 | CHAPTER VIII. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Their needful wants, and learn'd not how to hoard;
And him whom strength and wisdom crown'd they knew,
But with no servile reverence, as their lord.
And on their mountain summits they ador'd
One great good Spirit, in his high abode.
These simple truths went down from sire to son,
To reverence age,—the sluggish hunter's shame,
And craven warrior's infamy to shun,—
And still avenge each wrong to friend or kindred done.”
Eastburne.
While father Eliot, as mentioned at the close of the last
chapter, was turning away from the place where he had been
mournfully lingering, with thoughts still dwelling on the departed
objects of his solicitude, his attention was suddenly
arrested by the sound of a footfall behind him, and almost at
the same instant, by a light tap on his shoulder. Wheeling
quickly around, in the surprise, he found himself confronting
a tall, commanding figure, garbed in an English dress throughout,
and so little darker in complexion than many of the
bronzed seamen every day to be encountered at the neighboring
port, that he might well have been taken for one by those
who had never before encountered him, and noted his peculiarly
piercing, yet mild and pleasant countenance. But Eliot
had done both; and, after gazing a moment, doubtfully, upon
the intruder, who had receded a step, and stood with folded
arms, smilingly waiting to see if he could be recognized, the
former said—
“King Philip! Is not this King Philip of Mount
Hope?”
“Yes, Mr. Eliot.”
“But, King Philip, what has brought you here so unexpectedly?”
“I came into this colony to see for myself what was doing
here about things needful for me to know, Mr. Eliot. I
came to this spot for the same purpose, it may be, as you
did.”
“And have you witnessed the little meeting I have just
had with my Christian flock, at this place?”
“I have—I stood in the bush near by, saw all—heard
all.”
“I feared so—I am sorry, King Philip.”
“Why should Mr. Eliot be sorry? His words were good
—they were very kind to the red men.”
“I am sorry, because I fear you will argue wrongfully
about our religion, on account of the treatment you may have
seen some Christian white men bestowing on the undeserving
red men, to-day.”
“Why argue wrong, if I did argue, as you may well say
you fear I would? Your Bible say—you preach yourself—the
tree is known by the fruit it grow. I told you, Mr. Eliot,
when, many moons ago, you come to Montaup to see you
could make me praying Indian. I told you then your religion
not worth one of the buttons on your coat. I had often
seen what it made white men in Plymouth. I now have seen
what it make them here.”
“Oh, you must not judge our religion by the mistaken
conduct of its professors in some cases,” responded the other,
in evident distress, and in no small strait to know how to repel
the inference, which his conscience told him the conduct
of his people had given his shrewd opponent too much reason
for drawing. “Professors often go astray, and do very wrong.
they not do without it?”
“You may best answer that question yourself, Mr. Eliot;
and I will put another to go along with it:—If Indians be
such devils, hell-hounds, damned bad men, as you whites call
them, without your religion, what would they be if they had
it? No, no, Mr. Eliot, though you be a good man, I don't
want your religion for my people—certain not while there are so
many white Christians in the land to bring it into disgrace in
the eyes of Indians. If we red men, as in times long gone,
were all the people this side of the great water, it might be
different. In such case, I sometime said, may be I would
like to try it for my people.”
“Oh! the misconduct of professing Christians that are thus
bringing our religion into reproach among those who would
otherwise receive it! King Philip, you judge erringly. The
treatment you may have received from a few has embittered
you against all. We have taken no part against you in your
difficulties with the Plymouth people; and yet, it is now said,
you are about to wage a bloody war with us all. The people
of this colony are greatly alarmed; and the court have appointed
a commissioner to set out immediately for Mount
Hope, to see you, remonstrate, and treat with you. That commissioner
applied to me, this very morning, to go with him;
and I was to give him my answer at this place, where I presume
he is still lingering about the landing to receive it.
Shall I tell him you will be there to receive us?”
“No; too late. Your colony are doing things that make
it not possible to treat with them. Tell him no use to go.
I shall not be at Montaup.”
“Then why not hear him here?”
“I said no use,—I say again. But I would hear his talk
if he came alone, or only with you, Mr. Eliot.”
“Then I will straightway go and see if I can find him.
dressed man imperfectly seen through the shubbery making
his way in that direction, and peering around him as if in
search of some one,—“See there comes the very man,—in
search of me probably. I will go forward and speak to him;
when we will both immediately come here for the interview.”
Eliot thereupon hurried away, met the commissioner in
question, when, after apprising him of the circumstances
just related, and holding a brief conversation, the two advanced
to the spot where the proud chieftain stood waiting to
afford the promised interview.
Eliot, in a kind and courtly manner, went through the ceremonies
of the introduction; when Metacom, with the dignity
and grace for which he was so remarkable on these occasions,
advanced, shook hands with the commissioner, and then, receding
a step, respectfully awaited the expected communication.
“King Philip,” said the commissioner, after a long, hesitating
pause, “news has reached us, that you are about to make
war against the colonies. Our governor and council, who
have appointed me to hold parley with you, cannot understand
how you can have any cause of war against the colony of Massachusetts,
who have always tried to stand peace-makers between
you and the Plymouth colony. And they instruct me to ask
you why you have thus declared war against us?”
“I have not declared war against your colony,” responded
the chief, with cool dignity. “My war is with the court
and people of Plymouth. But if the court of Massachusetts
make movement looking to join the Plymouth men, then they
make themselves all one of my enemies.”
“But we have made no such movements,” deprecatingly
said the commissioner.
“May-be,” replied Metacom with increasing coolness and
an air of irony. “May-be the court have sent a commissioner
to treat of peace without letting him know they are all the
the forcibly driving away the peaceable red men of Natic from
the homes and lands they own as much as your rich men own
their houses in Boston? And what looks it to, the raising of
a war-armed company, under Captain Mosely, to march to
help the Plymouth colony? The commissioner does not
appear to be well instructed about what his colony is doing.”
“You wrongly interpret these movements,” replied the
nonplussed commissioner, who, as was evidently the case with
nearly all the public men of that period, had greatly underrated
the Indian character, and especially that of Philip, and
therefore was not prepared to find such a knowledge of the
secret movements of the court in his opponent—“You make
too much out of them, and I hope you will still consent to
treat for peace with our governor.”
“Your governor?” haughtily responded the proud monarch
of the Wampanoogs—“Your governor is a subject of King
Charles of England. I shall not treat with a subject. I shall
now only treat with the king, my brother. When he comes,
I am ready.”
This unexpected declaration of Metacom—who, believing
he had now fully fathomed the secret designs of Massachusetts
to take part with the colony of Plymouth in the war against
him, felt consequently not a little indignant that the former,
while privately instituting hostile movements, were hypocritically
pretending, in public, to desire to treat with him for
the continuance of a peace which he had never violated—
this declaration, as he intended it should, brought to an abrupt
termination the conference with the commissioner, who attempted
no reply. Father Eliot, however, began earnestly to
entreat Philip to pause before he should take any steps which
should involve alike, perhaps, all the white men and the red
men of New England, in a war of blood and desolation. But
the immoveable chief interrupted by saying—
“No use—no use to talk, Mr. Eliot. Your people are not
like you. You may speak for yourself, and I will tell you,
that whatever come, you, family, property, will all be safe
from the red men. But speak no more for them. They have
told me in deeds, which always speak louder than words with
the Indian, what they will do. It is not my fault. They will
have it so. And as they have chosen their own path, let
them walk in it.”
With this, and a distant parting bow to the commissioner,
and a kindly one to father Eliot, he turned away and disappeared
in the nearest thicket, on his way to the then unbroken
forests of central Massachusetts, whither, for awhile, at least
we propose to accompany him.
The great leader of the Wampanoogs, whose warlike achievements,
during the terrible year now close at hand, were
destined to carry death and dismay into every white settlement
in New England, was, at this period, in the very flower
of his manhood, his age being not much, if any, above thirty.
And in him might be seen the rare spectacle of a man uniting
in himself the highest grade of intellect with the most perfect
physical conformation of body, and the greatest degree of exterior
grace and manly beauty. He was, indeed, in appearance,
as in reality a king—every inch a king, having descended from
a long line of royal ancestors, who, contrary to the precedents
of most or all other tribes of North American Indians, had,
at some distant point in the past, established, and had ever
since successfully maintained an unbroken hereditary succession
of the crown in their family. He was deeply sensible
of the tremendous hazard he incurred for himself and people,
by engaging in a general war with the white men. And
he had accordingly watched, with a sovereign's solicitude, and
with a sovereign's jealousy and alarm, the aggressive policy
of the colonists, which he believed, was intended to be consummated
in reducing him and his people to a state of the
their entire extermination. For himself and his proud tribe,
they had already decided on the Roman alternative of death
before slavery. But were they to maintain the fight singlehanded
and alone, without the aid of the other New England
tribes, who ought to see, he thought, the same fate in reserve
for themselves? And having spent the whole of the past
week in a laborious reconnoissance of the condition of both
the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies, he was now about
to enter on the next step of his plan—that of obtaining, if
possible, the promise of a favorable answer to the above question.
As soon as the cautious chief, who, on leaving his company,
had steered in a direction nearly opposite from the one he
intended taking, found himself safely beyond the reach of
their senses, he struck off in a line parallel with the upward
banks of the Charles. Making his way with long, rapid steps
and amazing celerity, he pursued his undeviating course three
or four miles, and until he reached the point where the stream
comes down from a considerable sweep to the northward; when
he paused, and fixed his course through the woods across the
bend, so as to strike the river again where it touches, or
rather passes through, a cluster of lakelets, which it had
reached near its last great bend from the south to the east.
Another hour of his rapid walking brought him to the pine-clad
shore of the largest of these ponds; when he paused,
drew a small bone whistle from his pocket, and blew a low,
long, and peculiarly modulated blast, that thrilled far and wide
through the gloomy recesses of the silent forests around. In
a moment, the call was answered from a dense thicket bordering
the western extremity of the pond, about a quarter of a
mile distant. Bending his steps towards the spot indicated by
the answering sound, and by the gleams of light which now
soon occasionally shot through the dense undergrowth from
large camping bower, with a cheerful fire blazing on the ground
before it. The next moment, ten well-armed, noble-looking
Indian warriors emerged from the shantee, and falling into a
dressed line before him, respectfully saluted him as their
sovereign master. They were, with one exception, a band of
his most trusty and sagacious Wampanoogs, come there, by his
appointment, to hold with him a council, and receive from him
such missions as could best be determined on after the completion
of the reconnoissance in which he had been engaged.
Having returned their salutations with graceful dignity, he
followed them into the camp, when they all sat down to a
plentiful repast, consisting of fresh fish and venison, which
had that afternoon been taken from pond and surrounding
forest by the devoted band, and prepared and kept in readiness,
untasted, for the expected reception of their royal leader.
With the usual taciturnity of their race, they dispatched their
meal in almost unbroken silence. Then followed, with an
almost equal absence of conversation, the customary filling,
lighting, and smoking of the neatly carved stone tobacco pipes,
with which they generally, as now, were found well provided.
After this, Metacom rose and commenced the expected narration
of the discoveries he had made among the Bay colonists,
minutely describing every event and circumstance believed to
have any bearing on the object of their common solicitude—
the evident suspicion and alarm among the people, their growing
bitterness towards the Indians, their secret preparations
for aggressive warfare, and lastly, what he considered more
significant than all, the outrageous policy they had so unexpectedly
adopted towards the praying Indians.
Low exclamations of alternate surprise, indignation, hatred,
and defiance, had burst from the lips of the swarthy warriors,
during the speaker's recital of the different parts of his subject;
and as he closed the last one, respecting the course
savage delight, and their exclamations rose to a loud yell of
exultation; for their sagacity at once told them, that the colonists
in this short sighted measure, had given them an advantage
in the game of war, which might easily be turned to
good account.
“Good! my brothers understand,” resumed the speaker,
after a long, significant pause, in which he glanced approvingly
round from one face to another among his keenly appreciating
auditors, as they sat round the flickering fire with their burning
eyes fixed intently upon him. “My brothers see it all
now. My brothers see that the men of Massachusetts, in
speaking smooth things, and the words of friendship to Metacom
and his people, have been speaking with forked tongues.
My brothers now see how these smooth-tongued pale faces
can talk peace when they mean war. My brothers see how
they must hate the red men—so much hate that they rob and
seize for prisoners even those they have made praying Indians,
taken by the hand, and called friends and brothers. My brothers
here are convinced; for they see now what the white
man's faith is when given to the Indian—the frost of a spring
morning that turns to mist before the noonday can come to
see it. But will these cheated, praying Indians see it with
the same eyes? They must see it all now, and be ready to
come back to the ways of their fathers. Metacom would then
have some of his warriors go to them—go to-morrow to
Squantum; take over canoes to them so that they can escape
from the island before they are shipped off and sold as slaves.
Tell them to come and join Metacom, and he will make them
men and warriors. Let two of my brothers do this, and let
two others go and tell the same story to all the praying Indians
at Punkapog, Neponsit, and Nonantum.[1]
“Metacom has now done, till some of his brothers have
spoken. What news brings Annawan from Montaup? Annawan
is my father's old friend, counselor, and war captain, and
with an old warrior's eye has no doubt noted how the young
warriors feel since Metacom left them, and what preparations
they are making for war? Let him speak. The ears of Metacom
are open.”
On this, a warrior of sixty winters, but with a frame of
iron, and an eye glowing with the fires of youth, slowly rose
and said:
“The young warriors are ready. They are more than ready.
They burn for battle and blood. When Metacom came home
from Plymouth, and told them at the council and the war-dance
how the court had choked their friends and brothers,
they howled! Metacom knows how loud they all howled for
revenge. And when Metacom told them they should have it,
and if they would wait till he had made the preparations, he
himself would lead them to war, they rejoiced—every Wampanoog
in the land rejoiced. They all fell to sharpening their
knives and hatchets, making bullets, and getting their guns
ready for the onset. They now only wait the signal from Metacom.”
“It is well,” resumed the former—“it is well to be ready.
But the young warriors must not be so impatient as to hurry
them on to deeds of war before the time. This is what I
fear. Metacom thinks it is for Annawan to see to this; for
he only may be able to restrain the fiery young braves. Let
him therefore, hasten back to-morrow, and tell them we are
yet ready only for some small blow, that, if struck now, may
prevent the great one we intend. Tell them we shall have
now to meet the more powerful Bay colony as well as the
weaker Plymouth, and therefore have a double preparation to
make; and tell them more, that Metacom is laboring for his
life to make his side strong. He is now going to the chief
war council, before the Massachusetts commissioners, who are
to start in three days, can get there to make a treaty of peace.
He must then go to other tribes till he has visited every one
from the great rivers of the east to the long river of the
west,[2] to hold war talks with them, and make them take up
the red hatchet he will lay at their feet.[3]
“But now,” continued the speaker turning from the oldest
to the youngest of the band. “Now Metacom would be pleased
to hear Quinapin, whom he is glad to see here among his warriors.
Quinapin is a sachem and friend to the Wampanoogs.
Does he bring good news from his tribe? or will his tribe be
better pleased to stand with folded arms in the coming war
and see the Wampanoogs carry off all the glory?”
The Indian thus flatteringly and skillfully addressed, was a
tall lusty, showy young Narraganset, who being but one of
the smaller sachems of his tribe, was ambitious of preferment,
and courting an alliance with the renowned king of the Wampanoogs,
who, in the fiery but beautiful Wetamoo, had a
queen sister who had driven off her last husband for his friendship
to the whites, and whose hand, if it could be obtained,
would ennoble the proudest warrior of the land. Metacom
had known his desires without encouraging his hope; but he
now evidently resolved to favor his suit as a means of bringing
about the close alliance he was anxious to establish with
the powerful tribe of the Narragansets, whose co-operation in
the coming war was of the utmost importance.
“Quinapin believe the young warriors all right,” replied
the obviously flattered young sachem. “They all little love
Sagamore of the Narragansets, is very old,—his eyes are dim.
He is like a little child, and does not like to hear about war.
Young Nanuntenoo is the panther of the tribe, and will soon
be the great chief. Metacom should see him.”
“Metacom will see him and see the young warriors,” responded
the former, cordially. “Let Quinapin go home to-morrow,
and tell his people what he has heard; and tell them,
also, Metacom will be there in four days with the pipe of
peace for them, and the red hatchet for his enemies. Let
Quinapin prepare for the council, and Metacom is his friend
in all his wish.”
This appeared to end the conference or council of the warriors,
which, though but three of them had made any continuous
remarks, had yet been so interlarded, at the various pauses
of the speakers, by the significant monosyllabic expressions of
the rest, as to make it evident, that the whole subject under
consideration was too well understood and appreciated by all,
to require any further discussion. All matters of public concern
being now dropped by common consent, the band slightly
replenished their fire, refilled their pipes, and commenced the
dreamy regalement of their native weed, for the last time before
betaking themselves to their nightly repose. When this
once peculiarly aboriginal process of narcotic imbibition, which,
strangely enough, is about the only habit we have ever borrowed
from the Indians,—one vice to not one of their virtues,—
when this process was completed, these stoic philosophers of
the woods closely gathered their blankets around them, threw
themselves down upon their primitive evergreen couches, and
lulled by the drowsy monotony of the piping frogs along the
shore, mingling with the Eolian music of the pines above their
heads, were soon all locked in those sweet slumbers which are
alike the boon of the savage and civilized wood-man.
The next morning the invigorated warriors sprang from
rekindled their fire, prepared their breakfast, speedily despatched
it, and packed up for an immediate departure. Their
leader then briefly repeated the instructions of the preceding
evening, and sent six of their number away on their allotted
missions; he next drew out from his well-filled wardrobe pack,
which had been brought to this place by his orders, a light
Indian traveling dress, and donned it in place of the English
disguise-garments he had been wearing on his tour of observation
among the whites. And thus equipped for the start, he
led the way for his four remaining followers into the forest,
and set his course for his destination beneath the lofty Wachusett,
whose looming summit even there was seen peering
up, for their land-mark, just over the long, blue, misty line
of the western horizon.
Instead, however, of following them, as one after another,
with ceaseless tread, they silently and swiftly threaded the
continuous recesses of the diversified forest, during that long
summer day, we will now change the scene to the mountain
village of red men, which circumstances had made the object
of their forced and weary march.
On a sunny plateau, at the foot of the majestic mountain
we have named, where the uniting streams of crystal waters
come dashing down from the precipitous heights above, to
form the extreme sources of the romantic Nashua, stood the
sixty or seventy wigwams which constituted, at the period of
which we are writing, the favorite and most populous village
of the numerous Nipmucks, whose whole territory embraced
all, and more than all, the present great agricultural county
of Worcester.
On the evening of the day in question, this village was
swarming with an extra population of red men, who had
gathered, and were still fast gathering in from other villages
or scattered residences in the country round about, for the
On an open and well-smoothed piece of ground, near the centre
of the village, a score of men were busily engaged in
erecting a capacious arbor-fashioned structure, nearly sixty
feet long, fifteen feet wide, and of a height corresponding to
the width, the frame work of which was formed by bending
very long, slender poles, and inserting the ends in the ground
at equi-distant spaces. While such numbers were engaged on
the spot, an equal or greater number were employed in bringing
from the surrounding forest, another and smaller set of
poles to weave in laterally for ribs to the structure, together
with large quantities of freshly pealed bark boards to serve
for its covering. An air of anxious haste, so unusual with
the red men, was every where perceptible among the company
thus employed, who, up to this time, had been working with
the eager alacrity of a community of beavers, prompted evidently
by their wish to get their fabric completed before dark,
to be in readiness for the reception of some great assemblage
then expected to occur. But as the descending sun to which
for the last hour, they had thrown many an anxious glance
while plying their work, now sunk behind the mountain, and
the shades of evening began to gather over the long reach of
spreading forests lying beneath them on the east, they appeared
to see that the idea of accomplishing their task that
night was a hopeless one. They gradually relaxed their
efforts, and at length wholly abandoned the work, and stood,
some looking with pride on the result of their labors, some
wandering listlessly around the grounds, and some engaged in
conversation about the arrival which, a messenger had the
evening previous apprised them, might about this hour be expected.
At that juncture, a loud, shrill, long drawn sound rose
from the forest below, arousing every man, woman, and child of
the thronged village from their listlessness; and they were all
gathering of the eager expectants.
“It is his whistle! Metacom! the brave Metacom! the
Great Sagamon is coming!” at length passed rapidly from
mouth to mouth; and the next moment the wild hurra of
savage welcome burst from five hundred voices, ringing merrily
along the steep sides of the overhanging mountain, and filling
its hundred glades and glens with the multiplying echoes of
the glad acclamation.
In a short time, the tall and noble figure of the Wampanoog
chieftain, now garbed in his richest Indian dress, and his
person decorated with his most imposing regalia, emerged
into view, and followed by his four attendant warriors, slowly
advanced within thirty yards of the long line of admiring
people, who had been drawn up to receive him; when he was
again greeted with another loud and prolonged shout by way
of welcoming his arrival. With a low and graceful bow, he
acknowledged the courtesy, and then put himself under the
lead of the four Nipmuck sachems, who now advanced to
conduct him to the lodge which had been appropriately fitted
up for his reception.
The summer's sun had again culminated, and was again
slowly sinking towards the western horizon. On the topmost
cliff of the towering Wachusett, sat alone and in moody silence,
the proud chief of the Wampanoogs. He had, after
his arrival the preceding evening, partaken the bountiful repast
brought for him and his warriors, smoked the pipe of
peace with the sachems who had called at his lodge, enjoyed
his night's repose, and again invigorated himself with a morning
repast; but with a policy which probably many another
public speaker has adopted, he declined mingling with the
people, lest the effort he was intending to make before them
in public, should be weakened by the familiarity. And as
the new council lodge, which had, the day before, been begun
satisfaction of the builders much before night, he had given
notice that he would defer his speech until evening; and he
had then betaken himself alone to the woods, to pass the day
in solitary reflection, or perhaps in nerving himself with the
war-spirit, which it was his aim to infuse into the bosoms of
the people he had come to address and enlist in his cause.
But whither should his uncertain steps now be directed? According
to a very natural superstition of the Indians, who,
more than any people on earth, perhaps, are prone
“To look through nature up to nature's God,”
there are the most auspicious places for gaining the ear of the
great or ruling spirit of all; and, consequently, that whatever
of high resolve may be made there, will, if not directly
prompted by him, at least be more likely to receive his sanction
and blessing. He had therefore climbed the highest peak
of this bold and majestic mountain, and, hour after hour, had
been sitting on the highest rock of its commanding summit,
with his grieved spirit brooding over the wrongs of the past,
and his teeming mind revolving the projects of the future.
But he now rose to his feet, and, with his rifle and tomahawk
lying carelessly at his side, pensively ran his eye over
the magnificent panorama which the place everywhere presented
to his wandering vision—on the east, in the thousand
woody hills, with sparkling lakelets interspersed, stretching
away in lessening perspective, till they melted into the misty
light of the distant ocean—on the south and west, in the
dotted landscape of solitary hills and interwoven ridges of
mountain elevations, more conspicuously represented in the
gray, bald Mount Holyoke, and the more distant and lofty
Saddle-back, with the bright Connecticut occasionally gleaming
up through the mountain gorges between them, like a
in the nearer form of the bold Monadnock, standing like a
solitary sentinel of an advanced guard, to guide the vision to
the shining pinnacles of the far off White Mountains, lifting
their majestic heads from the azure depths of the encircling
horizon.
It was evidently, however, not on the magnificent scenery
that his thoughts were now intent. His wandering eye, in
sweeping the horizon, has lighted on the habitations of the
white men. He everywhere catches glimpses of their solitary
openings in the wilderness, marking the front lines of the encroaching
army. In the rear of these, he notes their smiling
villages, with their tall church-spires shooting upward, giving
certain indication of the increasing thrift and growing numbers
of the invaders thickly crowding on behind, to seize upon
the domains of the retiring red men. He turns to the south,
but only to be greeted by the same painfully significant indications;
for relief, he turns to the west; but as his eye follows up
the broad valley of the Connecticut, his vision is there also met
with the no less saddening prefigurations of destiny, which he
sees in the white settlements, fast spreading themselves along
up the fertile banks of that favorite river of his red brethren
in the west. He again turns back to the east, and once more
mournfully traces round the encircling line of civilization,
which now, to his alarmed imagination, begins to assume the
form of a monster white serpent, enclosing the whole wilderness
home of his people with its vast, terrible coil, and drawing
its fast contracting folds closer and closer on the victims
of the hideous embrace. He sudddenly pauses and recoils.
His eye becomes troubled, and his cheek pales; for in these
demonstrations of the steady march of the white man's thrift
and power, he instinctively reads the doom of his own people.
Mark the gathering conflict of his perturbed and wrestling
spirit! His mind quickly turns back on the long line of the
lived and passed away, the undisputed tenants of all these
broad primeval forests.
“Are not,” with gloomy pride the exclaims—“are not the
big trees standing on the graves of my fathers? Has not the
Great Spirit whitened these hills with a thousand returning
snows, to thicken the coat of the beaver to clothe, and bring
the moose to feed, my people? Who, then, are these coming
over the great waters to seize, with robber hands, our rightful
possessions, destroy our hunting grounds to make them fields
where, with scoff and jeer, they shall plough over the sacred
bones of our dead warriors, and finally to drive us, like timid
deer, beyond the mountains of the setting sun?
“Oh, Manitou!” he cries, in the anguish of his feelings,
and with arms thrown wildly above, as if for aid to shut out
the unwelcome picture of coming destiny which had thus
come, like a baleful shadow, over his maddened soul—“Oh,
Manitou! is this, indeed, thy decree? Is this thy love and
justice to the poor red man? I will not believe it! My eye
shall be shut against the fearful vision. My ear shall be
stopped against the lying voice. It was not thou who said it!
It was the white man's God that was mocking me. No! no!
good Manitou, it is none of thy work. Thou art the great
friend and protector of the red man! I was wrong to doubt
thee. I see it now,” he continues, as his faith begins to shape
itself to the current of his wishes, and he feels that kindling
glow in his bosom which the Indian ever interprets as the
promptings of a propitious spirit, and to which his fancy now
gave voice in the visible omens of nature—“I see it now in
this small bush, which thy wind has just bent forward towards
my hand, that I might thus wrench it up from the earth
before it grew strong in the ground and its branches spread
to cover the whole land. I hear it in the roar of the mountain
waters, that comes in anger on my ear because the warriors
of yon soaring eagle, the totem bird of my tribe, whose cry
sounds vengeance to the white enemy. I hear it in the winds,
that murmur their rebuke for our coldness and loitering in
the war-path. I see it in the sun, that looks down with a sad
and bitter smile upon the red men every where lying idle in
the wigwam, when dangerous animals are gathering around to
destroy them. I hear it, I see it, in every thing—all speaking
thy voice, and showing thy will, that we make war on the pale-faced
aggressors till the last one is driven into the sea, and
the red men again become the lords of the country.” He
ceases, but his quivering muscles and flashing eye speak the
determined purpose of his heart; and grasping his rifle and
tomahawk, he rapidly makes his way down the mountain, now
fully nerved to act his part in the gathered council of warriors
awaiting his presence below.
The shades of evening were once more fast gathering over
this mountain home of the red men, and the bright stars were
beginning to twinkle down through the branchy tree-tops of
the deeply foliaged forest. The new and unusually capacious
council lodge—now finished and appropriately ornamented
with all the emblematic devices of savage ingenuity, among
which the stuffed eagle, the totem badge of the Wampanoogs,
was, in compliment to that tribe, conspicuously suspended from
the ceiling—the new lodge was filled with the flower of the
Nipmuck warriors, awaiting in silence the promised appearance
of their illustrious visitor. At length, a commotion outside
the thronged building betokened his approach; and the warriors
quickly arranged themselves on either side of the long
room, leaving a clear avenue through the centre to a sort of
block-work platform, raised at the further end for a stand for
the orator of the evening. Presently the distinguished guest,
now splendidly attired for the occasion, made his appearance
at the entrance, and, under the guidance of the oldest sachem
and lightly mounted the platform. For a full minute he surveyed
the hushed and expectant assemblage in silence. He
then, in low but clear and musical accents, entered on the history
of the white settlements, since the first feeble and suppliant
bands made their appearance and humbly craved of the
red possessors a small lodgment on these shores. He skillfully
demonstrated that every village, hamlet, or dwelling they had
erected, and every acre of land they had cleared, had been at
the expense of the best interests of the red men. He showed
that just in proportion to their growth, in every step of their
progress, from their little beginning up to their present greatness,
their arrogance had increased; and that their settled,
though at first carefully concealed, intention to dispossess and
drive off all the original owners of the land, had every where
been betrayed in deeds which stamped their fair professions as
things of cunning and falsehood. With these facts staring
them in the face, then, he asked who could be so blind as not
to see that the artful aggressors were only waiting for a little
more increase of their number and power, to drive back every
tribe of the east from their time-honored homes and the sacred
graves of their fathers, to lands already occupied by other
tribes, where they could find no permanent homes, and, if
they were received at all, it would only be to starve and die
for want of game to support the doubled population? He then
drew a vivid picture of the insults and injuries which, from
time to time, had been heaped upon himself and his tribe by
the Plymouth colony, up to their last great outrage, so unblushingly
exhibited, in seizing and hanging up with ropes,
as they would so many of their thieving dogs, the best of
those who bore the proud name of Wampanoog.
From the sad story of his own wrongs he passed to those
of the long suffering tribe he was addressing. He reminded
them in moving terms how often and shamefully they had
or another, they had been crowded from their best
lands, and driven back to the mountains; how large numbers
of their tribe had been inveigled, under promise of protection
and friendship, to settle near the whites, and become converts
to their religion; and he then related his late discoveries of
the treachery of the Massachusetts colonists; what he had
seen of their preparations for war; how, in proof of the fact,
he had seen them, as the first step in carrying out their hostile
intentions, seizing upon and making prisoners of these
very praying Indians, and he concluded this part of his subject
by asking his auditors if these praying Indians, for whom
so much friendship had been professed, were thus treated, what
they supposed was in store for the rest of them?”
The universal burst of indignant denunciation which from
all parts of the swarthy assemblage, followed this ad hominem
question, told the gratified speaker how well his remarks had
counted; and after the commotion had subsided, he proceeded
next to relate to the excited throng his day-dream on the
mountain, which his glowing eloquence, building on the
ground-work of their peculiar superstitions, readily impressed
on their willing minds as an undoubted revelation of the
Great Spirit to his red children, in this their hour of danger.
He pictured to them in vivid colors, his vision of a huge white
serpent coming up from the sea, and gathering with its
mighty coil, stretched all round from the north to the west,
the devoted red men within its fatal grasp—then his agonized
cry to the Great Spirit for assistance to escape from the
threatened doom, and finally, the responsive command that
came to him in the winds, that moaned reproachfully over the
mountain—in the frowning sky—in the angry sound of the
distant water falls, and in the fierce scream of the war eagle
above his head, all bidding him arouse from his fatal lethargy,
from the land before it should be forever too late.
“It was the command of the red man's God,” he added, in
tones that swelled up like the ringing notes of the bugle,
sounding the charge to battle. “Metacom bowed in submission
to the high behest. His vow went up to the Great Manitou
to execute the bidden vengeance on the mustering foes
of his red children. Metacom's heart is now strong. His
arm is nerved for the great struggle. He will soon go forth
on the war-path with his brave Wampanoogs. But shall he
go alone? Will the other tribes stand idly by, and with
folded hands look coldly on to see him fight their battles and
his own, and lift not a hatchet in the common cause?—see him
struggle, and fight, and die for their rights, and they themselves
shy away like a flock of frightened squaws from the
conflict? What say the brave Nipmuck warriors to a charge
like this? Will they, too, be found loth and laggard when
the great day of vengeance arrives? Will they, too, turn
themselves into weak, trembling women, and hold their hands
to their ears when the war cry of their red brothers is ringing
around their green hills, and calling them to the rescue?”
“No! no! no!” rose in one wild, universal shout of reprobation
of the degrading thought from every young warrior of
the agitated throng, which, by this time, was swaying and
surging under the power of these maddening appeals, like the
storm-lashed billows of the ocean. “No, no; the Nipmuck
warriors shall be found neither coward nor laggard on that
great day, but stand by the side of the Wampanoog brave,
and keep pace with him in the race of the battle.”
The chief looked around on the workings of the tempest he
had raised with a grim smile of satisfaction. He saw that the
auspicious moment to avail himself of the fruits of his effort
had arrived, and that from words, it was time to proceed to
ever thinks of receding.
He therefore descended from his stand, and slowly marching
down the open space to the spot where the four sachems
of the tribe were seated, paused a moment before them with
reverent air; and then drawing his painted blood-red hatchet
from his belt, cast it down at their feet; when receding a
step, he stood calmly, but with a look of proud confidence,
awaiting in silence the result.
But these elderly personages, less carried away by the fiery
eloquence of the speaker than the younger portion of their
tribe, and deeply sensible of the responsibility they should
incur by the action to which they had thus been challenged,
for the first few moments sat mute and motionless, demurely
looking down on the ground beneath their feet.
A murmur of displeasure ran through the crowd at this
unexpected manifestation of doubting or indifference; and the
sachems, evidently disturbed by the expression, began to glance
uneasily around them. But still they moved not from their
seats; and for another full minute sat doubtful and hesitating,
when another and far more significant burst of displeasure
rose from every part of the room, and brought them to their feet.
With a quick glance over the crowd, which seemed to say,
we take this as a vote of instruction, but on you be the responsibility,
they together leaped forward, grasped the red
emblem of war and alliance; and each with a hand on a part
of it, held it up to the crowd, who now sent up a shout in
confirmation of the act, that shook the startled wilderness for
miles around them.
“A war dance! a war dance!” shouted the exulting chieftain,
himself leading off with fiercely chanted war song, while
the customary chorus rose wild and loud from every mouth
of that dark assemblage.
After Metacom had danced awhile alone, first one, then
the performance, till the whole mass, with their flourished
knives, tomahawks, and war clubs, and with yells and war-whoops
intermingled in the chorus, were involved in the
frightful mazes of that ominous exhibition of the wilds,
which has so long been known as the certain precursor of
blood and desolation to the hearths and homes of the white men.
Thus had the great chief triumphed—thus succeeded in
making this numerous tribe so firmly and immovably his allies
in the coming war, that when, a short time after, the Massachusetts
commissioners came to enlist them against the Wampanoogs,
or at least to secure their neutrality, these overconfident
messengers of peace were met with surly silence,
and, on a subsequent misjudged attempt, with a shower of bullets
that laid eight of their escort dead on the earth.
But this was but a specimen triumph of this sagacious and
powerful chieftain,—the first in the series of moral victories,
which, while passing from tribe to tribe, with a celerity and
boldness never before witnessed, he achieved over the minds of a
divided and hitherto often mutually hostile race, in bringing
them into league with himself to be ready to meet the anticipated
crisis. And there can be but little doubt, that, had he been
allowed six months longer to consummate his plans, as he had intended
and hoped, he would have had the pleasure of beholding
nearly every tribe, from the Atlantic to the great lakes, united in
one great and irresistible confederacy, as the fruit of his gigantic
plans and untiring exertions in maturing them. But, to his
unspeakable grief and disappointment, he was suddenly cut
short in the full tide of his successful career in this important
part of his great scheme, by the unexpected outbreak of hostilities
between the whites and his impatient Wampanoogs on
the immediate borders of his own domain, which called him at
once to the scene of action, and which, also, now calls us there
to note the events which belong to another part of our story.
| CHAPTER VIII. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago | |