The settlement of New England by the Puritans is the same sad tale.
When the natives offered food and welcome to these helpless wayfarers,
they were repaid in deceit, trickery and total lack of appreciation;
their fanaticism led to a repetition of Cortez' policy of extermination
of the first proprietors,--the Narragansetts and Pequots.The sanctified Puritans who had themselves fled from religious persecution, thus proceeded to accomplish their purpose upon the Pequots who lived in crowded stockades with doorways at either side of sufficient width to let one person through at a time to the wigwams within.
A little before daylight Mason with 16 men occupied the one entrance while Underhill with a similar force held the other side. The attack was skillfully managed and a complete surprise. The Indians in a panic sought first one outlet and then the other. They were ruthlessly shot down whichever way they turned. The soldiers threw fire-brands amongst them and soon the whole village was ablaze. Our white historian says,--"the savages suffered in merciful form, a horrible death."
Of the 700 in the village when the attack was made, only five escaped, and these were pursued and killed in a running fight. All this bloody work was done within an hour, and at least 560 of them were women and children.
For the Narragansetts they did likewise; "Canonchet, having been warned of their coming fate fortified his people on a "rising ground 6 acres in extent in a swamp." Here 2000 of the terrified natives awaited their fate. On a Sunday a little past noon 935 of the Puritans armed themselves and went to the swamp. The slaughter began and we quote from our history that "the rest of the Sunday afternoon, till the sun went down behind a dull gray cloud, the grim and wrathful Puritan, as he swung his heavy cutlass spared not; the Lord had delivered up to him the heathen as stubble to his sword."
Here not less than a 1000 were butchered while their tubs of corn and their wigwams were burned. When King Philip was murdered,--shot through the heart,--"his severed head was sent to Plymouth where it was mounted on a pole exposed aloft on the village green while the Puritans' meeting house bell summoned the people to a special service of thanksgiving."
During this same period that the Pilgrims were making a home for themselves, Smith and his partner Hunt explored the Maine coast and gave to all that section the name New England; on a voyage there in 1614 they enticed 24 Indians to come aboard their vessels and they took them along to Spain and sold them as slaves at Malaga.
Some time later an attempt was made to effect a settlement on the Jersey coast where the Indians received the whites with the natural cordiality,--with food and shelter. These asinine white men put up notices throughout the Indians' hunting grounds in the form of coat-of-arms scratched on pieces of tin. That was their royal sovereign notice of discovery and possession.
One day the chief while out hunting came across one of the glittering pieces of tin tacked to a tree. He pulled it off and made it into a crude pipe which he proudly exhibited to his family and his white guests at camp. The white fools held a solemn 'court trial' of the chief whom they charged with having committed a traitorous act in tearing down the august sovereign's coat-of-arms. They found him guilty as charged, passed sentence upon and actually executed him. When the simple-minded warriors got time to think it over and discuss it in their councils, they saw the injustice of it all, and promptly wiped out the whole silly lot of white folks they had thus befriended and trusted.
