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About the time that Gardiner sent his protest to Massachusetts, a Saybrook man, Thomas Hurlburt, had a narrow escape from death in the Pequot country, where he had gone with a trading party, and he was only saved by the kindness and compassion of an Indian woman. He stepped into the sachem's wigwam to inquire about some stolen horses.
September 21, 1638, a treaty was negotiated between the Connecticut delegates and the Narragansetts and Mohegans, by the terms of which the Pequot country became the property of the Connecticut towns, while one hundred Pequots were given to Uncas, and one hundred to Miantonomoh and Ninigret, his ally, to be incorporated with their tribes.
Arnold in literature, imagine a household with one wild Pequot woman, communicated with by signs, for its maid-of-all-work, and take courage. Those were serious times indeed when your cook might give warning by taking your scalp or chignon, as the case might be, and making off with it into the woods."
The land along the Connecticut River was very fertile, and the Pequot Indians, who sided with the Dutch, had driven away the original tribes which had dwelled there. These expelled tribes were friendly to the Puritans, and when the Puritan settlers seized the land, they brought back the Indians whom the Pequots had just driven away.
Meditating on his situation, and casting about in his mind for expedients, either to evade his captors or to change the resolution of the Pequot chief, which, he doubted not, aimed at his life, he resumed his seat. He was unable to remain more than a few moments in quiet, and presently again approached the opening, and this time beheld a sight which curdled his blood.
The idea of letting the Pequot fight the battle alone was derogatory to his honor, and besides, his curiosity was stimulated to witness the conduct of the savage, and he therefore answered with some asperity "For what does the chief take me? Am I a deer to be frightened at the whizzing of an arrow, or the sight of a tomahawk?" "Sassacus would be grieved should his brother lose his scalp."
Shouting then his war-whoop, and drawing his tomahawk from his girdle, the Pequot leaped among the band. Like lightning it sunk into the head of one man, who fell to the ground. The chief raised it again, but before it could descend, a blow prostrated him, and, in an instant, he was overpowered and disarmed.
The Pequot chieftain, not being then prepared for hostilities, sent an embassy to Massachusetts with a present of valuable furs, and with an artfully contrived story in justification of the deed.
Upon two commanding and beautiful eminences in this town, from which the eye ranged over a very extensive prospect of the Sound and the adjacent country, Sassacus had erected, with much barbarian skill, his royal fortresses. The one was on the banks of the Mystic; the other, a few miles west, on the banks of the Pequot River, now called the Thames.
But while I was thus lying in the tent, feeling miserable, suddenly a young Indian girl came in, who addressed me in the Pequot language. Talk about Indian ingratitude! When the war is over; I am going to locate right here, and start a huge Indian school, and invite them all to Sunday school every Sunday. Why, it pays wonderfully to teach the Indians religion!"
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