1643.] MIANTONOMO AND THE GORTON CONTROVERSY.

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clam banks, and we shall all be starved. Therefore it is best for you to do as we, for we are all the sachems from east to west, both Moquakues and Mohawks joining with us, and we are all resolved to fall upon them all at one appointed day and when you see the three fires that will be made forty days hence, in a clear night, then do as we, and the next day fall on and kill men, women and children; but no cows, for they will serve to eat till our deer be increased again." 1

This bit of Indian eloquence, which seems to have been the prototype of many Indian speeches since, was probably never made by Miantonomo, but put into his mouth by some clever savage to work him harm. Captain Gardiner, nevertheless, believed it to be his, and reported an intended massacre of the English to Mr. Haynes at Hartford, and Mr. Eaton at New Haven. Massachusetts was appealed to for aid, and the sachem was summoned to Boston to answer the accusation. The only evidence against him was the hearsay testimony of his enemies.

This evidence, though accepted at Hartford, New Haven, and Plymouth, was not believed by the Massachusetts magistrates. Twice (in 1640 and 1642) Miantonomo appeared before them, and by his dignified and fearless bearing, his evident good sense and frankness, satisfied them that, as Winthrop said, "All these informations might arise from a false ground, and out of the enmity which was between the Narragansett and Monhigen."2 The plot had no other foundation than the purpose of Uncas to provoke the English into hostilities against the Narragansetts.

The policy

But the Gorton difficulty favored Uncas in an unexpected way, and forced Miantonomo into an attitude which the United Colonies assumed to be hostile. He would not, with Pum- of Uncas. ham and Sacononoco, repudiate the sale of the lands of Shawomet to Gorton, nor ask, as they did, under the leadership of Benedict Arnold, the protection of Massachusetts. During the progress of that controversy, but before Gorton and his companions were taken prisoners to Boston, Uncas attacked and destroyed a Narragansett village, and killed a number of its people. Miantonomo complained of this outrage to the magistrates of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and begged them not to be offended if he should revenge this wrong done to his relatives and friends. Governor Winthrop replied: "If Onkus [Uncas] had done him or his friends wrong, and would not give satisfaction, we should leave him to take his course." 3

1 Gardiner's Pequot Warres. We follow the text of this supposed speech verbatim, but making a few slight changes in the punctuation where the sense obviously requires it. 8 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 155.

2

Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 100.

Confiding in this assurance of neutrality he went upon the war-path against Uncas. The result was unfortunate, for he was taken prisoner, the weight of the coat of armor, which, it is said, Gorton had given him, preventing his escape by flight. That disgrace, no doubt, overwhelmed him, for he begged his enemies repeatedly to take his life, taunting them, perhaps, after the Indian fashion, with his own deeds of prowess in the past, and how they had fled like women before him at the sound of his war-whoop. But Uncas had learned to refine upon the crude methods of Indian revenge; he sent the great chief to Hartford to be lodged in the common jail.

Miantonomo taken pris

oner.

How should so important a prisoner, falling thus into the hands of the English, be disposed of? The question was one, it seems, not easily answered. The governor and magistrates at Hartford consented to hold him in custody, but declared that it was not for them to decide upon his final disposition; there was no war, they said, between their colony and the Narragansetts to justify their interference. That decision, they thought, belonged to the commissioners of the United Colonies.1

the commissioners.

A meeting of the commissioners, at which Governor Winthrop preCondemned sided, was held in Boston in September, and the subject had to death by their most serious consideration. They well knew, they said, the ambitious design of Miantonomo "to make himself universal Sagamore or Governor of all these parts," and they believed he had determined to exterminate the English; but this knowledge and belief, they declared should not influence their judgment in this case, which was simply one between the two Indians. Their conclusion was "that Uncas cannot be safe while Myantonomo lives, but that either by secret treachery or open force his life will be still in danger. Wherefore they thinke he may justly put such a false and bloodthirsty enemie to death, but in his owne jurisdiccon not in the English plantacons and advising that in the manner of his death all mercy and moderacon be showed, contrary to the practise of the Indians who exercise torture and cruelty."

This was their conclusion. The considerations that led them to it were: That Miantonomo had made war upon Uncas without submitting his grievances to the English for arbitration, as had been provided by treaty that a subject of Uncas had attempted to kill him and then fled for protection to the Narragansetts, and that Miantonomo instead of surrendering him as he had promised, had himself cut off the culprit's head, "that he might tell no tales:" that Miantonomo had attempted to destroy Uncas by "sorcery": that it was Sequasson and not Uncas who was the original aggressor in the quarrel 1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 131.

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EXECUTION OF MIANTONOMO.

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that led to the conflict between Uncas and Miantonomo: and, finally, that Miantonomo had "suddainly without denouncing war" come upon Uncas with superior numbers and relying upon those had declined to settle their feud by single combat; that the Mohawks were now within a day's journey awaiting the issue of his capture, though what they might do "whether against the English, or Uncas, or both," the commissioners acknowledged, " is doubtful." 1

This formidable indictment, nevertheless, was not accepted, at once, as conclusive. Winthrop's statement of the conclusion of the commissioners is, that they, "taking into consideration what was safest and best to be done, were all of opinion that it would not be safe to set him [Miantonomo] at liberty, neither had we sufficient ground for us to put him to death."

Here then was a dilemma. Was Miantonomo to be punished because he was the enemy of the English? He was believed to be so in Plymouth, New Haven, and Hartford, but hitherto Massachusetts

had not believed it; moreover, the delegates from those colonies declared that was not the question now at issue. Was he to be punished because he had disregarded the treaty, as the commissioners said, by neglecting to notify the English that he proposed to make

1 Hazard's State Papers, vol. ii., pp. 8, et seq.

war upon Uncas? But this was not true, according to Winthrop's own testimony. Miantonomo, he had recorded in his journal," sent to Mr. Haynes (at Hartford) to complain of Onkus ;" and Governor Haynes had replied, "that the English had no hand in it, nor would "Miantonomo encourage them." notice hereof also to our govgave ernor " Winthrop himself - continues the journal, and the chief was told "to take his own course. Miantonomo took "his own course. Was it a crime because the fortune of war was against him? In this difficulty," says Winthrop, after giving the decision of the commissioners" in this difficulty we called in five of the most judicious elders, (it being the time of the general assembly of the elders,) and propounding the case to them,

66

The question settled by five elders.

"in

they all agreed that he ought to be put to death."

"It was now clearly discovered to us," says the governor, "that there was a general conspiracy among the Indians to cut off all the English and that Miantunnomoh was the head and contriver of it." Apparently it was the judgment of the elders alone that revealed the truth of what hitherto had not been credited, for there seems to have been no new evidence.

Miantonomo was to die then by the sentence of the English, but Uncas was appointed to be his executioner. The Mohegan chief was by no means reluctant to take upon himself that pleasant office. The prisoner was delivered into his hands and marched to a spot near where he was captured, now known as Sachem's Plain, in Norwich, Connecticut. It was ordered by the commissioners that the execution should be without torture, and some Englishmen were present to see that the order was obeyed. If the method chosen was savage, it was, at least, merciful: one of Uncas's men said to be his brother-stealthily approached the prisoner from behind, and with a deadly blow buried a hatchet in his brain. Uncas sprang upon the body of his fallen enemy, and cutting a large piece of flesh from the shoulder devoured it in triumph, exclaiming, "it was the sweetest meat he ever ate, it made his heart strong.” 1

The execution of Miantonomo.

Drake's Book of the Indians, p. 65. tragedy, notwithstanding Savage Drake doubts if Uncas committed authority for the tradition. A

1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 135. Winthrop was probably wrong as to the place of this (vol. ii., p. 162), in a note, maintains that he is right. the savage act attributed to him, but Trumbull is good monument has been erected to the memory of the great Sachem on Sachem's Plain in Norwich.

THE SHAWOMET CONTROVERSY TAKEN TO ENGLAND. -DECIDED IN FAVOR OF GORTON AND HIS ASSOCIATES.-CHARTER GRANTED TO PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.-CIVIL LIBERTY AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION PROVIDED FOR. - VISIT OF CLARK, HOLMES, AND CRANDALL TO BOSTON. - PUNISHED FOR HOLDING AND PREACHING HETERODOX OPINIONS. DISSENSIONS IN RHODE ISLAND. - CODDINGTON APPOINTED GOVERNOR FOR LIFE THE CHARTER GRANTED BY CHARLES II. ITS CHARACTER AND HISTORICAL INTEREST.

DEEPLY moved with grief and indignation as the Narragansetts were when they heard of the treacherous assassination of their young and beloved sachem, it shows how little real fear there was of any retaliation on their part, that a small guard was thought sufficient for the protection of Uncas. "That the Indians might know," says Winthrop, that the English did approve of it, they sent 12 or 14 musketeers home with Onkus, to abide a time with him for his defence, if need should be." There was no need; the Narragansetts understood.

Shawomet.

They understood, they thought, so well that when a few months later Gorton and his men came back rejoicing and confident Gorton's rewith not a hair the less upon their heads, it was, the Narra- turn to gansetts believed, because the others were afraid. Gorton looked, he told them, to the king for justice; it was no hard thing to persuade them to offer their allegiance to a power which, though so far away, was feared by their enemies. If such subjects were of no