ward to take in all Plymouth, eastward to embrace Maine (Sagadahoc), and Nova Scotia. Maine, henceforth including Sagadahoc, that is, all land eastward to the Saint Croix, remained part of Massachusetts till March 15, 1820, when it became a member of the Union by itself. Nova Scotia, over which Phips's conquest of Port Royal in 1690 had established a nominal rather than a real English authority, was assigned to France again by the Treaty of Ryswick, 1697.

6

CHAPTER II.

KING PHILIP'S WAR

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the Stuart Restoration another cloud darkened the New England sky. Since the Pequot War, Indians and whites had in the main been friendly. This by itself is proof that our fathers were less unjust to the red men than is sometimes charged. They did assume the right to acquire lands here, and they had this right. The Indians were not in any proper sense owners of New England. They were few-by 1660 not more numerous than the pale-faces-and, far from settling or occupying the land, roamed from place to place. Had it been otherwise they, as barbarians, would have had no such claim upon the territory as to justify them in barring out civilization. However, the colonists did not plead this consideration. Whenever districts were desired to which Indians had any obvious title, it was both law and custom to pay them their price. In this Roger Williams and William Penn were not peculiar. If individual white men sometimes cheated in land trades, as in other negotiations, the aggrieved side could not, and did not, regard this as the white man's policy.

Yet little by little the Indians came to distrust

and hate the rival race. It did not matter to the son of the forest, even if he thought so far, that the neighborhood of civilization greatly bettered his lot in many things, as, for instance, giving him market for corn and peltry, which he could exchange for fire-arms, blankets, and all sorts of valuable conveniences. The efforts to teach and elevate him he appreciated still less. As has been said, he loved better to disfurnish the outside of other people's heads than to furnish the inside of his own. What he felt, and keenly, was that the new-comers treated him as an inferior, were day by day narrowing his range, and slowly but surely reducing his condition to that of a subject people. Dull as he was he saw that one of three fates confronted him to perish, to migrate, or to lay aside his savage character and mode of life. thoughts frenzied him.

Such

The beautiful fidelity of Massasoit to the people of Plymouth is already familiar. His son Alexander, who succeeded him, was of a spirit diametrically the reverse. Convinced that he was plotting with the Narragansets for hostile action, the Governor and Council of Plymouth sent Major Winslow to bring him to court-for it must be remembered that Massasoit's tribe, the Pokanokets, had through him covenanted, though probably with no clear idea of what this meant, to be subject to the Plymouth government. Alexander, for some reason, became fatally ill while at Plymouth under arrest, dying before reaching home. The Indians suspected poison.

His brother Philip now became sachem. Philip

already had a grudge against the whites, and was rendered trebly bitter by the indignity and violence, if nothing worse, to which Alexander had been subjected. He resolved upon war, and in 1675 war was begun.

We shall never certainly know to what extent Philip was an organizer. We believe correct the view of Hubbard, the contemporary historian, that he had prepared a wide-spread and pretty well arranged conspiracy among the main tribes of New England Indians, which might have been fatal but for "the special providence of God," causing hostilities to break out ere the savages were ready. Palfrey challenges this view of the case, but on insufficient grounds.

One Sausaman, an educated Indian, previously Philip's secretary, had left him and joined the Christian Indians settled at Natick. There were by this time several such communities, and also, according to Cotton Mather, many able Indian preachers. At the risk of his life, as he insisted, Sausaman had warned the Plymouth magistrates that danger impended. He was soon murdered, apparently by Philip's instigation. At least Philip never denied this, nor did he after this time ever again court friendly relations with Plymouth, which he had constantly done hitherto. On the contrary, re-enforcements of strange Indians, all ready for the war-path, were continually flocking to his camp, squaws and children at the same time going to the Narraganset country, manifestly for security.

The Plymouth authorities, preparing for war, yet sent a kind letter to the sachem advising him

to peace. In vain. At Swanzey, the town nearest Mount Hope, Philip's home, Indians at once began to kill and ravage, and Majors Bradford and Cudworth marched thither with a force of Plymouth soldiers. A Massachusetts contingent reenforced them there, and they prepared to advance. Seeing it impossible to hold his own against so many, Philip crossed to Pocasset, now Tiverton, and swept rapidly round to Dartmouth, Middleborough, and Taunton, burning and murdering as he went. He then retired again to Tiverton, but in a few days started with all his warriors for central Massachusetts.

Here the Nipmucks, already at war, which indicated an understanding between them and the Pokanokets, had attacked Mendon. The day after Philip joined them there was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks and their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the nick of time.

The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield, Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked, the last two having to be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fastday. The men rushed from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared, placed himself at their head and directed their move