Facts are occasionally to be
met with in the rude annals of the eastern provinces which,
though recorded with the coloring of prejudice and bigotry, yet
speak for themselves, and will be dwelt on with applause and
sympathy when prejudice shall have passed away.
In one of the homely narratives of the Indian wars in New England
there is a touching account of the desolation carried into the
tribe of the Pequod Indians. Humanity shrinks from the
cold-blooded detail of indiscriminate butchery. In one place we
read of the surprisal of an Indian fort in the night, when the
wigwams were wrapped in flames and the miserable inhabitants shot
down and slain in attempting to escape, "all being despatched and
ended in the course of an hour." After a series of similar
transactions "our soldiers," as the historian piously observes,
"being resolved by God's assistance to make a final destruction
of them," the unhappy savages being hunted from their homes and
fortresses and pursued with fire and sword, a scanty but gallant
band, the sad remnant of the Pequod warriors, with their wives
and children took refuge in a swamp.
Burning with indignation and rendered sullen by despair, with
hearts bursting with grief at the destruction of their tribe, and
spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of their defeat,
they refused to ask their lives at the hands of an insulting foe,
and preferred death to submission.
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