Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII

MRS ROWLANDSON'S CAPTIVITY

1675-1676

Winter quarters--Building a village--Indignation of the Indians--The Narragansets disheartened--Determination of Philip--Diplos of the troops--Two naraded nature--Colonel Benjaht--Return of the troops--Attack on Lancaster--Precautions to guard against surprise--The torch applied--Massacre of the inhabitants--Mr

Rowlandson's house--Burning the building--The in a child--Indian bacchanals--Wastefulness of the Indians--Mrs Rowlandson's narrative--Her sufferings--Her wounded child--Friendly aid from an Indian--Arrival at head-quarters--Mrs Rowlandson a slave--Reciprocal barbarity--Actions of the Christian Indians--Meeting of the captives--Return of the warriors--Exultation of the Indians--A captive murdered--Journey to the interior--Coht--The burden--Crossing the river--Want of food--Coe--Nu food--Mrs Rowlandson al repast--Preparations for an attack--The queen invited to dinner--An intervieeen the captives--Unaccountable conduct--A journey commenced--Hardshi+ps endured--Kindness from an old Indian--False report about her son--Dismal life--Visions of liberty--Slow march--Gentlemanly conduct of Philip--Queen Wetamoo--Wampum, and how made--Kindness to the captive--Proposition for her ransoreat feast--Endeavors to see her children--Bravery of Mr John hoar--assurance of freedorand dance--Dress of Wetamoo--Intervieith Philip--Her release--Appearance of the country--Return to her friends

The little army was now supplied with food, but the vast h the pathless wilderness rendered it impossible to move in any direction The forest afforded ae speedily arose upon the shores of the frozen bay Many of the wounded were, for greater safety and comfort, sent to the island of Rhode Island, where they were carefully nursed in the dwellings of the colonists In their encaion is now called, the soldiers re for a change of weather It was a season of unusual severity, and the ar, upon a shty hosts of Napoleon afterward enca the forests of the Vistula--a scene of aze and elicited the astonishlish evacuated the Indian fort, the warriors who had escaped into the swaled bodies of their wives and children, overwhele, and despair The storone, and aas the ruin which it had left behind The Rev Mr Ruggles, recording the horrors of the destruction of the Narraganset fort, writes:

”The burning of the ams, the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yells of the warriors, exhibited a reatly moved some of the soldiers They were in much doubt then, and often very seriously inquired whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity and the benevolent principles of the Gospel”

The Narragansets, ere associated with the warriors of Philip in this conflict, and in whose territory the battle had been fought, were exceedingly disheartened This experience of the terrible power and vengeance of the English appalled thereat Wa chief was not a man to yield to adversity This cala resolution and to deeds ofHe had still about two thousand warriors around hi almost entirely destitute of provisions, they for a tiain tilish commander-in-chief to treat of peace The colonists met these advances with the ut which they more earnestly desired than to live on friendly terms with the Indians War was to theain by strife It was, however, soon , and that he had no idea of burying the hatchet While the wary chieftain was occupying the colonists with all the delays of diplo another fort in a swa his forces, and all the materials of barbarian warfare In this fortress, within the territorial limits of the Nipmuck Indians, he also assehtered families The Nipion now included in the southeast corner of Worcester county

Hardly a ray of civilization had penetrated this portion of the country The glooe Frowaive iration and blood hich he intended to sweep the settle

It was now manifest that there could be no hope of peace An army of a thousand men, early in January, was dispatched from Boston to re-enforce the encampment at Wickford Their march, in the dead of winter, over the bleak and frozen hills, was slow, and their sufferings were awful Eleven e number were severely frostbitten Immediately after their arrival there came a reround was flooded ater This thaas life to the Indians It enabled theround-nuts, upon which they were almost exclusively dependent for subsistence

The army at Wickford now numbered sixteen hundred They decided upon a rapid ain in his new intrenchlish called the Philip--ere ever ready to guide the colonists to the haunts of their countrymen There were individual Indians who had pride of character and great nobility of nature--h their virtues, are venerated even by the race which has supplanted their tribes They had their Washi+ngtons, their Franklins, and their Howards But Indian nature is hureat raded men Ally small one, to betray their nearest friends

An Indian would sometimes be taken prisoner, and immediately, in the continuance of the same battle, with his lish to the retreats of his friends, and engage, apparently with the greatest zeal, in firing upon theiven by Colonel Benjamin Church, one of the heroes of these wars, he writes, speaking of himself in the third person,

”When he took any number of prisoners, he would pick out some, and tell them that he took a particular fancy to them, and had chosen them for himself to make soldiers of, and if any would behave themselves well he would do well by them, and they should be his men, and not sold out of the country

”If he perceived they looked surly, and his Indian soldiers called thes, as some of them would sometimes do, all the notice he would take of it would only be to clap them on the back and say, 'Conifies nothing

These, o as wild and surly as you are now By the time you have been one day with me, you will love me too, and be as brisk as any of them'

”And it proved so; for there was none of them but, after they had been a little while with him, and seen his behavior, and how cheerful and successful his men were, would be as ready to pilot hih their own fathers or nearest relations should be a them, as any of his own men”

Such a character we can not but despise, and yet such, with exceptions, was the character of the conanimity which at times has shed immortal brilliance upon hue it is still more rare

Philip, in the retreat to which he had now escaped, was again betrayed by one of his renegade country sixteen hundred, ied the country directly around the so many captives, broke up their encampment and commenced their march It was early in February that Major Winslow put his arlish drew near the swamp, Philip, conscious of his inability to oppose so forwams on fire, and, with all his warriors, disappeared in the depths of the wilderness As it was entirely uncertain in what direction the savages would ee from the forest to kindle anew the flames of war, the troops retraced their steps toward Boston The Connecticut soldiers had already returned to their homes

On the 10th of February, 1676, the Indians, hoop and yell, burst from the forest upon the beautiful settlement of Lancaster This was one of the most remote of the frontier towns, some fifty miles west of Boston, on the Nashua River The plantation, ten ht in breadth, had been purchased of the Nashaway Indians, with the stipulation that the English should notplaces For several years the colonists and the Indians lived together in entire har each other There were between fifty and sixty fa nearly three hundred inhabitants They had noticed some suspicious circu around them, and they had sent their pastor, the Rev Mr Rowlandson, to Boston, to seek assistance for the defense of the town He had taken the precaution before he left to convert his house into a bullet-proof fortress, and had garrisoned it for the protection of his faes, fifteen hundred in nuht stationed themselves at different points, fronal, attack the town at the same moment in five different quarters There were less than a hundred persons in the town capable of bearing ares thus prepared to overpower the the assault by surprise, felt sure of an easy victory

Just as the sun was rising the signal was given In an instant every heart was congealed with terror as the ahoop resounded through the forest It was a cold winter's , and the wind swept bleakly over the whitened plains Every house was immediately surrounded, the torch applied, and, as the flames drove the inmates from their doors, they fell pierced by innu-knife finished the dreadful work There were several garrison houses in the tohere e, and where they were able, for a time, to beat off their assailants All ere not thus sheltered immediately fell into the hands of their foes Between fifty and sixty were either slain or taken captive The unhappy inh their port-holes upon the conflagration and plunder of their homes, the mutilated corpses of their friends, and the wretched band of captives strongly bound and awaiting their fate

There were forty-one persons in the Rev Mr Rowlandson's house They all defended it valiantly, and no Indian dared expose hies, in a body, prepared for the assault The house was situated upon the brow of a hill Soot behind the hill, others filled the barn, and others sheltered themselves behind stones and stumps, and any other breastwork, from which they could reach the house with their bullets

For two hours, fifteen hundred savages kept up an incessant firing, ai at the s and the port-holes Several in the house were thus wounded