Part 7 (2/2)
Growing bolder and an to shoot the cattle which they saw in the fields They encountered no opposition, for the houses were at some distance from each other, and most of the men were absent at public worshi+p At last they came to a house where the man chanced to be at home They shot his cattle, and then entered the house and de refused, they becaet the liquor by violence The un and shot one of the a serious but not mortal wound The first blood was now shed, and the dra their wounded cohter
The next Thursday, June 24th, had been set apart by the colonists as a day of fasting, hu state of affairs Upon an impartial review of all the transactions, it is difficult to see how the colonists could have avoided the war
”I do solemnly protest,” says Governor Winslow, in a letter written July 4th, 1675, ”we know not any thing froht have put Philip upon these motions, nor have heard that he pretends to have suffered any wrong from us, save only that we had killed some Indians, and intended to send for himself for the murder of John Sassa from church on fast-day, a party of Indians, concealed in a thicket by the road side, fired upon the eon aylaid and murdered At the same time, in another part of the town, a house was surrounded by a band of Indians, and eight s spread rapidly, causing indescribable alar, hastily sent his wife and only son to the house of the Rev Mr Miles, which was fortified, and could be garrisoned He res The wife had gone but a short distance when she heard behind her the report of a gun True to woman's heroic love, she instantly returned to learn the fate of her husband
He was lying in his blood on the threshold of his door, and the savages were ransacking the house The wretches caught sight of her, pursued her, killed both her and her son, and took their scalps In this terrible state of alarm, the scattered and helpless colonists fled with their faarrison house Two men went from the house to the well for water They fell, pierced by bullets The savages rushed fro bodies, and dragged them into the forest They were afterward found scalped, and with their hands and feet cut off
Such were the opening acts of the tragedy of blood and woe
With aetic skill, the warriors of Philip, guided by his sagacity, plied their work of destruction It was their sole, ees, flushed with success, were skulking every where No one could venture abroad without danger of being shot Runners were immediately sent, in consternation, from all the frontier towns, to Plymouth and Boston, to implore assistance In three hours after the arrival of the er in Boston, one hundred and twenty men were on the march to attack Philip at Mount Hope But the renowned chieftain was too wary to be caught in the trap of Mount Hope Neck He had sent his women and children to the hospitality of distant tribes, and, abandoning the Neck, which was nearly surrounded by water, traversed with his warriors the country, where he could at any tie into the almost limitless wilderness
The little ar into its service all the available men to be found by the way They marched to Swanzey, and established their head-quarters at the garrison house of the Rev Mr Miles, a Baptist clergyman of exalted character and of fervent piety, as ready to share with his parishi+oners in all the perils of protecting themselves from the border ruffians of that day About a dozen of the troops, on a reconnoitring party, crossed the bridge near the garrison house They were fired upon from an ambush, and one killed and one wounded The Indians fled, hotly pursued by the English, and took refuge in a swa lost sixteen of their nuanset Bay, in the region now occupied by Little Compton and a part of Tiverton, there was a sansets, and called the Soykonate tribe Here also a woman, Awashonks, was sachem of the tribe, and the bravest warriors were proe to her power
Captain Benjamin Church and a few other colonists had purchased lands of her, and had settled upon fertile spots along the shores of the bay Awashonks was on very friendly terh there were three hundred warriors obedient to her command, that was but a feeble force compared with the troops which could be raised both by Philip and by the English She was therefore anxious to remain neutral This, however, could not be The as such that all dwelling in the es must choose their side
Philip sent six ee Awashonks in his interest She immediately assembled all her counselors to deliberate upon the momentous question, and also took the very wise precaution to send for Captain Church He hastened to her residence, and found several hundred of her subjects collected and engaged in a furious dance The forest rang with their shouts, the perspiration dripped froht to a pitch of intense exciteraceful figure appeared to great advantage as it was contrasted with the gigantic muscular development of her warriors
Immediately upon Captain Church's arrival the dance ceased Awashonks sat down, called her chiefs and the Wa embassadors around her, and then invited Captain Church to take a conspicuous seat in the roup She then, in a speech of queenly courtesy, infor Philip had sent six of his lish, and that he stated, through these ereat army, and were about to invade his territories for the exter and intensely exciting Awashonks called upon the Wa embassadors to cohest embellishments of barbaric warfare Their faces were painted Their hair was trimmed in the fashi+on of the crests of the ancient hel They all had guns, and horns and pouches abundantly supplied with shot and bullets
Captain Church, however, waseed, were anxious to silence their antagonist with the bludgeon The Indians began to take sides furiously, and hot words and threatening gestures were abundant
Awashonks was very evidently inclined to adhere to the English She at last, in the face of the ee to her was that he would send his men over privately to shoot the cattle and burn the houses of the English ithin her territories, and thus induce the English to fall in vengeance upon her, whom they would undoubtedly suppose to be the author of the ot his custo embassadors, he exclai for the blood of your English neighbors, who have never injured you, but who, on the contrary, have always treated you with kindness”
Then, addressing Awashonks, he very inconsiderately advised her to knock the six Was on the head, and then throw herself upon the protection of the English The Indian queen, more discreet than her adviser, dis thelish as her friends and protectors
Captain Church, exulting in this success, which took three hundred warriors frolish force, set out for Ply, he advised Awashonks to reht happen, and to keep, with all her warriors, within the liain in a few days
Just north of Little Coion now occupied by the upper part of Tiverton, and by Fall River, the Pocasset tribe of Indians dwelt Wetamoo, the former bride of Alexander, was a princess of this tribe Upon the death of her husband and the accession of Philip to the sovereignty of the Was, she had returned to her parental home, and was now queen of the tribe Her poas about equal to that of Awashonks, and she could lead three or four hundred warriors into the field Captain Church ily important to detach her, if possible, froh hill at a short distance from the shore But few of her people ith her, and she appeared reserved and very one across the water to Philip's war-dance, though she said that it was against her will She was, however, brooding over her past injuries, and was eager to join Philip in any e Captain Church had hardly arrived at Plyed the Indians that Weta zeal, joined the coalition; and even Awashonks could not resist the inclinations of her warriors, but was also, with reluctance, co in all its horrors A ined The Indians seldoathered for a decisive action, but, dividing into innu bands, attacked the lonely farm-house, the sht onset, plunged, with e towns These bands varied in their numbers from twenty to thirty to two or three thousand The colonists were very h the wilderness In consequence of the gigantic growth of trees, which it was a great labor to cut down, and which, when felled, left the ground encumbered for years with enorer to find any s in the forest where, for any unknown cause, the trees had disappeared, and where the thick turf alone opposed the hoe They often had neither oxen nor plows Thus these widely-scattered spots upon the hill-sides and the ht for, and thus these lonely settlers were exposed, utterly defenseless, to the savage foe
The following scene, which occurred in a remote section of the country at a later period, will illustrate the horrible nature of this Indian warfare Far away in the wilderness, ahut upon a santic forest The man's family consisted of himself, his wife, and several children, the eldest of as a daughter fifteen years of age Atalarmed him He stepped to the door to see what he could discover, and instantly there was a report of several muskets, and he fell upon the floor of his hut pierced with bullets, and with a broken leg and arhtful yells rushed to the door
Thearound her, and her husband groaning and weltering in his blood, barred the door and seized an axe The savages, with their hatchets, soon cut a hole through the door, and one of them crowded in The heroic mother, with one blow of the axe, cleft his head to the shoulder, and he dropped dead upon the floor Another of the assailants, supposing, in the darkness, that he had ood his entrance, followed him He also fell by another well-directed stroke Thus four were slain before the Indians discovered their mistake
They then clah the capacious flue of the chiuard the door The father, bleeding and fainting, called upon one of the little children to roll the feather bed upon the fire
The burning feathers e smoke and smell that the Indians were almost smothered, and they tumbled down upon the embers At the same moment, another one attempted to enter the door
The wounded husband and father had sufficient strength left to seize a billet of wood and dispatch the half-smothered Indians But the ue that her strength failed her, and she struck a feeble blohich wounded, but did not kill her adversary The savage was so severely wounded, however, that he retreated, leaving all his comrades, six in number, dead in the house