The Pilgrims visit

by disease; and his friendship was of the greatest value to the Pilgrims.

Once the Pilgrims sent an expedition to Massasoit's Massasoit. lodge to visit him. The messengers carried "a horseman's coat of red cotton" for the king, and beads and jack-knives for his chiefs; and Massasoit put on his red coat, and treated them kindly. At another time, when

a friendly Indian, named Squanto, was said to have been killed by the Narragansetts, a party of ten colonists marched into the forest, and surrounded the hut where the chief of this tribe was; and, though he had five thousand fighting men at his command, they compelled him to leave Squanto unhurt. The Indians had not yet learned the use of fire-arms; and their arrows

Bradford's

Indians.

did not put them on an equality with the well-armed Englishmen. Afterwards the chief of the Narragan- Governor setts sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows reply to the wrapped in the skin of a rattlesnake. The governor stuffed the skin with powder and shot, and sent it back; and the Indians were afraid to keep it, and threatened no more. But the Pilgrims paid for all they obtained from the natives; and, when they finally went to war, it was to defend another colony, which had treated the Indians badly. In this war, under Capt. Miles Standish's orders, several Indians were killed; and this caused great regret to good Mr. Robinson, the pastor whom the Pilgrim congregation had left behind at Leyden. "I would you had converted some," said he, "before you had killed any."

with the

Both in the Plymouth and the Massachusetts Col- Dealings onies, it was the rule that no one should take any Indians. thing from the Indians without paying for it. The year after the Massachusetts Colony was founded (1631), the court decreed thus, in the quaint spelling of those days: "It is ordered, that Josias Plastowe shall (for stealing four baskets of corne from the Indians) returne them eight baskets againe, be fined five pounds, and hereafter be called by the name of Josias & not Mr. as formerly he used to be." This shows how carefully they tried to do justice; though it is very likely that there was often occasion for such punishments as this. Large tracts of land were often obtained for a blanket or a knife; and, though this bargain would now seem to us very unfair, yet we must remember that the knife or the blanket might often be of more value to the Indian than a dozen square miles

The Pequot
War.

of forest land, especially as there was a whole continent left for him to occupy. It was only when settlers multiplied, that land began to have any of the value that it now possesses.

The first Connecticut settlers found fiercer tribes to deal with than the Pilgrims; and they had very early a war with the Pequots, in which all the New England colonists were involved. It would have been much more serious than it was, but that Roger Williams used his influence over the Narragansett tribe to keep them from joining the war. A council of the Indians was being held; and Roger Williams, in order to save the very men who had banished him from Massachusetts, went many miles in a canoe in a severe storm. The Pequots were enraged with Williams for interfering; but, after four days of delay, the Narragansetts refused their aid. The Pequots kept up constant attacks upon the Connecticut settlers; and at last an expedition was sent against them (in 1637), consisting of ninety white men and several hundred Indian allies, under command of Capt. John Mason. Their object of attack was the chief fort of the Pequots, which lay near Description what is now Stonington, Conn. The fort covered more fort. than an acre, which was enclosed by trunks of trees,

of Pequot

about twelve feet high, set firmly in the ground, close together. Within these were some seventy wigwams, covered with matting and thatch, and arranged in two lanes. There were two entrances; and Captain Mason stationed himself at one of these, and the next in command, Captain Underhill, at the other, each having a portion of the colonists with him, while the Indian allies were arranged outside. As they were taking their posi

tions, a dog barked, and they heard the cry from within, "Owanux, Owanux !" ("Englishmen, Englishmen !")

the fort.

Then the attack began. The roofs of the Indian cabins Attack on were set on fire, and the greater part of the Indians were killed; while only two white men were slain,

John Eliot.

Dreuillettes.

many, however, being wounded. It was the first great blow inflicted by the whites on the Indians; and for forty years after it there was much more peace between the two races in New England.

It is pleasant to know that, while this fighting was going on, there were men among the Puritans who were trying to do good to the Indians and to secure peace in a gentler way. One of the most eminent of the Massachusetts clergymen, Rev. John Eliot, “the apostle Eliot," as he was called, devoted himself to learning their habits and language, and to making for them a translation of the Bible, This translation was printed at Cambridge; and part of the type was set by an Indian compositor. Eliot gathered those who became Christians into a town at Natick, Mass. Other good men imitated him, such as the Mayhews, Cotton, Brainerd, and others; and at last there were thirtychurches of "praying Indians" as they were called, under native preachers. Similar churches had been established in Canada by the French Roman Catholic missionaries. Once, during the time when there was bitter hostility between the English and French settlers, a Jesuit missionary named Dreuillettes, came to the Massachusetts Colony on an embassy, to try to make a league with the English settlers against the Mohawks. It was a time when Jesuits were forbidden, on pain of death, from coming to Massachusetts; but this missionary came, and was kindly received by Eliot, whom he calls "Maistre Heliot," and who invited the supposed Jesuit to pass the winter with him. There were so many quarrels between the French and the English in those early days, and between the Roman Catholics and