Massachusetts thus in part made her peace with the mother-country; besides which, England was not just then in a state to compel obedience; the war with Holland was pressing heavily on the country; and the great fire and the plague which had just ravaged and depopulated London brought subjects of serious thought much nearer home, which threw Massachusetts for several years completely into the background. In the meantime she prospered.
In 1670, Sir Joshua Child, in his discourse on trade, reported of Massachusetts, that it is “the most prejudicial plantation of Great Britain; the frugality, industry and temperance of its people, and the happiness of their laws and institutions, promise them long life and a wonderful increase of people, riches, and power.” And the promise was fulfilled. The navigation act, which pressed so heavily on Virginia, and which was intended to be enforced with equal severity in Massachusetts, was disregarded; not a single custom-house was established; on the contrary, Massachusetts enjoyed all the advantages of free-trade, “acting as carrier to most of the colonies, sending her ships to various parts of the world, while ships from Spain, Italy, France and Holland, might all be seen in Boston harbour. Villages extended; prosperity was universal; beggary was unknown; theft was rare.”
Such was the condition of Massachusetts in 1670. One internal trouble, however, she still had, and that was, the growth of schismatics within her borders. The Baptists, spite of all opposition, were not only numerous, but had built themselves a meeting-house in Boston; and the “abominable Quakers” still came, spite of flogging from town to town out of the colony.
Half a century had now passed since the pilgrim fathers first landed in the New World, and many of the “old worthies” had departed on a still further pilgrimage. “Wilson, the sincere though persecuting minister, who had mounted into a tree in his zeal to preach against Anne Hutchinson; the mild John Davenport, the founder of New Haven; Willoughby, the advocate of toleration; Bellingham, and many other patriarchs, were no more; having closed their lives but with one regret—that they had not been permitted to witness the fulness of New England’s glory.”
In the midst of this growing prosperity, a sudden tempest of blood and misery broke over New England. The colonies were gradually extending themselves; “yet the entire white population,” says Hildreth, “did not yet exceed 60,000, occupying the sea-coast, and the lands of the Lower Connecticut. Lancaster, about forty miles from Boston, was the frontier town of the Bay settlements; Brookfield, some thirty miles from the river, was the most eastern town in the Connecticut valley. There intervened between these townships a great space of rugged country, wholly unsettled, and occupied by a few straggling Indian tribes.”
Excepting in the instance of the Pequods, the native tribes of New England remained very much undiminished. The Pocanokets still occupied the eastern, and the Narragansetts the western, side of Narragansett Bay. In Connecticut but few natives remained, as the various tribes had mostly ceded their land to the new-comers. Uncas, the celebrated Mohegan chief, was now an old man. The Penacooks still occupied the falls of the Merrimac and the heads of the Piscataqua, their aged sachem, Passaconaway, having great respect for the whites. “The Indians of Maine and the region eastward possessed their ancient haunts undisturbed; but their intercourse was principally with the French settlers. Acadia was again given up. The New England Indians were occasionally harassed by war-parties of Mohawks, but by the intervention of Massachusetts peace had recently been established.”
Earnest endeavours were being made to convert the Indians to Christianity; Eliot and his devoted coadjutors were labouring to bring these forlorn children of the forest into the fold of Christ, and already, as we have related, civilisation and Christianity had been accepted by considerable numbers. Still those remained who proudly resisted their influence, among which were the Narragansetts and Pocanokets already mentioned, lying in the very midst of the English settlements. These tribes, who boasted of the glory and power of their forefathers, of their great numbers and vast extent of territory, had been galled by the gradual and irresistible advance of the white intruders in their boundaries, until at length they found themselves confined to the peninsulas formed by the northern and eastern branches of Narragansett Bay, and began to dread that they should be driven into the very sea itself.
None felt these humiliating circumstances more painfully than Pometacom, or king Philip of Mount Hope, as he was called by the colonists, chief of the Pocanokets, and son of that Massasoit who had welcomed the pilgrim fathers, and ever shown himself their firm friend. Already, in 1670, suspected of hostile intentions, he had been compelled to give up his fire-arms, to pay a heavy fine, and acknowledge the supremacy of the English. By some writers it has been asserted, that Philip had for several years been labouring to effect a union of the tribes for the purpose of a war of extermination on the English; but this was never proved. Others say, so far from having hostile designs, that he received the news of the first Englishman who was slain with a sorrow which forced tears from his eyes; and that the ardour of his young men alone compelled him into the war against his own judgment. Be this as it may, however, a converted Indian, who, on account of some misdemeanour, had fled to Philip, returned after a while to his former friends, and perhaps to ingratiate himself, accused Philip of a murderous plot. In June of the following year, 1675, this man was killed, and three Indians, taken up and tried on suspicion of the murder by a jury half English and half Indians, were condemned and executed. This roused the whole tribe, and Philip sending away the women and children for protection to the Narragansetts, the chief of whom was Canonchet, the son of Miantonomoh, who was burning yet to revenge the death of his father, plundered some houses near Mount Hope, and shortly after made an attack on Swanzey, where several people were killed.
Speaking of this war, Bancroft very justly says: “Frenzy prompted the rising of the Indians. It was but the storm in which the ancient inhabitants of the land were to vanish away. They rose without hope, and they fought without mercy. For them as a nation there was no to-morrow.”
The whole country was in a state of alarm, and the troops of Plymouth and Boston marched into the enemies’ country, and advancing to Mount Hope, the residence of Philip, who had retreated with his warriors or their approach, several Indians were killed. As yet, the Narragansetts were quiet; but it being suspected that they favoured the designs of Philip, the English forces proceeded into their territory and compelled Canonchet to sign a treaty of peace.