The Story of Our Country / Every Child Can Read

by Unknown

In the far west were Indians who built houses that were almost like towns, for they had hundreds of rooms. A whole tribe could live in one of these great houses, sometimes as many as three thousand people. Other tribes lived in holes in the sides of steep rocks, where their enemies could not easily get at them. These are called Cliff-dwellers. And there were some who lived on top of high, steep hills, which were very hard to climb. These Indians raised large crops of corn and other plants.

Do you think, if you had been an Indian, you would have liked to see white people coming in ships across the waters and settling down in your country as if they owned it? They did not all pay for the land they took, like William Penn and General Oglethorpe. The most of them acted as if the country belonged to them, and it is no wonder the old owners of the country did not like it, or that there was fierce fighting between the white and the red men.

Do you remember the story of Canonicus and the snake skin, and that of Miles Standish and the chiefs? There was not much fighting then, but there was some soon after in Connecticut, whither a number of settlers had come from Boston and others from England. Here there was a warlike tribe called the Pequots, who became very angry on seeing the white men in their country.

They began to kill the whites whenever they found them alone. Then the whites began to kill the Indians. Soon there was a deadly war. The Pequots had made a fort of trunks of trees, set close together in the ground. They thought they were safe in this fort, but the English made an attack on it, and got into it, and set fire to the Indian wigwams inside. The fight went on terribly in the smoke and flame until nearly all the Pequots were killed. Only two white men lost their lives. This so scared the Indians that it was forty years before there was another Indian war in New England.

I have told you about the good chief Massasoit, who was so kind to Roger Williams. He was a friend to the white men as long as he lived, but after his death his son Philip became one of their greatest enemies.

Philip's brother was taken sick and died after he had been to Plymouth, and the Indians thought that the people there had given him poison. Philip said that they would try to kill him next, and he made up his mind to fight them and drive them out of the country. The Indians had guns now, and knew how to use them, and they began to shoot the white people as they went quietly along the roads.

Next they began to attack the villages of the whites. They would creep up at night, set the houses on fire, and shoot the men as they came out. The war went on for a long time in this way, and there were many terrible fights.

At one place the people, when they saw the Indians coming, all ran to a strong building called a blockhouse. The Indians came whooping and yelling around this, and tried to set it on fire by shooting arrows with blazing rags on their points. Once the roof caught fire, but some of the men ran up and threw water on the flames.

Then the Indians got a cart and filled it with hay. Setting this on fire, they pushed it up against the house. It looked as if all the white men and women and children would be burned alive. The house caught fire and began to blaze. But just then came a shower of rain that put out the fire, and the people inside were saved once more. Before the Indians could do anything further some white soldiers came and the savages all ran into the woods.

There were other wonderful escapes, but many of the settlers were killed, and Philip began to think he would be able to drive them out of the country, as he wished to do. He was called King Philip, though he had no crown except a string of wampum,—or bits of bored shell strung together and twined round his head,—and no palace better than a bark hut, while his finest dress was a red blanket. It took very little to make an Indian king. The white men knew more about war than the Indians, and in the end they began to drive them back. One of their forts was taken, and the wigwams in it were set on fire, like those of the Pequots. A great many of the poor red men perished in the flames.