King Philip's War
The Dutch of New York were at one period almost overwhelmed by the Indians in their neighbourhood, and in 1656 the Virginians suffered a severe defeat in a battle with the aborigines at the spot where Richmond now stands. In 1675 there broke out in New England the great Indian war known as King Philip's War. Philip, an Indian chief, complained bitterly that those of his subjects who had been converted to Christianity were withdrawn from his control, and he made vigorous war on the settlers, laying many of their towns in ashes. But victory was with the colonists at the battle called the 'Swamp Fight,' and Philip and his men were scattered.
Captain Benjamin Church it was who first taught the colonists to fight the Indians in their own manner. He moved as stealthily as the savages themselves, and, to avoid an alarm, never allowed an Indian to be shot who could be reached with the hatchet. The Indians who were captured were sold into slavery in the West India Islands, where the hard labour and change of climate were usually instrumental in speedily putting an end to their servitude.
Step by step the Red Man was driven westward until he vanished from the vicinity of the earlier settlements altogether. From that period the history of his conflicts with the whites is bound up with the records of their western extension.
The Reservations
The necessity of bringing the Indian tribes under the complete control of the United States Government and confining them to definite limits for the better preservation of order was responsible for the policy of placing them on tracts of territory of their own called 'reservations.' This step led the natives to realize the benefits of a settled existence and to depend on their own industry for a livelihood rather than upon the more precarious products of the chase. An Act of Congress was passed in 1887 which put a period to the existence of the Indian tribes as separate communities, and permitted all tribal lands and reservations to be so divided that each individual member of a tribe might possess a separate holding. Many of these holdings are of considerable value, and the possessors are by no means poorly endowed with this world's goods. On the whole the policy of the United States toward the Indians has been dictated by justice and humanity, but instances have not been wanting in which arid lands have been foisted upon the Indians, and the pressure of white settlers has frequently forced the Government to dispossess the Red Man of the land that had originally been granted to him.
The Story of Pocahontas
Many romantic stories are told concerning the relations of the early white settlers with the Indians. Among the most interesting is that of Pocahontas, the daughter of the renowned Indian chief Powhatan, the erstwhile implacable enemy of the whites. Pocahontas, who as a child had often played with the young colonists, was visiting a certain chief named Japazaws, when an English captain named Argall bribed him with a copper kettle to betray her into his hands. Argall took her a captive to Jamestown. Here a white man by the name of John Rolfe married her, after she had received Christian baptism. This marriage brought about a peace between Powhatan and the English settlers in Virginia.
When Dale went back to England in 1616 he took with him some of the Indians. Pocahontas, who was now called 'the Lady Rebecca,' and her husband accompanied the party. Pocahontas was called a princess in England, and received much attention. But when about to return to the colony she died, leaving a little son.
The quaint version of Captain Nathaniel Powell, which retains all the known facts of Pocahontas' story, states that "During this time, the Lady Rebecca, alias Pocahontas, daughter to Powhatan, by the diligent care of Master John Rolfe her husband, and his friends, was taught to speak such English as might well be understood, well instructed in Christianity, and was become very formal and civil after our English manner; she had also by him a child which she loved most dearly, and the Treasurer and Company took order both for the maintenance of her and it, besides there were divers persons of great rank and quality had been kind to her; and before she arrived at London, Captain Smith, to deserve her former courtesies, made her qualities known to the Queen's most excellent Majesty and her Court, and wrote a little book to this effect to the Queen: An abstract whereof follows: