(Part 3)
140 HISTORY OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
Waiandance told me many years ago, and that was this; that seeing
all the plots of the Narragansets were always discovered, he said
they would let us alone 'till they had destroyed Uncas, and him,
and then they, with the Mowquakes and Mowhakues and the Indians
beyond the Dutch, and all the Northern and Eastern Indians, would
easily destroy us, man and mother's son. This have I informed the
Governors of these parts, but all in vain, for I see they have
done as those of Wethersfield, not regarding till they were
impelled to it by blood; and thus we may be sure of the fattest
of the flock are like to go first, if not altogether, and then it
will be too late to read Jer. XXV. -- for drink we shall if the
Lord be not the more merciful to us for our extreme pride and
base security, which cannot but stink before the Lord; and we may
expect this, that if there should be war again between England
and Holland, our friends at the Dutch and our Dutch Englishmen
would prove as true to us now, as they were when the fleet came
out of England; but no more of that, a word to the wise is
enough.
And now I am old, I would fain die a natural death, or like a
soldier in the field, with honor, and not to have a sharp stake
set in the ground, and thrust into my fundament, and to have my
skin flayed off by piecemeal, and cut in pieces and bits, and my
flesh roasted and thrust down my throat, as these people have
done, and I know will be done to the chiefest in the country by
hundreds, if God should deliver us into their hands, as justly he
may for our sins.
I going over to Meantacut, upon the eastern end of Long Island,
upon some occasion that I had there, I
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found four Narragansets there talking with the Sachem and his old
counsellors. I asked an Indian what they were? He said that they
were Narragansets, and that one was Miannemo [Miantunnomoh], a
Sachem. What came they for? said I. He said he knew not, for they
talked secretly; so I departed to another wigwam. Shortly after
came the Sachem Waiandance to me and said, Do you know what these
came for? No, said I; then he said, They say I must give no more
wampum to the English, for they are no Sachems, nor none of their
children shall be in their place if they die; and they have no
tribute given them; there is but one king in England, who is over
them all, and if you would send him 100,000 fathom of wampum, he
would not give you a knife for it, nor thank you. And I said to
them, Then they will come and kill us all, as they did the
Pequits; then they said No, the Pequits gave them wampum and
beaver, which they loved so well, but they sent it them again,
and killed them because they had killed an Englishman; but you
have killed none, therefore give them nothing. Now friend, tell
me what I shall say to them, for one of them is a great man. Then
said I, Tell them that you must go first to the farther end of
Long-Island, and speak with all the rest, and a month hence you
will give them an answer. Meantime you may go, to Mr. Haines, and
he will tell you what to do, and I will write all this now in my
book that I have here; and so he did, and the Narragansets
departed, and this Sachem came to me at my house, and I wrote
this matter to Mr. Haines, and he went up with it to Mr. Haines,
who forbid him to give any thing to the Nar-
142 HISTORY OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
raganset, and writ to me so. -And when they came again they came
by my Island, and I knew them to be the same men; and I told them
they might go home again, and I gave them Mr. Haynes his letter
for Mr. Williams to read to the Sachem. So they returned back
again, for I had said to them, that if they would go to Mantacut
I would go likewise with them, and that Long-Island must not give
wampum to Narraganset.
A while after this came Miantenomie from Block-Island to Mantacut
with a troop of men, Waiandance being not at home; and instead of
receiving presents, which they used to do in their progress, he
gave them gifts, calling them brethren and friends, for so are we
all Indians as the English are, and say brother to one another;
so must we be one as they are, otherwise we shall be all gone
shortly, for you know our fathers had plenty of deer and skins,
our plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and of turkies,
and our coves full of fish and fowl. But these English having
gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with
axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and
their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be starved;
therefore it is best for you to do as we, for we are all the
Sachems from east to west, both Moquakues and Mohauks joining
with us, and we are all resolved to fall upon them all, at one
appointed day; and therefore I am come to you privately first,
because you can persuade the Indians and Sachem to what you will,
and I will send over fifty Indians to Block-Island, and thirty to
you from thence, and take an hundred of Southampton Indians with
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an hundred of your own here; and when you see the three fires
that will be made forty days hence, in a clear night, then do as
we, and the next day fall on and kill men, women, and children,
but no cows, for they will serve to eat till our deer be
increased again.--And our old men thought it was well. So the
Sachem came home and had but little talk with them, yet he was
told there had been a secret consultation between the old men and
Miantenomie, but they told him nothing in three days. So he came
over to me and acquainted me with the manner of the Narragansets
being there with his men, and asked me what I thought of it; and
I told him that the Narraganset Sachem was naught to talk with
his men secretly in his absence, and I bid him go home, and told
him a way how he might know all, and then he should come and tell
me; and so he did, and found out all as is above written, and I
sent intelligence of it over to Mr. Haynes and Mr. Eaton; but
because my boat was gone from home it was fifteen days before
they had any letter, and Miantenomie was gotten home before they
had news of it. And the old men, when they saw how I and the
Sachem had beguiled them, and that he was come over to me, they
sent secretly a canoe over, in a moon-shine night, to Narraganset
to tell them all was discovered; so the plot failed, blessed be
God, and the plotter, next Spring after, did as Ahab did at
Ramoth-Gilead.-- So he to Mohegin, and there had his fall.
Two years after this, Ninechrat sent over a captain of his, who
acted in every point as the former; him the Sachem took and bound
and brought him to me,
144 HISTORY OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
and I wrote the same to Governor Eaton, and sent an Indian that
was my servant and had lived four years with me; him, with nine
more, I sent to carry him to New-Haven, and gave them food for
ten days. But the wind hindered them at Plum-Island; then they
went to Shelter-Island, where the old Sachem dwelt - Waiandance's
elder brother, and in the night they let him go, only my letter
they sent to New-Haven, and thus these two plots was discovered;
but now my friend and brother is gone, who will now do the like?
But if the premises be not sufficient to prove Waiandance a true
friend to the English, for some may say he did all this out of
malice to the Pequits and Narragansets; now I shall prove the
like with respect to the Long-Islanders, his own men. For I being
at Meantacut, it happened that for an old grudge of a Pequit, who
was put to death at Southampton, being known to be a murderer,
and for this his friends bear a spite against the English. So as
it came to pass at that day I was at Mantacut, a good honest
woman was killed by them at Southampton, but it was not known
then who did this murder. And the brother of this Sachem was
Shinacock Sachem could or would not find it out. At that time Mr.
Gosmore and Mr. Howell, being magistrates, sent an Indian to
fetch the Sachem thither; and it being in the night, I was laid
down when he came, and being a great cry amongst them, upon which
all the men gathered together, and the story being told, all of
them said the Sachem should not go, for, said they, they will
either bind you or kill you, and then us, both men, women and
children; therefore let your brother find it out, or let them
kill
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you and us, we will live and die together. So there was a great
silence for a while, and then the Sachem said, Now you have all
done I will hear what my friend will say, for [he] knows what
they will do. So they wakened me as they thought, but I was not
asleep, and told me the story, but I made strange of the matter,
and said, If the magistrates have sent for you why do you not go?
They will bind me or kill me, saith he. I think so, said I, if
you have killed the woman, or known of it, and did not reveal it;
but you were here and did it not. But was any of your Mantauket
Indians there to-day? They all answered, Not a man these two
days, for we have inquired concerning that already. Then said I,
Did none of you ever hear any Indian say he would kill English?
-- No, said they all; then I said, I shall not go home 'till
tomorrow, though I thought to have been gone so soon as the moon
was up, but I will stay here till you all know it is well with
your Sachem; if they bind him, bind me, and if they kill him,
kill me. But then you must find out him that did the murder, and
all that know of it, them they will have and no more. Then they
with a great cry thanked me, and I wrote a small note with the
Sachem, that they should not stay him long in their houses, but
let him eat and drink and be gone, for he had his way before him.
So they did, and that night he found out four that were
consenters to it, and knew of it, and brought them to them at
Southampton, and they were all hanged at Harford, whereof one of
these was a great man among them, commonly called the Blue
Sachem.
A further instance of his faithfulness is this; about
146 HISTORY OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
the Pequit war time one William Hamman [Hammond], of the Bay,
killed by a giant-like Indian towards the Dutch. I heard of it,
and told Waiandance that he must kill him or bring him to me; but
he said it was not his brother' s mind, and he is the great
Sachem of all Long-Island, likewise the Indian is a mighty great
man, and no man durst meddle with him, and hath many friends. So
this rested until he had killed another, one Thomas Farrington.
After this the old Sachem died, and I spake to this Sachem again
about it, and he answered, He is so cunning, that when he hears
that I come that way a hunting, that his friends tell him, and
then he is gone. --But I will go at some time when nobody knows
of it, and then I will kill him; and so he did --and this was the
last act which he did for us, for in the time of a great
mortality among them he died, but it was by poison; also two
thirds of the Indians upon Long-Island died, else the
Narragansets had not made such havoc here as they have, and might
not help them. And this I have written chiefly for our own good,
that we might consider what danger we are all in, and also to
declare to the country that we have found an heathen, yea an
Indian, in this respect to parallel the Jewish Mordecai. But now
I am at a stand, for all we English would be thought and called
Christians; yet, though I have seen this before spoken, having
been these twenty-four years in the mouth of the premises, yet I
know not where to find, or whose name to insert, to parallel
Ahasuerus lying on his bed and could not sleep, and called for
the Chronicles to be read; and when he heard Mordecai named,
said, What hath been done
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for him? But who will say as he said, or do answerable to what he
did? But our New-England twelve-penny Chronicle is stuffed with a
catalogue of the names of some, as if they had deserved immortal
fame; but the right New-England military worthies are left out
for want of room, as Maj. Mason, Capt Undrill [Underhill], Lieut.
Sielly [Seely], &c., who undertook the desperate way and
design to Mistick Fort, and killed three hundred, burnt the fort
and took many prisoners, though they are not once named. But
honest Abraham thought it no shame to name the confederates that
helped him to war when he redeemed his brother Lot; but Uncas of
Mistick, and Waiandance, at the Great Swamp and ever since your
trusty friend, is forgotten, and for our sakes persecuted to this
day with fire and sword, and Ahasuerus of New-England is still
asleep, and if there be any like to Ahasuerus, let him remember
what glory to God and honor to our nation hath followed their
wisdom and valor. Awake! awake Ahasuerus, if there be any of thy
seed or spirit here, and lot not Haman destroy us as he hath done
our Mordecai! And although there hath been much blood shed here
in these parts among us, God and we know it came not by us. But
if all must drink of this cup that is threatened, then shortly
the king of Sheshack shall drink last, and tremble and fall when
our pain will be past. O that I were in the countries again, that
in their but twelve years truce, repaired cities and towns, made
strong forts, and prepared all things needful against a time of
war like Solomon. I think the soil hath almost infected me, but
what they or our enemies will do hereafter I know not. I hope I
shall
148 HISTORY OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
not live so long to hear or see it, for I am old and out of date,
else I might be in fear to see and hear that I think ere long
will come upon us.
Thus for our tragical story, now to the comedy. When we were all
at supper in the great hall, they (the Pequits) gave us alarm to
draw us out three times before we could finish our short supper,
for we had but little to eat, but you know that I would not go
out; the reasons you know.
2ndly. You Robert Chapman, you know that when you and John Bagley
were beating samp at the Garden Pales, the sentinels called you
to run in, for there was a number of Pequits creeping to you to
catch you; I hearing it went up to the Redoubt and put two
cross-bar shot into the two guns that lay above, and levelled
them at the trees in the middle of the limbo and boughs, and gave
order to John Freud and his man to stand with hand-spikes to turn
them this or that way, as they should hear the Indians shout, for
they should know my shout from theirs for it should be very
short. Then I called six men, and the dogs, and went out, running
to the place, and keeping all abreast, in sight, close together.
And when I saw my time I said, Stand! and called all to me
saying, Look on me; and when I hold up my hand, then shout as
loud as you can, and when I hold down my hand, then leave; and so
they did. Then the Indians began a long shout, and then went off
the two great guns and tore the limbs of the trees about their
ears, so that divers of them were hurt, as may yet appear, for
you told me when I was up at Harford this present year, '60, in
the month of September, that there is one of
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them lyeth above Hartford, that is fain to creep on all four, and
we shouted once or twice more; but they would not answer us
again, so we returned home laughing. Another pretty prank we had
with three great doors of ten feet long and four feet broad,
being bored full of holes and driven full of long nails, as sharp
as awl blades, sharpened by Thomas Hurlbut. These we placed in
certain places where they should come, fearing lest they should
come in the night and fire our redoubt or battery, and all the
place, for we had seen their footing, where they had been in the
night, when they shot at our sentinels, but could not hit them
for the boards; and in a dry time and a dark night they came as
they did before, and found the way a little too sharp for them;
and as they skipped from one they trod upon another, and left the
nails and doors dyed with their blood, which you know we saw the
next morning, laughing at it.--And this I write that young men
may learn, if they should meet with such trials as we met with
there, and have not opportunity to cut off their enemies; yet
they may, with such pretty pranks, preserve themselves from
danger, --for policy is needful in wars as well as strength.
This page last updated August 9, 2000.