Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women — John Shaqi
Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian WomenSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
History
Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Indians of North America -- Biography; Indians of North America -- Wars
"By this time," reads the Captain Church story, "the enemy perceived
that they were waylaid on the east side of the swamp, and tacked short
about. One of the enemy, who seemed to be a great, surly old fellow,
hallooed with a loud voice, and often called out, 'I-oo-tash,
I-oo-tash.' Captain Church called to his Indian, Peter, and asked him
who that was that called so? He answered, that it was old Annawan,
Philip's great captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it and
fight stoutly. Now the enemy finding that place of the swamp which was
not ambushed, many of them made their escape in the English tracks."
When the pursuit had quit, Captain Church let his men know that King
Philip had been killed, and they gave three cheers.
Then the captain ordered the body to be pulled out of the mud. So some
of the Indians "took hold of him by his stockings, and some by his
small breeches (being otherwise naked) and drew him through the mud to
the upland; and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like,"
according to their opinion.
"Forasmuch as you have caused many an Englishman's body to be unburied,
and to rot above ground, not one of your bones shall be buried,"
pronounced Captain Church. And he ordered an old Indian, who acted as
executioner, to behead and quarter King Philip.
But before he struck with the hatchet, the old Indian also made a
little speech, to the body.
"You have been a very great man," he said, "and have made many a man
afraid of you; but so big as you are, I will now chop you up."
And so he did.
King Philip was known not only by his face, but by a mangled hand in
which a pistol had burst. His head and his crippled hand were awarded
to Alderman, who had betrayed him; Alderman was told to exhibit them
through New England, if he wished, as a traveling show. He gained many
shillings in fees.
The four quarters of King Philip were hung to the branches of a tree.
The head was stuck upon a gibbet at Plymouth for twenty years. The
hand was kept at Boston. Caleb Cook traded with Alderman for King
Philip's gun; and King Philip's wife and little boy were sold as slaves
in the West Indies.
Now the Terror of New England had been subdued. He had been leading
such a sorry life, of late, that no doubt he was glad to be done, and
to have fallen in his stride and not in chains. His age is not stated.
Thus peace came to the colony of Plymouth in Massachusetts, and King
Philip had few left to mourn for him, until, after a season, even some
of the English writers, their spirit softened, began to grant that he
might have been as much a patriot as a traitor.
In another century, the colonists themselves rebelled against a
government which they did not like.
CHAPTER V
THE SQUAW SACHEM OF POCASSET (1675-1676)]
AND CANONCHET OF THE BIG HEART
When King Philip had planned his war, he well knew that he might depend
upon Wetamoo, the squaw sachem of Pocasset.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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