United States or Vanuatu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A great Indian battle called the "Battle of the Plain" took place once, near Norwich, between these rival tribes led by these two rival chieftains. The Mohegans were a part of the Pequot tribe, and the Pequots, or "Gray Foxes," were the fiercest, most cruel, and warlike of all the Indians who roamed through the forests of Connecticut before the English came.
In ten years after the Pequot war the colonists had settled fifty towns and villages, had reared forty churches, several forts and prisons, and the Massachusetts colony, decidedly pre-eminent, had established Harvard College. The wilderness indeed began to blossom, and gardens, orchards, rich pastures, fields of grain, and verdant meadows cheered the eye and filled the dwellings with abundance.
Drawing his own tomahawk, the Pequot in turn threw it at his foe, who escaped by a sudden movement of the body. The two Indians now stood regarding one another with looks of rage, and took the knives off their necks. Neither spoke a word. Each understood the other, and with flashing eyes watched to take an advantage.
And it was in this light that the great question was settled whether a boy might snowball with balls that he had soaked over night in water and let freeze. They were as hard as cobble-stones, and if a boy should be hit in the head by one of them, he could not tell whether he was a Pequot or an Early Settler.
The whole interior of the fort was in ashes, and all the inmates were destroyed with the exception of seven only who escaped, and seven who were taken captives. The English knew that at a short distance from them there was another fort filled with Pequot warriors. It consequently was not safe to burden their little band with prisoners whom they could neither guard nor feed.
Sassacus was strongly intrenched, about twenty miles east of them, in two forts, or, rather, fortified towns. These Pequot fortresses were about five miles distant from each other, on commanding hills, one on the banks of the Thames, and the other on the banks of the Mystic.
But there was no alternative; the torch was applied, and in a few moments five hundred buildings were in flames. No language can describe the scene which now ensued. The awful tragedy of the Pequot fort was here renewed upon a scale of still more terrific grandeur. Old men, women, and children, no one can tell how many, perished miserably in the wasting conflagration.
It took time to get men from Boston, and all that Massachusetts contributed to the enterprise at its beginning was that eccentric daredevil John Underhill, with a force of twenty men. Seventy friendly Mohegans, under their chief Uncas, eager to see vengeance wrought upon their Pequot oppressors, accompanied the expedition.
Perhaps the guide has only gone after a rabbit, wishing to prepare us a dainty surprise for breakfast." But Agnes shook her head. "It is not a Mohican arrow, but a Pequot one," she said. "It was driven into the tree by a warbow. See, how deeply it entered the tree! And how strong the flint is and how well preserved, in spite of its being driven into the hard wood.
Although when the Pequot War was over Saybrook was no longer exposed to constant attacks from the Indians, yet, for a woman brought up as Lady Fenwick had been, in ease and comfort, life there must have been full of hardship. But she made no complaint. All that we know of her is good and charming. She loved flowers and fruits and had her gardens and her pet rabbits.
Word Of The Day