It was finally decided that each side should appoint two deputies to negotiate a treaty, and Stuyvesant nominated, as his, two Englishmen, then resident in the Dutch colony.[[571]] As a result of their deliberations, a treaty was signed, in September, 1650, which should have set the disputed matters finally at rest.[[572]] Most of the smaller questions were passed over, while that of the Delaware was referred to Europe. The explanation of the Dutch Governor as to a ship seized at New Haven, some years earlier, was accepted as final,[[573]] and a definite boundary line agreed upon, which gave to the English all territory, except Fort Good Hope, lying eastward of Oyster Bay on Long Island and of a line beginning four miles west of Greenwich on the mainland, and running north, provided it came nowhere within ten miles of the Hudson. Greenwich, also, was to remain to the Dutch, who were otherwise not to build within six miles of the new boundary, which was to be referred to England and Holland for ratification. Holland subsequently accepted it,[[574]] but England never acted, as to have done so would have been to recognize Dutch claims as valid, which she persistently refused to do.
Nor, from their later correspondence, can we conclude that all the English colonies themselves intended to accept the settlement as final, or that they really desired a friendly end to the controversies. Within a year after the signing of the treaty, New Haven attempted further encroachments upon the Delaware, and, when stopped by Stuyvesant, complained to the United Colonies, whose Commissioners wrote a bullying letter to the Dutch Governor.[[575]] The following year, in Europe, Cromwell forced war upon Holland, and New Haven and Connecticut felt that their chance had come to make an end of their neighbor, whose chief offense seems to have been the prior possession of lands the English coveted. They claimed, indeed, to have information that Stuyvesant was stirring up the Indians to attack them, and were, or pretended to be, in mortal terror; but there is no substantial evidence that any such plot existed, and when questioned about it, the sachems Mixim, Pesacus, and Ninigret denied it in the most positive terms.[[576]]
Three commissioners, whom the United Colonies sent to New Amsterdam to investigate the rumor, were met with fairness by Stuyvesant, who placed no obstacle in their way for taking any testimony they wished, asking only, which was reasonable enough, that the inquiries should be conducted jointly. This the English refused, but set down all the gossip they could gather, treated the Governor with great rudeness, and then left, refusing at the last moment to wait even a few hours to receive an answer Stuyvesant had prepared.[[577]] The fact may well have been that, in view of the overwhelming odds against them, the Dutch were counting upon using the Indians as auxiliaries in case they should have been attacked; but there was nothing to indicate, what would have been exceedingly unlikely, that they had been planning to assume the offensive, even by savage proxy.
War, however, was ardently desired by both Connecticut and New Haven, and Rhode Island, somewhat liberally interpreting orders from England, started privateering on her own account against Dutch ships.[[578]] Connecticut, on the strength of similar orders, hastily sequestrated the Dutch fort at Good Hope, which she never again relinquished.[[579]]
Massachusetts, however, had no interest in the quarrel. The lands she coveted did not lie in that direction, and she professed to be unable to go to war save in a just cause.[[580]] Her moral stand might be considered more sincere, were it not for the quite contrary position she consistently assumed when her own interests were at stake. Her refusal, however, undoubtedly prevented an act of great injustice, although her action permanently weakened the Confederacy; for she claimed, in spite of the obvious intention of the Articles, that the Commissioners had no power to declare an offensive, but only a defensive, war. This unwarranted construction was bitterly opposed by the other three members, who properly claimed that, if any of the colonies had the right, on occasion, to alter the Articles to suit herself, then the league must necessarily “breake and bee dissolved.” “Whether this violation proceed from some unwarrantable Scruple of Conscience or from some other engagement of sperit,” they wrote, “the Massachusetts neither expresse, nor will the Commissioners determine.”[[581]] In the wilderness, men come to know one another well; and her neighbors' faith in the Bay Colony's purity of motive had been too often sorely tried to permit them, perhaps, to do her entire justice. War was declared in September, seven of the eight Commissioners voting in favor of it, although Massachusetts refused to be bound.[[582]] Her interpretation of the Articles having been vehemently denied by the western colonies, she turned to Plymouth, but failed to overawe her little neighbor, who bluntly answered that the Articles “are so full and plaine that they occation not any such queries.”[[583]]
Peace having been declared in Europe, however, the war was not prosecuted, and in the following year Massachusetts completely reversed her position, and agreed to be bound by the Articles of Union in their “literall sence and true meaning.”[[584]] The real motive for her refusal to attack the Dutch may, perhaps, be found in that fear, on the part of the East, of any rapid extension of the western frontier, which we have already noted. Had the western colonies acquired the Hudson River and the sources of the rich fur-trade possessed by the Dutch, the supremacy of Massachusetts might readily have been lost to the younger colonies, which, on the other hand, could be counted upon to remain subordinate to herself in power and numbers if westward expansion were denied them. So long as the balance remained undisturbed, or was altered only in her favor, she could count upon the Confederacy to aid her own plans, nullifying any decision adverse to her interests by her greater strength, as she had just done. Having gained her point, it was, therefore, to her advantage to restore the fullest authority to the league; and the suggestion by her three colleagues, quoted above, that her action might have been dictated by “some other engagement of sperit” than conscientious scruples, would indicate that they perfectly recognized the situation.
During the decade and a half that we are now considering, there was continual uneasiness among the savages, but no serious outbreak. Their relations with the whites, however, were the subject of constant negotiations, which, with the entries concerning the Dutch, absorb almost the whole of the records of the Confederacy. The most striking incident was one which, unfortunately, redounded but little to the credit of the colonists.
In 1643, a quarrel broke out between Uncas and a sachem named Sequasson, and after the English had ineffectually attempted to preserve peace between them, Uncas attacked Sequasson, killing seven or eight of his men, and securing considerable booty.[[585]] The defeated sachem was an ally of the Narragansett chief Miantanomo, who requested permission from the English for liberty to revenge himself upon the Mohegan. This was granted, and Miantanomo, followed by a thousand warriors, fell upon Uncas, who was supported by less than one half that number.[[586]] The Mohegans, nevertheless were successful, and Miantanomo was taken prisoner, through treachery. It will be recalled that Samuel Gorton had bought his lands through the Narragansett chief from two of his sachems, who had subsequently repudiated the transaction, and placed themselves under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. It will be remembered also that Miantanomo, in spite of recent suspicions, had consistently been a friend of the English, that he had sheltered Williams, when banished from Massachusetts, and that, through the influence of the latter, the Narragansetts had sided with the colonists in the Pequot war. Gorton now unwisely tried to save the savage's life by writing a letter to Uncas, threatening him should he harm his prisoner.[[587]] Uncas, upon its receipt, hurried the captive to Hartford, to advise with the authorities as to what course he should take. At Miantanomo's own request, he was placed in custody of the English.
There had been rumors of a general rising of the natives in the preceding year, and the Commissioners of the United Colonies, meeting at Boston, after serious consideration decided that it would not be safe to set the unexpected captive free; but they had no grounds upon which to kill him. As usual, they turned to the church for advice, and, as usual, that advice was for blood, “the most judicious elders,” who had been consulted, unanimously agreeing “that he ought to be put to death.” Of the four reasons for their decision as given by Winthrop, not one justified the sentence. One of them, that he was “of a turbulent and proud spirit,” was hardly a capital offense even in Massachusetts, nor could the beating of one of his own subjects be thus construed. His alleged heading of an Indian conspiracy had not been proved, and if the authorities had really believed it, it is not likely that they would have granted him formal permission to take the warpath with a thousand warriors against another of their own allies. Opposed to the charges were to be set the facts that, in the past, he had performed inestimable service as a friend of the English, and that he was now in their hands at his own suggestion, trusting in the white man's justice. He had not, however, reckoned on the church, and it is impossible not to agree with the often expressed surmise that the leaders of that institution condemned him, not as the enemy of the English, but as the friend of the heretic Gorton and the tolerant Williams.[[588]]
There had been no pretense of trial, and neither the accused nor any witnesses had been summoned. Nor did the English execute the sentence, which duty they entrusted to Uncas, who was promised protection against the Narragansetts if he would perform it.[[589]] Uncas readily undertook the work, and Miantanomo, probably cursing his folly for having ever trusted a white man, was put to death. “That the Indians might know that the English did approve of it, they sent 12 or 14 musketeers home with Uncas to abide a time with him for his defence, if need should be”; which shows how little real credence was placed in the story of a general rising.[[590]] The savages could have made no complaint, had the English from the beginning preserved a strict neutrality; but they had not done so. They had given Miantanomo leave to take the war-path, and, when he was captured, they had assumed the responsibility of seeing that justice should be done. They had, nevertheless, observed none of its forms, and had merely handed the prisoner back to his savage captor with what amounted to orders for his death, without trial and without a hearing. Aside from the injustice of the course pursued, it is difficult to think of one more certain to turn the “proud and turbulent” spirits of the slain man's thousand followers permanently against the English settlers.[[591]] Nevertheless, for the present, in spite of a threatened outbreak upon their part two years after the slaying of their chief, the Indian relations of the colonists for long consisted mainly in efforts to preserve the peace among rival native tribes and to collect tribute.[[592]]