After the death of the friendly and powerful sachem, his sons Wamsutta and Metacomet continued their profession of good-will towards the English. About 1656, they presented themselves to the court at Plymouth, and, by their own request, received English names. Wamsutta was denominated Alexander, and Metacomet, Philip, long after a name of terror to the colonies.

In 1662, Alexander, having been suspected of being engaged with the Narragansetts in plans hostile to the English settlers, was taken by surprise, and forcibly carried to Plymouth. This indignity is said so to have chafed his proud spirit, that it threw him into a fever, of which he died shortly after. Contradictory reports have been handed down to us concerning the manner of his treatment during this brief captivity, and the circumstances attending his death.

Shortly after this event, Philip, now sachem of Pocanoket, came to the court at Plymouth, with renewed acknowledgments of subjection to the king of England, and promises to fulfil all engagements theretofore entered into by himself, his father, and brother. He covenanted, moreover, not to sell any of his lands to strangers without the knowledge and consent of the authorities at Plymouth.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

THE NARRAGANSETTS.

CHAPTER II.

OLDHAM. ENDICOTT'S

MURDER OF STONE AND

THE PEQUOTS.
EXPEDITION. THE PEQUOT WAR.-DE-

STRUCTION OF THE PEQUOT FORT.-THE TRIBE DISPERSED AND
SUBDUED.

"Dark as the frost-nipped leaves that strew the ground,
The Indian hunter here his shelter found;
Here cut his bow, and shaped his arrows true,
Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe,
Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall,
And slew the deer without the rifle ball;
Here his young squaw her cradling-tree would choose,
Singing her chant to hush her swart pappoose;
Here stain her quills, and string her trinkets rude,
And weave her warrior's wampum in the wood."

BRAINARD.

THE islands and western shores of the beautiful bay which still bears their name were, at the time of the first European settlement, in the possession of the great and powerful tribe of the Narragansetts. Their dominions

extended thirty or forty miles to the westward, as far as the country of the Pequots, from whom they were separated by the Pawcatuck river.

Their chief sachem was the venerable Canonicus, who governed the tribe, with the assistance and support of his nephew Miantonimo. The celebrated Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island and Providence plantations, always noted for his kindness, justice, and impartiality towards the natives, was high in favor with the old chief, and exercised an influence over him, without which his power might have been fatally turned against the English. Canonicus, he informs us, loved him as a son to the day of his death.

Mr. Williams had been obliged to leave the colony at

the eastward, in consequence of his religious opinions, which did not coincide with those so strictly interwoven with the government and policy of the Puritans. He was a man of whose enterprise and wisdom the state which he first settled is justly proud, and whose liberal and magnanimous disposition stands out in striking relief when compared with the intolerant and narrow-minded prejudices of his contemporaries.

Miantonimo is described as a warrior of a tall and commanding appearance; proud and magnanimous ; “subtile and cunning in his contrivements;" and of undaunted courage.

The Pequots and Mohegans, who formed but one tribe, and were governed during the early period of English colonization by one sachem, appear to have emigrated from the west not very long before the first landing of Europeans on these shores. They were entirely disconnected with the surrounding tribes, with whom they were engaged in continual hostilities, and were said to have reached the country they then inhabited from the north. They probably formed a portion of the Mohican or Mohegan nation on the Hudson, and arrived at the sea-coast by a circuitous route, moving onward in search of better hunting grounds, or desirous of the facilities for procuring support offered by the productions of the sea.

In various warlike incursions they had gained a partial possession of extensive districts upon the Connecticut river, and from them the early Dutch settlers purchased the title to the lands they occupied in that region.

In the year 1634, one Captain Stone, a trader from Virginia, of whom the early narrators give rather an evil report, having put into the Connecticut river in a small vessel, was killed, together with his whole crew, by a party of Indians whom he had suffered to remain on board his vessel.

Two years later, a Mr. John Oldham was murdered at