question, when the chiefs who averred that they had suffered wrong appealed to her for redress. A letter was written "to Gorton and his company, to let them know what the sachems had complained of, and how they had tendered themselves to come under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and therefore, if they had anything to allege against it, they should come or send to the next Court." But to this no reply was made. Miantonomo was sent for to Boston, and "being demanded, in open Court, before divers of his own men and other Indians, whether Submission of he had any interest in the said two sachems as the sachems his subjects, he could prove none." The arrangeto Massachu- ment of Massachusetts with the sachems for acJune 22 cepting their allegiance was then concluded.

of Shawomet

setts.

The next month brought unwelcome tidings from the Indian country. Whether it was, that Miantonomo had returned from Boston angry with himself at what he might consider the degradation of his questioning there; or that he was provoked into a sudden movement by a retaliation of Uncas for the murder of one of his chiefs;1 or that he had been contemplating an assault upon the rival tribe, as the first step towards the execution of that design against the English which so pertinaciously he had disclaimed ;- whether it was that rage or calculation made him break his engagement, he sudinst Uncas, denly moved towards Uncas with a force of nine hundred or a thousand warriors.2

War of Miantonomo

against

His enemy

July. had but half the number. Uncas, advancing before his men, proposed to the invader to spare bloodshed by leaving their quarrel to the issue of a private combat, with the condition that the followers of the beaten party should become subjects of the conqueror.

1 Winthrop, II. 128 – 130.

So say Winthrop (II. 131), Bradford (424), Winslow (Hypocrisie Unmasked, 72), and the Record of the Commissioners (Hazard, II. 9). Miss

Caulkins (History of Norwich, 15) argues forcibly that the party could not have been composed of more than five or six hundred warriors.

Miantonomo replied, "My men have come to fight, and they shall fight." Uncas fell upon his face. His people, at that signal, instantly discharged their arrows over him, and then rushed upon the unready foe.

His defeat.

The battle took place near what is now the beautiful town of Norwich. The victory of the Mohegans was speedy and complete, though -so inefficient was Indian field-warfare only thirty Narragansetts were killed. Miantonomo, encumbered in his flight by some "armor," was dragged by two of his own captains to Uncas, who, with a sense of their treachery different from what they expected, laid them dead at his feet. The proud captive sat down, silent and motionless. Uncas said, “Had you taken me, I should have besought you for my life;" but could obtain no answer. Miantonomo was conducted to Hartford, where, at his own request, he was left in the custody of the English; but as the prisoner of Uncas, to be disposed of by him according to the advice of the Commissioners. Gorton and his company interested themselves to obtain the liberation of their friend, but without avail.*

Deliberation

of the Commissioners.

These important transactions claimed the consideration of the central government of the Confederacy at its first meeting. Whatever were the new proofs and sentence now produced, their import was such that the Commissioners - and among them Winthrop, who had been perseveringly averse to such a conclusion considered it to be "clearly discovered that there was a general conspiracy among the Indians to cut

1 Trumbull, I. 131. Winthrop, II. 131. 3 Trumbull, I. 132.

✦ Gorton and his friends sent a message to Uncas, threatening him with the vengeance of the English, if he refused to liberate his prisoner. (Winthrop, II. 131.) Winthrop added,

Sept. 7.

"and they sent their letter in the name of the Governor of Massachusetts;" but he subsequently erased the clause. He says (ibid.) that it was this letter that occasioned Uncas to consult the Commissioners respecting the fate of Miantonomo. (Comp. Hypocrisie Unmasked, 73.)

off all the English, and that Miantonomo was the head and contriver of it." But there was another party interested in their consultation, with a claim for justice and security which had precedence of their own. "Leaving these considerations," which "to the English might have been sufficient provocations to a war" against the Narragansett chief,-a war which would have involved the slaughter of his subjects, - they proceeded to take up the precise business in hand. This was the giving of counsel to Uncas, who had solicited it from them, "how to proceed against" his captive "for sundry treacherous attempts against his life;" the last of them "a sudden invasion without denouncing war.""

They were to advise their ally how to deal with his implacable foe, made implacable, as it seemed, by the steadfastness of the adherence of Uncas to themselves. Miantonomo was not their prisoner, but the prisoner of Uncas, taken by his hand in a war in which they had not assisted. Experience had brought them to the confident opinion that their friend's life was not safe while his enemy lived. They found it" sufficiently evidenced that Miantonomo and his confederates had sundry ways manifested their enmity, and treacherously plotted and practised against the life of Uncas," and that the last cowardly attack was only one of a series of acts of insatiable hatred. By the laws of Indian warfare, the captive's life

1 Winthrop, II. 133. Comp. Records, nomo to take his remedy into his own &c., in Hazard, II. 8.

hands. The engagement with the English had been, that neither sachem should make war on the other without their consent; and I can read the Governor's words no otherwise than as meaning that, when they should find Uncas in the wrong, and unwilling to give satisfaction, they would yield that consent. But the case never arose. Miantonomo's precipitancy did not ask, and could not await, the investigation. (Hazard, II. 8.)

was forfeit. It was the stake for which savages played at that game, and which Miantonomo knew himself to be hazarding upon the cast which he made. And now, appealed to for counsel by one whose right, according to the dismal usages of his race, was perfect, the Commissioners had the responsibility of deciding, whether, when an extraordinary good fortune had given him a temporary escape from a perfidious attack, they should recommend to him to forego that right, and throw himself back into the same danger, - a danger from which, as had just been proved, he could not be adequately protected by an engagement of Miantonomo with themselves. "These things being duly weighed and considered," their conclusion, confirmed by the unanimous advice of "five of the most judicious Elders," was this: "The Commissioners apparently see that Uncas cannot be safe while Miantonomo lives, but that either by secret treachery or open force his life will be still in danger. Wherefore they think he may justly put such a false and bloodthirsty enemy to death, but in his own jurisdiction, not in the English plantations, and advising that, in the manner of his death, all moderation and mercy be showed, contrary to the manner of the Indians, who exercise tortures and cruelty." Anticipating the effect which might be produced on the Narragansetts by this treatment of their chief, they sent a message at once of warning and of conciliation to that tribe;" and they recommended to the several Colonies to make diligent military preparations by training their men and providing ammunition.3 The

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 9, 13; (Plym. Rec., II 47,) a general traincomp. Winthrop, II. 132.

ing of troops and supply of arms had been ordered. Watch and ward had been kept in the villages by day and night, and parties travelled with convoys. The reader who would judge of the reality of the alarm from the extent of the precautions, will do well to refer

Connecticut Commissioners, returning from Boston, made known this result. Uncas, accompanied by some of his people, and by two Englishmen, whose business it was to Execution of protect the prisoner from torture or other outMiantonomo rage, led him forth from Hartford, and as they went the brother of Uncas struck him dead with a hatchet by a blow on the back of his head. A block of granite in the town of Norwich, inscribed with his name, marks the spot where, according to the local tradition, he had been taken by Uncas, and where he fell.2

to the record of the public proceedings in all the Colonies. (Plym. Rec., II. 45-48; Mass. Rec., II. 24–27; Conn. Rec., I. 73-75; N. H. Rec., I. 76, 78, 79.) The intense uneasiness of the Connecticut people has sent its echo down in Trumbull's account of these transactions. (History, I. 129, &c.) The Commissioners had intelligence that a force of Mohawks had approached near to the English border, and were awaiting Miantonomo's release to prosecute with him their further plans. (Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 9.) They were also informed of a scheme of some Narragansetts to capture one of themselves, to be kept as a hostage for the sachem. (Trumbull, I. 134; comp. Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, 182 et seq., and “Declaration of Former Passages and Proceedings," &c., in Hazard, II. 45 et seq.) 1 Hypocrisie Unmasked, 73.

painful. The destruction of even a single human life is a deplorable expedient. Compassion for the sufferer is a commendable as well as amiable sentiment. But justice to those by whom he suffers has its claims no less; and it is remarkable, that the same reader of American history who severely blames the New-England fathers for severely repressing a threatened insurrection before it was ripe for mischief, is apt, when he turns the page, to find himself wondering at the stupidity of the Virginians in not taking like precautions against the savage massacre, which, a few months after this transaction, depopulated their settlements; or is fain to regret, while he contemplates the dreadful misery of Philip's war, forty years later, that Philip's enterprise had not been mercifully arrested by a seasonable vigor.

It is hard to imagine that the men The tradition, however, is of doubt who had in charge the safety of these ful authority. Winthrop says (II. 135) infant communities were prompted by that Miantonomo was struck "between a wayward ill-will towards one who Hartford and Windsor." Winslow had had formerly seemed their friend, or felt received a still different account: "Mi- urged by any motive to desire his ruin, antonomo..... ... was put to death in a independent of, or disproportionate to, house, and not upon a march...... their conviction that he was endeavorIt was only at one blow with a hatchet ing to compass the ruin of their families on the side of the head, as he walked and homes. They profess themselves easily in the room, expecting no less." to have been satisfied by the evidence, (Hypocrisie Unmasked, 73, 80.) which some of them, at least, had apThe recital of such a proceeding is proached with pertinacious caution,