This testimony proves but little. On the other hand, Mr. Fitch himself in a letter cited by Gookin gives a very clear opinion as follows:
"—Since God hath called me to labor in this work among the Indians nearer to me, the first of my time was spent among them at Moheek, where Unkas, and his son, and Wanuho are sachems. These at first carried it teachably and tractably; until at length the sachems did discern that religion would not consist with a mere receiving, and that practical religion will throw down their heathenish idols, and the sachems' tyrannical authority. Discerning this, they did not only go away, but drew off their people, and would not suffer them to give so much as an outward attendance to the ministry of the word of God. . . . At this time Unkas and his sons seem as if they would come on again. But it is no other but in envy against these [the converts] and to promote some present self-design."
When Mr. Gookin, with the Apostle Elliot, visited the towns of the Massachusetts Praying Indians, in 1674, he says, that on one occasion, a large part of the night was spent at Sagamore's wigwam, in company with the principal Indians then at the settlement, in prayer, singing psalms and exhortation. There was one person present, who sat mute during all these exercises. At length he arose and said, that he was an agent for Uncas, the Mohegan sachem, and that in his name he challenged a right to, and dominion over this people of Wabquissit. [FN] "Uncas is not well pleased," added he, "that the English should pass over Mohegan river, to call his Indians to pray to God." Mr. Gookin replied, that Wabquissit was within the Massachusetts jurisdiction, and that no harm need be feared at all events; the English only wished to bring the Indians to the knowledge of Christ, and to suppress among them the sins of drunkenness, idolatry, powowing, witchcraft, murder, and the like.
[FN] The South-East corner of Woodstock, and still called Wabequasset. It was in truth, as it still is, part of Connecticut, though claimed by Massachusetts, as well as by Uncas.
This was plainly a lecture meant for the benefit of Uncas himself, and his agent was specially requested to inform him of the answer made to his protest. In another connexion, we find Mr. Gookin's opinion expressed to the same effect, without the same circumlocution. "I am apt to fear," is his language, [FN] "that a great obstruction unto his [Mr. Fitch's] labors, is in the sachem of those Indians, whose name is Unkas; an old wicked and wilful man; a drunkard, and otherwise very vicious; who hath always been an opposer and underminer of praying to God—some hints whereof I have given in the narrative of my journey to Wabquissit, before mentioned." The Sachem once took the trouble to visit Hartford for the express purpose of complaining to the Colonial authorities of the attempts made to convert his subjects to Christianity.
[FN] His. Coll. Chapter X.
His piety, then, will hardly bear rigid examination. Whether his morality was quite so objectionable as Mr. Gookin supposed, or whether that good man was unduly prejudiced against him for his opposition to the ministry, may not be easily decided. There is but too much reason for believing, however, that there was great truth in most of the charges, and a most pertinent application for the lecture referred to above. The United Commissioners themselves seem to pay but a sorry compliment to his previous habits when, so late as 1672, they directed a letter to be written to him, "to incurrage him to attende on the Minnestrey."
What is more to the purpose, we find a complaint entered against him before them, in 1647, by one of his Pequot subjects, named Obechiquod. The grievance was, that Uncas had taken possession of and detained the man's wife; and though Foxon, the deputy of the Mohegan sachem, ingeniously argued, that this accident had happened only in consequence of Obechiquod's having unlawfully withdrawn from the jurisdiction of Uncas, and left his wife behind him, to be of course appropriated, according to Indian law, by any other person who desired such a connexion; yet even the Commissioners felt themselves obliged, upon a hearing of the whole case, to express their abhorrence "of that lustfull adulterous carriage of Vncus." He was adjudged to restore the complainant's wife, and allow the husband to live where he chose, on condition of his assisting Uncas in his wars whenever the English desired. He was discharged from another accusation of the same nature made by Sanops, a Connecticut Indian, at the same time—the evidence not being sufficient to convict him.