Preface - Page 2

certain the experience of our
ancestors proves, that, in very many instances, the child was seen to
occupy the station formerly filled by the father; and, that in most of
those situations of emergency, in which a people so violent were often
placed, the authority he exercised was as summary as it was general. The
appellation of Incas came, like those of the Cæsars and Pharoahs, to be a
sort of synonyme for chief with the Mohegans, a tribe of the Pequods,
among whom several warriors of this name were known to govern in due
succession. The renowned Metacom, or, as he is better known to the whites,
King Philip, was certainly the son of Massassoit, the Sachem of the
Wampanoags that the emigrants found in authority when they landed on the
rock of Plymouth. Miantonimoh, the daring but hapless rival of that Uncas
who ruled the whole of the Pequod nation, was succeeded in authority,
among the Narragansetts, by his not less heroic and enterprising son,
Conanchet; and, even at a much later day, we find instances of this
transmission of power, which furnish strong reasons for believing that the
order of succession was in the direct line of blood.

The early annals of our history are not wanting in touching and noble
examples of savage heroism. Virginia has its legend of the powerful
Powhatan and his magnanimous daughter, the ill-requited Pocahontas; and
the chronicles of New-England are filled with the bold designs and daring
enterprises of Miantonimoh, of Metacom, and of Conanchet. All the
last-named warriors proved themselves worthy of better fates, dying in a
cause and in a manner, that, had it been their fortunes to have lived in a
more advanced state of society, would have enrolled their names among the
worthies of the age.

The first serious war, to which the settlers of New-England were exposed,
was the struggle with the Pequods. This people was subdued after a fierce
conflict; and from being enemies, all, who were not either slain or sent
into distant slavery, were glad to become the auxiliaries of their
conquerors. This contest occurred within less than twenty years after the
Puritans had sought refuge in America.

There is reason to believe that Metacom foresaw the fate of his own
people, in the humbled fortunes of the Pequods. Though his father had been
the earliest and constant friend of the whites, it is probable that the
Puritans owed some portion of this amity to a dire necessity. We are told
that a terrible malady had raged among the Wampanoags but a short time
before the arrival of the emigrants, and that their numbers had been
fearfully reduced by its ravages. Some authors have hinted at the
probability of this disease having been the yellow fever, whose
visitations are known to be at