The first grand chief, or _sachem_, of the Mohicans known to the English, was called Uncas: he was a crafty and ambitious chieftain, brave and cunning in war, and cruel to his conquered enemies. He was always a firm friend to the English, probably because he saw that it was for his interest to be so; for he was generally at war with the Six Nations on the north, and the Narragansets, a numerous warlike people on the east, who inhabited the country now called the state of Rhode Island. In one of these wars, Miantonimo, the Narraganset chief, suddenly invaded the country of the Mohicans, with eight hundred of his bravest warriors, giving Uncas only time to collect about half that number to meet him. He saw that if he should attempt to oppose him by main force, he should certainly be beaten; he therefore resolved to attempt a stratagem. When the two armies had approached near each other, ordering his warriors to conceal themselves in the long grass, he advanced before them, and challenged his adversary to single combat, saying that it was a great pity that so many brave men should be killed, merely to decide a private quarrel. But Miantonimo knew well that he had the advantage in numbers, and he was resolved not to lose it. “My warriors,” said the fierce chieftain, “have come a long way to fight, and they _shall_ fight.” Uncas had expected this answer, and instantly fell flat to the ground. His men, rising, poured on their enemies a volley of arrows, rushed on them with a hideous yell, and soon put them to flight. Miantonimo was taken prisoner; he scorned to beg his life of his victorious enemy, and was put to death, but without cruelty, on account of the request of the English. After the death of Uncas, which happened about the year 1680, his tribe gradually dwindled away, under their continual wars with the whites, and the other Indians, and their own evil passions, until the feeble remnant of a once powerful people was compelled to abandon their ancient hunting-grounds, and flee for protection to their _grandfather_, the Delawares, now almost as wretched and powerless as themselves; some even joined their old enemies, the Six Nations, by whom they were generously adopted into that warlike confederacy. But the greatest and the most renowned of all the New England sachems, was undoubtedly the great chief of the Pokanokets, called by the English, KING PHILIP. He was the son of Massassoit, who ruled the Indians around Plymouth, where the Pilgrim Fathers first landed. He received them kindly, sold them a large tract of land for their settlement, and made a treaty of friendship with them, which lasted unbroken for about fifty years.