USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 8
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played not in open warfare, but in covert attacks upon ex- posed settlers, and in inciting the depending tribes to ra- pine and murder. Besides these perils from an insidious foe, tribal jealousies and the treacherous Indian nature rendered the situation of the colonists most hazardous at the beginning of their settlements, and they were forced to be perpetually on guard.
So early as 1634, before the greater immigration to the River had begun, an act was committed which led to grave results. This was the murder of the two traders, Captains Stone and Norton, and their ship's crew of eight men, by Indians of a tribe in confederacy with the Pequots.
The mariners were from St. Christopher, West Indies, and had come into the River bound for the Dutch House of Hope to trade. Somewhere above the River's mouth they were met with friendly demonstrations by the Indians, several of whom were known to Captain Stone from previ- ous trading visits. Engaging two or three of them to pi- lot two of his men to the Dutch House in a skiff, he laid his ship to the shore. The voyagers in the skiff paddled on cheerfully till nightfall, when, hauling their boat against the shore, the two sailors curled up to sleep. So soon as slumber was upon them their guides rose stealthily and killed them both without a struggle. Meanwhile the ship below had been boarded by others of the band whom the crew were entertaining. At length Captain Stone fell asleep in his cabin. At a moment when most of the crew were ashore these Indians silently took the captain's life. Casting a covering over him to conceal their work, they joined the remainder of the band, who fell upon the crew and massacred them all. Captain Norton, however, had escaped them. Pinned in the cook-room he made a long
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and resolute fight for his life, which an accident brought to an end. "That he might load and fire with the great- est expedition he had placed powder in an open vessel near at hand." In the height of the action the powder took fire, and the explosion so burned and blinded him that " after all his gallantry he fell with his helpless compan- ions." The plunder which was taken from the vessel was divided between the sachem Sassacus and the head sachem of the tribe to which the band belonged.
It was shortly after this affair that the Pequots sought the Massachusetts Bay government for a league of peace, their messengers bearing gifts to Boston to foster the scheme. The crafty move was in part to offset the possi- ble consequence of their connection with this massacre. Another object was to checkmate the Narragansetts, who were at the time warring fiercely upon them, and with whom the Bay men had friendly relations. Another was to get support against the Dutch, who, in avenging the Pe- quots' acts, had killed several of their fighting men in- cluding a sachem. The Bay men at first would listen to their proposals only on condition that they should agree to deliver up Captain Stone's murderers. But after assur- ances that all but two of the band were dead and that the survivors if guilty would be punished ; and after offers had been made to concede all their rights in the River region to the Bay Colony, and promises had been given to hand over " four hundred fathoms of wampum, forty beaver and thirty other skins " as compensation for the slaughter of the Englishmen, - after these explanations and conditions the Bay men entered into the treaty desired. The articles were drawn up and duly signed. But no hostages were taken to secure the fulfillment of the conditions, and the Pequots never performed a single one of them.
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By the summer of 1636 their depredations had been re- newed with more vigor. The crowning barbarous act of this season was the killing of Captain John Oldham, the pioneer English trader in the Valley and leader in the planting of Wethersfield. Oldham had been " long out a-trading " in his pinnace, having with him two English boys and two Narragansett Indians; and when off Block Island he was suddenly overwhelmed by a crowd of savages who " cleft his head to the brains." Then they secured his companions and proceeded to remove the plunder from the vessel. Fortunately, while thus busied, they were sighted from a distance by another Englishman cruising off the Sound in a little bark with a crew of one man and two boys. This was Captain John Gallop, the famous first pi- lot of Boston Harbor, for whom Gallop's Island there is named. He had been up our River and was intending to put in at Long Island to trade, but was forced by a sud- den change in the wind to bear up for Block Island. When he espied the pinnace he drew toward it and discovered it to be John Oldham's. The deck was seen to be " full of Indians." He was in hailing distance before they were aware of his presence. Then ensued a gallant chase, finish- ing with swift retribution upon the chief actors in the tragedy. Cooper, in his Naval History of the United States, describes this engagement as "the earliest sea-fight of the nation." Winthrop, senior, gives the tale, - a terse and graphic sea-story in his telling :
So they [the Gallop party] hailed, but had no answer; and the deck was full of Indians (fourteen in all), and a canoe was gone from her full of Indians and goods. Whereupon they suspected that they had killed John Oldham, and the rather, because the Indians let slip, and set up sail, being two miles from shore, and the wind and tide being off the shore of the Island, whereby they drove to-
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ward the main at Narragansett. Whereupon they [the Gallop party] went ahead of them, and having but two pieces and two pistols, and nothing but duck shot, they bear up near the Indians (who stood ready armed with guns, pikes, and swords) and let fly among them, and so galled them that they all gate under hatches. Then they stood off again, and retiring with a good gale, they stemmed her upon the quarter and about overset her, which so frightened the Indians that six of them leaped overboard and were drowned. Yet they durst not board her, but stood off again, and fitted their anchor so as, stemming her the second time there, bored her boom [bow] through with their anchor, and so sticking fast to her, they made divers shot through her (being but inch board), and so raked her fore and aft, as they must needs kill or hurt some of the Indians; but, seeing none of them came forth, they gate loose from her and stood off again. Then four or five more of the Indians leaped into the sea and were likewise drowned.
So there being now but four left in her, they boarded her; whereupon one Indian came up and yielded ; him they bound and put into hold. Then another yielded, whom they bound. But John Gallop, being well acquainted with their skill to untie themselves if two of them be together, and having no place to keep them asunder, they threw him [last] bound into the sea; and looking about they found John Oldham under an old seine stark naked, his head cleft to the brains, and his hand and legs cut off, as if they had been cutting them off, and yet warm. So they put him into the sea ; but could not get to the other two Indians, who were in a little room under- neath, with their swords. So they took the goods which were left, and the sails, etc., and towed the boat away; but night coming on, and the wind rising, they were forced to turn her off, and the wind carried her to the Narragansett shore.
The principal contrivers of Oldham's death were found to have been the Block Island Indians with a number of under sachems of the Narragansetts, to whom the Block Islanders were at this juncture subject. But the Pequots were considered as abettors in the affair, since several of the participants fled to them and received their protection. The Narragansett chiefs, Canonicus and Miantonomo, suc-
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cessfully cleared themselves from connection with the con- spiracy, and aided in the recovery of the two boys, with part of the plunder from Oldham's vessel.
The responsibility was at last fixed upon the Block Islanders and the Pequots, drastic measures were adopted by the Bay Colony government, and the first Pequot War ensued.
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The Pequot Wars
First Expedition from the Bay Colony under Endicott - Lion Gardiner's Practi- cal.Advice -Plot to Destroy the River Settlements - Tragedies on the River - The Connecticut Colony's Campaign -The " Army " drawn from the Three River Towns - Major John Mason, the Myles Standish of the Colony - Hooker's Godspeed at the Embarkation - Scene on the down-river Voy- age - Debate of the Captains at Saybrook Fort - Mason's Master-Stroke - The March in the Enemy's Country - Burning of Mystic Fort - End of the Pequots.
TOWARD the close of August (1636) John Endicott as general, with a force of ninety men, four command- ers, and two Indians, was despatched from Massachusetts Bay under a commission, truly termed sanguinary :
" To put to death the men of Block Island, but to spare the women and children, and bring them away, and to take possession of the Island ; and from thence to go to the Pequods [Pequots] to demand the murderers of Captain Stone and other English, and one thou- sand fathoms of wampum for damages etc., and some of their chil- dren as hostages, which if they should refuse they were to obtain it [them] by force."
Captain John Underhill was the first named of the four commanders. The troops embarked in three pinnaces, and carried two shallops. The Indians were taken as inter- preters.
The expedition made first for Saybrook Fort, where it duly arrived to the surprise of Lion Gardiner, and also to his dismay when informed by the officers of their errand
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and of their intention to make the fort their rendezvous. He gave them a soldier's welcome, however, while stoutly discountenancing their adventure. "You come hither," said he, " to raise these wasps about my ears, and then you will take wing and flee away," - which was precisely what happened. When he had seen their commission, at which he " wondered," he entreated them to heed this advice : "Sirs, seeing you will go, I pray you if you don't load your barks with Pequots, load them with corn, for that is now gathered with them ready to put into their barns, and both you and we have need of it . If you cannot attain your end of the Pequots yet you may load your barks with " that " which will be welcome to Boston and to me," - most practical advice, for Connecticut and Massachusetts were then both short of a corn supply. To aid in this part of the enterprise Gardiner agreed to send some men from the fort in his own shallop.
The assault on Block Island took place according to programme, but without the slaughter directed by the com- mission. As the force approached the island and were disembarking, a little crowd of Indians assembled on shore at a safe distance " entertained " them with arrows ; which fell harmlessly against the corslets of all save two, who were pricked on the exposed parts of their bodies. But when the landing was effected the Indians incontinently fled, and not a single one was afterward seen, though two days were spent on the island. Two hastily deserted vil- lages were found, three miles apart, and neighboring acres of corn, some of it gathered and laid in heaps. So, in the absence of men to kill and women and children to capture, all the wigwams were burnt, and much of the corn ; all the canoes found were broken up; and trophies were taken, among them " many well wrought mats and delightful bas- kets."
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Returning to Saybrook Fort the fleet lay windbound here for four days. Then the start was made for the Pe- quot country. The miniature army sailed, strengthened by twelve of Gardiner's men in his shallop, whose especial part was to take off the enemy's corn. As they neared the Thames, then the Pequot River, "multitudes " of Indians ran along the shore shouting tauntingly, " What cheer, Englishmen ! What cheer! Do you come to fight us ?" The night of their arrival they spent in New London, then Pequot harbor, while the Indians kept fires aglow on both sides to prevent a landing under cover of darkness. In the morning a Pequot messenger, - a " grave senior ma- jestical in his bearing," - came out in a canoe and de- manded " what they were and what they would have ?" Endicott stated their mission. The " ambassador" de- clared that Sassacus, the chief, was away at Long Island. Endicott bade him inform the other sachems that he would meet them. The Indian lingered debating the matter. The Stone affair, he would explain, was in retaliation for the killing of a sachem and other Pequots by the Dutch, and it was directed by the murdered sachem's son. It did not concern the English. At length he agreed to seek the other sachems, and paddling back to the shore disappeared
over the bluff at its edge. Meanwhile the " army " landed and ascended to the bluff. In course of time the messen- ger returned, and with him some three hundred savages who gathered about the English. The messenger reported that "Sassacus " himself would be back in three hours. So they waited, many of the savages idling with Gardiner's men whom they knew. The three hours passed, and a fourth. Yet " there came none." All this time the people in the Indian villages behind were hurrying their goods into hiding, and their women and children to places of safety.
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At length Endicott drew his men into line, caused his commission to be proclaimed, and ordered the messenger back to his sachem with the word that if he would not at once come to parley, the English would fight. Then the wily savage shifted his ground. The sachem would appear if the Englishmen would lay down their arms some paces in their front, where the Indians would lay down their arrows. But Endicott, seeing perhaps in this a pretty strategem to get possession of their weapons, bade the throng "begone and shift for themselves." They had dared the English to come and fight, and his men were here and ready. Then the Indians all instantly vanished. With colors flying and drums beating, the English took up the pursuit. But not a single Indian was seen again, though arrows rained upon the soldiers from behind thickets and rocks as they advanced. No harm was done them, for their corslets protected them as at Block Island. They kept up a lively fire in the directions from which the arrows came. Reaching a village they burnt all of its wigwams. At sunset they returned to their boats. Next morning they were ashore again, on the west side, burning wigwams and spoiling all the canoes found there; the while not en- countering an Indian in the open.
Thus their campaign ended. They did not go back to Saybrook, but returned to Boston by way of the Narragan- sett country. They had suffered no loss or serious injury to any man of the expedition. According to Gardiner they killed not one of the enemy, but one of the Massachusetts Indians who accompanied them took a Pequot scalp. The Narragansetts, however, afterward told of a small Pequot loss. Gardiner's men returned to Saybrook Fort with a fair cargo of captured corn, after a little scrimmage of their own on the way back with pursuing Pequots, in
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which two of the English and more of the Indians were hurt.
And so the wasps were raised about the ears of the River settlers. The Pequots, now enraged, determined to drive the English out. Saybrook fort was soon in almost constant seige. Numbers of the garrison were killed from ambuscades while at work in the fields outside. In one brisk swamp-fight Gardiner was wounded, though saved from severe hurt by his buff coat. A member of a party attacked while harvesting hay was captured and roasted alive. Captives taken in raids were tortured to death in various hideous ways. Navigating the River became so perilous that all boats on entering the mouth were required to come to anchor at Saybrook Fort, and were not allowed to proceed till Gardiner had satisfied himself that they were sufficiently armed and manned. They were not al- lowed to make landing between the fort and Wethersfield. Small parties in shallops, though armed, were attacked be- tween these points and massacred. Joseph Tilly, master of a small trading vessel from Boston, which he had an- chored two or three miles above Saybrook, was " a-fowling " in a canoe with a companion. At the first discharge of his piece a number of Pequots rose from ambush, killed his companion, and seized him for torture. He was tied to a stake and flayed, hot embers were thrust into his flesh, and his fingers and toes were cut off. He died after sev- eral hours of suffering, but not a groan escaped him : for this good courage the Indians admired him as a " stout man." Three men coming down the River in a shallop were beset by several Indians in canoes. They fought bravely, but one was killed, the others were taken. Each of the prisoners was cut in twain from the legs to the head,
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and the mutilated bodies hung by the neck upon trees by the riverside, "that as the English passed by they might see those miserable objects " of the Indians' vengeance.
By the spring of 1637 the situation was at its gravest. The settlers, feeble in numbers, could " neither hunt, fish, nor cultivate the fields, nor travel at home or abroad, but at the price of their lives. They were obliged to keep a constant watch by night and by day ; to go armed to their daily labors and to the public worship." There were grave fears that the Pequots would succeed in uniting the Indians generally against them. Even the Pequots' persistent foe, the Narragansetts, were now disposed to make a truce, impressed by the argument that if the Pequots were de- stroyed their own ruin would surely follow. Only through the courageous intercession of Roger Williams were they dissuaded, and brought instead to make treaty with Mas- sachusetts Bay. The Pequots' plan of campaign was not open warfare. It was to lie in ambush and shoot the Eng- lish as they went about their ordinary business; to burn their houses, destroy their crops, kill their cattle and other live stock ; to harass and terrorize them. Thus the Indian warriors believed the whites would be forced quickly to leave the country, while they themselves would not be ex- posed to great hazard.
In February the General Court at Hartford had sent a letter to the Bay Colony representing the dire results of Endicott's expedition, and urging a more effective prosecu- tion of their Pequot war. The same month Major John Mason was sent down to Saybrook from Hartford with twenty men to reinforce the fort, and to keep the enemy at a greater distance. In April following Massachusetts dis- patched Captain Underhill to Saybrook with twenty " lusty men well armed " from Boston. The latter were
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sent at the charge of the "Lords and Gentlemen." They were "lent " for service, not alone to protect the place from the Indians, but also from the Dutch, who "by their speeches and supplies out of Holland " had aroused a suspicion that they had "some designs upon it." With Underhill's arri- val Mason returned with his men to Hartford, where matters had reached a crisis through an attack upon Wethersfield of a most threatening nature.
This assault was made by a band of a hundred Pequots and Wethersfield Indians combined. They had one morn- ing suddenly risen from an ambuscade on the fringe of the settlement, and set upon a number of settlers going to their work in a neighboring field. Nine of the English were killed and two maidens were taken captive. The victors were espied from Saybrook Fort coming down the River in three canoes with fragments of English clothes fluttering from tall sticks, like sails. Concluding from their appearance that they were on some evil course, Lion Gardiner overhauled them with a shot from the fort's " great gun." The ball "beat off the beak head" of one of the canoes, which happened to be that in which were the captive maids. None, however, was hurt; and before another shot could be fired the Indians had drawn the canoes over a narrow beach, and got away.
Immediately upon this event the General Court was con- vened at Hartford, - that first General Court to which the towns sent committees or delegates, - to deliberate on the perilous condition of affairs and to take action for the pres- ervation of the colony. It was fully recognized that the Pequots were "a great people, being strongly fortified, cruel, warlike, munitioned, &c." and the colonists only " a handful in comparison." But the havoc already committed by them, their killing of nearly thirty of the English, their
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persistent attempts to unite all the tribes for the extirpa- tion of the English, their constant pursuit in " malicious courses," their " great pride and insolency," -these acts and threats necessitated the giving of some " capital blow" to so relentless an enemy if the colonists were to survive. Accordingly offensive measures were solemnly declared in formal vote. Thus began the real Pequot War.
An " army" was formed of ninety men drawn from the three meagre settlements of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield; small as it was, the levy took from one- third to one-half of all the able-bodied men in the planta- tions. Seventy Indians, mostly from the Mohegans, under the sachem Uncas, were joined to this force. Major John Mason was made the chief commander. Mason was one of the great captains of New England, bred to arms in the Dutch Netherlands under Sir Thomas Fairfax. He had come out with the Dorchester company, and was one of the first planters of Windsor. He became to the Connecticut Colony what Myles Standish was to the Pilgrims of Ply- mouth. He was " tall and portly, but nevertheless full of martial bravery and vigor." So Thomas Prince portrayed him. He was the man for the hour, as events proved.
On the tenth day of May, 1637, these motley troops em- barked at Hartford. With them went Samuel Stone, the Hartford "teacher," as chaplain. Thomas Hooker gave them Godspeed in a speech on their going aboard. The savages, he said, " should be bread for them." The " fleet" comprised " one pink, one pinnace, and one shallop," - the shallop being impressed for the service from Pynchon of Springfield. They fell down the River, destined first for Saybrook Fort.
The passage was slow and halting from contrary winds
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A View on the Lower River Banks.
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and low water. After several delays from running aground the Indian contingent became impatient, and asked to be set ashore that they might make their way afoot, promis- ing to rejoin the company at the fort. Their request was granted, but with some misgivings, for their loyalty was not assured. When nearing the fort the fleet came upon Captain Underhill, who had rowed out to meet them. At the moment the chaplain was "at prayer in the midst of the soldiers," the hearts of all being "perplexed," fearing treachery in their Indian allies. Underhill silently brought his boat alongside and awaited the close of the unwonted scene on the still River. Then he cheered all mightily with the news of the arrival of the allies and of a great ex- ploit by them as a pledge of their fidelity. He told how upon reaching the fort they were for instantly falling out in search of Pequots lurking in the neighborhood ; how it being " the Lord's day " they were held back till the next morning; how they then sallied forth, and presently re turned triumphantly bringing in five gory Pequot heads and one wretched prisoner who had been a spy on the gar- rison for Sassacus. Lion Gardiner in his later "History " gives a different version of this affair. According to his story, the Indians were sent on the adventure by himself to test their loyalty. A band of Pequots had passed near the fort in a canoe the night before, and Uncas was told that if he would send twenty of his men after them and " fetch them dead or alive " he could remain with Mason's company ; " else not." However, be the details as they may, the performance was accepted by all the English as a " special providence," and brought them much relief.
A gruesome sequel to this affair was the disposition of the prisoner-spy. Uncas and his men insisted upon exe- cuting him according to the manners of their ancestors.
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The English, in the circumstances in which they were, did not judge it prudent to interpose. Kindling a large fire, the Indians violently tore him limb from limb. Then cutting his flesh in pieces they handed it from one to another and devoured it, singing and dancing the while round the fire. The bones and parts that were not con- sumed in this dreadful repast were " committed to the flames and burnt to ashes."
Mason's "army" was detained at Saybrook Fort, wind- bound, for three or four days. The time was occupied by the officers, - Underhill and Gardiner and the others, - in discussing a plan of campaign. Gardiner marvelled, as he had " wondered " when the Bay men came upon their venture, that so hazardous a design should be attempted with such an inadequate force. Underhill acquiesced in his views. Both declared that they would not join in the expedition unless they "that were bred soldiers " from " their youth up " could see some likelihood of doing better than the Bay men had done. At length it was arranged that twenty of Mason's force should be sent back to Hart- ford to guard the River settlements, and that their places should be taken by Underhill's "lusty men."
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