The Wordy Shipmates Part 5

The irony of informing nearly naked people in a wilderness setting about the story of naked Adam and Eve eating the fruit of knowledge and inventing the fas.h.i.+on industry due to a sudden need for clothing to hide their shame is not lost on Williams. The natives "sleep soundly counting it a felicity," he says, quoting a proverb, "that every man be content with his skin."

One of the main points of Calvinism is to be absolutely uncomfortable and itchy and sickened in one's skin. Williams might be a little jealous when he marvels that "Adam's sons and daughters" in America "should neither have nor desire clothing for their naked souls or bodies."

The Indians' clothing-optional lifestyle affords Williams the opportunity to get in one of his jabs at European hypocrisy: The best clad Englishman, Not clothed in Christ, more naked is: Than naked Indian.

Williams makes his living in Providence and its environs as he did, off and on, in Plymouth and Salem, by operating a trading post. Lucky for him, the Europeans are gaga for American fur. In the chapter called "Of Their Trading," he teaches the Algonquian word for "beaver," calling it a "beast of wonder." This part of A Key A Key was surely invaluable to his readers engaged in the ever more lucrative fur trade. The reader learns how to ask, "What price?" It must have been so handy for a seventeenth-century English trapper out on the frontier of Connecticut to reach into his knapsack, pull out was surely invaluable to his readers engaged in the ever more lucrative fur trade. The reader learns how to ask, "What price?" It must have been so handy for a seventeenth-century English trapper out on the frontier of Connecticut to reach into his knapsack, pull out A Key, A Key, and confidently inform the Mohegan he's talking to, "I will give you an otter." and confidently inform the Mohegan he's talking to, "I will give you an otter."

Williams seems especially amused by the fad among the European smart set for gloves and hats fas.h.i.+oned out of American animal pelts handled by "foul hands in smoky houses . . . which are after worn upon the hands of queens and the heads of princes."

In fact, the fur of semiaquatic North American rodents is so desirable it's literally to die for. Power struggles among the English, the Dutch, the Pequot, the Mohegan, and the Narragansett over access to and control of trade in Connecticut provokes a war.

Of all the phrases Williams translates in A Key, A Key, the one with the most troubling, loaded back story is this one: "The Pequots are slain." the one with the most troubling, loaded back story is this one: "The Pequots are slain."

The Pequot War is a pure war. And by pure I don't mean good. I mean it is war straight up, a war set off by murder and vengeance and fueled by misunderstanding, jealousy, hatred, stupidity, racism, l.u.s.t for power, l.u.s.t for land, and, most of all, greed, all of it headed toward a climax of slaughter. The English are diabolical. The Narragansett and the Mohegan are willing accomplices. The Pequot commit distasteful acts of violence and are clueless as to just how vindictive the English can be when provoked. Which is to say that there's no one to root for. Well, one could root for Pequot babies not to be burned alive, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

As for geography, circa 1630, the Narragansett live in what would become the state of Rhode Island, hence their a.s.sociation with Roger Williams. The Narragansett are ruled by Canonicus and his nephew, Miantonomi. Untangling the Pequot and Mohegan is trickier as the two tribes are blood relatives with a long history of intermarriage and infighting. They control lands in Connecticut-the Mohegan on the Pequot River (now called the Thames), and the Pequot on the Connecticut River, the largest river in New England. The Mohegan have long paid tribute to the more powerful Pequot. The Mohegan sachem, Uncas, is married to the daughter of the a.s.sa.s.sinated Pequot princ.i.p.al sachem, Tatobem. In fact, after Tatobem's death, Uncas had thrown his hat in the ring to become Tatobem's successor but lost to Sa.s.sacus, his brother-in-law. This accounts for Uncas's animosity toward his kin the Pequot-animosity being a polite way of saying Uncas hates the Pequot's guts. Not that he has much affection for the Narragansett, either. In fact, Uncas will eventually order his brother to a.s.sa.s.sinate Miantonomi. But for now, the Mohegan and the Narragansett are allies of the English.

Why would the Mohegan and Narragansett gang up on their fellow natives the Pequot? Well, why would France, a monarchy, aid the upstart antimonarchical American colonists against its fellow monarchy England in the Revolutionary War? Simple answer: France hates England. The Pequot, the Narragansett, and the Mohegan are sovereign nations with a long history of resentment that predates European contact. And so the Mohegan and the Narragansett temporarily united in a traditional enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend scenario.

After European contact, each New England tribe's power partially derives from trading with the Dutch in New Netherland and the English of Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. Uncas, a brilliant, forward-thinking opportunist, gambles his small, relatively powerless tribe's fortunes and throws in with the English. Boy does this pay off. For this reason, Uncas is probably the most controversial historical figure in seventeenth-century New England. His brutality toward his brother Pequot comes off as morally sickening. And yet his tiny, dwindling tribe, under the Pequot thumb and decimated by the smallpox epidemic of 1633, is on the verge of extinction. As sachem, his responsibility is to save his people any way he knows how, and becoming an English ally is the most logical course of action. If the sachem's name is ringing a bell, that's because James Fenimore Cooper snagged it as the name of a character in The Last of the Mohi cans, The Last of the Mohi cans, his novel romanticizing the natives' disappearing way of life. Real-life Uncas is taking drastic steps to stave off such oblivion, and he more or less succeeds. his novel romanticizing the natives' disappearing way of life. Real-life Uncas is taking drastic steps to stave off such oblivion, and he more or less succeeds.

By the time the Winthrop fleet arrived in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1630, the Dutch of New Netherland had already ushered in what Neal Salisbury, author of Manitou and Providence, Manitou and Providence, calls "the wampum revolution." Wampum, strings of white and purple beads made out of clam and conch sh.e.l.ls found primarily on Long Island but also in Narragansett Bay, was a form of Indian currency that had originally been more of a sacred object than mere money. calls "the wampum revolution." Wampum, strings of white and purple beads made out of clam and conch sh.e.l.ls found primarily on Long Island but also in Narragansett Bay, was a form of Indian currency that had originally been more of a sacred object than mere money.

Salisbury writes that "the critical point in the rise of the Narragansett and the Pequot" came about in 1622, when a Dutch trader kidnapped a Pequot sachem "and threatened to behead him if he did not receive 'a heavy ransom.' " The Dutchman received 140 strings of wampum right away and, "as a result . . . the Dutch West India Company discovered both the value to the Indians of wampum and the power and prestige of the Pequot." Furthermore, Salisbury says, the resulting wampum craze "reinforced the dominant position of the Narragansett and particularly the Pequot, both of whom already had access to the prized sh.e.l.ls." (The two tribes' power is also a testament to strength in numbers, both groups lucking out and being spared by the smallpox epidemic of 1619 that exterminated so many Indians in Ma.s.sachusetts, though the epidemic of 1633 would affect them severely.) The coastal Indians' wampum could be traded for animal pelts trapped by Indians living in the continent's interior, which would in turn be exported to Europe. The perfect symbol of this exchange is depicted in the official seal of New Netherland, which depicts a beaver surrounded by a string of wampum.

Put the rather frank Dutch seal next to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay's overly optimistic seal with that Indian pleading, "Come Over and Help Us"-and it's easy to figure out the main concerns of white settlers in the Northeast: trade, G.o.d, and "fixing" the Indians.

On October 2, 1633, Winthrop writes in his journal about the return of his personal trading boat, The Blessing of the Bay, The Blessing of the Bay, which he had sent south to Long Island and New Amsterdam. In the latter city, the Ma.s.sachusetts men presented the Dutch governor with a letter explaining that Connecticut belonged to the king of England. They returned home with a "very courteous and respectful" letter for Winthrop in which the Dutchman countered that he believed Connecticut belonged to the Dutch West India Company but perhaps the company and the king should work it out themselves back in Europe. which he had sent south to Long Island and New Amsterdam. In the latter city, the Ma.s.sachusetts men presented the Dutch governor with a letter explaining that Connecticut belonged to the king of England. They returned home with a "very courteous and respectful" letter for Winthrop in which the Dutchman countered that he believed Connecticut belonged to the Dutch West India Company but perhaps the company and the king should work it out themselves back in Europe.

That's a reminder just how new European settlement in the New World still is. In 1633, Connecticut is the frontier.

In the same entry, Winthrop reports that even though the Dutch had already erected a trading post on the Connecticut River-on the site of present-day Hartford-Plymouth built its own spiteful post a mile upriver of the Dutch, thus cutting off much of the Dutch supply of furs. Such territorial spats did not sour Winthrop on Connecticut, though. He reports, erroneously, that the river runs so far north it "comes within a day's journey of . . . the 'Great Lake,' " presumably Lake Champlain. His l.u.s.t for it is palpable when he writes, "From this lake, and the hideous swamps about it, come most of the beaver which is traded between Virginia and Canada." Needless to say, that's a lot of beaver.

The Dutch in Connecticut, meanwhile, have been trading with the Pequot, but with other Indians, too. How do the Pequot feel about this? They murder a handful of Indians, probably Narragansett, on their way home from trading with the Dutch.

To show the Pequot who's boss, the Dutch kidnap Tatobem, the princ.i.p.al sachem of the Pequot, and demand a ransom of wampum for his return. After receiving the wampum, the Dutch do send Tatobem back to the Pequot-his dead body.

Start keeping score.

Surprise, surprise, the Pequot retaliate. Which makes a certain amount of eye-for-an-eye sense. Except that in the dumbest of all possible moves, the Pequot take revenge on the Dutch by killing a white boat captain on the Connecticut River who turns out to be an Englishman. They all look alike, right?

On the bright side, the Pequot have murdered Captain John Stone, a pirate of such loose morals he has been banished from Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. And not for high-minded, theological differences of opinion, either. According to Winthrop's journal, Stone got the boot in 1633 because he was found "in the drink" and in bed "with one Bancroft's wife." Stone was tried before the court and fined one hundred pounds-quite a sum in seventeenth-century Boston-and "ordered upon pain of death to come here no more."

If a Pequot were going to murder a colonist from Ma.s.sachusetts, picking one who faced the death sentence if he ever set foot in Ma.s.sachusetts again would be a lucky one to kill. And at first, that's true. When he hears about Stone's death, Winthrop says in his journal that he plans to write the governor of Virginia about a reprisal since "Stone was of that colony." Stone was no longer "of" Ma.s.sachusetts, so he's someone else's problem. That's in January of 1634. By November, however, the English demand that the Pequot turn over Stone's murderers. Winthrop doesn't explain the gradual change of heart but my guess is that a turf war over Connecticut becomes increasingly inevitable and the English are ready to pick a fight.

The buildup to the Pequot War reminds me of what skateboarders call the frustration that makes them occasionally break their own skateboards in half-"focusing your board." The Pequot War is just that-a destructive tantrum brought on by an acc.u.mulation of aggravation.

In September 1634, the esteemed minister of the church at New Town, Thomas Hooker (the Puritan dissident who sailed on the same boat as John Cotton), pet.i.tions the General Court on behalf of his congregation. Hooker informs the court that they want to leave the Boston area and settle in Connecticut. One of their reasons for going, according to Winthrop's journal, is "the fruitfulness and commodious-ness of Connecticut, and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch or English." (And by English they mean the Plymouth folk.) Of course, Winthrop, who really does believe the things he said in "Christian Charity" about how the colonists should be knit together as members of the same body, is loathe to lose any of the G.o.dly. He is especially despondent about Hooker's possible defection, writing that the minister's exit would be a great loss as "the removing of a candlestick is a great judgment, which is to be avoided." The candlestick, in Puritan lingo, is one of Christ's lights, an important, beloved object of admiration that draws in other wors.h.i.+ppers as moths to flame. Winthrop fails to notice that Hooker is in the same position Winthrop himself was in leaving England-being accused of abandoning his countrymen in their time of need. Remember, Winthrop had helped write that pro-emigration tract back in England that claimed "The departing of good people from a country does not cause a judgment, but warns of it."

The murder of Stone in Connecticut and the threat of losing Hooker's congregation to Connecticut is happening right around the time that Salem cuts the king's cross out of the flag, Roger Williams is still in his prebanishment, mouthing-off period, and Bishop Laud demands the Charter be sent back to England. Winthrop is hardly paranoid to worry that the colony is on the verge of falling apart.

The magistrates temporarily talk Hooker and his flock into tabling their move, especially since it "would expose them to evident peril, both from the Dutch . . . and from the Indians." But within two years, Hooker would lead his people to Connecticut to found Hartford, just in time for the full-blown Pequot War.

In November 1634, the Pequot send two amba.s.sadors to Boston to meet with Winthrop and the other a.s.sistants, who tell the pair that Boston's friends.h.i.+p is conditional upon the Pequot turning over the murderers of Captain Stone. They reply that all but two of the perpetrators have since died of smallpox. (A devastating epidemic has recently wreaked havoc amongst the Pequot, Mohegan, and Narragansett.) Winthrop notes of the Pequot testimony, "This was related with such confidence and gravity, as, having no means to contradict it, we inclined to believe it."

So far so good. Winthrop also notes that the Pequot were desperate for allies: " The reason why they desired so much our friends.h.i.+p was because they were now in war with the Narragansett." As a result, "they could not trade safely anywhere."

The Pequot representatives agree to a treaty. Per Winthrop, they are to "deliver us the two men who were guilty of Capt. Stone's death," as well as "give us four hundred fathom of wampum, and forty beaver, and thirty otter skins." Oh, and also: "to yield up Connecticut." If that sounds like a lot, it's because it is. But Winthrop says the Pequot request that the English "settle a plantation there." They want the English there to trade with them, and for protection.

The next morning, Winthrop says, some Narragansett are rumored to be lurking nearby in order to ambush the Pequot amba.s.sadors. The English talk the Narragansett into leaving, promising them that if they make peace with the Pequot, the English will give them a portion of the tribute wampum.

The following year, that being 1635, Winthrop reports that on the same s.h.i.+p Henry Vane sailed in on, his son, John Winthrop, Jr., returns from a trip abroad with a commission in hand from a group of English n.o.bles to "begin a plantation at Connecticut and be governor there." The settlement and its strategically important fort, where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound, will be named Saybrook, in honor of two of the n.o.bles: Viscount Say and Sele, and Lord Brook.

Then, in May of 1636, Winthrop writes that the twenty-four-year-old Henry Vane is elected to be governor of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony and "Mr. Hooker . . . and most of his congregation went to Connecticut." Though his journal is of course mum, Winthrop must be worried about the state of things-a youngster is running the colony, there's this Connecticut brain drain to worry about, and he's still reeling from Roger Williams's banishment in January.

But it turns out that banis.h.i.+ng Roger Williams was the smartest thing the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony ever did, in terms of cinching its status as the the New England superpower. And not just because his rebellious opinions were undermining the Bay's monolithic conformity. As Williams would so bluntly describe his own history with New England Indians, "G.o.d was pleased to give me a painful, patient spirit to lodge with them in their filthy, smoky holes (even while I lived at Plymouth and Salem) to gain their tongue." So he was already proficient in the Algonquian language and well known as a friend to natives by the time the Narragansett took him in. Within a year of Ma.s.sachusetts kicking him out, Ma.s.sachusetts was using Williams as its Indian amba.s.sador, negotiator, and spy. New England superpower. And not just because his rebellious opinions were undermining the Bay's monolithic conformity. As Williams would so bluntly describe his own history with New England Indians, "G.o.d was pleased to give me a painful, patient spirit to lodge with them in their filthy, smoky holes (even while I lived at Plymouth and Salem) to gain their tongue." So he was already proficient in the Algonquian language and well known as a friend to natives by the time the Narragansett took him in. Within a year of Ma.s.sachusetts kicking him out, Ma.s.sachusetts was using Williams as its Indian amba.s.sador, negotiator, and spy.

Oddly enough, he was happy to help. "I am not yet turned Indian," Williams writes Winthrop. But he had turned Indian enough to meddle on Boston's behalf.

In a letter Williams wrote later (1670), he recalled, "When the next year after my banishment, the Lord drew the bow of the Pequot War against the [English] . . . I had my share of service to the whole land in that Pequot business, inferior to very few that acted."

Williams goes on to say that after receiving letters from the Boston government requesting that he "use my utmost and speediest endeavors to break and hinder the league labored for by the Pequots against . . . the English," he set off toward Pequot headquarters in his canoe in a storm. Once he got there, he for several days was forced "to lodge and mix with the b.l.o.o.d.y Pequot amba.s.sadors, whose hands and arms (me thought) wreaked with the blood of my countrymen murdered and ma.s.sacred by them on the Connecticut River." He was so scared of them, "I could not but nightly look for their b.l.o.o.d.y knives at my own throat also."

Williams's geographical location in Providence situated him much closer to the Connecticut River Valley than faraway Boston. That, coupled with his language skills and Indian alliances, made him a crucial partic.i.p.ant. In that same 1670 letter, he claims he was so helpful that John Winthrop lobbied to have his banishment rescinded. Williams writes that Winthrop "and some of other council motioned, and it was debated, whether or no I had merited not only to be recalled from banishment, but also to be honored with some remark of favor." Of course the banishment remained in place. Williams writes cryptically that he was thwarted by one "who never favored the liberty of other men's consciences." In other words, he blames John Cotton.

Winthrop's journal entry for July 20, 1636, remarks that a trader named John Gallop who was on his way to Long Island was forced by a windstorm to put in at Block Island (currently part of the state of Rhode Island). Gallop spotted a boat he recognized as belonging to his fellow Bay Colony resident John Oldham, "a member of the Watertown congregation." Gallop shouted h.e.l.lo to Oldham "but had no answer." Plus, the deck of Oldham's boat was "full of Indians (fourteen in all)." Gallop suspected foul play, as the Indians were "armed with guns, pikes, and swords." Gallop steered his boat to bash into Oldham's and scared the Indians. Ten of them jumped into the water and drowned. Gallop and the two boys who were with him came aboard Oldham's boat, tied up two Indians on deck, but, "being well acquainted with their skill to untie themselves . . . he threw them bound into the sea."

They found Oldham's body under an old fis.h.i.+ng net, "stark naked, his head cleft to the brains, and his hand and legs cut as if [the Indians] had been cutting them off, and yet warm."

The Bay Colony had slowly worked themselves up into a rage for retribution over the murder of Captain Stone, a drunken adulterer they themselves would have killed if he was ever daft enough to return to Ma.s.sachusetts. Oldham, on the other hand, was one of them, a church member, a member of the same body. That Indians had bashed in his brains and attempted to dismember him was in and of itself reason enough to mow down his murderers. That the killing happened after two years of Ma.s.sachusetts's jitters about Indian behavior south of its border meant war.

Two natives who understood the colonists' state of mind, and wisely tripped all over themselves to remain on the Bay Colony's good side, were Canonicus and Miantonomi, the Narragansett sachems. The following week, Canonicus sent three messengers, two of whom were eyewitnesses to Oldham's murder, to Boston. They brought a letter from Roger Williams and news that Miantonomi was already "gone with seventeen canoes and two hundred men to take revenge."

Winthrop says Ma.s.sachusetts authorities interrogated one of the three Narragansett messengers. He divulged that Oldham's murderers were Niantic allies of the Narragansett who, unbeknownst to Canonicus and Miantonomi, killed Oldham because he traded with the Pequot.

Winthrop records that Governor Vane wrote to Roger Williams to watch his back "if we should have occasion to make war upon the Narragansett, for Block Island was under them."

In other words, at this point, war with the Pequot is still not a foregone conclusion. But the Pequot's chief rivals, the Narragansett, with help from Roger Williams, have acted quickly and shrewdly to win over the Bay Colony to their side.

Boston soon receives word from Miantonomi, that he is on the Niantic case and that he has a hundred fathom of Oldham's wampum to send to Boston. (By contrast, Boston is still waiting to receive the reparation wampum they had demanded from the Pequot more than a year earlier.) The following week, Boston sends representatives to Miantonomi's co-sachem, Canonicus, to sh.o.r.e up its alliance with the Narragansett. Winthrop writes with relief that the sachem has "great command over his men, and marvelous wisdom in his answers and the carriage of the whole treaty, clearing himself and his neighbors of the murder, and offering a.s.sistance for revenge of it."

On August 25, 1636, Winthrop records in his journal that Governor Vane, along with the magistrates and ministers meet "about doing justice upon the Indians for the death of Mr. Oldham" and agree to deputize a posse posthaste. They dispatch ninety men divided amongst four captains, including John Underhill, under the general command of Salem's John Endecott.

Boston is cleaning house. The expedition's mission is twofold. Winthrop writes, "They had commission to put to death the men of Block Island, but to spare the women and children . . . and from thence go to the Pequot to demand the murderers of Captain Stone," along with one thousand fathom of wampum. If they are refused the perpetrators and the booty, the men are to kidnap Pequot children as ransom. s.n.a.t.c.hing kids away from their mothers as a military plan would be horrifying except for the fact that-spoiler alert-what the English end up doing to the Pequot youngsters is way, way worse than kidnapping.

As if there isn't enough to worry about, the devil's sorcerers are plotting against them. Roger Williams sends a disquieting letter, informing Boston that "The Pequots hear of your preparations . . . and comfort themselves in this that a witch amongst them will sink" the English boats "by diving under water and making holes." Williams adds, "I hope their dreams through the mercy of the Lord shall vanish, and the devil and his lying sorcerers shall be confounded."

Do keep in mind Williams's warning of underwater witches as we witness the ugliness ahead. To modern readers, the Pequot War is an unpleasant turf war in which the English battle a specific New England tribe. To the English, they are fighting the devil himself and his earthly representatives.

John Endecott, John Underhill, and their men sail to Block Island. Underhill would go on to write a gripping memoir of the Pequot War, t.i.tled News from America. News from America. In it, he says that when they pull up along the island's sh.o.r.e, around fifty natives are lying in wait. They let loose their arrows, Underhill writes, "as though they had meant to have made an end of us all in a moment." One Englishman is. .h.i.t in the neck, but because he is wearing a collar so stiff "as if it had been an oaken board," his life is spared. Similarly, Underhill relates that had his wife not nagged him into wearing his helmet, he would have been "slain" by an arrow through the forehead. "The arrows flying thick about us, we made haste to the sh.o.r.e," he writes. Luckily, he points out, "Our bullets out-reach their arrows." In it, he says that when they pull up along the island's sh.o.r.e, around fifty natives are lying in wait. They let loose their arrows, Underhill writes, "as though they had meant to have made an end of us all in a moment." One Englishman is. .h.i.t in the neck, but because he is wearing a collar so stiff "as if it had been an oaken board," his life is spared. Similarly, Underhill relates that had his wife not nagged him into wearing his helmet, he would have been "slain" by an arrow through the forehead. "The arrows flying thick about us, we made haste to the sh.o.r.e," he writes. Luckily, he points out, "Our bullets out-reach their arrows."

They make camp. The next day, they set off to kill the islanders, but the islanders have hidden in the swamps. Since the English can't find anyone to shoot at, they spend the day "burning and spoiling the land." The following day, more of same. The English "burnt their houses" and "cut down their corn." Still, no Indians to be found. So Underhill admits the following distasteful fact: the English, denied the human targets they came for, "destroyed some of their dogs instead of men."

The Block Islanders never come out. So the demoralized English slink off toward Connecticut to confront the Pequot. Once they get there, Underhill writes, some Pequot on sh.o.r.e spot their boats and call out, "What cheer, Englishmen? What do you come for?" The English do not answer them. The Indians nevertheless follow them. Underhill says the Pequot run along the bank of the Pequot River (now the Thames), asking, "Are you hoggery? Will you cram us? That is, are you angry, will you kill us, do you come to fight?"

That evening, Underhill says, the English remain on the river, in their boats. The Niantic and Pequot build fires on either riverbank so the English won't "land in the night." Underhill complains that, "they made the most doleful and woeful cries all the night (so that we could scarce rest)."

The next day, according to Underhill the English are approached by a Pequot, "a grave senior, a man of good understanding, portly, carriage grave, and majestical in his expressions. He demanded of us what the end of our coming was."

They answer that the government of the Bay has sent them to bring back the heads of the men who murdered Captain Stone. "It was not the custom of the English to suffer murderers to live," they explain. "Therefore, if the Pequot desired their own peace and welfare, they will peaceably answer our expectation and give us the heads of the murderers."

"They being a witty and ingenious nation," Underhill remarks, the old man insisted they knew "not that any of ours have slain any English." Then he told them about a trading boat that came up their river and how the men on it lured their sachem on board and then informed the tribe that if they wanted him back to give them a bushel of wampum. "This peal did ring terribly in our ears," the old man explained. So, he said, the Pequot gave the kidnappers what they asked and the kidnappers returned the sachem to sh.o.r.e, "but first slew him." Seeing the corpse of their leader, he said, "made us vow a revenge."

The elder amba.s.sador continues. When another white man's boat showed up, that being Captain Stone's, the dead sachem's son went aboard. "Stone, having drunk more than did him good, fell backwards on the bed asleep." So the sachem's son took out his hatchet and "therewith knocked him in the head." The old man asks, "Could ye blame us for revenging so cruel a murder? For we distinguish not between the Dutch and the English, but took them to be one nation. And therefore, we do not conceive that we wronged you."

The English aren't buying it. They tell the amba.s.sador that his people have had more than enough contact with the English and the Dutch to tell the two apart. "Seeing you have slain the king of England's subjects, we came to demand an account of their blood."

The old man then counters, essentially, No, really, we can't tell you people apart. Then the English tell him that can't be true. "We must have the heads of those persons that have slain ours or we will fight you."

The old man asks them to wait in their boat and he will go to his people and bring back an answer. When the soldiers follow him ash.o.r.e, he insists the Englishmen wait in a spot they quickly determine is the most vulnerable position around. " They carried themselves very subtly," Underhill remarks of the old man's smarts. He comes back and says the sachem has gone to Long Island.

The English tell him they don't believe this and if the Pequot don't produce the sachem forthwith, the soldiers will "beat up the drum and march through the country and spoil your corn."

So the old man tells the English to wait. So they do. Then they wait some more. Then they notice, while they're waiting, that the Pequot are leading away their women and children and burying things of value. In other words, preparing either for battle or escape. When a messenger tells the English the sachem will see them if they will lay down their arms, the English say no and the Pequot laugh at them for waiting so long, so the English start shooting w.i.l.l.y-nilly and the Pequot run off and the English dig up the Pequot's stuff and take it, says Underhill, as booty. Then, just as they had done on Block Island, Underhill writes, "We spent the day burning and spoiling the country." And, "having burnt and spoiled what we could light on, we embarked our men and set sail for the Bay."

Winthrop's journal records with delight that the men "came all safe to Boston, which was a marvelous providence of G.o.d, that not a hair fell from the head of any of them." Not only that, but on their way home, they were accompanied by a Narragansett interpreter who killed a Pequot in a swamp along the way and "flayed off the skin of his head," i.e., scalped him. So: bonus.

The jubilation, however, is short-lived when Winthrop hears from Williams that the Pequot are attempting not only to make peace with the Narragansett but "had labored to persuade them that the English were minded to destroy all Indians." Boston is alarmed enough by the possibility of a Pequot-Narragansett alliance, according to Winthrop, that they send for Miantonomi right away.

By the time Miantonomi arrives in Boston, there have been more skirmishes between the Pequot and the settlers in Saybrook.

According to Winthrop's journal entry for October 21, 1636, Miantonomi addresses an a.s.sembly of Boston's magistrates and ministers. He rea.s.sures them " That [the Narragansett] had always loved the English, and desired firm peace with us" and "that they would continue in war with the Pequot and their confederates."

Boston draws up a formal agreement with Miantonomi, but since he doesn't entirely understand the articles of the treaty, Winthrop says, "We agreed to send a copy of them to Mr. Williams who could best interpret them to them." The treaty calls for "neither party to make peace with the Pequot without the other's consent"; "not to harbor the Pequots"; "to put to death or deliver over murderers"; and "free trade between us."

If only every English ally were as cordial as Miantonomi. In the same entry, Winthrop reports receiving a snippy letter from Governor Bradford in Plymouth complaining that Boston had "occasioned a war by provoking the Pequot," thus placing Plymouth in harm's way. Winthrop admits the letter irks him. " The deputy took it ill" is how he puts it. He writes back to Bradford, "We went not to make war upon them, but to do justice."

In this same action-packed journal entry about the treaty with the Narragansett and the displeasure of Plymouth, Winthrop brings up "one Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston" and her "dangerous errors." This is the first time Winthrop mentions Anne Hutchinson. The years 1636-37 are busy and difficult: Boston banishes Roger Williams, prepares to go to war against the king of England, does go to war with the Pequot, watches Connecticut draw away some of its best citizens, and deals with Anne Hutchinson, a female blabbermouth who is so difficult and so defiant that the General Court will long for the good old days of bickering with the comparatively easygoing Williams.

By January of 1637, Winthrop's journal notes that "a general fast was kept in all the churches." The Ma.s.sachusetts Bay colonists diet en ma.s.se to appease G.o.d for an acc.u.mulation of sins and worries-everything from the "bishops making havoc" back home with their "popish ceremonies and doctrines" to "the dangers of those at Connecticut, and of ourselves also, by the Indians," as well as "the dissensions in our churches," by which he means the recent Hutchinson hubbub.

By March, good old Miantonomi sends Boston a tribute of "forty fathom of wampum and a Pequot's hand," severed body parts being the seventeenth-century equivalent of a gift basket of mini-m.u.f.fins. Also, the Connecticut settlers send word that they are, per Winthrop's journal, "unsatisfied with our former expedition of the Pequot, and their expectations of a further prosecution of the war." To that end, Boston dispatches Captain John Underhill to Saybrook.

May of 1637 is the most eventful month in an eventful year. Partly as a result of his firm hand (which is to say hypercritical severity-a Puritan selling point) throughout the Anne Hutchinson crisis, Winthrop is reelected governor for the first time in three years. There's news from Connecticut that the Pequot killed nine English settlers and kidnapped two English girls. And Roger Williams, acting as the Bay Colony's go-between with the Narragansett, sends a letter to Boston reporting that "our neighbor princes," i.e., Canonicus and Miantonomi, have been made aware of "your intentions and preparations against the common enemy, the Pequot."

"Miantonomi kept his barbarous court lately at my house," Williams continues. Then he boasts, "He takes some pleasure to visit me." The Narragansett send along a list of suggestions and requests for joining the English in combat, including advising the English to attack the Pequot at night "when they are commonly more secure at home, by which advantage [they] may enter the houses and do what execution they please."

For their trouble, Williams writes that Canonicus would "gladly accept a box of eight or ten pounds of sugar." He also notes "that it would be pleasing to all natives, that women and children be spared." At the end of Williams's letter is a helpful map of the Connecticut River area, including where the Pequot forts are, including the location of the princ.i.p.al sachem, Sa.s.sacus.

Captain John Mason, a former Bostonian who had settled in Connecticut, leads a force of colonists and Mohegan allies under the command of Uncas to Fort Saybrook, where they will meet up with the Boston soldiers under the command of John Underhill and the Narragansett. Mason and Uncas split up, with Mason's forces going by boat and Uncas's men going on foot. Mason was dubious at best whether he could count on Uncas. He would soon find out that the English could always count on Uncas.

Not only did Uncas show up at the fort, as promised, he and his men got into a sc.r.a.pe with some Pequot on the way there and brought back five severed Pequot heads to prove it. Mason, who, like Underhill, wrote a memoir of the conflict-A Brief History of the Pequot War-enthuses that the English saw the decapitations as "a special providence; for before we were somewhat doubtful of [Uncas's] fidelity." Underhill uses the same word to describe the Mohegan commitment in News from America: News from America: " This mightily encouraged the hearts of all, and we took this as a pledge of their further fidelity." " This mightily encouraged the hearts of all, and we took this as a pledge of their further fidelity."

More good news. Oh, but what could be better news than a bouquet of enemy heads rolling around the fort's floor? Live English girls. Underhill relates that brave Dutch traders dispatched by the governor of New Netherland rescued the two Connecticut maids who had been kidnapped by the Pequot and return them to the fort. The eldest girl, who is sixteen, especially impresses the men. Underhill writes, "She told us [the Pequot] did solicit her to uncleanness, but her heart being much broken," she asked them, "How shall I commit this great evil and sin against my G.o.d?" Fearing "G.o.d's displeasure with them," the Pequot didn't touch either girl. Still, Underhill recounts, "hope was their chiefest food and tears their constant drink." The girl recalls that she lost hope and worried her captors would kill her, especially if the war came.

Then she had a most Calvinist epiphany. She asked herself, "Why should I distrust G.o.d? Do I not daily see the love of G.o.d to my poor, distressed soul? And he hath said that he will never leave me, nor forsake me." Realizing this, she resolved, "I will not fear what man can do unto me, knowing G.o.d to be above man, and man can do nothing without G.o.d's permission."

Underhill is clearly awed by the girl's pious pluck. She inspires him to think of celebrated would-be martyrs of the Old Testament, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like Daniel in the lion's den: "Better in a fiery furnace with the presence of Christ, than in a kingly palace without him. Better in the lion's den, in the midst of all the roaring lions with Christ, than in a down bed with wife and children without Christ."

Thus are the English troops spiritually nurtured by the released Calvinist captive, and in good spirits due to Uncas's so very thoughtful decapitation offering, when Miantonomi and his army arrive to help out. Mason recalls that the Narragansett gathered themselves "into a ring, one by one, making solemn protestations how gallantly they would [carry] themselves and how many men they would kill."

Mason reports that on May 25, "about eight of the clock in the morning, we marched thence toward the Pequot, with about five hundred Indians." Their original aim was to attack the headquarters of Sa.s.sacus, the Pequot sachem. After all, it was Sa.s.sacus who had murdered Captain Stone to avenge his father's death. But at some point, they decide to attack the Pequot fort at Mystic instead. It's closer.

As the day wears on, they get hotter and hungrier, and Mason says that "some of our men fainted."

"I then inquired of Uncas," he writes, asking "what he thought the Indians would do?" Uncas predicts, "The Narragansetts would all leave us." As for the Mohegan, Uncas rea.s.sures Mason that "he would never leave us: and so it proved: For which expressions and some other speeches of his, I shall never forget him. Indeed he was a great friend, and did great service."

At night, recalls Mason, "the rocks were our pillows; yet rest was pleasant."

The next morning, Mason asks Uncas and his comrade, Wequash-the same Wequash whose deathbed lamentations Roger Williams recounts in A Key A Key-where the fort is. They tell him it's on top of a nearby hill. Looking around, Mason wonders where the h.e.l.l the Narragansett have disappeared to. They are nowhere to be seen. Uncas replies that they're hanging back, "exceedingly afraid." Mason tells Uncas and Wequash not to leave but to stand back and wait to see "whether Englishmen would now fight or not."

Then Underhill joins in the huddle and he and Mason begin "commending ourselves to G.o.d." They divide their men in half, "there being two entrances to the fort."

The Pequot fort is encircled within a palisade-a wall made of thick tree trunks standing up and fastened together. Around seven hundred men, women, and children are asleep in wigwams inside.

Mason writes that they "heard a dog bark." Their sneak attack is foiled. The Pequot Paul Revere alerts the town. Mason says they heard "an Indian crying Owanux! Owanux! Owanux! Owanux! Which is Englishmen! Englishmen!" Which is Englishmen! Englishmen!"

Mason: "We called up our forces with all expedition, gave fire upon them through the palisade, the Indians being in a dead-indeed their last-sleep."

Mason commands the Narragansett and Mohegan to surround the palisade in what Underhill describes as a "ring battalia, giving a volley of shot upon the fort." Hearing gunfire, the awakened Pequot, writes Underhill, "brake forth into the most doleful cry."

The Pequot screams are so doleful Underhill says the English almost sympathize with their prey-almost. Until the English manage to remember why they are there in the first place (to avenge the murder of various Englishmen, from a drunken, wife-stealing pirate to the settlers on the Connecticut frontier when those girls were kidnapped). Thus Underhill reports, "Every man being bereaved of pity fell upon the work without compa.s.sion, considering the blood [the Pequot] had shed of our native countrymen."

Then the English enter the fort, carrying, per Underhill, "our swords in our right hand, our carbines or muskets in our left hand." Mason and Underhill start knocking heads inside the wigwams. Various Pequot come at them. "Most courageously these Pequot behaved themselves," Underhill will praise them later on.

Combat in the cozy little bark houses is chaos-too dangerous and unpredictable. Mason is. .h.i.t with arrows and Underhill's hip is grazed. Mason is faced, on a smaller scale, with the same problem Harry Truman would confront when he was forced to ponder the logistics of invading j.a.pan in 1945. A ground war would d.a.m.n untold thousands of American troops to certain slaughter. The Puritan commander, in a smaller, grubbier, lower-tech way, arrives at the same conclusion as Truman when he ordered the bombing of Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki. Mason says, "We must burn them."

And they do.

Mason dashes inside a hut, lights a torch, and "set the wigwam on fire." The inhabitants are stunned. "When it was thoroughly kindled," Mason recalls, "the Indians ran as men most dreadfully amazed."

Underhill, too, lights up his vicinity, and "the fires of both meeting in the center of the fort blazed most terribly and burnt all in the s.p.a.ce of half an hour."

The wind helps. According to Mason, the fire "did swiftly overrun the fort, to the extreme amazement of the enemy, and great rejoicing of ourselves." Mason notes that some of the Indians try to climb over the palisade and others start "running into the very flames." They shoot arrows at the Englishmen, who answer them with gunfire, but, writes Underhill, "the fire burnt their very bowstrings."