USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume I > Part 8
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The Connecticut setttlements had a population of possibly five or six hundred souls, not including the garrison at Saybrook, which numbered about thirty. The sending of Captain Underhill and his company were the only steps taken at the time by the Bay Colony to quell the uprising of the Pequots, although they alone were directly responsible for it. Undaunted by the small number of available men, in com- parison with the war strength of their enemy, the Connecti- cut General Court, at an extra session held at Hartford May I, 1637, consisting of six magistrates and nine committee men from the three plantations, voted to carry on a defensive war; and raised an army of ninety men, provided with the requisite munitions and supplies. Of this number Hartford supplied forty-two men, Windsor thirty, and Wethersfield eighteen. This was towards half, in all probability, of the
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total number of adult males in the settlements; but writers who are lavish of pathos over the doom of the tribe of fero- cious freebooters who had driven their forerunners out of Eastern Connecticut, can find no thrill in the heroism of this band of farmers, who risked not only their lives but the wip- ing out of their settlement in fire and blood and the torture of their loved ones, marching against seven or eight times their number of fierce savages intrenched in their own forests. The expedition which set off from the foot of the now State Street, at the present steamer landing, on that 10th of May, was the first organized military expedition, so far as recorded, among the English settlers on the American continent. That the settlers were better armed, and conscious of it, is only to say that they were not committing deliberate suicide, and were not fools for staying in Connecticut at all. It does not change the fact that the expedition was one brave almost to desperation ; for if surrounded, firearms and all, the Indians could tomahawk the whole with little loss of their own.
The chief command was given to Captain John Mason, with Samuel Stone as his chaplain and spiritual guide. Nine days after the little army embarked on transports, in com- pany with seventy Indian allies under the command of Uncas ; the waters of the Connecticut being low, the voyage of fifty miles down the river consumed five days, and the Indians, becoming impatient, were put on shore to finish the journey to Saybrook by land. On their march they encountered a band of thirty or forty hostile Indians, of whom they killed seven and took one prisoner. On the arrival of the expe- dition at Saybrook, the colonists were delighted at this ex- ploit of Uncas, deeming it a proof of his fidelity; but Lieu- tenant Gardener, knowing the Indian character, remained un- satisfied, and demanded that Uncas should capture some In-
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dians he knew to be located on Bass River, before he ac- companied Mason's troops into the Pequot country. This task Uncas performed, killing four of the enemy and captur- ing one who proved to be a spy. Uncas demanded and re- ceived permission to torture this last; whereupon the pris- oner's leg was tied to a post, and twenty warriors, seizing his other leg, pulled him partially asunder. The revolting spec- tacle was ended by Captain Underhill, who shot the misera- ble wretch through the head.
Aroused by the actions of the Connecticut General Court, the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to raise two hundred men, and the Plymouth Colony fifty men, to assist her small but fearless sister colony. Captain Daniel Patrick, with forty of the Massachusetts soldiers, was despatched overland to join the Narragansetts; there to obtain canoes in which to visit Block Island, where it was rumored the Pequots had placed their women and children for safety. After the con- quest of the Island, Patrick was ordered to return to the mainland, and co-operate with the Connecticut troops in their campaign against the principal body of Pequots.
This was the state of affairs: Mason and the Connecticut troops were at Saybrook with instructions from the General Court to land at Pequot Harbor, the Massachusetts colonies had voted to raise soldiers, and the Bay Colony had already sent a company of forty men to assist the Connecticut pha- lanx. The Plymouth colony never furnished the company voted by them. Winthrop says they refused on the ground that the men killed in Connecticut were none of their own, and records his indignant answer to such selfish and short- sighted meanness. The Massachusetts colony raised one hundred and sixty men, which with those under Patrick com- pleted their quota ; but recalled their marching orders on the
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report, which seemed to come straight, that the war was over. Neal tells a story which Robertson exaggerates and distorts into flat absurdity, about the stoppage of the expedition from a quarrel among the officers over the "inner light." With- out arguing the point here, it is enough to say that it is self- contradictory as told, and the contemporary accounts make it unlikely altogether.
The Connecticut troops were to battle alone with the more dangerous Pequots; not from Massachusetts' slackness, but because speed was thought preferable to reinforcements. Mason was averse from following his instructions to land at Pequot Harbor ; for the enemy, through various delays, had become fully cognizant of the expedition and were within easy access of the projected seat of war. He recommended sailing for the Narragansett country, to attack the Pequots in the rear; but this was bitterly opposed by his officers and men. It was decided to settle their differences by requesting Mr. Samuel Stone to beseech in prayer for guidance as to the best course; and this good divine, after a night spent in devotion, favored Mason's plan, which was then universally adopted. Captain Underhill with his company decided to join the expedition, whereupon Mason sent twenty of his men to assist in defending the up-river settlements.
All differences being thus satisfactorily settled, it was on Friday, May 29, 1637, that the troops set sail for Narragan- sett Bay, where on the eve of the following day they dropped anchor near the present location of Wickford, Rhode Island. The next day, being the Sabbath, was spent aboard of their vessels; and it was not until sunset of the following Tuesday, owing to the threatened destruction of their fleet by violent northwest winds, that a landing was effected. Captain Ma- son requested of the Narragansett Indians the privilege of a
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free passage through their country, and this was granted; but they informed him that his force was too small to com- bat successfully so warlike and aggressive a tribe as the Pe- quots. On the same evening an Indian runner arrived at the colonial camp from Providence, Rhode Island, with a letter from Captain Patrick urging Mason to await the ar- rival of his command. Though so large a reinforcement was deemed of the utmost importance for the success of the cam- paign, the delay was strongly opposed by the members of Captain Mason's command, as they had already been from their homes a fortnight, and they were anxious to return to their families and farms. It was also considered unwise to delay operations any longer, through the fact that there was intercourse between the Narragansetts and the Pequots, and the English were especially desirous of keeping their move- ments as secret as possible.
The following day the vessels, in charge of thirteen men and a few Indians, were ordered to sail for the mouth of the Pequot River, while the land forces, consisting of seventy- seven Englishmen and sixty warriors under Uncas, com- menced their journey westward. The country was a perfect wilderness, intersected by forest paths, and at nightfall they had accomplished only about twenty miles, arriving at a fort occupied by the Nehantic Indians, a subsidiary tribe of the Narragansetts. These savages were suspicious, and would not allow the English to enter their fort; which aroused Ma- son's indignation, and as he also feared they might communi- cate with the Pequots, he posted sentinels and kept the In- dians penned up until morning. Confidence was restored, however, when the Connecticut troops, augmented by at least five hundred Indian allies from the tribes of both Narragan- setts and Nehantics, proceeded on their march, reaching at
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noon the Pawcatuck River situated on the outskirts of the Pequot country. The native allies, who the evening previous had held a war dance during which they boasted of their courage, and protested that they would destroy the Pequots without any aid from the whites, found propinquity hardly to their liking; and forgetful of their vainglorious utter- ances, desertions began before a single foe appeared. After the mid-day meal Mason had proceeded about three miles further, when he was told for the first time, by his Indian guides, that the Pequots were located in two forts; the one under the command of Sassacus was so far distant that it would be impossible to reach it before midnight. This caused Mason to change his plans, and decide to attack the smaller body near the Mystic River. An hour after sunset, thinking they were near the fort, the English pitched their camp, and Mason deployed his sentinels to a great distance to guard against any surprise; while the tired soldiers, with no shelter save the sky, laid themselves down to sleep. It was a moonlight night, and the sentinels on their round could hear through the stillness surrounding them the songs of the enemy, filled with joy and exultation at the supposed flight of Mason's army; which, as they had seen his ships sail to the eastward, they concluded dared not face in battle the terri- ble Pequot.
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The English arose two hours before daybreak, and after commending their enterprise to God's care, proceeded two miles, arriving at the foot of an elevation. Unable to find the fort, Mason summoned Uncas and a Nehantic Sagamore named Wequash, who had acted as guide to the expedition. They informed him that the fort was on top of the hill, and that his Indian allies were trembling with fear. Mason or- dered them to form a reserve force in the rear of the Eng-
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lish, and dividing his forces, assigned Underhill to attack the foe at the western entrance, while he led the onslaught at the northeastern extremity. Advancing to within forty feet of the fort, the bark of a dog aroused the sleeping Indians; and Mason, hastily giving the word to charge, dashed through the entrance followed by Lieutenant Seeley and six- teen of his men.
It had been the intention to dispatch the Indians with the sword only, in order to save the corn and other valuables stored in the wigwams; and this order was at first main- tained. The Red Men, owing to their amazement, offered but weak resistance. Many were stupified with sleep, and sought places of concealment under mats and skins; and others were driven by Mason to the western entrance, where Underhill had already succeeded in obtaining control. Sev- eral Indians were killed at this point; but the work did not progress sufficiently fast with the sword, and as there was momentary danger that the main body might rally and break through, taking their assailants in the rear, orders were given to apply the torch. This was contrary to the instructions, but Mason himself seized a firebrand and ignited the mats cov- ering the rude habitations. Some of the Pequots in dismay took refuge in the conflagration, and perished in the flames; while others who tried to scale the high palisades were shot by the English. Seventy wigwams and their contents were destroyed, women and children burned alive, and those braves who tried to tomahawk their assailants were slain with the sword. The few that broke through the English ranks were massacred by their Indian allies; and of the five hun- dred souls who but the night before were wrapped in peace- ful slumber, seven captives only were taken, and the same number escaped.
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THE PEQUOT WAR
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CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
The English loss was two killed and about twenty wounded; but their situation was anything but enviable. Their surgeon had remained with the fleet, their provisions were exhausted, their ships were far away, there was a scar- city of ammunition, and they were in a strange country, men- aced by Sassacus with hundreds of his fierce braves, who had come down from the fort in haste. Mason, while debating the matter of future movements, was overjoyed at the sight of his ships entering Pequot Harbor. He immediately called his troops together and beat a hasty retreat, harassed on all sides by Sassacus and his followers, who, however, dared not come too close to the muskets. For six miles the pursuing Pequots shot futile arrows at the English, and suffered con- siderable loss, while not an Englishman was injured. The English regained their vessels, where they found Captain Patrick and his company. Being unwilling to leave their Indian allies in an enemy's country, they embarked the wounded and thirty-five of their men; while the balance with Patrick's command proceeded overland to Saybrook, where they were welcomed with salvoes of cannon from the little fort. Mason's company proceeded up the river to their homes, having been absent only about three weeks, were received amid congratulations, and were then disbanded.
The Pequots after the departure of Mason's soldiers re-' turned to their remaining fort. Heretofore they had always played the part of conquerors, and their terrible reverses cast them into disheartened gloom. The following day, at a coun- cil of the nation, three propositions were submitted: to fly the country, to attack the English, or to make war on the Narragansetts. The voice of Sassacus was still for war; he opposed forever the abandonment of the country to their enemies He was overruled by his more prudent warriors
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who, viewing with awe the devastations of the English, feared to remain in their vicinity.
The Pequots avenged themselves on Uncas by killing all his kindred save seven, who escaped by flight to the English; then, applying the torch to their fort and wigwams, they di- vided into several parties, and the land they had conquered from less organized and yielded to better organized foes knew them no more. A large body, consisting of several hundred braves, women, and children, under the joint lead of Sassacus and Mononotto, proceeded west, selecting a route along the seacoast that they might have an ever avail- able source of food. Before reaching the Connecticut, a body of about thirty-five warriors, with their women and chil- dren, left the main body and sought seclusion in a near by swamp.
Mason's destruction of half the Pequots was received with joy and thankskiving by the New England colonists; and it was resolved that while the Indians were retreating, they should be harassed until their power as a nation was com- pletely broken up. Massachusetts now began active meas- ures to equip an expedition of one hundred and twenty men. The command of the troops was placed in the hands of Cap- tain Israel Stoughton, with instructions to carry out the work of extermination.
On a beautiful day in the latter part of June, this body landed at the mouth of the Pequot River. Here they were met by Narragansett warriors, who informed them of the little band of fugitives hidden in the swamp. Stoughton, marshalling his troops, traveled twelve miles to surround the swamp, and slaughtered the warriors there. Of the eighty women captured, thirty were given to the Narragansetts to
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reward their information, while the balance were sent as slaves to the Bay Colony.
The determination of the Massachusetts authorities to con- tinue the war against the Pequots led Connecticut, at the meeting of its General Court in June, to authorize the rais- ing of forty men, of whom Captain John Mason was given command. This force joined Stoughton at the mouth of the Pequot River, and after a council of war, it was determined to continue the work. It is true that from a third to a half of the "nation" had been wiped out, and that there was no longer an immediate danger of their doing that good turn to the English settlements. But who could tell what the still surviving hundreds of warriors might do in alliance with other Indians? The Narragansetts might change their mind -a notorious Indian characteristic; there were other tribes to join with; to leave such a band of desperate savages on their borders was madness. It was worse than if they had remained in their old cantonments : that might have left them cowed and peaceful; this might indicate that, all hope gone, they were wild for revenge. At least it was certain they would murder and torture every white being that fell into their hands. Within a few months before, thirty innocent white persons, largely women and children, had been mur- dered, many of them tortured to death, by these same Pe- quots. Was no settler or settler's wife or child to dare go out-doors for fear of some skulking fiend waylaying them ? The blood of every victim would be on the heads of the mag- istrates who refused to take measures for protecting them. Thus they reasoned, and created for us a peaceful common- wealth in which to criticise them and their work from our unterrified firesides.
The Colonial army marched to the fort at the mouth of
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the Connecticut, and embarking a large part of their forces, proceeded to pursue the Pequots by water. A land con- tingent, consisting of Uncas and his tribe with a few white soldiers, easily traced the retreating foe by their camp fires and captured stragglers. The fleet coasted along the shore, and in three days reached what is now New Haven Bay. As they dropped anchor, smoke was seen rising from the depths of the forests, and the New Englanders, still in the heat of conflict, hurriedly landed; but they were destined to disap- pointment, for the smoke of the supposed enemy proved to be from the camp fires of friendly Indians.
The army rested at this point for several days, and en- deavored to secure information as to the Indian camp be- fore assailing. This could only be done by spies, and they bribed a captured Pequot, by granting him his life, to go into their hiding-place and return with a description of it. Modern writers say that he was to kill Sassacus if possible; but none of the actors or contemporaries mentions it. The spy returned to the English camp, and reported the number and condition of the fugitives. Acting on this information the army marched westward, and within a distance of twenty miles sighted a number of Indians. The whites gave prompt pursuit, and the Indians fled into a large swamp situated within the original limits of Fairfield.
Here the Pequots were to make their last stand. At the rapidly convened council of war, there was considerable con- troversy among the officers as to the most feasible method for the annihilation of the 'foes.' The plan of plunging into the swamp and meeting them single-handed was at once voted foolhardy; suggestions to cut down the swamp and to sur- round it with palisades were deemed too arduous; and it was finally decided to drive the Pequots into one of the natural
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divisions of the swamp, around which sentinels were placed. This cordon was so formed that the enemy could be starved into a surrender, or shot one by one as they attempted to fly. But the settlers were far more humane than their modern critics assume; they had no wish to perpetrate a gen- eral massacre of everything red, as the Indians would of everything white. Two centuries later, in Black Hawk's War, an American officer shot the Indian children scrambling away from him up the opposite bank of a stream, and re- plied to the humane remonstrances of a soldier, "Nits make lice." The Connecticut people had more human feeling, or perhaps two centuries less experience to exasperate them into copying the Indians. At any rate, they offered to spare the lives of all not actually red-handed from the murder of whites; especially desiring to save the local Indians who had fled into the swamp in terror of white vengeance, and the women and children of the Pequots. Some two hundred availed themselves of the privilege, all indeed but the Pe- quot males; even they could have escaped with decimation, some sort of inquest being held as to the actual criminals. But they scorned the thought and preferred to fight to the death. We may appreciate their constancy without malign- ing their foes.
Nature fought for the Red Man, for instead of a bright sun, the morning brought forth a dense fog, shrouding every- thing in darkness. The Indians, taking advantage of the mist, fell upon the English, but were repulsed; and in the hand-to-hand fight which followed, about sixty Pequot war- riors escaped, many of whom were killed the following day, and twenty braves were found dead on the field of battle. The English captured one hundred and eighty prisoners, to- gether with a large quantity of wampum and Indian utensils.
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Sassacus was not present at the swamp fight; for, learning of the spy's attempt, and deserted by his people, who accused him of being the author of all their misfortunes, he fled westward to the country of the Mohawks, accompanied by a small number of his warriors. That tribe hated the Pequots as heartily as did the English, as was usually the case with any two Indian tribes, and were glad to see them annihilated; and in the following August, to conciliate such formidable warriors as the English, and please themselves besides, be- headed Sassacus, his brother, and five Sachems, sending their scalps to Connecticut.
Sassacus was perhaps fortunate in dying thus : to live like Uncas, degraded into a squalid and drunken dependent of the whites, was no fortune to covet. He had gained a great In- dian position as a fearless and dogged fighter, and he never declined from that height. He needs no pity, and may have the respect due to courage and constancy, which are the bases of all human advance, and are not dependent on race.
After the contest in the swamp, Uncas and Miantonomo, head chief of the Narragansetts, met the Connecticut magis- trates at Hartford, to divide their spoils. Two hundred cap- tives were divided among the Indians, one hundred being al- lotted to the Mohegans, eighty to the Narragansetts, and twenty to the Nehantics; those remaining, together with other avails, were distributed between Massachusetts and Connecticut. A treaty between the English and the Mohegans and Narragansetts established perpetual peace between the two tribes of Indians and the English; the latter were to act as arbitrators should a member of one tribe be wronged by those of the other, and the Indian Sachems released all claims to the lands of the Pequots, which were to be consid- ered as the absolute property of Connecticut. A large num-
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ber of these captives secured by the colonies were shipped to the West Indies by their slave merchants; those given to their Indian allies were tortured and slain, and their heads and hands gleefully exhibited at the English settlements.
The justification of the war has been made apparent enough in the progress of the narrative. Connecticut had no responsibility for stirring it up; she was embroiled against her will by the ill judgment and incapacity of the Massachu- setts government; she did not enter into it till some dozens of her inhabitants had met hideous deaths at the hands of savages with no better claim to the soil than they, to whom torture of helpless things was part of their training for life. This might go on indefinitely, or till they had abandoned the lands they occupied with the consent of earlier occupants than the Pequots, and for which they had paid those occu- pants; no man's wife, baby, or self would be safe from stealthily prowling foes whose actions were those of devils. The whites were doing no wrong, not even encroaching on lands occupied with any shadow of title by any one else. If there is any right of self-defense in the world, they had it. Had there been any possibility of establishing a modus vivendi with the Indians, of sharing the soil with them, of assimilating them, even of creating a peaceable protectorate -an Indian Territory relation-over them and leaving them to grow into the capacity of civilization, righteousness would have demanded that it should be done; but no such choice was possible to them. By the Pequots' nature and pref- erence, one or the other must die.
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