The Beginnings of New England / Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty

by John Fiske

From such facts as those above cited we may infer that the early relations of the Puritan settlers to the Algonquin tribes of New England were by no means like the relations between white men and red men in recent times on our western plains. During Philip's War, as we shall see, the Puritan theory of the situation was entirely changed and our forefathers began to act in accordance with the frontiersman's doctrine that the good Indians are dead Indians. But down to that time it is clear that his intention was to deal honourably and gently with his tawny neighbour. We sometimes hear the justice and kindness of the Quakers in Pennsylvania alleged as an adequate reason for the success with which they kept clear of an Indian war. This explanation, however, does not seem to be adequate; it does not appear that, on the whole, the Puritans were less just and kind than the Quakers in their treatment of the red men. The true explanation is rather to be found in the relations between the Indian tribes toward the close of the seventeenth century. Early in that century the Pennsylvania region had been in the hands of the ferocious and powerful Susquehannocks, but in 1672, after a frightful struggle of twenty years, this great tribe was swept from the face of the earth by the resistless league of the Five Nations. When the Quakers came to Pennsylvania in 1682, the only Indians in that neighbourhood were the Delawares, who had just been terribly beaten by the Five Nations and forced into a treaty by which they submitted to be called "women," and to surrender their tomahawks. Penn's famous treaty was made with the Delawares as occupants of the land and also with the Iroquois league as overlords. [30] Now the great central fact of early American history, so far as the relations between white men and red men are concerned, is the unshaken friendship of the Iroquois for the English. This was the natural consequence of the deadly hostility between the Iroquois and the French which began with Champlain's defeat of the Mohawks in 1609. During the seventy-three years which intervened between the founding of Pennsylvania and the defeat of Braddock there was never a moment when the Delawares could have attacked the Quakers without incurring the wrath and vengeance of their overlords the Five Nations. This was the reason why Pennsylvania was left so long in quiet. No better proof could be desired than the fact that in Pontiac's war, after the overthrow of the French and when Indian politics had changed, no state suffered so much as Pennsylvania from the horrors of Indian warfare. [Sidenote: Why Pennsylvania was so long unmolested by the Indians]

In New England at the time of Philip's War, the situation was very different from what it was between the Hudson and the Susquehanna. The settlers were thrown into immediate relations with several tribes whose mutual hostility and rivalry was such that it was simply impossible to keep on good terms with all at once. Such complicated questions as that which involved the English in responsibility for the fate of Miantonomo did not arise in Pennsylvania. Since the destruction of the Pequots we have observed the Narragansetts and Mohegans contending for the foremost place among New England tribes. Of the two rivals the Mohegans were the weaker, and therefore courted the friendship of the formidable palefaces. The English had no desire to take part in these barbarous feuds, but they could not treat the Mohegans well without incurring the hostility of the Narragansetts. For thirty years the feeling of the latter tribe toward the English had been very unfriendly and would doubtless have vented itself in murder but for their recollection of the fate of the Pequots. After the loss of their chief Miantonomo their attitude became so sullen and defiant that the Federal Commissioners, in order to be in readiness for an outbreak, collected a force of 300 men. At the first news of these preparations the Narragansetts, overcome with terror, sent a liberal tribute of wampum to Boston, and were fain to conclude a treaty in which they promised to behave themselves well in the future.

It was impossible that this sort of English protectorate over the native tribes, which was an inevitable result of the situation, should be other than irksome and irritating to the Indians. They could not but see that the white man stood there as master, and even in the utter absence of provocation, this fact alone must have made them hate him. It is difficult, moreover, for the civilized man and the savage to understand each other. As a rule the one does not know what the other is thinking about. When Mr. Hamilton Gushing a few years ago took some of his Zuni friends into a hotel in Chicago, they marvelled at his entering such a mighty palace with so little ceremony, and their wonder was heightened at the promptness with which "slaves" came running at his beck and call; but all at once, on seeing an American eagle over one of the doorways, they felt that the mystery was solved. Evidently this palace was the communal dwelling of the Eagle Clan of palefaces, and evidently Mr. Gushing was a great sachem of this clan, and as such entitled to lordly sway there! The Zunis are not savages, but representatives of a remote and primitive phase of what Mr. Morgan calls the middle status of barbarism. The gulf between their thinking and that of white men is wide because there is a wide gulf between the experience of the two. [Sidenote: Difficulty of the situation in New England] [Sidenote: It is hard for the savage and the civilized man to understand one another]

This illustration may help us to understand an instance in which the Indians of New England must inevitably have misinterpreted the actions of the white settlers and read them in the light of their uneasy fears and prejudices. I refer to the work of the apostle Eliot. His design in founding his villages of Christian Indians was in the highest degree benevolent and noble; but the heathen Indians could hardly be expected to see anything in it but a cunning scheme for destroying them.

Eliot's converts were for the most part from the Massachusetts tribe, the smallest and weakest of all. The Plymouth converts came chiefly from the tribe next in weakness, the Pokanokets or Wampanoags. The more powerful tribes—Narragansetts, Nipmucks, and Mohegans—furnished very few converts. When they saw the white intruders gathering members of the weakest tribes into villages of English type, and teaching them strange gods while clothing them in strange garments, they probably supposed that the pale-faces were simply adopting these Indians into their white tribe as a means of increasing their military strength. At any rate, such a proceeding would be perfectly intelligible to the savage mind, whereas the nature of Eliot's design lay quite beyond its ken. As the Indians recovered from their supernatural dread of the English, and began to regard them as using human means to accomplish their ends, they must of course interpret their conduct in such light as savage experience could afford. It is one of the commonest things in the world for a savage tribe to absorb weak neighbours by adoption, and thus increase its force preparatory to a deadly assault upon other neighbours. When Eliot in 1657 preached to the little tribe of Podunks near Hartford, and asked them if they were willing to accept of Jesus Christ as their saviour, their old men scornfully answered No! they had parted with most of their land, but they were not going to become the white man's servants. A rebuke administered to Eliot by Uncas in 1674 has a similar implication. When the apostle was preaching one evening in a village over which that sachem claimed jurisdiction, an Indian arose and announced himself as a deputy of Uncas. Then he said, "Uncas is not well pleased that the English should pass over Mohegan river to call his Indians to pray to God." [31]

Thus, no matter how benevolent the white man's intentions, he could not fail to be dreaded by the Indians as a powerful and ever encroaching enemy.

Even in his efforts to keep the peace and prevent tribes from taking the warpath without his permission, he was interfering with the red man's cherished pastime of murder and pillage. The appeals to the court at Plymouth, the frequent summoning of sachems to Boston, to explain their affairs and justify themselves against accusers, must have been maddening in their effects upon the Indian; for there is one sound instinct which the savage has in common with the most progressive races, and that is the love of self-government that resents all outside interference. All things considered, it is remarkable that peace should have been maintained in New England from 1637 to 1675; and probably nothing short of the consuming vengeance wrought upon the Pequots could have done it. But with the lapse of time the wholesome feeling of dread began to fade away, and as the Indians came to use musket instead of bow and arrow, their fear of the English grew less, until at length their ferocious temper broke forth in an epidemic of fire and slaughter that laid waste the land. [Sidenote: It is remarkable that peace should have been so long preserved]

Massasoit, chief sachem of the Wampanoags and steadfast ally of the Plymouth colonists, died in 1660, leaving two sons, Wamsutta and Metacom, or as the English nicknamed them, Alexander and Philip. Alexander succeeded to his father's position of savage dignity and influence, but his reign was brief. Rumours came to Plymouth that he was plotting mischief, and he was accordingly summoned to appear before the General Court of that colony and explain himself. He seems to have gone reluctantly, but he succeeded in satisfying the magistrates of his innocence of any evil designs. Whether he caught cold at Plymouth or drank rum as only Indians can, we do not know. At any rate, on starting homeward, before he had got clear of English territory, he was seized by a violent fever and died. The savage mind knows nothing of pneumonia or delirium tremens. It knows nothing of what we call natural death. To the savage all death means murder, for like other men he judges of the unknown by the known. In the Indian's experience normal death was by tomahawk or firebrand; abnormal death (such as we call natural) must come either from poison or from witchcraft. So when the honest chronicler Hubbard tells us that Philip suspected the Plymouth people of poisoning his brother, we can easily believe him. It was long, however, before he was ready to taste the sweets of revenge. He schemed and plotted in the dark. In one respect the Indian diplomatist is unlike his white brethren; he does not leave state-papers behind him to reward the diligence and gratify the curiosity of later generations; and accordingly it is hard to tell how far Philip was personally responsible for the storm which was presently to burst upon New England. [Sidenote: Deaths of Massasoit and Alexander] [Sidenote: Philip's designs]

Whether his scheme was as comprehensive as that of Pontiac in 1763, whether or not it amounted to a deliberate combination of all red men within reach to exterminate the white men, one can hardly say with confidence. The figure of Philip, in the war which bears his name, does not stand out so prominently as the figure of Pontiac in the later struggle. This may be partly because Pontiac's story has been told by such a magician as Mr. Francis Parkman. But it is partly because the data are too meagre. In all probability, however, the schemes of Sassacus the Pequot, of Philip the Wampanoag, and of Pontiac the Ottawa, were substantially the same. That Philip plotted with the Narragansetts seems certain, and the early events of the war point clearly to a previous understanding with the Nipmucks. The Mohegans, on the other hand, gave him no assistance, but remained faithful to their white allies.

For thirteen years had Philip been chief sachem of his tribe before the crisis came. Rumours of his unfriendly disposition had at intervals found their way to the ears of the magistrates at Plymouth, but Philip had succeeded in setting himself right before them. In 1670 the rumours were renewed, and the Plymouth men felt that it was time to strike, but the other colonies held them back, and a meeting was arranged between Philip and three Boston men at Taunton in April, 1671. There the crafty savage expressed humility and contrition for all past offences, and even consented to a treaty in which he promised that his tribe should surrender all their fire-arms. On the part of the English this was an extremely unwise measure, for while it could not possibly be enforced, and while it must have greatly increased the irritation of the Indians, it was at the same time interpretable as a symptom of fear. With ominous scowls and grunts some seventy muskets were given up, but this was all. Through the summer there was much uneasiness, and in September Philip was summoned to Plymouth with five of his under-sachems, and solemnly warned to keep the peace. The savages again behaved with humility and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of five wolves' heads and to do no act of war without express permission.