[833]. Clarendon Papers, p. 133.

CHAPTER XIV
THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT

During the quarter of a century preceding 1675, the growth of the New England colonies, both in numbers and resources, had been marked. Their refusal, on the one hand, to observe such of the imperial laws as might in any way hamper their commerce, and, on the other, the opportunities offered by the growth of the Empire, under those laws, had resulted in an enormous expansion, comparatively, in the colonies' intercolonial and foreign trade. With no Indian war of any magnitude for a generation, and with ample areas of free land upon which to expand, the frontier extended rapidly, and the population doubled. At the opening of the inter-racial conflict which is the subject of this chapter, the settlers probably numbered about fifty-two thousand, of whom approximately thirty-seven thousand were located in the seaboard colonies from Maine to Plymouth, three thousand in Rhode Island, and twelve thousand in Connecticut.[[834]] The numbers of the Indians can be estimated with even less certainty than those of the whites; but it is probable that the colonists outnumbered them by at least four to one.[[835]] The Narragansetts, who were by far the most numerous, as well as the most powerful, may have counted five thousand individuals in all.[[836]]

The geographical relations of the two races had been almost as greatly altered, in a generation, as had their numerical proportions. At the time of the Pequot war, in 1637, at least four fifths of the entire white population formed a compact mass along the eastern shore of the present state of Massachusetts. The scattered settlements of Maine and New Hampshire, the handful of people about Narragansett Bay, and the beginnings of the River Towns in Connecticut, were but isolated outposts in what was otherwise an unbroken wilderness, peopled only by the savages. The whites were thus hemmed in on every side except the ocean.[[837]] By 1675, the situation in southern New England had been completely reversed. The settled area, which by that year extended westward from the sea one third of the way across Massachusetts, was continued from Cape Cod along the Sound and up the Connecticut River, and the western Massachusetts towns were scattered up the valley of the latter as far as Northfield. It was now the Indian who found himself, not simply far outnumbered, but entirely surrounded, by his white neighbors. It was only in the northeastern settlements, where the English population was much sparser, and where the short rivers and broken uplands offered no attractions to tempt the settlers from the coast, that the earlier conditions still prevailed, and the savages as yet had free range.

In the Puritan colonies, the practical identity of church and town, and the whole social, religious, and political life of the people precluded any wide dispersal of individual settlers in the wilderness. Even when individuals wished to go off by themselves, they were, as a rule, not allowed to do so, and Plymouth was not the only colony to take drastic measures to discipline such as preferred “liveing lonely and in a heathenish way from good societie.”[[838]] The unit of the southern New England frontier was not the solitary hunter or trapper, not even the family of the pioneer farmer, but the town. When a bit of the wilderness was cleared, it was to plant therein, not an isolated cabin, but the homes of an organized community, fully equipped with a church and town government, destined, almost at once, to be a new centre of civilization alien to the savage, permanent, irremovable, expanding. When a French trader or trapper plunged into the forest, and the green leaves closed behind him, it was to mingle with the life of the natives, which, in its main aspects, flowed on unaltered by his presence. When, on the other hand, Englishmen cleared their fields, built a town and a church, and by virtue of their title-deeds claimed undivided ownership of their newly acquired square miles of land, it was as if they had planted a great rock in the stream of savage life, which must thereafter flow around this new obstruction. As the English frontier crept ever farther and farther inland, from the shores of ocean and Sound, and up the valleys of such streams as the Merrimac, Thames, or Connecticut, and town succeeded town, it was as if, adding stone to stone, great dykes were being built, which more and more dammed up the waters of native life. It was almost inevitable that a point would be reached when these imprisoned waters would burst forth, and possibly carry away all New England in their flood.

The land-hunger of the whites, however, was insatiable. Almost any trouble with the natives became a sufficient excuse for an extorted cession of territory, either immediate or deferred. From the very beginning, the English had recognized an Indian title to the country, as distinct from the rights conveyed by the king in his patents. Indeed, in view of the use to which the settlers wished to put the lands, and the basis upon which they necessarily lived in relation to the native occupants, they could not well do otherwise, and peaceful possession was cheaply secured at the expense of a few coats or hoes. But, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the Indian theory of ownership was entirely different from that of the whites; and although the English, for the most part, observed the legal forms of their own race, the parchments which the savage signed with his mark were as ethically invalid as a child's sale of his inheritance for a stick of candy. Not only, in the beginning, had the natives failed to understand the nature of the transaction itself, but in their utter ignorance of Europe, and of what was bound to ensue from the steady stream of emigration thence, they could not foresee—what was reasonably clear to the colonists—that the result of their having welcomed the stranger would eventually be their own annihilation or completely altered status.

Whatever may be thought of the abstract justice of the earlier purchases, as the whites increased in numbers and comparative power, and as their first fears of the savages, and the desire to convert them, gave place to dislike, contempt, spiritual indifference, and self-confidence, their dealings with them sank to a lower ethical plane. It took but a few years for the methods of land-acquisition to become greatly modified. It was no longer considered necessary to treat with the Indian as an equal, whose just title could be acquired only for a valuable consideration. The theory was formulated that the native could be punished for a breach of the Englishman's laws, and that the fine or damage imposed might take the form of a cession of land. Troubles with the savages, on a larger scale, resulted in making use of the title by conquest, by which the larger part of Connecticut was acquired. Later, in the case of the Narragansetts, as we have already seen, overdue tribute, of questionable validity, was used by a speculative land company as a basis for advancing money on mortgage, by means of which it was hoped to obtain the rich territorial possessions of that entire tribe. All the colonies, indeed, in order to protect the Indians from the commoner forms of fraud, and themselves from the dangerous results of disputes, had made it illegal for individuals to bargain for land; and the laws requiring the general courts to pass upon all land-dealings were wise and just, and, undoubtedly, prevented much petty trickery and mischief. It is needless to point out, however, the subtle temptation for the colonies to pick a quarrel with the natives, to interfere with their internal affairs, or to conduct some little military expedition, when the result was likely to be the acquisition of desirable lands by a mere show of force.

As the whites encroached more and more upon the Indians, the lands of the latter gradually came to be looked upon as reservations, upon which their native owners were allowed to live until a convenient opportunity, or the growing needs of the settlers, might bring about a farther advance. Moreover, as the Indian lands dwindled in extent, and the whites rapidly increased numerically, in proportion to the natives, the settlers adopted an attitude of superiority and authority over the native tribes. This really amounted to establishing a protectorate over them, and relegated them to the rank of dependent peoples shorn of all sovereign power. It was a natural evolution in the relations between the two races, but was no more acceptable to the Indians for that reason. Nor were the Puritans, who were by nature harsh and overbearing, and who failed to display even the ordinary good manners of the time in their dealings with the Dutch, likely to exhibit any great amount of tact or courtesy in those which they had with the despised heathen and “children of the devil.” Personal pride and a strict observance of etiquette were marked characteristics of the savages, and chiefs and sachems could not fail to be stung to the quick when they were summoned, with more and more frequency, and less and less courtesy, to travel long distances and answer to complaints before the courts of Plymouth or Massachusetts, with but little regard for their dignity or standing among their own people.

Not seldom, moreover, they knew that such a demand was but the prelude to extending English authority, and sending them home shorn of possessions and respect. To cite, as an example, a case somewhat closely connected with the events of this chapter, in 1671, as a sequel to a rumored rising of the Indians in Plymouth Colony, the Squaw Sachem Awashunks was summoned to appear; and having done so voluntarily, she was required to submit “the disposall of her lands to the authoritie” of the colony, and was forced to engage herself to pay £50, to recompense the English for their trouble in the matter. As it was impossible that she could pay any such sum, the eventual “disposall” of her lands would not be difficult to foresee.[[839]] Land, as Roger Williams wrote, was becoming “one of the gods of New England,” and judicial punishments were coming curiously often to involve forced concessions regarding coveted bits of territory. Subtly, and perhaps unconsciously, but no less surely, the land-hunger of the whites was poisoning the wells of justice.

As a result of the relations, territorial and political, which were developing between the races, and as a natural corollary of the protectorate theory, the English were also gradually enacting, on the one hand, a body of law applicable among themselves to the Indian only, and, on the other, forcing the “protected” Indians to observe English law, even when living apart from the settlers. Such regulations as Connecticut passed for the Pequots on their reservation in the spring of 1675 were evidence of what all the protected Indians might expect in time. Any native, for example, heathen or Christian, who profaned the Sabbath day by hunting, fishing, carrying firewood, or other misdemeanors, was to be fined or whipped; while all were ordered to “heare the word of God preached by Mr. Fitch, or any other minister sent amongst them,” subject to four shillings fine or corporal punishment.[[840]] A most unjust law, in view of the well-understood inability of the Indian to withstand the temptation of strong waters, and the willingness of the colonists, in spite of legal prohibition, to sell them to him, was that which provided that any native found drunk should have to labor twelve days for whoever accused him and proved the case, one half of the proceeds of his labor to go to the accuser, and one half to the county treasury. It was only necessary, therefore, secretly to induce a savage to take one or two drinks, in order to secure six days' forced labor from him gratis.[[841]] We need not credit the preposterous contemporary accusation that the Massachusetts government, under a similar law, connived at making Indians drunk, so as to hasten the work on Castle Island, in order to realize the ample possibilities for evil in such a statute.[[842]]