The Pequots immediately made peace with the Narragansetts, urging them to a common war against the English. Such a combination, under the circumstances, would have meant a disaster of the first magnitude, and Massachusetts was now forced to ask the help of the only man who could avert it, but whom she had already driven from her company—Roger Williams. In response to most urgent appeals sent from the Governor and Council, he at once started, “all alone in a poore canow, and to cut through a stormie wind with great seas, every minute in hazard of life, to the Sachem's house.” There he remained three days, and by means of his friendship with Miantanomo, he won the Narragansetts back to the side of the English, and broke up the proposed alliance between the savages. In consequence of this inestimable service, Winthrop and some of the Massachusetts council, Williams wrote, “debated whether or no I had not merited, not only to be recalled from banishment, but also to be honored with some mark of favor”; but neither the authorities nor the contemporary historians, except Winthrop, had the generosity to say a word of the man who had saved New England.[[480]] In the fall, Miantanomo and other Narragansett sachems went to Boston, and signed a treaty with the English, which included an offensive alliance against the Pequots.
Meanwhile, the results of the folly that Massachusetts had perpetrated, and against which Plymouth as well as Saybrook had formally protested, now made themselves felt.[[481]] Three men were killed at Saybrook, another was roasted alive, a trader was murdered at Six-mile Island, then two more at Saybrook, and another on his way up the river. At Wethersfield, nine men were slaughtered, and two young girls carried into captivity.[[482]] The horrors of Indian warfare became the hourly dread of every inhabitant along the frontier, thanks to the Massachusetts magistrates and ministers. Having, as Gardiner predicted, raised the wasps about his ears and those of all the English along the river, Massachusetts now asked help of Plymouth, as she had before turned to Williams. That colony agreed to lend aid, but in doing so, recalled to her stronger neighbor how she had refused help against the French when the Pilgrims were the petitioners; how she had interfered with their trade on the Kennebec; and how she had deprived their Connecticut pioneers of their lands.[[483]]
But the settlers on the latter river could not await the slow movements of the Bay Colony, if the lives of their wives and children were to be saved. At the Connecticut General Court of May 1, 1637, war was declared against the Pequots, and ninety men, from the three plantations, were levied for immediate service.[[484]] The expedition, under command of Captain John Mason, with some Indian auxiliaries under Uncas, immediately proceeded to Saybrook, where they were joined by Underhill, who happened to be there, and a few additional men.[[485]] A skirmish, in which the Indians, whose fidelity had been doubted, acquitted themselves loyally, encouraged them not a little. The original plan had been to sail down the coast to the Pequot River and to attack the enemy directly, but this was wisely changed at the suggestion of Mason. According to the new plans, the party set sail for Narragansett Bay, with the design of then returning overland, and making a surprise attack on the Pequots, who were expecting it from the water. After landing on the shore of the Bay, and being reinforced by several hundred Narragansetts, Mason marched his band from eight in the morning until an hour after dark, when they camped about two miles from the Pequot fort. It had been decided to attack only the larger of the two villages, a palisadoed enclosure of an acre or two.[[486]] About one o'clock, the English were on the march again, but were deserted by all the Indians, Narragansetts and Mohegans alike, before reaching the fort. The palisade having two entrances, opposite one another, it was agreed that two parties, led respectively, by Mason and Underhill, should make simultaneous attacks upon them. In spite of the fact that the Indians had been warned, by the barking of their dogs, of the approach of the enemy, Mason boldly jumped over the brush piled at the entrance, and was followed by his men. The other party also entered at the opposite side, and the slaughter of the dazed and half-awakened savages began. Seeing, however, that the resistance might prove too much for his men, Mason snatched a torch from a wigwam and set fire to the village, which, owing to the strong wind blowing, was soon ablaze. The English now had only to withdraw, and to shoot any wretched savage who attempted to climb over the palisade. In the early dawn of that May morning, as the New England men stood guard over the flames, five hundred men, women, and children were slowly burned alive.[[487]] Not over eight escaped, and there were but seven captives. The English lost two killed and twenty wounded. It is difficult to imagine what thoughts must have been in the minds of the Puritans as they slowly roasted the Indian women and children. Mason merely notes that, by the providence of God, there were one hundred and fifty more savages than usual in the village that night.
The English, carrying their wounded, retreated to the ships,—which fortunately had come into Pequot Harbor,—as the savages from the smaller village were hampering their movements. With the vessels had also arrived Captain Patrick and forty men from Massachusetts, that colony having voted one hundred and sixty, and Plymouth sixty, although too late to take part in the expedition. The bulk of the Pequot nation was now destroyed, and it remained only to make an end of the few hundred who had thus far escaped. Sassacus, the sachem, being repudiated by his own followers, fled with seventy warriors to the Mohawks, and the English indefatigably ran down detached parties. In a swamp twenty miles from the Dutch line, eighty of the Pequots' “stoutest men,” with two hundred old people, women, and children, made a last stand. After being subjected to the fire of the English for some hours, the two hundred non-combatants surrendered, while the warriors fought to the last man, twenty finally escaping through the surrounding lines. The other savages turned against the all but annihilated Pequots, and “happy were they,” wrote Mason, “that could bring in their heads to the English: Of which there came almost daily to Windsor or Hartford.” In all, during the campaign, over seven hundred were killed or made captive.[[488]]
Document signed by Uncas and his Squaw
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
Of the prisoners some were divided between Uncas and the Narragansetts, while the rest were kept by the English, or sold into bondage in the West Indies.[[489]] In the division of this human spoil, the clergy took its part. “Sir,” wrote the Reverend Mr. Peter to Governor Winthrop, “Mr. Endecot and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus. Wee have heard of a dividence of women and children in the bay and would bee glad of a share viz: a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good. I wrote to you for some boyes for Bermudas, which I thinke is considerable.”[[490]] Fifteen boys and two women were sent thither as slaves, but whether for the profit of the Reverend Peter, Winthrop does not say. Roger Williams pleaded over and over again, but in vain, with the Massachusetts authorities for a more lenient course. “Since the Most High delights in mercy, and great revenge hath bene allready taken,” he advised incorporating the survivors among the friendly Indians; but though, only a short time before, the Massachusetts authorities had been pleading with Williams to save themselves, they now turned a deaf ear to his intercession for the natives.[[491]] The Narragansetts and Mohegans were both anxious to adopt the few survivors of their powerful enemies, according to Indian custom, so that Williams's suggestions were as practicable as they were merciful. Two hundred were finally so allotted by Connecticut, when the last remnants of the Pequots submitted and the River plantations entered into a treaty with Uncas and Miantanomo.[[492]] From the end of the Pequot war, all the New England colonies adopted not only Indian but negro slavery, and it was wholly due to economic, and not ethical, causes that the institution did not take root. In the one small locality in all New England where it proved profitable, it did so root itself, and the importing of slaves for use in the other colonies long constituted an important part of Puritan trade.[[493]]
The contest between the English and the Indians had been inevitable from the start. The murders of the two traders were but the sparks that touched off the explosive material which had long been accumulating. The struggle, with varying details and proximate causes, but based upon the unchanging fundamental conflict of the natures and economic interests of the two races, was to be repeated over and over again as the American frontier advanced. Endicott's stupid campaign, and, perhaps the too thorough absorption of Old Testament examples, had made the struggle almost inhumanly bloody in the first advance of that frontier in New England. The effect, however, was complete. It was to be nearly forty years before the savages regained sufficient strength, and found a leader to attempt again to dispute the relentless advance of the Puritan planters.[planters.]
[423]. Worsley to Board of Trade, cited by Pitman, Development of British W. I., p. 70.