King Philip / Makers of History

by John S. C. Abbott

Explorations.
Appearance of the harbor.

The Pilgrims explored quite minutely this magnificent harbor, then solitary and fringed with rayless forests, now alive with commerce, and decorated with mansions of refinement and opulence. The long promontory, now crowded with the busy streets and thronged dwellings of Boston, was then a dense and silent wilderness, threaded with a few Indian trails. Along the shore several rude wigwams were scattered, the smoke curling from their fires from among the trees, with naked children playing around the birch canoes upon the beach.

Preparations for return.

In the evening of a serene day the moon rose brilliant on the harbor, illumining with almost celestial beauty the islands and the sea. Many of the islands were then crowned with forests; others were cleared smooth and verdant, but swept entirely clean of inhabitants by the dreadful plague. The Pilgrims, rejoicing in the rays of the autumnal moon, prepared to spread their sails. "Having well spent the day," they write, "we returned to the shallop, almost all the women accompanying us to trucke, who sold their coats from their backes, and tyed boughes about them, but with great shamefastness, for indeed they are more modest than some of our English women are. We promised them to come again to them, and they us to keep their skins.

The harbor.

"Within this bay the savages say there are two rivers, the one whereof we saw having a fair entrance, but we had no time to discover it. Better harbors for shipping can not be than here are. At the entrance of the bay are many rocks, and, in all likelihood, very good fishing ground. Having a light moon, we set sail at evening, and before next day noon got home, with a considerable quantity of beaver, and a good report of the place, wishing we had been seated there."

Friendly relations.
Arrival of emigrants from England.

Thus, by kindness, the natives of this region were won to friendship, and amicable relations were established. Before the close of this year another vessel arrived from England, bringing thirty-five persons to join the colony. Though these emigrants were poor, and, having consumed nearly all their food on a long voyage, were nearly starved, the lonely colonists received the acquisition with great joy. Houses were immediately built for their accommodation, and they were fed from the colony stores. Winter now again whitened the hills of Plymouth.

Declaration of war.
Canonicus.
Weakness of the Pilgrims.

Early in January, 1622, Canonicus, sovereign chief of the Narragansets, notwithstanding the alliance of the foregoing summer into which he had entered, dreading the encroachments of the white men, and particularly apprehensive of the strength which their friendship gave to his hereditary enemies, the Mohegans, sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows tied up in the skin of a rattlesnake. Squantum was called to interpret the significance of such a gift. He said that it was the Indian mode of expressing hostility and of sending a declaration of war. This act shows an instinctive sense of honor in the barbarian chieftain which civilized men do not always imitate. Even the savages cherished ideas of chivalry which led them to scorn to strike an unsuspecting and defenseless foe. The friendly Indians around Plymouth assured the colonists that Canonicus was making great preparations for war; that he could bring five thousand warriors into the field; that he had sent spies to ascertain the condition of the English and their weakness; and that he had boasted that he could eat them all up at a mouthful. It is pleasant to record that our fathers had not provoked this hostility by any act of aggression. They had been thus far most eminently just and benevolent in all their intercourse with the natives. They were settled upon land to which Canonicus pretended no claim, and were on terms of cordial friendship with all the Indians around them. The Pilgrims at this time had not more than twenty men capable of bearing arms, and five thousand savages were clashing their weapons, and filling the forest with their war-whoops, preparing to attack them. Their peril was indeed great.