next few years, in spite of the treaty, there was a good deal of disturbance on the frontier, and some commission of cruelties, until the colonists became gradually roused into fury. Some tribes were friendly with them; and, uniting with these the Mohicans and river Indians, under the conduct of Uncas, the Mohican chief, seventy-seven Englishmen made a raid into the Pequot country and drove them from it. Then, in 1637, a battle, called “the Great Swamp Fight,” took place between the English, Dutch, and friendly Indians on the one hand, and the Pequots on the other. It ended in the slaughter of seven hundred of the Pequots and thirteen of their Sachems. The wife of one of the Sachems was taken, and as she had protected two captive English girls she was treated with great consideration, and was much admired for her good sense and modesty; but the other prisoners were dispersed among the settlers to serve as slaves, and a great number of the poor creatures were shipped off to the West India Islands to work on the sugar plantations.
Those who had escaped the battle were hunted down by the Mohicans and Narragansets, who continually brought their scalps in to the English towns, and at last they were reduced to sue for peace when only 200 braves were still living. These, with their families, were amalgamated with the Mohicans and Narragansets, and expelled from their former territory, on which the English settled. An annual tribute of a length of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to age and rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so entirely established that nearly forty years of peace succeeded.
Eliot’s missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first inspired by the “remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries,” by whom he probably means the French Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the settlements in Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV. Another stimulus came from the expressions in the Royal Charter which had granted licence for the establishment of the colony, namely, “To win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith, in our Royal intention and the Adventurers’ free profession, is the principal end of the Plantation.”
That the devil himself was the Red men’s master, and came to their assistance when summoned by the incantations of their medicine men, was the universal belief of the colonists, in corroboration of which the following story is given:—“The Indians in their wars with us, finding a sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if in the night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed a dog to the devil, after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers months ensuing.”
In the intended contest Mr. Eliot began by preaching and making collections from the English settlers, and likewise “he hires a native to teach him this exotick language, and, with a laborious care and skill, reduces it into a grammar, which afterwards he published. There is a letter or two of our alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be found an R in their language, . . . but, if their alphabet be short, I am sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire the patience of any scholar in the world; they are Sesquipedalia verba, of which their linguo is composed. For instance, if I were to translate our Loves, it must be nothing shorter than Noowomantamoonkanunonush. Or to give my reader a longer word, Kremmogkodonattootummootiteaonganunnnash is, in English, our question.”
The worthy Mr. Mather adds, with a sort of apology, that, having once found that the demons in a possessed young woman understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he himself tried them with this Indian tongue, and “the demons did seem as if they understood it.” Indeed, he thinks the words must have been growing ever since the confusion of Babel! The fact appears to be, that these are what are now called agglutinate languages, and, like those of all savage tribes, in a continual course of alteration—also often using a long periphrastic description to convey an idea or form a name. A few familiar instances will occur, such as Niagara, “thunder of water.”
This formidable language Mr. Eliot—the anagram of whose name, Mather appropriately observes, was Toils—mastered with the assistance of a “pregnant-witted Indian,” who had been a servant in an English family. By the help of his natural turn for philology, he was able to subdue this instrument to his great and holy end,—with what difficulty may be estimated from the sentence with which he concluded his grammar: “Prayer and pains through faith in Christ Jesus will do anything.”
It was in the year 1646, while Cromwell was gradually obtaining a preponderating influence in England, and King Charles had gone to seek protection in the Scottish army, that John Eliot, then in his forty-second year, having thus prepared himself, commenced his campaign.
He had had a good deal of conversation with individual Indians who came about the settlement at Roxbury, and who perceived the advantages of some of the English customs. They said they believed that in forty years the Red and White men would be all one, and were really anxious for this consummation. When Eliot declared that the superiority of the White race came from their better knowledge of God, and offered to come and instruct them, they were full of joy and gratitude; and on the 28th of October, 1646, among the glowing autumn woods, a meeting of Indians was convoked, to which Mr. Eliot came with three companions. They were met by a chief named Waban, or the Wind, who had a son at an English school, and was already well disposed towards them, and who led them to his wigwam, where the principal men of the tribe awaited them.
“All the old men of the village,
All the warriors of the nation,
All the Jossakeeds, the prophets,
The magicians, the Wabenos,
And the medicine men, the medas,
Came to bid the strangers welcome.
‘It is well,’ they said, ‘O brothers,
That you came so far to see us.’
In a circle round the doorway,
With their pipes they sat in silence,
Waiting to behold the strangers,
Waiting to receive their message,
Till the Black Robe chief, the pale face,
From the wigwam came to greet them,
Stammering in his speech a little,
Speaking words yet unfamiliar.”
Mr. Eliot prayed in English, and then preached on the 9th and 10th verses of the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet is bid to call the Breath of God from the four winds of heaven to give life to the dry bones around. It so happened that the Indian word for breath or wind was Waban, and this made a great impression, and was afterwards viewed as an omen.
The preacher worked up from the natural religion, of which this fine race already had an idea, to the leading Christian truths.
Then the Black Robe chief, the prophet,
Told his message to the people,
Told the purport of his mission,
Told them of the Virgin Mary,
And her blessed Son, the Saviour:
How in distant lands and ages
He had lived on earth as we do;
How He fasted, prayed, and laboured;
How the Jews, the tribe accursed,
Mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him;
How He rose from where they laid Him,
Walked again with His disciples,
And ascended into heaven.”
The sermon lasted an hour and a quarter, but the Indians are a dignified and patient people, prone to long discourses themselves, and apt to listen to them from others. When he finally asked if they had understood, many voices replied that they had; and, on his encouraging them to ask questions, many intelligent inquiries were made.
