The Pilgrim fathers of New England

by W. Carlos Martyn

Startled by the imminence of the peril, Bradford at once despatched Standish with a small squad of men to warn and succor the menaced colonists. On reaching Wessagusset Standish boarded the “Swan,” which lay moored in the harbor. Not a soul was on her. Surprised, the Pilgrim captain fired his musket. Several colonists then ran down to the shore. “How dare you leave your ship unguarded, and live in so much security?” asked he. “Why,” was the reply of the colonists, who were insensible of their peril, “we have no fear of the Indians, but live with them, and suffer them to lodge with us, without ever having a gun or sword, or ever needing one.”

“Well, well,” cried Standish, “if you have no occasion for vigilance, so much the better.” He then went ashore. Pitiful was the situation of the pioneers; four words paint the picture; filth, hunger, disease, nakedness. “After they began to come into want,” remarks the old Pilgrim chronicler, “many sold their clothes and bed-coverings; others—so base were they—became servants to the Indians, and would cut wood and fetch water for them, for a cup of corn; some fell to stealing, and when they found the hiding-places where the natives stored their corn, they despoiled them, and this night and day, while the savages complained grievously. Now they were come to such misery that some starved and some died of cold. One, in gathering shell-fish, was so weak from hunger that he stuck fast in the mud, and not being able to pull clear, he was drowned by the incoming tide. Most had left their cabins and were scattered up and down through the woods and by the water-side, here six and there ten, grubbing for nuts and clams. By this carriage they were contemned and scorned by the Indians as ‘pale-face squaws,’ and they insulted over them right insolently; insomuch that many times, as they lay thus scattered abroad, and had set a pot over a fire and filled it with ground-nuts or shell-fish, when it was ready the natives would come and, pushing them aside, eat it up; and at night the Indians, to revenge their thefts, stole their blankets and left them to lie all night in the cold. Yea, in the end, they were fain to hang one of their own men, whom they could not reclaim from stealing, at the dictation of the savages.”[419]

Standish at once assembled the leading colonists, and opened to them his budget of news. The proposed massacre, the actors, all was laid bare. As frightened now as they were blinded before, all besought him to save them, and placed themselves in his hands. All stragglers were called in and supplied from his stores, a pint of corn a day for each man. This done, Standish began to dissemble; he wished to lure the chiefs of the conspiracy into his clutches, and so fight guile with guile.[420]

Though suspecting that their plot had been discovered, the Indians so greatly despised the colonists that they came daily into Wessagusset, uttering gibes and menaces loud and deep. They even ventured to taunt Standish. One of the braves, Pecksuot, a bold fellow, but a braggadocio, “went to Habbamak, who was with Standish as his interpreter, and told him that he had been informed that the captain had come to ‘kill him and his friends.’ ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘we know it, but we neither fear him nor will we shun him; let him attack us when he pleases, he will not surprise us.’”[421]

At other times the Indians would enter the plantation, and, in the presence of the captain, sharpen their knives, feel their points, and jeer. One of their chiefs, Witawamat, often boasted of the fine qualities of his knife, on the handle of which was cut a woman’s face; “but,” said he, “I have another at home with which I have killed both French and English, and that hath a man’s face on it; by-and-by these two must marry.”[422] Not long after, he said again, holding up his knife, “By-and-by this shall see and eat, but not speak,” in allusion to the muskets of the English, which always reported their doings.[423]

Pecksuot was an Indian of immense muscular size and strength; Standish was a small man. Once the brave said to the captain: “You are a great officer, but a little man; and I am not a sachem, yet I possess great strength and courage.”[424]

Standish quietly pocketed these insults, and awaited his chance. It soon came. Pecksuot, Wetawamat, and two others, chiefs of the conspiracy, were finally all entrapped in one cabin. Standish with three comrades and Habbamak were also present. The door was secured and a terrific death-grapple at once ensued. There were no shrieks, no cries, no war-whoops. Nothing was heard save the fierce panting of the combatants and the dull thud of the blows given and returned. Habbamak stood quietly by, and meddled not. Soon the Englishmen were successful; each slew his opponent, and Standish himself closing with Pecksuot, snatched from the braggadocio’s neck his vaunted knife, and plunged it into his foeman’s heart. One blow did not kill him; frenzied and glaring, he leaped on Standish and tugged wildly at his throat. The struggle was brief but awful, and Standish called his whole skill into requisition to complete his victory. At length the death-blow was dealt:

“See, his face is black and full of blood;

His eye-balls farther out than when he lived;