Children's Stories in American History

by Henrietta Christian Wright

The little children would go to bed at night and lie awake listening for the Indian warwhoop, which they dreaded even more than they did the howling of the wolves. Every woman in those days knew how to use a gun, and many a time a mother had to defend herself and children from some painted Indians who would come up to the house and ask to be taken in.

About forty years after Boston was settled, these difficulties with the Indians brought about a war which extended over all that country. The most powerful of the Indians at that time was King Philip, chief of the Wamponoags. This tribe had always been friendly to the whites, Philip's father, Massasoit, having formed a treaty with the Puritans soon after their settlement in New England.

King Philip was a very brave and good man, and for a time after his father's death he remained friendly to the whites; but he saw that, no matter how friendly the whites seemed, they really were trying to get all the land from the Indians that they could, and he thought if he could drive the English away from his country it would be much better for his own people. So he sent messengers to all the tribes from Maine to Connecticut, asking the chiefs to join with him and drive the whites away. All the chiefs promised to do this, and soon there was a terrible war all over New England.

The Indians did not like to fight the whites in open field, but they used to come at night, creeping through the forest in the shadow of the trees, steal down the quiet little village street, and then, with dreadful shrieks and war-whoops, begin their horrible work. Sometimes they would not go away until everybody in the village had been killed, and the houses all burned.

Sometimes they would go to lonely houses where the inmates were all quietly sleeping, and forming themselves into a ring, would dance around the house yelling and waving their torches, and the poor people would be awakened by this noise only to know that death awaited them.

This war lasted nearly two years, and in that time many villages were burned, and many people killed; but finally King Philip was killed, and then the Indians lost heart, and in a short time there was peace again.

For some years after this the colonists had no trouble with the Indians, but after a time war broke out again. This time the Indians were stronger and better armed, and besides they were helped by the French.

For a long time the English and French had each been trying to gain possession of North America. The English said they had the best right to it, and the French said that they had the best right; and so it went on, until the French and Indians agreed that they would join together and fight against the English. The Indians liked the French much better than they did the English, as they had always treated them better.

Some of the French had married Indian wives, and they were looked upon by the Indians as brothers. To this day in Canada you can see little dark-eyed boys and girls, who call themselves French, but whose ancestors were Indian and French.

You will learn later that this struggle between the French and English lasted for more than half a century after the time of which I have been telling, and ended in a great war between the nations, that extended in America all over the country that was then settled. But at last the English gained the day and the French gave up all the country that they had owned in America east of the Mississippi to the English, and that is how this country came to be under English rule.