Hostilities, however, continued in the eastern settlements of Maine and New Hampshire for two years longer. Owing to their scattered character, and the difficulty of inflicting any telling blow upon the savages, who could disappear into the limitless forests, and were supplied by the French with arms and other necessities, Maine suffered proportionately even more severely than its more populous neighbors to the south. The story of the war there is the record of tragedy after tragedy enacted in lonely farmhouse or isolated village. One episode only, and that because of its later effect upon the Indian relations of the settlers, need be alluded to. In the autumn of 1676, following the signing of a treaty in July and a proclamation by the Massachusetts Court, several hundred natives congregated at Major Waldron's house at Dover, with the intention, apparently, of accepting terms of amnesty, and of testifying to their friendly relations with the whites although there were some who had borne arms against them. Unexpectedly, they were all taken into custody by Massachusetts agents and carried off to Boston, and a large proportion of them was sold into slavery in the West Indies. There are various versions of the affair, and it is impossible to unravel the truth, but, whether rightly or not, the eastern Indians felt that they had been treacherously dealt with, and never forgot or forgave the transaction.[[895]] Massachusetts, moreover, was unable to protect the eastern settlements; and the treaty finally made with the Indians, in the spring of 1678, carried the humiliating condition that the whites were to pay an annual tribute to the natives.[[896]] The unfortunate result of the war in that section was that the Indians felt themselves superior to the whites in power, and they had come to believe that the word of the latter could not be trusted.
The captives taken in Philip's War were variously treated. Some, who were considered especially guilty, were killed, and great numbers were distributed among the whites as servants for a limited period. Many were sold into slavery in the West Indies.[[897]] Among these unfortunates were the wife and son of Philip, the latter a little lad of nine.[[898]] Even the life of this grandson of Massasoit hung in the balance, and the clergy, to whom the problem of his disposal was referred, advised that he should be slain; but, as usual, the people were more merciful than the ministers. Although even the Old Testament offered difficulties in the way of precedents, John Cotton and Increase Mather thought that they might be found, and called for the lad's blood,[[899]] Mather pointing out that, although David indeed spared the life of little Hadad, it might have been better had he not. The saintly Eliot, who throughout the war had pleaded with the people of Massachusetts for justice and mercy for the Christian Indians, as Williams had pleaded for the Pequots a generation before, protested against the whole system of selling off the natives, and in a letter to the Governor and Council uttered the prophetic saying that “to sell soules for mony seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize.”[[900]] But his voice, like Williams's, found no echo.
Reverend John Cotton's Opinion that Philip's Son should be put to Death
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
The losses that the colonies had suffered were enormous. Maine did not recover for half a century, and there was not a white man left in Kennebec County. In Massachusetts sixteen towns were wholly destroyed or abandoned, and four in Rhode Island.[[901]] Along the entire New England frontier burned buildings and abandoned farms bore mute witness to the fury of the struggle. Plymouth reported her war expenses as £11,743, Connecticut hers as £22,173, and Massachusetts hers as £46,292, a total equivalent to-day of over $2,000,000.[[902]] One man out of every sixteen of military age had been killed. The struggle, however, had been inevitable, and it is fortunate that it occurred when it did; for it is improbable that the colonies could have sustained a double attack from south and north had the domestic contest coincided with the French war fifteen years later. Although they had been weakened in some respects, their losses were only temporary, while the removal of the Indian menace within their borders was a permanent gain. The ruined towns were rebuilt, new lands were opened up, and the fact that, entirely by their own efforts and without aid from England, the colonists had won possession of their territory with the unlimited expenditure of their own blood and treasure was of no little effect, then and later.
[834]. There are no exact figures. The estimate in Century of Population Growth, pp. 4 ff., is about 54,000. Dexter, Estimates of Population in American Colonies, gives about the same (pp. 26 ff.). Palfrey estimates from 40,000 to 45,000 in 1665 (History, vol. III, pp. 35 ff.). If we accept the usual military ratio of one military effective to five persons, a contemporary estimate in 1675 by [William?] Harris gives 44,000, which would be increased by the fact that Massachusetts insisted upon carrying a smaller proportion of the military burden than the other colonies. Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76, p. 220. L. K. Mathews's estimate of 120,000, in her generally accurate Expansion of New England (p. 56), may be taken from Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76, p. 362, where that greatly exaggerated figure is given, but as a query, and is disproved by the additional statistics of 13,000 families and 16,000 effectives given in the same statement. Osgood adopts the figure of 80,000 (American Colonies, vol. I, p. 543).
[835]. Palfrey's suggestion of about equal numbers for the two races seems to have little foundation. History, vol. III, p. 167. On the other hand, Osgood's estimate of only 10,500 (American Colonies, vol. I, p. 543) seems a little low.
[836]. Hodge, Handbook, vol. II, p. 29.
[837]. The maps in Mathews's Expansion of New England are of great value in studying the movement of the frontier.