pollyglotton to the vulgar use.”

With all due deference, however, the appellations of many of these chieftains, particularly in the vicinity of Narraganset bay, if connected with classical associations, would seem full as sonorous as the names of the ancient heroes.

to their broken bands

Yet dear, must through their northern lands
Make smooth our path. Thou say'st that he
Lists in Aquetnet's woods to hear
A bird, whose music is more dear
Than vengeance or than liberty.
A turtle-dove he nurses there,
And shelters with a parent's care.
That nest must be despoiled! the chief
Must share our common bond of grief!
And hear me, chieftain—ere our flight,
The last, the long-neglected rite,
Again must blaze in midnight gloom,
Prove if the spirits yet be dumb!
Since Areskoui sees no more,
Supine in heaven, his children's wo,
Evoking powers, our friends of yore,

202

The sacrifice of blood

See notes to Cantos III and IV.

must pour,

And o'er their awful altars flow!”

XXXVI.

Here pause we for a while the song,
While they their counsels wild prolong,
Where many a troubled accent came,
Oft mingling with Yamoyden's name.
 

By a late admeasurement it is not much more than two hundred.

This was not his name. See the Notes to Canto VI.

Meaning an original people, αυτοχθονεσ.

Maqua in the Mohegan tongue, which is the same with the Chippeway and Algonquin, means bear. See the vocabularies in Dr. Edward's “Observations,” “Carver's Travels,” and the Appendix to Baron Le Hontan. So, Mahingan means a wolf; and their tribe was called Les Loups by the French, according to Mr. Jefferson.

The Indians were in the habit of changing their names at their great war dances. Thus Canonchet was afterward called Nanunteno.

Printed, I suppose, by mistake, Metamocet, in the Analectic Magazine, containing the life of Philip, by Mr. Irving. See Increase Mather's Brief History of the Warr, &c. Boston, 1676.

Should be 1639, as Hubbard has it himself in the next page, and as it is in N. E. Memorial. The error is not corrected in the new edition of Hubbard.

Written snuke in the very incorrect modern edition of Hubbard.

Akkompoin, according to Church.

Supposed by the English to be the devil. See Notes to Canto IV.

See the notes to Canto IV.