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HAPTER field, marched to his assistance, but arrived too late to Deerfield was abandoned, and burned by the 1675. Indians. Springfield, about the same time, was set on fire, but was partially saved by the arrival, with troops from Connecticut, of Major Treat, successor to the lately-deceased Mason in the chief command of the ConnecDet. 19. ticut forces. An attack on Hatfield was vigorously repelled by the garrison.

Meanwhile, hostilities were spreading; the Indians on the Merrimac began to attack the towns in their vicinity; and the whole of Massachusetts was soon in the utmost alarm. Except in the immediate neighborhood of Boston, the country still remained an immense forest, dotted by a few openings. The frontier settlements could not be defended against a foe familiar with localities, scattered in small parties, skillful in concealment, and watching with patience for some unguarded or favorable moment. Those settlements were mostly broken up, and the inhabitants, retiring toward Boston, spread every where dread and intense hatred of "the bloody heathen." Even the praying Indians, and the small dependent and tributary tribes, became objects of suspicion and terror. They had been employed at first as scouts and auxiliaries, and to good advantage; but some few, less confirmed in the faith, having deserted to the enemy, the whole body of them were denounced as traitors. Eliot the apostle, and Gookin, superintendent of the subject Indians, exposed themselves to insults, and even to danger, by their efforts to stem this headlong fury, to which several of the magistrates opposed but a feeble resistance. Troops were sent to break up the paying villages at Mendon, Grafton, and others in that quarter. The Natick Indians, "those poor despised sheep of Christ," as Gookin affectionately calls them, were bur

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ried off to Deer Island, in Boston harbor, where they CHAPTER suffered excessively from a severe winter. A part of the praying Indians of Plymouth colony were confined, in 1675. like manner, on the islands in Plymouth harbor.

Not content with realities sufficiently frightful, superstition, as usual, added bugbears of her own. Indian bows were seen in the sky, and scalps in the moon. The northern lights became an object of terror. Phantom horsemen careered among the clouds, or were heard to gallop invisible through the air. The howling of wolves was turned into a terrible omen. The war was regarded as a special judgment in punishment of prevailing sins. Among these sins, the General Court of Massa- Oct. 18 chusetts, after consultation with the elders, enumerated neglect in the training of the children of church members; pride, in men's wearing long and curled hair; excess in apparel; naked breasts and arms, and superfluous ribbons; the toleration of Quakers; hurry to leave meeting before blessing asked; profane cursing and swearing; tippling houses; want of respect for parents; idleness; extortion in shop-keepers and mechanics; and the riding from town to town of unmarried men and women, under pretense of attending lectures-"a sinful custom, tending to lewdness." Penalties were denounced against all these offenses; and the persecution of the Quakers was again renewed. A Quaker woman had recently fright ened the Old South congregation in Boston by entering that meeting-house clothed in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, her feet bare, and her face blackened, intending to personify the small-pox, with which she threatened the colony, in punishment for its sins.

About the time of the first collision with Philip, the Tarenteens, or Eastern Indians, had attacked the settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, plundering and

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CHAPTER burning the houses, and massacring such of the inhab. itants as fell into their hands. This sudden diffusion of 1675. hostilities and vigor of attack from opposite quarters, made the colonists believe that Philip had long been plotting and had gradually matured an extensive conspiracy, into which most of the tribes had deliberately entered, for the extermination of the whites. This belief infuriated the colonists, and suggested some very questionable proceedings. It seems, however, to have originated, like the war itself, from mere suspicions. The same griefs pressed upon all the tribes; and the struggle once commenced, the awe which the colonists inspired thrown off, the greater part were ready to join in the contest. But there is no evidence of any deliberate concert; nor, in fact, were the Indians united. Had they been so, the

war would have been far more serious. The Connecticut tribes proved faithful, and that colony remained untouched. Uncas and Ninigret continued friendly; even the Narragansets, in spite of so many former provocations, had not yet taken up arms. But they were strongly suspected of intention to do so, and were accused by Uncas of giving, notwithstanding their recent assurances, aid and shelter to the hostile tribes.

An attempt had lately been made to revive the union of the New England colonies. At a meeting of comSept. 9 missioners, those from Plymouth presented a narrative of the origin and progress of the present hostilities. Upon the strength of this narrative the war was pronounced "just and necessary," and a resolution was passed to carry it on at the joint expense, and to raise for that purpose a thousand men, one half to be mounted dragoons. If the Narragansets were not crushed during the winter, it was feared they might break out openly hostile in the spring; and at a subsequent meeting a thousand men

were ordered to be levied to co-operate in an expedition CHAPTER specially against them.

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Dec. 12

The winter was unfavorable to the Indians; the leaf- 1675. less woods no longer concealed their lurking attacks. The frozen surface of the swamps made the Indian fastnesses accessible to the colonists. The forces destined against the Narragansets-six companies from Massachusetts, under Major Appleton; two from Plymouth, under Major Bradford; and five from Connecticut, under Major Treat-were placed under the command of Josiah Winslow, governor of Plymouth since Prince's 1672 death-son of that Edward Winslow so conspicuous in the earlier history of the colony. The Massachusetts and Plymouth forces marched to Petasquamscot, on the 1675. west shore of Narraganset Bay, where they made some forty prisoners. Being joined by the troops from Con- Dec. 18 necticut, and guided by an Indian deserter, after a march of fifteen miles through a deep snow, they approached a swamp in what is now the town of South Kingston, one of the ancient strongholds of the Narragansets. Driving the Indian scouts before them, and penetrating the swamp, the colonial soldiers soon came in sight of the Indian fort, built on a rising ground in the morass, a sort of island of two or three acres, fortified by a palisade, and surrounded by a close hedge a rod thick. There was but one entrance, quite narrow, defended by a tree thrown across it, with a block-house of logs in front and another on the flank. It was the "Lord's day," but that did not hinder Dee 19 the attack. As the captains advanced at the heads of their companies, the Indians opened a galling fire, under which many fell. But the assailants pressed on, and forced the entrance. A desperate struggle ensued. The colonists were once driven back, but they rallied and returned to the charge, and, after a two hours' fight, be

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CHAPTER came masters of the fort. Fire was put to the wigwams, near six hundred in number, and all the horrors of the 1675. Pequod massacre were renewed. The corn and other winter stores of the Indians were consumed, and not a few of the old men, women, and children perished in the flames. In this bloody contest, long remembered as the "Swamp Fight," the colonial loss was terribly severe. Six captains, with two hundred and thirty men, were killed or wounded; and at night, in the midst of a snow storm, with a fifteen miles' march before them, the colonial soldiers abandoned the fort, of which the Indians resumed possession. But their wigwams were burned; their provisions destroyed; they had no supplies for the winter; their loss was irreparable. Of those who survived the fight, many perished of hunger.

1676.

Even as a question of policy, this attack on the Narragansets was more than doubtful. The starving and infuriated warriors, scattered through the woods, revenged themselves by attacks on the frontier settlements. LanFeo. 10. caster was burned, and forty of the inhabitants killed or taken; among the rest, Mrs. Rolandson, wife of the minister, the narrative of whose captivity is still preserved. Groton, Chelmsford, and other towns in that vicinity Feb. 21. were repeatedly attacked. Medfield, twenty miles from Boston, was furiously assaulted, and, though defended by three hundred men, half the houses were burned. Weymouth, within eighteen miles of Boston, was attacked a Feb. 25. few days after. These were the nearest approaches which the Indians made to that capital. For a time the neighborhood of the Narraganset country was abandoned. The Rhode Island towns, though they had no part in undertaking the war, yet suffered the consequences of it. WarMarch 17. wick was burned, and Providence was partially destroyed. Most of the inhabitants sought refuge in the islands;