Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Miantonomo collected all the Narragansett warriors and led them swiftly and secretly through the forests toward the land of the Mohegans, which lay along the banks of the Pequot, or Thames, River. He hoped in this way to fall upon Uncas while he was unprepared. But Uncas was on his guard.
Encumbered with a coat of mail which his friend Gorton had given him, Miantonomo was overtaken and captured. By ordinary Indian usage he would have been put to death with fiendish torments, as soon as due preparations could be made and a fit company assembled to gloat over his agony; but Gorton sent a messenger to Uncas, threatening dire vengeance if harm were done to his ally.
In after years the stones disappeared, and a monument was erected on the spot in 1841, in honor of the Narragansett sachem. It is a large, square block of granite with the name and the date carved upon it, "MIANTONOMO, 1643." It can be seen to-day in Greeneville, two miles from Norwich.
It is said that one of Uncas' dependent sachems attacked Miantonomo, who referred the matter to the English and was told to take his own course, and invaded the Mohegan country with a thousand warriors. The fortunes of war were against him and he fell into the hands of Uncas. The victor now referred the fate of his victim to the English.
This was in 1643, and thus did the English observe the treaty of peace made seven years before under circumstances of extraordinary solemnity. Miantonomo died the victim of rivalry, jealousy and fear, yet with a spirit so heroic that he scorned to ask the precious boon of life from those whom he had served rather than wronged.
They threw themselves against him and prevented his escape. They did not kill him or try to take him prisoner, but they ran beside him until Uncas came up, when they dropped back and gave their chieftain the "opportunity to take him." "At a place since called 'Sachem's Plain, Uncas took him by the shoulder and Miantonomo sat down, knowing Uncas.
With the assistance of the interpreter, Rodolph informed the Chiefs that he was the bearer of the reply of the mighty strangers to the bold challenge that had been sent to them on the part of Cundineus and Miantonomo; and he invited them to open the packet which he laid before them, in order that they might fully understand the nature of that reply, and judge whether the subjects of the powerful king of Great Britain were terrified at the audacity of the red men.
This brought matters to a climax, for their chief, Sequassen, was related to Miantonomo and Miantonomo took up his quarrel. The trouble, which had so long been smouldering between the Mohegans and the Narragansetts, broke out in earnest.
They of course regarded the summons as a flagrant usurpation of authority, and instead of obeying it they withdrew to Shawomet, on the western shore of Narragansett bay, where they bought a tract of land from the principal sachem of the Narragansetts, Miantonomo.
Canonchet, son of Miantonomo and grand nephew of Canonicus, was chief of the Narragansets. When the colonists first became acquainted with this tribe, Canonicus was their sachem, but his nephew Miantonomo was associated with him in the government. This sachem was never a friend to the English, and he early sent to Plymouth a bundle of arrows bound in a rattle-snake's skin as a war challenge.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking