The Plymouth Colony had been warned as to the type of men who composed the Weymouth Colony. As it turned out, they were constantly fomenting discord with the Indians and some even went so far as betray the friendship of their Plymouth neighbors. They were repeatedly in want of food and other supplies although having been at first well provided.
Bradford states: “Many sold their clothes and bed coverings; others (so base were they) became servants to the Indians and would cut them wood and fetch them water for a cap full of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both night and day from the Indians, of which they grievously complained.”
About this time word came that their friend Massasoit was gravely ill. Following the Indian custom, Edward Winslow, together with one John Hamden, with Hobomock for guide, went to his aid and through their ministrations he recovered.
From Massasoit they learned of the conspiracy among the Indians which had spread to the Cape Indians and which he had been unable to stop. This conspiracy engendered by the treatment of the Indians by the Weston colony provided that the colony should be wiped out and that the Plymouth colony being likely to seek revenge, should also be exterminated.
“He advised them therefore to prevent it, and that speedily, by taking of some of the chief of them, before it was too late, for, he assured them of the truth thereof.”
Whereupon, this news reaching Plymouth, Captain Myles Standish set out with eight men for Weymouth where he “found them in miserable condition.” The Indians were openly defiant and insulting. The meeting resulted in the killing of several Indians including a large brave named Pecksuot whom Captain Standish killed in hand to hand combat. Those who remained of the Weston colony thought it best to take their leave and in the Swan sailed away for the fishing grounds off the coast of Maine provisioned with corn from the scanty store remaining with Standish. Thus the Weston colony came to end.
Weston returning later, fell into the hands of the Indians who stripped him of his belongings and reduced him to such extent that he appealed to the Plymouth Colony for help. They gave him a generous supply of beaver skins which he was able to exchange for supplies from the other vessels along the coast which was “the only foundation for his future course.”
The First Cattle