USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 3
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Little was effected in either of the four plantations before the suc- ceeding year. Hartford was nearly broken up by the severity of the winter and a deficiency of provisions. At Saybrook, huts were erected for temporary shelter, and the place kept by Lion Gardiner, who had been sent over from England as engineer to erect the forti-
1 Kieveet is the Dutch name for a shore bird called by us the Peeweet. O'Calla- ghan, p. 149.
2 Wethersfield is regarded as the oldest town on the river: some of the planters erected huts in 1634, and spent the winter on the ground. Trumbull, Hist. Conn.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
fications. When the spring advanced, Mr. Winthrop entered on the work with vigor. Houses were built, a fortification erected, and a settlement commenced.1
From the proceedings of. Winthrop, it may be inferred that while in command at Saybrook, in 1636, he was looking forward to a set- tlement, on or near the river of the Pequots, as the next advance post to be taken by the English. He probably coasted along the shore, became acquainted with Fisher's Island and Pequot River, and perhaps fixed upon the spot now New London, as the site of a future town. Such a measure may have been within the scope of his instructions. At a subsequent period, when Massachusetts chal- lenged the jurisdiction of the place, Mr. Fenwick, then the agent of the company, came forward "for himself and some noble personages," interested in the Warwick patent, and claimed the lands in question, asserting,
" That Pecoat Harbor and the lands adjoining were of the greatest concern- ment to those interested in Connecticut River, and that they had a special aim and respect to it, when first they consulted about planting in those parts."2
As a preparatory measure to a settlement, Winthrop established a friendly intercourse with the sachem of the Western Nahanticks, called Sassyous,3 and entered into a verbal contract with him for a considerable portion of his territory. Relying upon the validity of this contract, he afterward claimed the lands of this tribe (now East Lyme and a part of Waterford) as his personal property, and, in 1647, applied to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, who had the charge of Indian affairs, to confirm his title. But they re- garded the claim as vague and indefinite ; Winthrop could show no writing, assign no date, describe no bounds. The Connecticut dele- gation opposed the claim ; the court declined acting upon it; and the subject was never revived.4
In 1633, Captains Stone and Norton, two Englishmen engaged in the Indian trade, were killed in an affray with the Pequots in Con-
1 Trumbull.
2 See proceedings of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, in Hazard's Collec- tion of State Papers.
3 Or Sashious. This name is so much like Sassacus, that one is at first tempted to deem it a misprint: yet it can hardly be supposed that this artless, confiding sachem was the terrible Pequot chief, described by the Indians as " all one god-no man could kill him."
4 Hazard, vol. 2, p. 93. See also Trumbull's Hist. of Conn., vol. 1, ch. 8.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
necticut River.1 The Indians sent an embassy to Boston with ex- planations of this outrage, throwing the chief blame on the victims themselves, and offering a present, the customary token of amity. This present was received, though with reluctance, the explanation not being deemed satisfactory. The Indians were charged with duplicity, and though professing friendship, were supposed to be really hostile and ready at any favorable opportunity to cut off their En- glish neighbors. This construction of their conduct appears to have been harsh and unmerited. Lion Gardiner and some other contem- poraries thought more favorably of them. In reviewing the case, there appear strong grounds for believing that the whole Pequot con- federacy, together with their sachem, were friendly to the English, at the time the latter commenced their settlements on the river. The massacre of the two English traders was evidently an unpre- meditated affair, the sudden outbreak of minds exasperated by inju- ry. Capt. Stone had maltreated the Indians; and they, turning up- on their oppressor, slew him, partly in self-defense and partly in revenge. This offense had, moreover, been obliterated in their view of the case, by conciliatory embassies, by presents and a treaty ; and they now turned with a placable, if not a friendly disposition, toward their new neighbors at Saybrook.
It is not to be assumed, however, that the friendship of the Pe- quots was founded on any higher principle than greediness of gain, or desire of obtaining assistance against the Narragansetts. The gov- ernment of Massachusetts distrusted all their pretensions, and while Winthrop was still at Saybrook, sent instructions to him to demand of the Pequots "a solemn meeting for conference," in which he was to lay before them all the charges that had been brought against them ; and if they could not clear themselves, or refused reparation, the present which they had sent to Boston, (and which was now for- warded to Saybrook,) was to be returned to them, and a protest equiv- alent to a declaration of war was to be proclaimed in their hearing .?
These instructions were dated at Boston, July 4th, 1636, and to- gether with the present were brought to Saybrook by Mr. Fenwick and Mr. Hugh Peters, with whom came Thomas Stanton to act as interpreter. Lieut. Gardiner notes the arrival of Mr. Oldham at the same time, in his pinnace, on a trading voyage. The others came by land.
1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 123.
2 Mass. Hist. Coll., 2d series, vol. 2, p. 129.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
The Pequot sachem was sent for, and the present, which consist- ed of "otter-skin coats, and beaver, and skeins of wampum," was returned. Lieut. Gardiner, who foresaw that a destructive war would be the consequence, made use of both argument and entreaty to pre- vent it, but in vain.
A new cause of complaint-not against the Pequots particularly, but affecting them as belonging to the great class of dangerous neigh- bors-was furnished about the same time. Mr. Oldham, while en- gaged in traffic with the natives of Block Island, was suddenly as- sailed by a large number of Indians and slain on the deck of his own pinnace. This barbarous act was avenged in a speedy and signal manner. John Gallop, another Indian trader, happening to be in that part of the Sound at the same time, discovered Oldham's vessel full of Indians, and suspecting what they had done, bore down upon them with repeated shocks, nearly oversetting the pinnace, and gall- ing them the while with musket shot, which so terrified the Indians that ten out of the fourteen on board plunged into the sea and were drowned. Two others, Gallop succeeded in making prisoners, and one of these he bound and threw overboard. 1
The murder of Mr. Oldham caused great excitement. Not only all the Indians of Block Island, but many of the Niantick and Nar- ragansett sachems were accused either of being accessory to the crime, or of protecting the perpetrators. An expedition was forth- with fitted out from Boston, for the purpose of "doing justice on the Indians" for this and other acts of hostility and barbarism. Ninety men were raised and distributed to four officers, of whom Capt. John Underhill, who wrote an account of the expedition, was one. The superior command was given to Capt. John Endicott. His orders were stern and vindictive :
"To put to death the men of Block Island, but to spare the women and children, and to bring them away, and to take possession of the island; and from thence to go to the Pequods, to demand the murderers of Capt. Stone and other English, and one thousand fathom of wampum for damages, &c., and some of their children for hostages, which if they should refuse they were to obtain by force."2
These orders were executed more mercifully than they were con- ceived. Endicott's troops did little more than alarm and terrify the natives by sudden invasions, threats, skirmishing, and a wanton destruction of their few goods and homely habitations. At Block
1 Winthrop's Journal. 3* 2 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 192.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Island they burnt two villages, containing about sixty wigwams, with all their mats and corn, and destroyed seven canoes. Capt. Under- hill says that they also slew "some four Indians and maimed others." From thence they proceeded to Saybrook to refresh themselves, and obtaining from Lieut. Gardiner a reenforcement of twenty men in two shallops, they sailed for Pequot Harbor, in order to demand sat- isfaction for the murder of Captains Stone and Norton in 1633.
According to Capt. Underhill's narrative, they sailed along the Nahantick coast, (Lyme and Waterford,) in five vessels. The In- dians discovering them came in multitudes to the shore, and ran along the water side, crying out, " What cheer, Englishmen ? What cheer ? Are you angry ? Will you kill us ? Do you come to fight ? What cheer, Englishmen? What cheer ?" They kept this up till the Eng- lish came to Pequot River, which they entered, and during the night lay at anchor in the harbor, having the Nahantick Indians on the west side and the Pequots on the east, who made up large fires, and kept watch, fearing they would land.
" They made most doleful and woful cries all the night, hallooing one to another, and giving the word from place to place to gather their forces together, fearing the English were come to war against them."
The next morning the English vessels proceeded into the harbor. From the east side, now Groton, the natives flocked to the shore to meet the strange armament, apparently unconscious of offense. And now a canoe puts off from the land with an ambassador :
" A grave senior, a man of good understanding, portly carriage, grave and majestical in his expressions :"1
who demands of the English why they come among them ? The lat- ter reply :
" The Governors of the Bay sent us to demand the heads of those persons that have slain Capt. Norton and Capt. Stone, and the rest of their company ; it is not the custom of the English to suffer mur- derers to live."
The discreet ambassador, instead of an immediate answer to this demand, endeavored to palliate the charge. Capt. Stone, he said, had beguiled their sachem to come on board his vessel, and then slew him ; whereupon the sachem's son slew Capt. Stone, and an affray succeeding, the English set fire to the powder, blew up the vessel and destroyed themselves. Moreover, he said, they had taken them
1 Underhill's Narrative.
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HISTORY O ₣ NEW LONDON.
for Dutchmen ; the Indians were friendly to the English, but not to the Dutch, yet they were not able always to distinguish between them.
These excuses were not satisfactory : the English captain repeats his demand : " We must have the heads of these men who have slain ours, or else we will fight.1 We would speak with your sachem." " But our sachem is absent," they reply : "Sassacus is gone to Long Island."2 "Then," said the commander, "go and tell the other sa- chem. Bring him to us that we may speak with him, or else we will beat up the drum, and march through the country and spoil your corn."3
Hereupon the messenger takes leave, promising to find the sachem : his canoe returns swiftly to the shore and the English speedily follow.
" Our men landed with much danger, if the Indians had made use of their advantage, for all the shore was high ragged rocks."4
But they met with no opposition, and having made good their land- ing, the Indian ambassador entreated them to go no further, but re- main on the shore, till he could return with an answer to their de- mands. But the English imagining there was craft in this proposal, refused. We were " not willing to be at their direction," says Un- derhill, but " having set our men in battalia, marched up the ascent."
From the data here given, it may be conclusively inferred that they landed opposite the present town of New London and marched up some part of that fair highland ridge, which is now hallowed with the ruins of Fort Griswold, and overshadowed by Groton Monument. To the summit of this hill, then in a wild and obstructed condi- tion, the English' troops toiled and clambered, still maintaining their martial array. At length they reach a level, where a wide region of hill and dale, dotted with the wigwams and corn-fields of the natives, spreads before them. And here a messenger appears, entreating them to stop, for the sachem5 is found and will soon come before them. They halt, and the wondering natives come flocking about them unarmed. In a short time some three hundred had assembled,6 and four hours were spent in parley. Kutshamokin, a Massachusetts sachem, that had accompanied the English, acted as interpreter, pass- ing to and fro between the parties, with demands from one and excu-
1 Underhill. 2 Winthrop.
3 Underhill. 4 Winthrop.
5 Mommenoteck. Underhill.
6 Winthrop.
-
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
ses from the other, which indicate a reluctance on the part of Endi- cott to come to extremities, and great timidity and distrust on the side of the Indians. The object of the latter was evidently to gain time for the removal of their women and children, and the concealment of their choicest goods, which having in great part effected, the warriors also began to withdraw. At this point the English commander hast- ily putting an end to the conference, bade them take care of them- selves, for they had dared the English to come and fight with them, and now they were come for that purpose.
Upon this the drum beat for battle, and the Indians fled with ra- pidity, shooting their harmless arrows from behind the screen of rocks and thickets. The troops marched after them, entered their town and burnt all their wigwams and mats. Underhill says :
" We suddenly set upon our march, and gave fire to as many as we could come near, firing their wigwams, spoiling their corn, and many other necessa- ries that they had buried in the ground we raked up, which the soldiers had for booty. Thus we spent the day burning and spoiling the country. Towards night embarked ourselves."
According to Winthrop's account, two Indians were killed and others wounded. Underhill says that numbers of their men were slain and many wounded. But Lion Gardiner, in his narrative, as- serts that only one Indian was killed, and that one by Kutshamokin, who crept into a thicket, agreeably to the usual mode of Indian fight- ing, killed a man and brought off his scalp as a trophy. He ascribes the subsequent Pequot war, and all its atrocities, to the exasperation caused by this one act.
" Thus far I had written in a book that all men and posterity might know how and why so many honest men had their blood shed, and some flayed alive, and others cut in pieces and roasted alive, only because Kichamokin, a Bay Indian, killed one Pequot."1
The next morning, Sept. 7th or 8th, the troops landed on the west side of the river, but had no conference with the natives.
" No Indians would come near us, [says Underhill,] but run from us as the deer from the dogs. But having burnt and spoiled what we could light on, we embarked our men, and set sail for the Bay."
1 Gardiner's Pequot Wars.
Kutshamokin sent the scalp as a present to Canonicus, the Narragansett sachem, who triumphantly forwarded it from sachem to sachem through his country. Noth- ing could have roused the Pequots to greater rage than this triumph of their foes. Winthrop, vol. 1. p. 195.
.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
On the 14th of September, Capt. Endicott and his troops arrived in Boston, and Gov. Winthrop notes it in his journal as "a marvel- ous providence of God that not a hair fell from the head of any of them, nor any sick or feeble person among them."
When the troops from Massachusetts departed, the two shallops and the twenty men that had joined them at Saybrook, were left be- hind in Pequot Harbor, waiting for a fair wind. While thus delay- ing, they had before them, in full view upon the west side, the fine fields of waving corn that surrounded the smoldering dwellings of the natives, which they had burnt the day before, and they resolved to secure the spoil. It was in expectation of some such booty, that Lieut. Gardiner had provided them with bags ;1 and now hastening to the shore, they filled their sacks with the silky ears, and returning, deposited their burdens in the shallop. They then went back for more, and had laden themselves with plunder a second time, when, on a sudden, frightful yells and thick-flying arrows, gave notice that they were surrounded by the infuriated savages.
Immediately they threw down their sacks and prepared for action. The Indians kept under covert, and only showed themselves a few at a time, when they darted forth, discharged their arrows, and again plunged into the thicket. The English were in an open piece of ground, and only half their number had muskets which could reach the enemy. These were arranged in single file, while the others stood in readiness to repel a direct assault.
This desultory skirmishing continued for most of the afternoon. The English supposed that they killed several Indians and wounded more, but the latter were too wary to hazard a direct encounter, and finding they could make no impression on their enemies, they became " weary of the sport," as the annalist says, "and gave the English leave to retire to their boat."? It is wonderful that the whole party was not cut off, as the Indians had them wholly in their power. Either from want of skill, or badness of position, they did little harm in this attack. Winthrop observes,
" Their arrows were all shot compass,3 so as one man standing single, could easily see, and avoid them ; and one was employed to gather up their arrows.
1 " Sirs, seeing you will go, I pray you, if you don't load your barks with Pequots, load them with corn." See Gardiner's Pequot Wars.
2 Hubbard's Indian Wars.
3 " Compass-wise," says Hubbard. Probably it means, aiming higher than the object.
.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Only one of the English was wounded, being shot through the leg with an arrow."1
There is no doubt but this conflict took place on some part of the present site of New London. This and the burning of the wigwams and canoes by Endicott's men the preceding day, are the first histori- cal incidents connected with the spot. They are otherwise of but trifling importance.2
Endicott's expedition, timid and unproductive as it seemed to be, accomplished one object thoroughly: it drove the Pequots into deter- mined hostility. From this time forth they displayed toward the English the most inveterate hatred. With a thirst which only savage bosoms could feel, they longed to plunder, to torture, to exterminate the detested race ; to drink their blood and eat their flesh. The re- ligious systems of heathenism are hostile not only to the moral vir- tues, but even to human sympathies ; and there is no doubt but that savages find an actual pleasure in the excitement of diabolic cruelty. Their savage customs harmonize with the character of their deities ; they have never learned to check an appetite, to forgive an injury, or to love an enemy.
The Mohegans, from the commencement of the contest, acted with the English. They were no better than the Pequots ; the two tribes were equally destitute of the arts of civilized life, and of the social and humane virtues. But one was a proud and conquering people ; the other tributary and prudent. The respective chieftains were formed on the model of these peculiar characteristics. Sassacus was overbearing, impulsive and fierce; Uncas, wary, intriguing and plau- sible. Both, in their intercourse with their white neighbors, were swayed by the same motives, temporal advantage, or the passionate desire of revenge.
1 Winthrop, 1. p. 197.
2 Trumbull, in Hist. Conn., ch. 5, states that the English party in this skirmish con- sisted of Capt. Underhill and twenty of the Massachusetts troops who had stayed be- hind to reenforce the garrison at Saybrook ; but this is evidently a mistake. Under- hill's narrative of the expedition gives no account of it, for the plain reason that he had the day before sailed with the troops to Narragansett. It was not till the next April that he was sent with twenty men to Saybrook. Capt. Gardiner particularly states that his men were left behind at Pequot when the others sailed; that they had a skirmish with the Indians, and that they brought home a quantity of corn; he hav- ing taken the precaution when they went away to supply them with sacks for the purpose. The commander of this little party, who seems to have conducted the affair with skill and cool intrepidity, is no where mentioned. Winthrop, in his Journal, Hubbard in Indian Wars, Increase Mather and Lion Gardiner, all have recorded the incident with little variation.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
At the time of the first arrival of the English colonists upon Con- necticut River, Uncas had quarreled with his liege lord, and driven from his territory, had taken refuge with a few adherents among the Indians in the vicinity of Hartford and Windsor. Banished men and outlaws, poor and oppressed, they naturally attached themselves to the English ; in the first place for protection, and afterward for ven- geance against a common enemy. Their only hope was in the de- struction of the Pequots, and they joined in the contest with earnest- ness and good faith. It was the commencement of an alliance be- tween the English colonists and the Mohegans, which never met with any serious interruption. No instance has occurred from that time to the present, in which any portion of the tribe has been found in arms against the colony. It is not often that an ignorant and pas- sionate people remain so true to their interest. On the other side, the colony ever afterward considered itself the guardian of the tribe, and down to the present time, has acted as its friend and protector.
The cruelties perpetrated by the Pequots hastened their destruc- tion. The conflict was short. A body of men from the three towns on the river, under the valiant Capt. John Mason, aided and guided by the Mohegans and Narragansetts, and favored by various provi- dential circumstances, came suddenly upon a stronghold of the Pe- quots, consisting of a collection of wigwams inclosed with a log pali- sade, standing in an elevated position, near the head of Mystic River, and by fire and slaughter destroyed the whole encampment. This event took place on Friday, May 26, 1637.1 Our subject does not lead us to treat of the conflict in detail. 1142226
After the destruction of the fort, Capt. Mason was obliged to march through the heart of the enemy's country to meet his vessels at Pe- quot harbor. The tract over which he had to pass, still rugged and irksome to the traveler, was at that time a trackless, and literally, a howling wilderness, haunted not only by wild beasts, but by wilder human foes, breathing deadly enmity and revenge. It required men, such as those fathers of Connecticut were-men of enduring sinew, as well as fearless spirit-to fight the terrible battle, and perform the arduous march of that renowned day. Twenty of their number were wounded; their ammunition was expended; their Indian allies were too timid and fearful to be any security to them, and the enemy, nu- merous and infuriated, hung upon their rear through the whole march. Yet they kept in close order, steadily pursuing their course, carrying
1 Massachusetts Hist. Coll. 2d ser. vol. 8, p. 141, note.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
their wounded, and fighting their way through swamp and thicket. It was a happy moment, when in the words of the gallant leader of the party,
"Marching on to the top of an hill adjoining to the harbor, with our colors flying, (having left our drum at the place of our rendezvous the night before,) we see our vessel there riding at anchor, to our great rejoicing, and come to the water side, we there sat down in quiet."1
At Pequot Harbor they were joined by Capt. Patrick, with a Ply- mouth company, who came to the scene of action too late to take a part in it. Having sent the greater part of his wearied troops home by sea, Capt. Mason with twenty men, and Capt. Patrick with his company, and the great body of their Narragansett allies, who had kept with them, and durst not return home through the Pequot coun- try, landed on the west side of the river (New London) and pro- ceeded through the woods to Saybrook.
In June, Capt. Stoughton, with 120 men from Massachusetts, ac- companied by the Rev. John Wilson, as chaplain, arrived at Pequot Harbor. This was the usual place of rendezvous for the troops of the three colonies. The object of Stoughton's expedition was to extir- pate, if possible, the remaining Pequots. In pursuance of this object, he pitched his camp on the west side of the harbor, where he built a house or houses, and kept his head-quarters for two months or more.2 We may suppose these quarters to have comprised a large barrack for temporary summer shelter, and some huts or wigwams near it; the whole surrounded with fascines or palisades for defense. Rude as this encampment may have been, it merits a conspicuous place in our
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