History of the United States, Volume 1

by Elisha Benjamin Andrews

Signature of Miantonomoh.
[1642]
The Narraganset chief, Miantonomoh, had become the friend and ally of
the English by a treaty ratified in 1636, mainly through the good
offices of Roger Williams, In 1638, after the destruction of the
Pequots, there was a new treaty, embracing Uncas with his bold Mohegans,
and stipulating that any quarrel between Miantonomoh and Uncas should be
referred to the English. In 1642 Miantonomoh was accused of plotting
against the English, and summoned before the General Court at Boston.
Though acquitted he vowed revenge upon Uncas as the instigator of the
charge. His friendship for Roger Williams, as also for Samuel Gorton,
the purchaser of Shawomet, or Warwick, R. I., which was claimed by
Massachusetts, had perhaps created a prejudice against him. At any rate,
when a quarrel arose between Uncas and Sequasson, Miantonomoh's friend
and ally, while the latter naturally sided with Sequasson, the
sympathies of the English were with Uncas, who had aided them against
the Pequots. With the consent of Connecticut and Massachusetts
Miantonomoh took the field against Uncas, who had attacked Sequasson. He
was defeated and taken prisoner. Carried to Hartford he was held to
await the decision of the Commissioners of the United Colonies at
Boston. They would not release him, yet had no valid ground for putting
him to death. The case was referred to five clergymen, and they voted
for his execution. For this purpose the commissioners gave orders to
turn the brave warrior over to Uncas, English witnesses to be present
and see that no cruelty was perpetrated. The sentence was carried into
effect near Norwich. Cutting a piece of flesh from the shoulder of his
murdered enemy, Uncas ate it with savage relish, declaring it to be the
sweetest meat he had ever tasted.

The Grave of Miantonomoh.
[1640-1643]
The Dutch, too, as we have to some extent seen already, felt the horrors
of Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel,
avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute from
them as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The
savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the
Dutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked.
Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This roused
their revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited the
colony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Reward
was offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian never
forgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty years
before had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, and
while there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of an
unoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and his
assembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. The
following year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampum
was indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged by
the savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their young
men and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. But
remonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and at
Corlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just below
Broadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleeping
and unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, none
spared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number of
eleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Only
near the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governor
appointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. The
sale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for a
time secured.
Soon, however, the redskins along the Hudson were again up in arms. The
noted Underhill, who with Mason had been the scourge of the Pequots,
came to the fight with fifty Englishmen as allies of the Dutch. Not
waiting to be attacked, the Indians laid waste the settlements, even
threatening Fort Amsterdam itself. At a place now known as Pelham Neck,
near New Rochelle, lived the famous but unfortunate Mrs. Hutchinson, a
fugitive from the persecuting zeal of Massachusetts. Here the implacable
savages butchered her and her family in cold blood. Her little
granddaughter alone was spared, and led captive to a far-off wigwam
prison. Only at Gravesend, on Long Island, was a successful stand made,
and that by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody, another exile from religious
persecution, who with forty stout-hearted men defended her plantation
and compelled the savages to beat a retreat.
[1645]
The colony was in extremity. New Haven refused to aid, because, as a
member of the New England confederacy, it could not act alone, and
because it was not satisfied that the Dutch war was just. An appeal was
made by Kieft's eight advisers to both the States-General and the West
India Company in Holland. The sad condition of the colonists was fully
set forth, and the responsibility directly ascribed to the mismanagement
of Kieft. At the same time, undismayed by the gloomy outlook, the
courage of the sturdy Dutchmen rose with the emergency. Small parties
were sent out against the Connecticut savages in the vicinity of
Stamford. Indian villages on Long Island were surprised and the natives
put to the sword. In two instances at least the victors disgraced
humanity by torturing the captured.
In these engagements Underhill was conspicuous and most energetic.
Having made himself familiar with the position of the Indians near
Stamford, he sailed from Manhattan with one hundred and fifty men,
landed at Greenwich, and, marching all day, at midnight drew near the
enemy. His approach was not wholly unannounced, for the moon was full.
The fight was desperate and bloody. The tragedy that had made memorable
the banks of the Mystic in the destruction of the Pequot fort was now
almost equalled. After the example of his old comrade Mason, Underhill
fired the village. By flame, shot, or sword more than five hundred human
beings perished.
While New Netherland was awaiting some message of cheer from Holland, a
company of Dutch soldiers came from Curacoa, but they did little to
follow up the successes already gained. Again the Eight sent a memorial
to the company, boldly condemning the conduct of the director and
demanding his recall. Their remonstrances were at last heeded, and the
removal of the unpopular governor resolved upon. In 1647 Kieft set sail
for Holland, but the ship was wrecked, and he with nearly all on board
was drowned.
It was high time for a change. In the two years, 1643-45, while sixteen
hundred Indians had been slain, Manhattan had become nearly depopulated.
In 1645 peace was concluded, not only with the smaller tribes in the
vicinity, but also with the powerful Mohawks about Fort Orange, and
finally with all the Indians belonging to the Five Nations or
acknowledging their authority. A pleasing incident of this treaty was
the promise of the Indians to restore the eight-year-old granddaughter
of Mrs. Hutchinson, a promise which they faithfully performed in 1646.
The great compact was made under the shadow of the Fort Amsterdam walls,
and the universal joy was expressed by a day of thanksgiving.

Totem or Tribe Mark of the Five Nations.
[1650-1660]
An interval of peace for ten years was now enjoyed, when the killing of
a squaw for stealing some peaches led to an attack by several hundred of
the infuriated savages upon New Amsterdam. They were repulsed here, but
crossing to the shore of New Jersey they laid waste the settlements
there. Staten Island, too, was swept with fire and sword. One hundred
people were slain, 150 more taken captive, 300 made homeless. Peace was
again effected and maintained for three years, when fresh quarrels
began. It was not until 1660 that a more general and lasting treaty was
brought about, on which occasion a Mohawk and a Minqua chief gave
pledges in behalf of the Indians, and acted as mediators between the
contending parties.
PERIOD II.
ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
1660--1763
CHAPTER I.
NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS
[1660]
The Commonwealth in England went to pieces at the death of Oliver
Cromwell, its founder. The Stuart dynasty came back, but, alas!
unimproved. Charles II. was a much meaner man than his father, and James
II. was more detestable still. The rule of such kings was destined to
work sad changes in the hitherto free condition of Massachusetts. This
colony had sympathized with the Commonwealth more heartily than any of
the others. Hither had fled for refuge Goffe and Whalley, two of the
accomplices in the death of Charles I. Congregational church polity was
here established by law, to the exclusion of all others, even of
episcopacy, for whose sake Charles was harrying poor Covenanters to
death on every hillside in Scotland. Nor would his lawyers let the king
forget Charles I.'s attack on the Massachusetts charter, begun so early
as 1635, or the grounds therefor, such as the unwarranted transfer of it
to Boston, or the likelihood that but for the outbreak of the Civil War
it would have been annulled by the Long Parliament itself. Obviously
Massachusetts could not hope to be let alone by the home government
which had just come in.
At first the king, graciously responding to the colony's humble
petition, confirmed the charter granted by his father; but no sooner had
he done so than the hot royalists about him began plotting to overthrow
the same, and their purpose never slumbered till it was accomplished.
Massachusetts was too prosperous and too visibly destined for great
power in America to be suffered longer to go its independent way as
hitherto.

King Charles II.
[1661]
The province--as yet, of course, excluding Plymouth with its twelve
towns and five thousand inhabitants--contained at this time, 1660, about
twenty-five thousand souls, living in fifty-two towns. These were nearly
all on the coast; Dedham, Concord, Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlborough,
and the Connecticut Valley hamlets of Springfield, Hadley, and
Northampton being the most noteworthy exceptions. Though agriculture was
the principal business, fishing was a staple industry, its product going
to France, Spain, and the Straits. Pipe-staves, fir-boards, much
material for ships, as masts, pitch and tar, also pork and beef, horses
and corn, were shipped from this colony to Virginia, in return for
tobacco and sugar either for home consumption or for export to England.
Some iron was manufactured. The province enjoyed great prosperity.
Boston stood forth as a lively and growing centre, and an English
traveller about this time declared some of its merchants to be "damnable
rich."
As their most precious possession the colonists prized their liberties,
which they claimed in virtue of their original patent. In a paper which
it put forth on June 10, 1661, the General Court asserted for the colony
the right to elect and empower its own officers, both high and low, to
make its laws, to execute the same without appeal so long as they were
not repugnant to those of England, and to defend itself by force and
arms when necessary, against every infringement of its rights, even from
acts of Parliament or of the king, if prejudicial to the country or
contrary to just colonial legislation. In a word Massachusetts, even so
early, regarded itself to all intents and purposes an independent State,
and would have proclaimed accordingly had it felt sufficiently strong.
[1664]
Manifestly the king would not grant so much. On the occasion of his
confirming the charter he demanded that the oath of allegiance be taken
by the people of the colony; that justice be administered there in his
name; and that the franchise be extended to all freemen of sufficient
substance, with the liberty to use in worship, public and private, the
forms of the English Church. The people obeyed but in part, for they
would not even appear to admit the king's will to be their law. The
franchise was slightly extended, in a grudging way, but no new religious
privileges were at this time conceded. Unfortunately political and
religious liberty were now in conflict. It was worse for the Baptists
and Quakers that the king favored them, and the treatment which they
received in the colony inclined them to the royalist side in the
controversy.
In July, 1664, commissioners arrived in Boston with full authority to
investigate the administration of the New England charters. Such a
procedure not being provided for in the Massachusetts document, the
General Court, backed by the citizens almost to a man, successfully
prevented complainants from appearing before the commission. The
commissioners having summoned the colony as defendant in a certain case,
a herald trumpeted proclamation through the streets, on the morning set
for the trial, inhibiting all from aiding their designs. The trial
collapsed, and the gentlemen who had ordered it, baffled and disgusted,
moved on to New Hampshire, there also to be balked by a decree of the
Massachusetts Governor and Council forbidding the towns so much as to
meet at their behest.
[1668]
Vengeance for such defiance was delayed by Charles II.'s very vices.
Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timid
and too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They often
discussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words.
Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert its
authority in Maine, against rule either by the king or by Sir Ferdinanda
Gorges's heir as proprietary.
Its charter had assigned to the colony land to a point three miles north
of the Merrimac. Bold in the favor of the Commonwealth, the authorities
measured from the head-waters of that river. But Plymouth had originally
claimed all the territory west of the Kennebec, and had sold it to
Gorges. Charles II. favored the Gorges heirs against Massachusetts, and
for some years previous to 1668 Massachusetts' power over Maine had been
in abeyance. Ten years later, in 1678, to make assurance doubly sure,
Massachusetts bought off the Gorges claimants, at the round price of
twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
[1673]
From 1641 Massachusetts had borne sway in New Hampshire as well,
ignoring John Mason's claim under Charles I.'s charters of 1629 and
1635, still urged by one of Mason's grandsons, backed by Charles II.
Here Massachusetts was beaten. In July, 1679, New Hampshire was
permanently separated from her, and erected into a royal province, of a
nature to be explained in a subsequent chapter, being the earliest
government of this kind in New England.
[1662]
These territorial assumptions on the part of Massachusetts much
increased the king's hostility. This probably would not have proved
fatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchants
and manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared was
becoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcement
of the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a cruel
degree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony,
it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation of
the charter, so that English law might become immediately valid in
Massachusetts, colonial laws to the contrary notwithstanding.
Accordingly, in 1684, the charter was vacated and the colonists ceased
to be free, their old government with its popular representation giving
way to an arbitrary commission.
The other New England colonies--Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and
New Haven--had made haste to proclaim Charles II. so soon as restored to
the throne, and to begin carrying on their governments in his name. That
beautiful and able man, the younger Winthrop, sped to London on
Connecticut's behalf, and, aided by his colony's friends at court, the
Earls of Clarendon and Manchester and Viscount Say and Seal, in 1662
secured to Connecticut, now made to include New Haven, a charter so
liberal that it continued till October 5, 1818, the ground law of the
State, then to be supplanted only by a close vote. Under this paper,
which declared all lands between the Narragansett River and the Pacific
Ocean Connecticut territory, Connecticut received every whit of that
right to govern itself which Charles was so sternly challenging in the
case of Massachusetts.

John Winthrop the Younger.
From this time on, as indeed earlier, Connecticut was for many years
perhaps the most delightful example of popular government in all
history. Connecticut and New Haven together had about ten thousand
inhabitants. Their rulers were just, wise, and of a mind truly to serve
the people. Here none were persecuted for their faith. Education was
universal. Few were poor, none very rich. Nearly all supplies were of
domestic production, nothing as yet being exported but a few cattle.
Under the second Charles Rhode Island fared quite as well as
Connecticut. This was remarkable, inasmuch as the little colony of three
thousand souls, in their four towns of Providence, Newport, Portsmouth,
and Warwick, insisted on "holding forth the lively experiment"--and it
proved lively indeed--"of full liberty in religious concernments."
Charles did not oppose this, and Clarendon favored it, a motive of both
here, as with Connecticut, being to rear in New England a power friendly
to the Crown, that should rival and check Massachusetts. Both these
commonwealths were granted absolute independence in all but name. No
oath of allegiance to the king was demanded. Appeals to England were not
provided for.
[1680]
Though having no quarrel with the king, the two southern colonies were
not without their trials. Connecticut, besides continual fear of the
Dutch and the Indians, was much agitated by the controversy over the
question whether children of moral parents not church members should be
baptized, a question at length settled affirmatively by the so-called
Half-Way Covenant. It also had its boundary disputes with Massachusetts,
with Rhode Island--for Connecticut took the Narragansett River of its
charter to be the bay of that name--and with New York, which, by the
Duke of York's new patent, issued on the recovery of that province from
the Dutch in 1674, reached the Connecticut River. During England's war
with Holland, 1672-74, all the colonies stood in some fear of Dutch
attacks.
[1685]
Rhode Island had worse troubles than Connecticut. It, too, had boundary
disputes, serious and perpetual; but graver by much were its internal
feuds, caused partly by the mutual jealousy of its four towns, partly by
the numerous and jarring religious persuasions here represented.
Government was painfully feeble. Only with utmost difficulty could the
necessary taxes be raised. Warwick in particular was for some time in
arrears to John Clark, of Newport, for his invaluable services in
securing the charter of 1663. Quakers and the divers sorts of Baptists
valiantly warred each against other, using, with dreadful address, those
most deadly of carnal weapons, tongue and pen. On George Fox's visit to
the colony, Roger Williams, zealous for a debate, pursued the eminent
Quaker from Providence to Newport, rowing thither in his canoe and
arriving at midnight, only to find that his intended opponent had
departed, The latter's champion was ready, however, and a discussion of
four days ensued.