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PHILIP OF POKANOKET.

AN INDIAN MEMOIR.

[The following anecdotes, illustrative of Indian character, are gathered from various sources, that have every appearance of being authentic. It was thought needless to encumber the page with references.]

It is to be regretted that those early writers, who treated of the discovery and settlement of our country, have not given us more frequent and candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage life. The scanty anecdotes that have reached us are full of peculiarity and interest; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is, in a comparatively primitive state, and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm of discovery, in happening upon these wild, unexplored tracts of human nature—in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral sentiment, and perceiving those generous and romantic qualities, which have been artificially wrought up by society, vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence.

In civilized life, where the happiness and almost existence of man depends so much upon public opinion, he is forever acting a part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away, or softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed good breeding, and he practises so many amiable deceptions, and assumes so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of popularity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real character from that which is acquired or affected. The Indian, on the contrary, free from the restraints and refinements of polished life, and living, in a great degree, solitary and independent, obeys the impulses of his inclination, or the dictates of his individual judgment, and thus the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great and striking. Society is like an artificial lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge int

the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.

These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume of early provincial history, wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New England. It is painful to perceive, even from those partial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization in this country may be traced in the blood of the original inhabitants; how easily the colonists were moved to hostility by the lust of conquest; how merciless and exterminating was their warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth; how many brave and noble hearts, of nature's sterling coinage, were broken down and trampled in the dust.

Such was the fate of PHILIP OF POKANOKET, an Indian warrior, whose name was once a terror throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the most distinguished of a number of cotemporary sachems, who reigned over the Pequods, the Narragansets, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern tribes, at the time of the first settlement of New England—a band of native, untaught heroes, who made the most generous struggle of which human nature is capable; fighting to the last gasp for the deliverance of their country, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown; worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjects for local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk, like gigantic shadows, in the dim twilight of tradition.

When the pilgrims, as they are termed, first took refuge on the shores of the new world from the persecutions of the old, they found themselves in the most gloomy and helpless situation. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away by sickness and hardships; surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes ; exposed to the rigours of an almost arctic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever shifting climate; their hearts were filled with the most gloomy forebodings, and nothing preserved them from sinking into utter despondency, but the strong excitement of religious enthu siasm. In this forlorn situation, they received from Massasoit, chief sagamore of the Wampanoags, the cheering rites of primitive hospitality. This powerful prince, who reigned over a great extent

of country, came early in the spring, with a small retinue, to the new settlement of Plymouth; instead of taking advantage of the scanty numbers of the strangers, and expelling them from his territories, into which they had intruded, he entered into a solemn league of peace and amity, sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure to them the good will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain that nothing appears to impeach the integrity and good faith of Massasoit. He continued a firm and generous friend of the white men, allowing them to extend and strengthen themselves in the land, and betraying no jealousy at their increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his death he came once more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander, to renew the covenant of peace, and to secure it to his posterity. In this treaty he endeavoured to protect the religion of his forefathers from the zealous attacks of the missionaries; he stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw off his people from their ancient faith; but finding the English obstinately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relinquished the demand. Almost the last act of his life was to bring his two sons, Alexander and Philip, to the residence of a principal settler, recommending mutual kindness and confidence, and entreating that the same love and amity which had existed between the white men and himself, might be continued afterwards with his children. The good old sachem died in peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon his tribe-his children remained behind to experience the gratitude of white men.

His eldest son, Alexander, who succeeded him, soon incurred the hostilities of the settlers. He was of a quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intrusive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers excited his indignation; and he beheld with alarm their merciless and exterminating wars against the neighbouring tribes. Whether authorized by fact, or dictated by suspicion, he was accused of plotting with the Narrhagansets to rise against the English, and drive them from the land. The proceedings of the settlers show the rapid increase of their power, and their overbearing conduct towards the natives. They despatched an armed force to seize upon Alexander, and bring him before their court. He

was traced to his woodland haunts, and surprised at a huntinghouse, where he was reposing unarmed, with a band of his followers, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his sovereign dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this proud savage as to throw him into a raging fever; he was permitted to return home on condition of sending his son as a hostage for his appearance; but the blow he had received was fatal, and before he reached his home he fell a victim to the exasperations of a wounded spirit.

The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or King Philip, as he was called by the settlers, on account of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. The well known energy and enterprise of his character made him an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of always cherishing a secret and implacable hostility towards the English. Such may very probably and very naturally have been the case. He considered them as originally mere intruders in the country, who were presuming upon indulgence, and extending an influence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his countrymen melting before them from the face of the earth; their territories slipping from their hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, scattered, and dependent. It may be said that the soil was originally purchased by the settlers; but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases? The nations were equally despoiled by the arts and the arms of the white men. The latter made thrifty bargains by their superior adroitness in traffic, and they gained vast accessions of territory by easily excited hostilities. An uncultivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the refinements of law, by which an injury may be legally inflicted. Leading facts are all by which he judges, and it was enough for Philip to know, that before the intrusion of the Europeans his countrymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were becoming vagabonds in the land of their fathers.

But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility, and his particular indignation at the treatment of his brother, he suppressed them for the present, renewed the contract with the settlers, and resided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as it was called by the English, Mount Hope, the ancient seat of * Now Bristol, Rhode Island. 64

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dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, however, which were at first but vague and indefinite, began to acquire form and substance, and he was at length charged with attempting to instigate the various tribes of the east to rise at once and make a common effort to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is difficult to assign the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians. There was a proneness to suspicion, and an aptness for acts of violence, on the part of the whites, that gave weight and impor tance to every idle tale. Informers abounded where talebearing met with countenance and reward; and the sword was readily unsheathed where its success was certain, and it carved out empire.

The only positive evidence on record against Philip is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natural cunning had been heightened by a partial education which he had received among the settlers. He had two or three times changed his faith and his allegiance, with a facility that shows great looseness of principle, and, after having acted as Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and enjoyed his bounty and protection, he deserted him when he found the glooms of adversity beginning to lower around him, went over to the whites, and, in order to gain favour, turned against his former benefactor, and charged him with plotting against their safety. A rigorous investigation took place. Philip and several of his subjects submitted to be examined, but nothing was proved against them. The settlers, however, had now gone too far to retract; they had determined that Philip was a dangerous neighbour; they had publicly evinced their distrust, and had done enough to arouse his hostility: according, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his destruction had become necessary to their security. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly after found murdered in a pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and counsellor of Philip, were apprehended and tried, and, on the testimony of one questionable witness, were condemned and executed as his murderers.

This treatment of his subjects, and ignominious punishment of his friend, outraged the pride and exasperated the passions of Philip. The bolt that had thus fallen at his very feet awakened him to the gathering storm, and he determined to trust himself no longer in the power of the white men. The fate of his insulted and