The contest between the English and the Indians had been inevitable from the start. The murders of the two traders were but the sparks that touched off the explosive material which had long been accumulating. The struggle, with varying details and proximate causes, but based upon the unchanging fundamental conflict of the natures and economic interests of the two races, was to be repeated over and over again as the American frontier advanced. Endicott's stupid campaign, and, perhaps the too thorough absorption of Old Testament examples, had made the struggle almost inhumanly bloody in the first advance of that frontier in New England. The effect, however, was complete. It was to be nearly forty years before the savages regained sufficient strength, and found a leader to attempt again to dispute the relentless advance of the Puritan planters. CHAPTER IX | | ATTEMPTS TO UNIFY NEW ENGLAND As a result of the complete crushing of the power of the Pequots their whole country was opened to peaceful settlement, and the extension of the frontier in that direction became rapid. Within about two years from the signing of the treaty with the savages, the foundations were laid of Guilford, New Haven, Milford, Stratford, Fairfield, Norwalk, and Stamford along the Sound, and of Southampton and Southold on the eastern end of Long Island, thus making a continuous line of English settlement up to the Dutch boundary, if not, indeed, within it.[494] Footnote 494: The Southampton settlers at first tried to plant well within it, but were forced out by the Dutch. _Cf._ _N. Y. Col. Docts._, vols. II, pp. 145 _ff._, and XIV, pp. 30 _ff._; Adams, _History of Southampton_, pp. 48 _ff._