WEDDING SLIPPER WORN BY A MAYFLOWER BRIDE
An Indian's challenge to war
An Indian chief, not far away, decided that he would rather fight with the Englishmen than be friendly with them. So he sent a bundle of arrows, wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin, to the governor of Plymouth. Squanto told the Pilgrims that this was an Indian's challenge to war.
Bradford's answer
The Pilgrims were men of peace, but they were not cowards. Governor Bradford filled the skin with powder and shot and sent it back to the hostile chief. But the Indians would not touch it and the chief would not permit it to be left in his wigwam an hour, but sent it from place to place, until it again reached Plymouth.
Thus the Pilgrims went on year by year, living in peace when they could, but fighting when they must. Every year or so new settlers came from their old homes, and the colony grew slowly, but steadily.
The Pilgrims the most famous of all the Puritans in America
After a few years the new King of England was so hard upon the Puritans in England that thousands of them followed the example of the Pilgrims and came to America, and planted many other colonies in New England. But none have held so warm a place in the hearts of Americans as the little band brought to the New World by the Mayflower.