University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

At this distant period, when Indian traditions are
listened to with the interest that we lend to the events
of a dark age, it is not easy to convey a vivid image of
the dangers and privations that our ancestors encountered,
in preparing the land we enjoy for its present
state of security and abundance. It is the humble object
of the tale that will be found in the succeeding pages,
to perpetuate the recollection of some of the practices
and events peculiar to the early days of our history.

The general character of the warfare pursued by the
natives is too well known to require any preliminary
observations; but it may be advisable to direct the attention
of the reader, for a few moments, to those leading
circumstances in the history of the times, that may
have some connexion with the principal business of the
legend.

The territory which now composes the three states
of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode-Island, is said,
by the best-informed of our annalists, to have been
formerly occupied by four great nations of Indians, who
were, as usual, subdivided into numberless dependent
tribes. Of these people, the Massachusetts possessed
a large portion of the land which now composes the
state of that name; the Wampanoags dwelt in what was
once the Colony of Plymouth, and in the northern districts
of the Providence Plantations; the Narragansetts
held the well-known islands of the beautiful bay which
receives its name from their nation, and the more southern
counties of the Plantations; while the Pequots, or,
as it is ordinarily written and pronounced, the Pequods,

were masters of a broad region that lay along the western
boundaries of the three other districts.

There is great obscurity thrown around the polity of
the Indians, who usually occupied the country lying
near the sea.

The Europeans, accustomed to despotic governments,
very naturally supposed that the chiefs, found in possession
of power, were monarchs to whom authority
had been transmitted in virtue of their birth-rights.
They consequently gave them the name of kings.

How far this opinion of the governments of the aborigines
was true remains a question, though there is
certainly reason to think it less erroneous in respect to
the tribes of the Atlantic states, than to those who have
since been found further west, where, it is sufficiently
known, that institutions exist which approach much
nearer to republics than to monarchies. It may, however,
have readily happened that the son, profiting by
the advantages of his situation, often succeeded to the
authority of the father, by the aid of influence, when
the established regulations of the tribe acknowledged
no hereditary claim. Let the principle of the descent
of power be what it would, it is certain the experience
of our ancestors proves, that, in very many instances,
the child was seen to occupy the station formerly filled
by the father; and, that in most of those situations of
emergency, in which a people so violent were often
placed, the authority he exercised was as summary as it
was general. The appellation of Uncas came, like those
of the Cæsars and Pharoahs, to be a sort of synonyme
for chief with the Mohegans, a tribe of the Pequods,
among whom several warriors of this name were known
to govern in due succession. The renowned Metacom,
or, as he is better known to the whites, King Philip,
was certainly the son of Massassoit, the Sachem of the

Wampanoags that the emigrants found in authority
when they landed on the rock of Plymouth. Maintonimoh,
the daring but hapless rival of that Uncas who
ruled the whole of the Pequod nation, was succeeded
in authority, among the Narragansetts, by his not less
heroic and enterprising son, Conanchet; and, even at a
much later day, we find instances of this transmission
of power, which furnish strong reasons for believing
that the order of succession was in the direct line of
blood.

The early annals of our history are not wanting in
touching and noble examples of savage heroism. Virginia
has its legend of the powerful Powhatan and his
magnanimous daughter, the ill-requited Pocahontas;
and the chronicles of New-England are filled with the
bold designs and daring enterprises of Miantonimoh,
of Metacom, and of Conanchet. All the last-named
warriors proved themselves worthy of better fates, dying
in a cause and in a manner, that, had it been their fortunes
to have lived in a more advanced state of society,
would have enrolled their names among the worthies of
the age.

The first serious war, to which the settlers of New-England
were exposed, was the struggle with the Pequods.
This people was subdued after a fierce conflict;
and from being enemies, all, who were not either slain
or sent into distant slavery, were glad to become the
auxiliaries of their conquerors. This contest occurred
within less than twenty years after the Puritans had
sought refuge in America.

There is reason to believe that Metacom foresaw the
fate of his own people, in the humbled fortunes of the
Pequods. Though his father had been the earliest and
constant friend of the whites, it is probable that the
Puritans owed some portion of this amity to a dire

necessity. We are told that a terrible malady had raged
among the Wampanoags but a short time before the
arrival of the emigrants, and that their numbers had
been fearfully reduced by its ravages. Some authors
have hinted at the probability of this disease having
been the yellow fever, whose visitations are known to
be at uncertain, and, apparently, at very distant intervals.
Whatever might have been the cause of this
destruction of his people, Massassoit is believed to have
been induced, by the consequences, to cultivate the
alliance of a nation, who could protect him against the
attacks of his ancient and less afflicted foes. But the
son appears to have viewed the increasing influence of
the whites with eyes more jealous than those of the
father. He passed the morning of his life in maturing
his great plan for the destruction of the strange race,
and his later years were spent in abortive attempts to
put this bold design in execution. His restless activity
in plotting the confederation against the English, his
fierce and ruthless manner of waging the war, his defeat,
and his death, are too well known to require repetition.

There is also a wild and romantic interest thrown
about the obscure history of a Frenchman of that period.
This man is said to have been an officer of rank in the
service of his king, and to have belonged to the privileged
class which then monopolized all the dignities
and emoluments of the kingdom of France. The traditions,
and even the written annals of the first century
of our possession of America, connect the Baron de la
Castine with the Jesuits, who were thought to entertain
views of converting the savages to Christianity, not
unmingled with the desire of establishing a more temporal
dominion over their minds. It is, however, difficult
to say whether taste, or religion, or policy, or

necessity, induced this nobleman to quit the saloons of
Paris for the wilds of the Penobscot. It is merely
known that he passed the greater part of his life on that
river, in a rude fortress that was then called a palace;
that he had many wives, a numerous progeny, and that
he possessed a great influence over most of the tribes
that dwelt in his vicinity. He is also believed to have
been the instrument of furnishing the savages, who
were hostile to the English, with ammunition, and with
weapons of a more deadly character than those used in
their earlier wars. In whatever degree he may have
participated in the plan to exterminate the Puritans,
death prevented him from assisting in the final effort of
Metacom.

The Narragansetts are often mentioned in these
pages. A few years before the period at which the tale
commences, Miantonimoh had waged a ruthless war
against Uncas, the Pequod or Mohegan chief. Fortune
favored the latter, who, probably assisted by his civilized
allies, not only overthrew the bands of the other, but
succeeded in capturing the person of his enemy. The
chief of the Narragansetts lost his life, through the agency
of the whites, on the place that is now known by the
appellation of “the Sachem's plain.”

It remains only to throw a little light on the leading
incidents of the war of King Philip. The first blow
was struck in June, 1675, rather more than half a century
after the English first landed in New-England, and
just a century before blood was drawn in the contest
which separated the colonies from the mother country.
The scene was a settlement near the celebrated Mount
Hope, in Rhode-Island, where Metacom and his father
had both long held their councils. From this point,
bloodshed and massacre extended along the whole frontier
of New-England. Bodies of horse and foot were

enrolled to meet the foe, and towns were burnt, and
lives were taken by both parties, with little, and often
with no respect for age, condition, or sex.

In no struggle with the native owners of the soil was
the growing power of the whites placed in so great
jeopardy, as in this celebrated contest with King Philip.
The venerable historian of Connecticut estimates the
loss of lives at nearly one-tenth of the whole number
of the fighting men, and the destruction of houses and
other edifices to have been in an equal proportion. One
family in every eleven, throughout all New-England,
was burnt out. As the colonists nearest the sea were
exempt from the danger, an idea may be formed, from
this calculation, of the risk and sufferings of those who
dwelt in more exposed situations. The Indians did not
escape without retaliation. The principal nations, already
mentioned, were so much reduced as never afterwards
to offer any serious resistance to the whites, who
have since converted the whole of their ancient hunting-grounds
into the abodes of civilized man. Metacom,
Miantonimoh, and Conanchet, with their warriors, have
become the heroes of song and legend, while the descendants
of those who laid waste their dominions, and
destroyed their race, are yielding a tardy tribute to the
high daring and savage grandeur of their characters.