The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service AgentsBarton, George
History
The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents
Barton, George
Secret service; Spies
British sympathies were very strongly with the South at that time, and
as a result of this plea provision was made for the immediate wants of
the famous spy. After the war she disappeared from the public gaze, and
some years later died in comparative obscurity.
III
THE INDIAN SCOUT WHO WAS THE HERO OF KING PHILIP’S WAR
It is a curious fact that Job Kattenanit, one of the Praying Indians of
Deer Island, in Boston Harbor, should have emerged from King Philip’s
war with more glory than any other man, either white or red, who
participated in that bloody contest.
Like the historic Biblical character from whom he received his name,
Job was a sorely afflicted man. He was among the first group of Indians
in that section of the United States to accept the Christian religion,
and it was this fact, and in order to distinguish them from the other
red men, that Kattenanit and his companions received the designation of
the Praying Indians.
It is regrettable to record, however, that the excesses of some of
the other natives had caused an indiscriminate hatred of the Indians
throughout New England. They were regarded as wild beasts who should
be shot and killed without mercy. It was while this feeling was at its
height that Job Kattenanit and eleven of his companions were arrested
on a charge of being concerned in the murder of seven white men. They
were captured in the town of Lancaster and brought to Boston, tied
“neck and neck,” as the practice was in those primitive days. The
evidence against them was of the flimsiest character, and it was only
through the efforts of Captain John Gookin, a magistrate who felt a
special interest in the Indians, that their lives were spared and they
were condemned to imprisonment on Deer Island.
In the meantime King Philip, the Indian chieftain, was spreading terror
among the white people. He was jealous of their gradual encroachment
upon what he conceived to be his domain and he planned to destroy them.
He was a man of sagacity, although said to be wanting in physical
courage, and he gradually combined all of the Indian tribes into one
strong confederation and waited for a chance to strike the decisive
blow.
It came at Swansea on Sunday, July 4, 1675. The settlers were going to
church when the Indians suddenly burst upon them. But these pioneers
were both pious and prepared, and taking up arms they routed their
assailants. Philip and his warriors then hunted the settlers in the
Connecticut valley, burning down their homes and subjecting the people
to the most atrocious forms of cruelty. In the spring the war broke out
anew along a frontier of three hundred miles and to within twenty miles
of Boston. The Indians had remained quiet for a long time after the
initial outbreak—so quiet that the whites were thoroughly alarmed. They
knew the ruthless nature of their foes and they feared the consequences
to the women and children if they should be taken unawares.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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