Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain

by John S. C. Abbott

In the year 1634, just after a very flourishing trading post had been established on the Connecticut river at Windsor, two English traders, Captains Norton and Stone, ascended the river in a boat, laden with valuables for the Indian trade, which they intended to exchange for furs. These traders had eight white boatmen in their employ. The Indians were peaceful, and they had no apprehensions of danger. One night, as the boat was moored by the side of the stream, a band of Indians, with hideous yells, rushed from an ambush upon them, put every man to death and, having plundered the boat of all its contents, sunk it in the stream.

These traders were from Massachusetts. This powerful colony demanded of Sassacus that the murderers should be surrendered to them, and that payment should be made for the plundered goods. The bloody deed had been performed at midnight in the glooms of the forest. There was no survivor to tell the story. Sassacus fabricated one, very ingeniously, to palm off upon the English. No one could deny the villany of Captain Hunt, who, some years before, had kidnapped several Indians and sold them into slavery. Sassacus declared that Captains Norton and Stone, without any provocation, had seized two Indians, bound them hand and foot in their boat, and were about to carry them off, no one knew where.

The friends of these captives crept cautiously along the shore watching for an opportunity to rescue them. The white men were all thoroughly armed with swords and muskets, rendering any attempt to rescue the captives extremely perilous. The right of self-defense rendered it necessary, in the conflict which would ensue, to kill. In the darkness of the night they rushed upon the boat which was drawn up to the shore, killed the white men and released the captives. He also stated that all the Indians engaged in the affray, excepting two, had since died of the small-pox.

This plausible story could not be disproved. The magistrates of Massachusetts, high-minded and honorable men, wished to treat the Indians not merely with justice, but with humanity. It could not be denied that, admitting the facts to be as stated by Sassacus, the Indians had performed a heroic act—one for which they deserved praise rather than censure. The Governor of Massachusetts therefore accepted this explanation, and resumed his friendly alliance with the treacherous Pequots.

Roger Williams, who had taken up his residence in Rhode Island, had secured the confidence of the Indians to a wonderful degree. He exposed himself, apparently, to the greatest perils, without any sense of danger. He had acquired wonderful facility in speaking the language of the Narragansets, in the midst of whom he dwelt. There were still so many indications that the Pequots were plotting hostilities, that the Governor and Council of Massachusetts wrote to Mr. Williams, urging him to go to the seat of Canonicus, and dissuade him from entering into any coalition with the Pequots, should such be in process of formation. This truly good man immediately left his home and embarked alone, in a canoe, to skirt the coast of Narraganset Bay, upon his errand of mercy. It is probable that he made this journey in a birch canoe, paddling his way over the smooth waters of the sheltered bays. He encountered many hardships, and many great perils, as occasional storms arose, dashing the surf upon the shore. After several days of such lonely voyaging, he reached the royal residence of Canonicus. The barbarian chieftain was at home, and it so happened that when Mr. Williams arrived at his wigwam, he found several Pequot warriors there, who had come on an embassage from Sassacus to engage the Narragansets in the war.

For three days this bold man remained alone among these savages, endeavoring, in every way, to thwart the endeavors of the Pequot warriors. These agents of Sassacus were enraged at Mr. Williams’ influence in circumventing their plans. They plotted his massacre, and every night Mr. Williams had occasion to fear that he would not behold the light of another morning. But Canonicus, unlettered savage as he was, had sufficient intelligence to appreciate the fearlessness and true grandeur of character of Mr. Williams. He dismissed the discomfited Pequots, refusing to enter into any alliance with them. He renewed his treaty of friendship with the English, and engaged to send a large party of his warriors to co-operate with them in repelling the threatened assault of the Pequots.

The benefits thus conferred upon the English by the efforts of Mr. Roger Williams were incalculable. Many distant tribes, who were on the eve of joining Sassacus, alarmed by the defection of the Narragansets, also withdrew; and thus the Pequots were compelled to enter upon the war with forces considerably weaker than they had originally intended. Still they were foes greatly to be dreaded. The English settlements were now widely scattered, and each was in itself feeble. The Pequots could marshal four thousand of as fierce warriors as earth has ever seen. A small bag of pounded corn would furnish each warrior with food for many days. They could traverse the forest trails with almost the velocity of the wind. Rushing upon some unprotected hamlet at midnight, with torch and tomahawk, they could, in one awful hour, leave behind them but smouldering ashes and gory corpses. Disappearing, like wolves, in the impenetrable forest, they could again rush upon any lonely farm-house, leagues away, and thus, with but little danger to themselves, spread ruin far and wide. No man in the scattered settlements could fall asleep at night without the fear that the hideous war-whoop of the Indian would rouse him and his family to a cruel death before morning.

The Pequots were continually perpetrating new acts of violence, while the English, with great forbearance, were doing everything in their power to avert the open breaking out of hostilities. To add to the embarrassment of the English they received conclusive evidence that Captains Norton and Stone, with their boats’ crew, were wantonly murdered by the Indians, and that the statement of extenuating circumstances, made by Sassacus, was an entire fabrication. The forbearance of the English only stimulated the insolence of the Pequots.

In July 1635, John Oldham ventured on a trading expedition to the Pequot country. He went as an agent of the Massachusetts colony, one object being to ascertain the disposition of the savages. The Indians captured his boat, killed Captain Oldham, horribly mutilating his body, and the rest of the crew, two or three in number, were carried off as captives. The time for attempts at conciliation was at an end. It was resolved to prosecute the war with all vigor, and so to punish the Pequots as to give them a new idea of the power of the English, and to present a warning to all the other savages against the repetition of such outrages.

Plymouth colony furnished fifty soldiers, commanded by Captain Miles Standish. Massachusetts raised two hundred men. The settlements on the Connecticut furnished ninety men. The Mohegans and Narragansets sent to the English camp of rendezvous about two hundred warriors, promising many more. It was decided to strike the Pequots a sudden and heavy blow. We cannot here enter into the details of the fierce and decisive war which ensued.