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Updated: June 9, 2025
As she walked toward the Sachem's Gate she was swinging her hat and singing, apparently as unconcernedly as though care rested lightly upon her young shoulders. Out on the high-road a number of her guests whizzed past in one of Scott's motors; there came a swift hail, a gust of wind-blown laughter, and the car was gone in a whirl of dust.
Then, in file, the eight Sachems of the dishonoured Senecas filed into the fiery circle, chanting and timing their slow steps to the mournful measure of their chant. All wore the Sachem's crest painted white; their bodies were most barbarously striped with black and white, and their blankets were pure white, crossed by a single blood-red band.
Miantonomo was buried there on the scene of his defeat, which has ever since been known as the Sachem's Plain. This was in September, 1643, and for years afterward, in that month, parties of Narragansetts used to visit the spot and with frantic gestures and hideous yells lament their fallen leader.
There stand some school-boys, you observe, in a little group around a drunken Indian, himself a prince of the Squaw Sachem's lineage. He brought hither some beaver-skins for sale, and has already swallowed the larger portion of their price, in deadly draughts of firewater.
Tisquantum thought on that hour of anguish, when his duties as a chief and a warrior had forbidden all expression of his grief; and he thought of his return to his lodge, where only Oriana remained to welcome him for the mother of his children, whom he had loved with unusual affection, was dead and tears gathered in the Sachem's eyes.
The planters of Plymouth had defaced the monuments of the dead at Passonagessit, and had plundered the grave of the sachem's mother of some skins with which it had been decorated. The Indians are remarkable for the reverence which they entertain for the sepulchers of their kindred.
Eliot turned to the Sachem, and lamented over these faults, but added that the first step to reforming him would be for his father to set the example by a confession of his own sins, which were neither few nor light. The Sachem's pride was subdued. He stood up and openly declared his offences, lamenting over them with deep sincerity.
"These were the most distressing days that New England ever beheld," reads a record. "All was fear and consternation. Few there were, who were not in mourning for some near kindred, and nothing but horror stared them in the face." Presently Captain Benjamin Church, as noted in New England as Kit Carson is in the West, was upon the sachem's trail.
Canst thou forget to take revenge of those wild people who have defaced my monument in a despiteful manner, disdaining our antiquities and honorable customs? See now the sachem's grave lies like the common people, defaced by an ignoble race. Thy mother doth complain, and implores thy aid against this thievish people who have newly intruded on our land.
The head of the savage was then cut off and placed in the crotch of a large oak tree, where it remained for many years, dried and shriveled in the sun, a ghastly memorial of days of violence and blood. From this extraordinary incident, the bluff, to the present day, bears the name of Sachem's Head.
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