“Nor break down the fences of the inhabitants;
“Nor let cattle or swine upon their fields; but go over a stile at one place;
“Nor admit among them the murderers, Calawane, Wuttowhan, and Pacquallant;
“Nor hunt, nor kill cattle, sheep, or swine, with their dogs.”
There is in these conditions an attention to the sobriety and morality of the Indians, which has been very seldom regarded in compacts with this injured race. The consequence was, a perpetual peace between them and the Indians of their immediate neighbourhood. On the breaking out of Philip’s war, however, they became liable to incursions from other tribes, and especially from the Canadians, French, and Indians. They fortified their “meeting-house;” and in every cluster of houses, one was fortified and pierced with holes for the discharge of muskets. The whole town was then enclosed with a palisado set up in a trench, and a guard of fifty persons perpetually kept.
It is scarcely possible to convey, to a mind that has not reflected on the subject, a fair idea of the difficulties, hazards, and horrors, that beset the first adventurers for religious liberty in New England. Beside all the usual evils of pioneering—the separation from friends, the hardships, the privations, the loss of all communication with the civilized world, these settlers had to encounter the most diabolical warfare recorded in history.
“The first announcement of an Indian war,” says a diffuse writer on this subject, “is its terrible commencement. In the hour of security and sleep, when your deadly enemies are supposed to be friends, quietly fishing and hunting—when they are believed to be far off, and thoughtless of you and yours, your sleep is suddenly broken by the war-whoop, your house and village set on fire, your family and friends butchered, and yourself escape only to be carried into captivity, and wrung with every species of torture. If you go out to the fields, you may be shot down by an unseen enemy in the woods, or return in the evening and find your house consumed to ashes, and your family carried into captivity.”
During the last part of what is called Philip’s war, to the Indians’ treachery, cruelty, and cunning, was added the instigation, the sustenance, and the wealth of the civilized French. A price was paid for English scalps; European officers planned and assisted to execute schemes of devastation and slaughter; and, in short, nothing was wanting to develop, in its fullest ferocity, the Indian’s love of blood.
It is curious to reflect how wide and immortal would have been the fame of the king of the Wampanoags, had he succeeded, (as he came very near doing,) in exterminating the Whites, and restoring the land of his forefathers to his subjects and children. The experiment of settlement would scarcely have been soon repeated; and, perhaps, to this day, the Indian, confident in his tried strength, would have possessed and defended the lands from which he has so utterly disappeared; while the name of Philip would justly have been associated with those of Gustavus Vasa, and Alfred of England. The difference between him and these great lights of history, is, that he failed.