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Updated: May 10, 2025
Life among the white settlers was a kind of picket-service in which woman shared. At times, as for example in the wars with the Pequots and King Philip, there was safety nowhere. Men went armed to the field, to meeting, and to bring home their brides from their father's house where they had married them. Women with muskets at their side lulled their babes to sleep.
In November, 1634, John Eliot, known afterwards so well for his noble work among the Indians, in a sermon censured the court for proceeding too arbitrarily towards the Pequots. He, too, thought better of his words when a solemn embassy of ministers presented the matter in a more orthodox light.
But another party of English was already there, who seized them as they waded to the shore. The chief of this little band of Pequots was sentenced to be shot. He was bound to a tree, and Uncas, with nervous arm, sent an arrow through his heart.
Instead, they sent out an expedition under Captain Endecott, to punish the Pequots.
One man's courage is not another's, and the Indian knew little or nothing of that Gothic fury of self-abandonment which rushes straight ahead and snatches victory from the jaws of death. His fortress was a strong one, and it was no longer, as in the time of the Pequots, a strife in which firearms were pitted against bow and arrow.
They agreed to a peace with Sachem Massasoit's Pokanokets, who occupied the rest of Rhode Island, east across Narragansett Bay. They marched with the English and the Mohegans to wipe out the hostile Pequots. Canonicus died, and Mi-an-to-no-mah, his nephew, who had helped him rule, became chief sachem. Miantonomah was famed in council and in war.
In July, 1635, John Oldham ventured on a trading expedition to the Pequot country; for the Pequots, notwithstanding all the appearances against them, still pretended to friendship, and solicited trade. One object of sending Captain Oldham upon this expedition was to ascertain more definitely the real disposition of the savages.
As this point commanded the entrance of the river, it was deemed of essential importance that it should be effectually fortified. But the Pequots were now so emboldened that they surrounded the fort, and held the garrison in a state of siege.
The Indians marveled at his calm, unboastful intrepidity, and Canonicus, who was also a man of heroic mould, was so influenced by his arguments, that he finally not only declined to enter into an alliance with the Pequots, but pledged anew his friendship for the English, and engaged to co-operate with them in repelling the threatened assault. This was an achievement of immense moment.
The new Colony of Connecticut was far nearer their hunting-ground than Massachusetts. It was a far easier prey, and from the very beginning the Pequots harassed the settlers. They made no open attack, but skulked about, murdering men and women, now here, now there, appearing suddenly and vanishing again as swiftly.
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