USA > New Hampshire > Colony, province, state, 1623-1888: history of New Hampshire > Part 7
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The colonists had been settled along the shores of New England for half a century before there was any general trouble with the natives. With the exception of the Pequod war, in which that tribe was practically exterminated, there had been a profound peace, the Indians in their contact with the white men even
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submitting to the colonial laws. They were held accountable for crimes the same as the settlers, and even the hanging of an offending Indian, if done legally, did not provoke hostility between the races. We have been accustomed to take the Massachusetts view of the trouble which so exasperated the
AN INDIAN VISITING THE SETTLERS.
Indians that a general war was waged all along the New England coast. Supposing the reader familiar with the often told story of the bravery of their ancestors, and the treachery and cruelty of their savage foes, a view of the other side may be of interest.
Physically the American Indian is a splendid type of manhood.
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As he was found by the first comers, he was honest, honorable, and hospitable. He welcomed the new comers as neighbors and surrendered to them for a paltry consideration his most valuable lands and privileges.
The settlers did not treat them fairly. They were " children of the forest " and should have been treated as children or wards. The land was theirs by every human law and their rights should have been protected and guarded. Under a proper cultivation, a very small part of their territory would have amply sufficed for their maintenance and would have been as valuable as the vast area which they did not use and needed only for the wild game. For fifty years they had lived beside the settlers as friends.
Edward Randolph came to New England in 1676, and from his report to the Council of Trade a few extracts may show the view taken of the war by an unprejudiced Englishman.
1 The French have held a civil correspondence with the inhabitants of Hampshire, Maine and the Duke's Province, although the government of Boston, upon all occasions, is imposing upon the French and encouraging an interloping trade, which causeth jealousies and fears in the inhabitants bordering upon Acadie, that the French will some time or other suddenly fall upon them, to the breach of the national peace. The government of the Massachusetts hath a perfect hatred for the French, because of their too near neighborhood and loss of their trade, and look upon them with an evil eye, believing they had a hand in the late war with the Indians. * * *
For the government of theMassachusetts loves no government that is not like their owne, and therefore they were more kind and friendly to the Dutch (even in time of warr) when they were possessed of New York, than they are to their countrymen, the English.
However, the governor of New York hath proved very friendly and serviceable to the Massachusetts in this warr, and had the magistrates of Boston either conferred with or hearkened to the advice of Colonel Andross, the Indian warr had either been diverted or proved less destructive, for he offered and would have engaged the Mohawks and Maquot Indians to have fallen upon the Sachem Phillip and his confederates; but his friendship, advice and offers were slighted.
Nevertheless, Colonel Andross, out of his duty to his Majestie kept the aforesaid Indians from taking any part with the Sachem Phillip.
Various are the reports and conjectures of the causes of the late Indian wars. Some impute it to an an imprudent zeali ? the magistrates of Boston to Christianize those heathens, before they were civilized, and enjoining them to the strict observation of their laws, which, to people soe rude and
I N. H. P. P., vol. i, p. 441.
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licentious hath proved even intolerable; and that the more, for while the magistrates, for their profit, severely putt the laws in execution against the Indians, the people on the other side, for lucre and gain, intice and provoke the Indians to the breach thereof, especially to drunkenness, to which these people are so generally addicted, that they will strip themselves to the skin to have their fill of rum and brandy.
The Massachusetts government having made a law that every Indian being drunk should pay ten shillings or be whipped, according to the discretion of the magistrate, many of these poor people willingly offered their backs to the lash, to save their money. Upon the magistrate finding much trouble and no profit to arise to the government by whipping, did change that pun- ishment of the whip into a ten days' work, for such as would not or could not pay the fine of tenn shillings; which did highly incense the Indians.
Some believe that there have been vagrant and Jesuitical priests, who have made it their business and design for some years past to go from sachem to sachem, to exasperate the Indians against the English and to bring them into a confederacy, and that they were promised supplies from France and other parts, to extirpate the English nation out of the continent of America.
Others impute the cause to arise from some injuries offered to the Sachem Phillip, for he being possessed of a tract of land called Mount Hope, a very fertile, pleasant and rich soil, some English had a mind to dispossess him thereof, who, never wanting some pretence or other to attain their ends, complained of injuries done by Phillip and his Indians to their stocks and cattle. Whereupon the Sachem Phillip was often summoned to appear before the magistrates, sometimes imprisoned, and never released but upon parting with a considerable part of his lands.
But the government of the Massachusetts (to give it in their own words) doe declare these are the great and provoking evils which God hath given the barbarous heathen commission to rise against them :
The woful breach of the fifth commandment, in contempt of their authority, which is a sinn highly provoking to the Lord.
For men wearing long hair and perriwigs made of women's hair.
For women wearing borders of hair and for cutting, curling and laying out their hair and disguising themselves by following strange fashions in their apparel.
For prophaneness of the people in not frequenting their meetings, and others going away before the blessing is pronounced.
For suffering the Quakers to dwell among them, and to sett up their thresholds by God's thresholds, contrary to their old laws and resolutions, with many such reasons.
But whatever was the cause, the English have contributed very much to their misfortunes, for they first taught the Indians the use of arms and admitted them to be present at all their musters and trainings, and showed them how to handle, mend and fix their musquets, and have been constantly furnished with all sorts of arms by permission of the government, soe that the Indians are become excellent fire-men, and at Natick, a town not far
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distant from Boston, there was gathered a church of praying Indians who were exercised as trained bands, under officers of their own. These have been the most barbarous and cruch enemies to the English above any other Indians, - Captain Tom, their leader, being lately taken and hanged at Boston, with one other of their chiefs.
That notwithstanding the ancient law of the country, made in 1633, that no persons should sell any arms or ammunition to any Indian : * * yet the government of the Massachusetts, in the year 1657 (upon design to monopolize the whole Indian trade to themselves), did publish and declare that the trade of furs and peltry with the Indians, within that jurisdiction, did solely and properly belong to their commonwealth, and not to every indifferent person ; and did enact that no person should trade with the Indians for any sort of peltry, except such as were authorized by that Court : giving liberty to all such as should have license from them to sell unto
any Indians, guns, swords, powder and shot, paying, etc. * * By which means the Indians have been abundantly furnished with great store of arms and ammunition, to the utter ruin and undoing of many families in the neigh- boring colonies, for to enrich some few of their relations and church members.
No advantages, but many disadvantages, have arisen to the English by the warr, for about six hundred men have been slain and twelve captains, most of them stout and brave persons and of loyal principles, whilst the church members had liberty to stay at home and not hazard their persons in the wilderness.
The loss to the English in the several colonies, in their habitations and stock, is reckoned to amount unto one hundred and fifty thousand pounds ; there having been about twelve hundred houses burnt, eight thousand head of cattle, great and small, killed, and many bushels of wheat, pease and other grain burnt (of which the Massachusetts colony hath not been damnified one third part, the great loss falling upon New Plymouth and Connecticut colonies), and upward of three thousand Indians, men, women and children, destroyed, who, if well managed, would have been very serviceable to the English : which makes all manner of labor dear.
The warr, at present, is near ending, for Sachem Phillip, not being able to support his party or confederates, hath left them to make the best terms they can : he himself sculking in the woods with a small party of two or three hundred men, being in despair of making his peace.
In Plymouth colony the Indians surrender themselves to Governor Wins- low upon mercy, and bring in all their arms, and are wholly at his disposal, excepting life and transportation ; but for all such as have been notoriously cruel to women and children, soe soon as discovered, they are to be executed in the sight of their fellow Indians.
The government of Boston have concluded a peace upon these terms :
I. That there be from henceforward a firm peace between the English and Indians.
2. That after the publication of the articles of peace by the General Court,
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if any English shall willfully kill an Indian, upon due proof he shall die for the fact; and if an Indian kill an Englishman and escapeth, the Indians are to produce him, and he to pass tryal by the English laws.
3. That the Indians shall not conceal or entertain any known enemies to the English, but shall discover them and bring them to the English.
4. That upon all occasions the Indians are to aid and assist the English against their enemies, and to be under English command.
5. That all Indians have liberty to sit downe at their former habitations without any lett or interruption.
By this report it will be seen that the English lost six hundred men - the Indians, three thousand men, women and children.
Mons. du Bratz says of the Indians : "There needs nothing but prudence and good sense to persuade these people to what is reasonable and to preserve their friendship without interrup- tion. We may safely affirm, that the differences we have had with them have been more owing to the French than to them. When they are treated violently or oppressively, they have no less sensibility of injuries than others." They are said to have been cruel. . So have been all races and nations, rude or civilized, from the Persians, Romans, Carthaginians, to the modern Euro- pean people. The English have always been cruel. There are cruel laws on the statute books of New Hampshire to-day. If they were treacherous, so were their foes. A Quaker would trust them, it seems, rather than the tender mercies of the Mas- sachusetts magistrates, who bored his tongue, lopped off his ears, and put him to death.
It is said that Philip was forced on by the fury of his young men, sorely against his own judgment and that of his chief counsellors ; and that as he foresaw that the English would, in time, establish themselves and extirpate the Indians, so he thought that the making war upon them would only hasten the destruction of his own people. The inhabitants of Bristol show a particular spot where Philip received the news of the first Englishman that was killed with so much sorrow as to cause him to weep: a few days before he had rescued one who had been taken captive by his Indians and privately sent him home.
There dwelt near the river Saco, a sachem named Squando, a person of the highest dignity, importance and influence among
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all the eastern Indians. His squaw, passing along the river in a canoe, with her infant child, was met by some rude sailors, who, having heard that the Indian children could swim as natu- rally as the young of the brute kind, in a thoughtless and un- guarded humor overset the canoe. The child sunk and the mother instantly diving fetched it up alive, but the child dying soon after, its death was imputed to the treatment it had received from the seaman; and Squando was so provoked that he con- ceived a bitter antipathy to the English and employed his great art and influence to excite the Indians against them.1
The first alarm of the war in the Plymouth colony spread great consternation among the distant Indians and held them a while in suspense what part to act. Quarrels and misunder- standings soon drew the Eastern Indians into the contest.1
In this first war it is uncertain just what part the native New Hampshire Indians took. In 1660, Passaconaway, the chief of the Penacooks, to whom all the New Hampshire Indians were in subjection, had relinquished all authority over his tribe to his son Wannalancet. Numphow, who was married to one of Pas- saconaway's daughters, was the chief for some years of the vil- lage at Pawtucket Falls. In 1669, Wannalancet, in dread of the Mohawks, went down the river with his whole tribe, and located at Wamesit, and built a fortification on Fort Hill, in Belvidere, which was surrounded with palisades. The white settlers in the vicinity, catching the alarm, took refuge in garrison houses. In 1674 there were at Wamesit fifteen families, or seventy-five souls, enumerated as Christian Indians, aside from about two hundred who adhered to their primitive faith in the Great Spirit. Nump- how was their magistrate as well as chief. The log meeting house presided over by the Indian preacher, Samuel, stood near the Eliot church in Lowell. In May of each year came Eliot and Gookin : the former to give spiritual advice, the latter to act as umpire or judge, having jurisdiction of higher offences and directing all matters affecting the interests of the village. Wannalancet held his court as sachem in a log cabin near Pawtucket Falls. At the breaking out of King Philip's War,
1 Belknap.
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he, with the local Indians, are said to have remained faithful to the counsels of Passaconaway to be friends with the English, and either took sides with the colonists or remained neutral. Be- tween the two parties they suffered severely. Some were put to death by Philip, for exposing his designs; some were put to death by the colonists, as Philip's accomplices ; some fell in battle, fighting for the whites ; some were slain by the settlers, who mistrusted alike praying and hostile Indians. During the following year, 1676, the able-bodied Indians of Wamesit and Pawtucket withdrew to Canada, to be out of the contest, leaving a few of their helpless and infirm old people at the mercy of their neighbors. When the Indians returned, after peace had been declared, their old people and dependents were no more, having been wantonly murdered, and their lands confiscated. After a while, having been located on an island in the river, they had parted with their last acre, and in after years took refuge with the St. Francis tribe on the St. Lawrence.
Squando, possibly, was the chief who directed the attack on the New Hampshire settlements. The war raged mainly to the eastward and to the westward, the trouble in New Hampshire being caused by one or more small companies of mischievous Indians. In September they burned two houses at Oyster River, killed two men in a canoe and carried away two captives, both of whom soon after made their escape. About the same time a party of four laid in ambush near the road between Exeter and Hampton, and killed Goodman Robinson. His son, who was with him, escaped into the swamp, and reached Hamp- ton about midnight. They took another captive, who escaped by the help of an Indian. A few days later they made an assault on a house in Newichawannock and captured two children. The two following days they made several appearances on both sides of the river, using much insolence, and burning two houses and three barns, with a large quantity of grain. Five or six houses were burned at Oyster River and two more men were killed. A scouting party from Dover, of twenty young men, came upon a party of five Indians near a deserted house, two of whom they captured, the others escaping. All the plantations
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at Piscataqua were now filled with fear and confusion. Business was suspended, and every man was obliged to provide for his own and his family's safety. They took up their quarters in the garrison houses and were on guard night and day, subject to continual alarms.1
GARRISON HOUSE, BUILT ABOUT 1645.
In October, a day of fasting and prayer was observed. Soon after, an old man named Beard was killed at Oyster River. A party of Indians threatened Portsmouth from the Maine side, but a pursuing party compelled them to abandon their packs and plunder. They soon after did more mischief at Dover and Lamprey River, and killed one or two men at Exeter. The Massachusetts government planned an attack, late in the fall, upon the Indian settlement at Ossipee or Pigwacket, but it was not carried out on account of the deep snow and the severity of the weather.
These Indians, during the winter, were pinched with famine, and having lost about ninety of their number, by war and want of food, sued for peace. They came to Major Waldron, expressed
I lelFrap.
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great sorrow for what had been done and promised to be quiet and submissive. By his mediation, a peace was concluded with the whole body of eastern Indians, which continued until August, 1676. The restoration of the captives made the peace more pleasant.
.
TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND THE SETTLERS.
The affairs of Philip, who renewed hostilities in the spring, became more and more desperate. Many of his allies and dependents forsook him, and he was slain in August. The western Indians who had been engaged in the war, now fearing total extirpation, endeavored to conceal themselves among their brethren of Penacook who had not jomed in the war, and with those of Ossipee and Pigwacket who had made peace. Several of them were taken at different times and delivered up to public execution. Three of them, Simon, Andrew and Peter, who had been concerned in killing Thomas Kimball of Bradford,1 and 1 Belknap.
-
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taking his family captive, restored the woman and five children. It being doubted whether this act of submission was sufficient atonement, they were committed to Dover prison for trial. Fearing the result of the trial, they escaped and joined the Indians of the Kennebec and Androscoggin, who renewed hos- tilities in August, and later they were active in distressing the people on the Piscataqua.
DEATH OF KING PHILIP.
This renewal of hostilities in 1676 occasioned the sending of two companies to the eastward, under Captains Joseph Syll and William Hathorne. In the course of their march they came to Cocheco early in September, "where four hundred mixed Indians were met at the house of Major Waldron, with whom they had made peace and whom they considered as their friend and father. The two captains would have fallen upon them at once, having it in their orders to seize all Indians who had been concerned in the war. The major dissuaded them from that purpose, and contrived the following stratagem " 1 - or treach-
1 Belknap.
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ery, which led to untold horrors in years to come. " He pro- posed to the Indians to have a training the next day, and a sham fight, after the English mode; and summoning his own men, with those under Captain Frost of Kittery, they, in conjunction with the two companies, formed one party, and the Indians another. Having diverted them for a while in this manner, and caused the Indians to fire the first volley, by a peculiar dexterity the whole body of them (except two or three) were surrounded before they could form a suspicion of what was intended. They were immediately seized and disarmed, without the loss of a man on either side. A separation was then made. Wannalancet, with the Penacook Indians and others who had joined in making peace the winter before, were peaceably dis- missed; but the strange Indians (as they were called), who had fled from the southward and taken refuge among them, were made prisoners, to the number of two hundred, and being sent to Boston, seven or eight of them, who were known to have killed any Englishmen, were condemned and hanged. The rest were sold into slavery in foreign parts." " This action was highly applauded by the voice of the colony." 1
" The remaining Indians, however, looked upon the conduct of Major Waldron as a breach of faith, inasmuch as they had taken those fugitive Indians under their protection and had made peace with him."
"A breach of hospitality and friendship, as they deemed this to be, merited, according to their principles, a severe revenge, and was never forgotten or forgiven. The major's situation on this occasion was, indeed, extremely critical, and he could not have acted either way without blame. It is said that his own judgment was against any forcible measure, as he knew that many of those Indians were true friends of the colony."
Late in the fall an expedition was undertaken to Ossipee to destroy the Indian fort at that point, but they returned without meeting a hostile Indian. A peace was brought about in Nov- ember, through Mogg, a Penobscot Indian, with the Penobscot and Eastern tribes, and several captives were returned. A fear
I Belknap.
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that the Indians did not make the peace in good faith led to an expedition under Major Waldron in February, 1676-7, as far east as Pemaquid. The company started, "a day of prayer having been previously appointed for the success of the enter- prise," and again Major Waldron was charged with treachery, inasmuch as the company returned after having killed thirteen Indians in time of peace. Hostilities again commenced in 1677. Two envoys from Massachusetts visited the warlike Mohawks an I secured their alliance to punish the castern Indians. About the middle of March the Mohawks made their appearance at Amoskeag Falls, when they fired upon a son of Wannalancet. " Presently after this they were discovered in the woods near Cocheco. Major Waldron sent out eight of his Indians, whereof Blind Will was one, for further information. They were all surprised together by a company of Mohawks, -two or three escaped, the others were either killed or taken." Blind Will, who was a chief of much influence, was killed. Two who were taken with him, and escaped, reported that the mission of the Mohawks was to kill all the Indians in these parts without distinction. As the attacks of the Mohawks happened to be always on the friendly and unarmed Indians, they became estranged from the English and took refuge with the French in Canada. From friends many of the Cocheco tribe became cruel enemies. Nor did the Mohawks inspire the hostile Indians of Maine with terror; they commenced hostilities early in the spring. The three Indians, Simon, Andrew, and Peter, before mentioned, killed John Keniston in Greenland. In May six friendly Indians were surprised near Portsmouth by a party led by Simon. In June, four men of Hampton were killed. An expedition of two hundred Natick Indians and forty soldiers, under Captain Benjamin Swett of Hampton, started on an expe- dition to the Kennebec, but at Black Point, at the mouth of the Scarborough river, were decoyed into a general engagement with the Indians, and lost sixty of their number, including the captain, before they could retreat into the fort. The victorious savages then surprised about twenty fishing vessels, at anchor along the coast, their crews falling an easy prey. All through
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the summer, the Indians continued their depredations and kept the settlers along the eastern coast in constant alarm, while the war greatly reduced their number.
THE CONFLICT.
In August, Major Andros, governor of New York, took pos- session of the district of Maine, which had been granted to the Duke of York, fortified Pemaquid, and concluded a treaty of peace with the Indians, who returned their prisoners and the captured fishing vessels.
In the spring of 1678, commissioners were appointed to settle a formal treaty of peace with Squando, which was made at Casco, when the remaining captives were returned to their friends.
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