B. B. Thatcher

“ The mere physical sufferings of Philip, meanwhile, are almost incredible. It is by his hair-breadth escapes, indeed, that he is chiefly visible during the war. Occasionally, the English come close upon him; he starts up, like the roused lion, plunges into the river or leaps the precipice; and nothing more is seen of him for months. Only a few weeks after the war commenced, he was surrounded in the great Pocasset swamp, and obliged to escape from his vigilant enemies by rafting himself, with his best men, over the great Taunton river, while their women and children were left to be captured. ”

“ Brother!—Great numbers of Black-Coats have been among the Indians. With sweet voices and smiling faces, they offered to teach them the religion of the white people. Our brethren in the East listened to them. They turned from the religion of their fathers, and took up the religion of the white people. What good has it done? Are they more friendly one to another than we are? No, Brother! They are a divided people;—we are united. They quarrel about religion;—we live in love and friendship. ”

“ Around his copper neck terrific hung A tied-together, bear and catamount skin; The curious fishbones o'er his bosom swung, And thrice the Sachem danced, and thrice the Sachem sung. Strange man was he! 'T was said, he oft pursued The sable bear, and slew him in his den; That oft he howled through many a pathless wood, And many a tangled wild, and poisonous fen, That ne'er was trod by other mortal men. The craggy ledge for rattlesnakes he sought, And choked them one by one, and then O'ertook the tall gray moose, as quick as thought And then the mountain cat he chased, and chasing caught. ”

“ I assure you, in the name of the Five Nations, that our warriors shall dance to the calumet of peace under its leaves. They shall remain quiet on their mats, and shall never dig up the hatchet, till their brother Yonondio, or Corlear, shall either jointly or separately endeavor to attack the country, which the Great Spirit has given to our ancestors. This belt preserves my words, and this other the authority which the Five Nations have given me. ”

“ Although your letter of yesterday's date fully authorizes me to any act of hostility against the army of the United States of America in this neighborhood under your command, yet, still anxious to prevent that dreadful decision, which perhaps is not intended to be appealed to by either of our countries, I have forborne for these two days past to resent those insults which you have offered to the British flag flying at this fort, by approaching it within pistol-shot of my works, not only singly, but in numbers, with arms in their hands.
Neither is it my wish to wage war with individuals. ”

“ The captain then advanced towards the Sachem, and addressed him. "Opechancanough," said he, "I perceive you are plotting to murder me, but I fear you not. As yet neither your men nor mine have done much harm. Now therefore take your arms—as you see here are mine—my body shall be as naked as yours—the island in the river is a fit place for a combat, and the conqueror of us two, shall be master of all. If you have not men enough about you, take time to muster more—has many as you will—only let everyone bring his basket of corn, and against that I will stake the value in copper." ”

“ We are willing to be taught to read, and write, and work, but not by people who have done us so much injury. Brother!—we wish you to lay before the council-fire the wishes of your red brethren. We ask our brothers not to blot out the law which has made us peaceable and happy, and not to force a strange religion upon us. We ask to be let alone, and, like the white people, to worship the Great Spirit as we think it best. We shall then be happy in filling the little space in life which is left us, and shall go down to our fathers in peace. ”

“ During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. ”

“ In 1660, an English gentleman, who had been much conversant among the Indians, was invited to a great dance and feast, at which among other ceremonies, Passaconaway, now very old, made a farewell speech to his people. He cautioned them especially, as a dying man, to take heed how they quarrelled with the English. He said, that though they might do the whites some damage, it would prove the sure means of their own destruction; and that, as for himself, he had formerly tried his utmost by the arts of sorcery to hinder their settlement and increase, but all to no purpose. ”

“ Having seated themselves in grave array, the Little Carpenter was asked, if he had come to sue for peace. He answered in the affirmative. "Have you authority from the whole nation?" demanded the Colonel; to which all the chiefs replied that they would confirm whatever the Carpenter should agree to. The latter then delivered his talk.—
"You live at the water-side," said he, "and are in light. We are in darkness; but hope all will yet be clear. I have been constantly going about doing good, and though I am tired, yet I am come to see what can be done for my people, who are in great distress." ”

“ No noble-minded chieftain upon the Continent, educated as an Indian chieftain always is, would have given up men who appealed to their hospitality—their own brethren, in distress and nakedness, driven before the bayonet of a mortal enemy of a distinct race and of vastly superior power—and least of all, when, if surrendered, they were surrendered to a certain alternative of slavery or death. Some of his tribe would have compromitted their dignity through fear, but not the son of Miantonomo. "Deliver the Indians of Philip!" said the haughty Sachem at one time—"Never! ”

“ The same philosophic writer, in his general observations upon the character of Pocahontas, has justly remarked, that, considering all concurrent circumstances, it is not surpassed by any in the whole range of, history; and that for those qualities more especially which do honor to our nature—a humane and feeling heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments—she stands almost without a rival. She gave evidence, indeed, of possessing in a high degree every attribute of mind and heart, which should be and has been the ornament and pride of civilized woman in all countries and times. ”

“ When he was upon the point of presenting the belt to Major Gladwyn, and all was breathless expectation, the drums at the door of the council house, suddenly rolled the charge, the guards leveled their pieces, and the British officers drew their swords from their scabbards. Pontiac was a brave man, constitutionally and habitually. He had fought in many a battle, and often led his warriors to victory. ”

“ The Indian then assumed a most melancholy look, "Ah!" said he, "you presented Powhatan a white dog which he fed as himself. Now, I am certainly better than a white dog; but your king has given me nothing." Such an arch sense, adds the historian, had this savage of the "stingy" treatment he had received at court. Nothing is known of Tomocomo after his return to America.
The most constant friend and ally of the Virginian English, for twenty years from the settlement of Jamestown, was Japazaws, the Sachem—or, as the old writers call him, the king—of the Potomacs or Patowomekes. ”

“ Elliot then spoke. "My children!—As you now see that my children here are determined not to forsake the cause of their British father, I wish you to carry a message back with you. Tell my wife, your American father, that I want her to cook the provisions for me and my red children, more faithfully than she has done. She has not done her duty. And if she receives this as an insult, and feels disposed to fight, tell her to bring more men than she ever brought before, as our former skirmishes I do not call fighting. ”

“ There is no nobler instance in all history, of national fidelity, (for which he mainly must have the credit,) or of individual friendship. This instinct of a generous nature in the first instance, being confirmed by a course of conduct generally alike creditable to the feelings and shrewdness of the Colonists, finally settled itself in the mind of Massasoit as ineradicably as his affection for his own subjects. "I know now," said he to Winslow, on his first recovery from the severe sickness we have mentioned, "I know that the English love me,—I love them—I shall never forget them." ”

“ Brother!—The sachems and chief warriors of the Seneca nation of Indians, understanding you are the person appointed by the great council of your nation to manage and conduct the affairs of the several nations of Indians with whom you are at peace and on terms of friendship, come at this time, as children to a father, to lay before you the trouble which we have on our minds. ”

“ This affair took place June 24, 1675, a day memorable in American history as the commencement of Philip's War. "Now," says a reverend historian of those times, "war was begun by a fierce nation of Indians upon an honest, harmless Christian generation of English, who might very truly have said unto the aggressors, as it was said of old unto the Ammonites, 'I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me.'" Such no doubt was the persuasion of a large majority of the contemporary countrymen of the learned divine. ”