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  How Massasoit Disclosed a Most Villainous Plot and of the Bold Actions of Captain Standish

  On the night before the Englishmen were to return to Plymouth, Massasoit gave Hobomok a secret message for Winslow. Hobomok confided it to him as they marched homeward through the woods. The Indians were planning to attack and destroy the two English colonies. The Massachusetts, the Narragansetts, the Cape Cod Indians, and even those of the Isle of Capawack (Martha’s Vineyard) were in league to wipe out Weston’s colony because of their many crimes against the Indians. After this they would destroy Plymouth.

  Massasoit had been pressed to join the others, but had not done so. He urged that Governor Bradford find and kill the conspirators at once. If the settlers waited until they were attacked, it would then be too late.

  No one knew better than Winslow how weak were the two little towns on the ocean frontier. He and his party hurried on through the forest toward Plymouth. That evening they accepted an invitation from their old enemy Corbitant to spend the night at his lodge. It was a chance to get better acquainted with a powerful chief and perhaps pick up further news of what was afoot.

  They spent a rare night in talk at Corbitant’s lodge.

  How did two men alone dare come so far into the Indian’s country? asked Corbitant.

  “ ‘Where there is true love, there is no fear,’ ” parried Winslow, quoting his Bible.

  “Then why, when we come to Patuxet, do you stand guard and point your guns at us?” the Indians asked.

  “On land and sea the English thus salute those they wish to honor,” said Winslow.

  Corbitant shook his head and said he liked not such salutation.

  “Why do you ask a blessing on your meals before you eat, and give thanks for the same?” the chief asked more seriously.

  Winslow was now on the firm ground of Puritan doctrine as he explained,

  “Whatsoever good things we had, we received them of God, as the Author and Giver thereof, and therefore craved His blessing on that we had, and were about to eat, that it might nourish and strengthen our bodies; and having eaten sufficient, being satisfied therewith, we again returned thanks to the same our God, for that our refreshing.”

  Corbitant said that this was good, and that the Indians believed almost all the same things; and that the same power the Englishmen called God, they called Kietitan.

  This caused Mr. Winslow to change his views about Indian godlessness. He now went on with growing fervor to explain about “God’s works of Creation and Preservation; of His laws and ordinances, especially of the Ten Commandments: all of which they hearkened unto with great attention; and liked well of.” Perhaps they excepted the Seventh Commandment, which Corbitant thought held a man down too strictly to one wife. “About which, we reasoned a good time.” Winslow always remembered that night as the most interesting he had ever spent among the Indians.

  Hurrying on next day, they met Indians who said that Standish had gone to Massachusetts. On their arrival at Plymouth, they found Standish had returned, being providentially turned back by contrary winds.

  At Plymouth, too, they learned that a messenger had brought a letter from Sanders, the overseer at the Bay Colony. The people of the Colony had eaten their seed corn. They had traded everything, even their shirts, to the Indians for corn. Now the Indians refused to sell them any more. Sanders proposed attacking the Indians and taking their corn by force. Would Plymouth join them in making war? It had always been the policy of Plymouth never to attack the Indians but to stand on the defense. They sent word to Sanders, urging him not to attack the Indians.

  After he had heard this news, Winslow told about the Indian conspiracy and Massasoit’s advice to seize the conspirators and thus break up the plot. Immediately all Plymouth was called to a meeting to decide what must be done. Plainly it would be dangerous this time to wait for the Indians to attack. So Bradford, Allerton, and Standish were appointed to determine what action to take. Standish was instructed to go to the Bay Colony with as many men as he chose and tell them of the plot. He was not to make trouble with the Indians, but seek out the conspirators and deal with them, especially their chief, that “bloody and bold villain” Witawamat, whose head he was expressly ordered to obtain.

  Captain Standish picked eight of his best men. A greater number might excite the Indians’ suspicion. The shallop was made ready with arms and provisions. Tomorrow she would set sail on her dangerous mission. Danger was the Captain’s business and he was never happier than when he was facing it. At last he would come to grips with the scheming Witawamat.

  How Witawamat Lost His Head

  The company in the shallop made a forty-mile run along the coast in a fair breeze. Sheltered in a deep bay, they found the Swan at anchor. When they came alongside and hailed her, there was no answer. Climbing aboard, they found no one on the ship—not even a dog. Perhaps they had come too late. Had the Indians massacred the colony?

  They fired off a musket and then another. The shot echoed across the water. After a while they heard a shout. On the wooded shore they could see a group of men. It was the master of the Swan and her crew.

  “But why have you abandoned the ship?” the amazed Captain Standish asked the Swan’s Master.

  “Oh, we get along very well with the Indians, practically lived among them,” the Master replied. “We have no need of either guns or swords.”

  To this Captain Standish answered somewhat drily, “If there is no need, I am the gladder.”

  Standish was then told that Sanders had gone on a voyage to the fishing fleet, seeking provisions. In the meantime the Captain would find Sanders’ lieutenants at the town nearby.

  To the shiftless crew at Wessagussett, Standish explained the Indian plot and offered to take back to Plymouth anyone who wanted to go. All the men were ordered in at once from the outlying woods and camps.

  That day an Indian came into the post from the forest with his furs to trade. When he returned to his tribe, he reported that he had seen in the Captain’s eyes that he was angry in his heart. This Englishman had discovered their secret.

  Next day a tall Indian, who said his name was Pecksuot, came into the town and talked with Hobomok. “Tell the Captain we know but fear him not, neither will we shun him,” said Pecksuot. “But let him begin when he dares; he shall not take us unaware.”

  The Captain was not accustomed to such talk from an Indian. More Indians came and there were more insulting speeches. The braves sat in the compound sharpening their knives in the Captain’s very face. He choked down his rage and said nothing.

  One morning as Standish sat cleaning his musket, the door of his cabin opened softly. There stood before him the powerful figure of Witawamat. Across his nose were painted three black stripes. His eyes glittered in his dark face and on his mouth was a faint smile. He lifted the knife that hung from a cord about his neck. Pointing to the handle, on which was crudely cut the face of a woman, he said with an insolent sneer, “I have another at home with which I have killed many French and English. On it is a man’s face. By and by these two shall marry.”

  Pecksuot, who had come in without knocking, began a speech in which he implied that the Captain was a cowardly runt who should be at work in the fields with the women. Standish understood enough Indian to get the full import of the insult and his anger strained like a hound on the leash, but he made no reply. As Witawamat left he pointed again to his knife and said, “By and by it shall see; by and by it shall eat but not speak.”

  “You shall soon have a lesson in talking knives,” muttered the Captain to himself.

  The next day four Indians came to the Captain’s house. Witawamat brought with him his brother, a young Indian of about eighteen. The gigantic Pecksuot was accompanied by a brave nearly his size and of equally villainous expression. The Indians, as usual, were naked to the waist. From their necks hung sheathed knives. There were three soldiers in the room besides Standish and Hobomok. Each Englishman wore a steel corselet.
/>   When the Indians were all in the room, Standish nodded his head slightly. At the signal Hobomok noiselessly closed and barred the door. Pecksuot began a bragging speech. In the middle of it Standish made a sudden leap and, snatching the Indian’s knife from its sheath, buried it to the hilt in his breast. In an instant the room was a shambles of struggling men and stabbing knives.

  Witawamat, bleeding from a dozen terrible knife wounds, rolled on the floor, grappling with his attacker. With unbelievable toughness and strength, the Indians kept up the unequal fight. Hobomok stood motionless against the wall, coolly watching the fierce action. Pecksuot in his death agony still grappled with the Captain.

  Suddenly it was over. Three bodies lay on the floor in pools of blood. The youngest Indian had somehow escaped with a few cuts. “Take him out and hang him from the nearest tree at once,” ordered Standish. He bent over the body of Witawamat and with the Indian’s own knife severed the head.

  Hobomok stepped forward and with his foot pushed the body, contemptuously saying, “Yesterday Witawamat say he big and strong. He say Captain little man. Today little Captain big enough to lay Witawamat on the ground.”

  The Weston men refused to return to Plymouth with Standish. They joined the fishing fleet and returned to England.

  All Plymouth turned out to welcome the return of the shallop. Standish marched up the Fort Hill at the head of his little troop. In the crowded meeting house he drew from a bag the bloody head of Witawamat and held it on high. It was placed on a pike on the wall of the fort, after the English custom, as an example to enemies.

  This was a day of triumph and thanksgiving. Elder Brewster said that Captain Standish had been a David and a Gideon to them and had greatly cast down their enemies.

  The fate of the chief conspirator Witawamat spread terror through the forest and the Indian confederacy was broken up. Whole tribes left their fields and villages and fled in terror to the swamps where many died from disease and starvation.

  In the abandoned compound of Weston’s colony at Wessagussett, the grass and weeds grew, and the sumac and the goldenrod took possession. The Indians avoided the neighboring forest, where the spirits of Pecksuot and the headless Witawamat walked in the moonlight when the wind wailed and mourned in the naked treetops.

  How Began Free Enterprise Because Some Wished Not to Work for the Community, and of the Sore Drought That Came upon Them

  (1623)

  Spring had come. It was March and the frost had come out of the hard ground, leaving soft and wet mud. The last handfuls of corn were being given out in equal rations from the common store. Only the precious seed corn for planting was left. On it depended the settlers’ survival from starvation. The time for their third planting was at hand. Each year the Governor divided the common land equally among the families. The soundest church members usually got the best lots.

  Last year this had caused discontent and there had been grumbling. Some were workers and some were shirkers, but all received equal amounts of food from the common supply. This was taken up at the town meeting. It was decided that each family should keep the crop it raised on its allotted land. Each little farm would be a free enterprise. There would be no more common store. Each would work for himself.

  The result was wonderful. Each family, even the women and the children, worked in the fields daily from dawn till dark. Every inch of each field was planted and tended. There never had been such a planting. They had no plows, horses, or oxen. With spades and mattocks they loosened the earth, planted two fish in each hill, and dropped in the hard kernels. At night they took turns watching to keep the animals from digging up the fish. The lean and ragged colonists tended their greening fields with a new pride and energy. The laziness and indifference of “communitie” had vanished like the sea mist before the sun.

  It would be weeks before their crops were ripe. They had long ago ceased expecting a supply ship from England. In summer the wild fowl were hard to shoot. Each day now starvation stared them in the face.

  At their feet the great Bay was teeming with cod, herring, bass, a dozen kinds of fish. They had seen grampuses, whales, and seals. Squanto had showed them where there were shellfish and eels in abundance. They were used to the roast beef of old England and to the bread, cheese, and butter of Holland, and they hated fish. But now if they would not starve they must take the harvest of the sea.

  There was only one boat, but they worked it in relays. One crew took her out as soon as another came in.

  “Neither did they return until they had caught something, though it were five or six days before, for they knew there was nothing at home, and to go home empty would be a great discouragement to ye rest.”

  When the shallop was out long or came back with a small catch, the men dug clams from the mud at low tide and caught lobsters, crabs, and shellfish. Now and then the hunters brought in a deer or two from the woods. From day to day they lived on what the Lord provided and were thankful.

  May passed with fair weather. Indeed, the weather was too good. Day after day, they watched the unclouded sky as the corn drooped and turned yellow for lack of rain. It had not rained for six weeks. Hopes of an abundant harvest from their well-tilled fields faded.

  “Upon which they sett aparte a solemne day of humiliation, to seek ye Lord by humble & fervente prayer, in this great distrese.”

  All day in the crowded meeting house on the hill they prayed, thanking God for His blessings. The service had continued over eight hours and the sun had shone all day in the brassy July sky.

  For all ye morning, and the greatest part of the day, it was clear weather & very hotte, and not a cloud or any signe of raine to be seen, yet toward evening it begane to be overcast, and shortly after to raine with such sweete and gentle showers, as gave them cause of rejoyceing & blessing God. It came without either wind, or thunder, or any violence, and by degreese in that abundance, as that ye earth was thorowly wete and soaked therwith. Which did so apparently revive & quicken ye decayed corne & other fruits, as was wonderful to see, and made ye Indeans astonished to behold: and afterwards the Lord sent them shuch seasonable showers, with interchange of faire warm weather, as through His blessing caused a fruitful & liberall harvest, to their no small comforte & rejoyceing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiving.

  How Came the Good Ship Anne and the Pinnace Ye Little James with Many Goodly People and How Each Gathered His Corne in Abundance

  (August 1623)

  August came. The tasseled corn waved its green banners to the sun. The silk on the full ears was turning brown.

  The boom of the signal gun turned all eyes seaward to where a fleck of a sail gleamed on the horizon. It was the supply ship Anne. Ten days later her consort, the pinnace Little James, came in. The two had been separated in heavy weather at sea. Together they brought sixty new colonists to Plymouth. Many were from the Leyden congregation. Among them were wives and children of men who had been waiting for them for three years.

  Of the rest, Bradford wrote: “Some of them being very useful persons, and became good members of ye body, and some were so bad, as they were faine to be at charge, to send them home againe ye next year.”

  The new arrivals were dismayed at the gaunt and ragged veterans of New Plymouth who welcomed them on the beach. Some were discouraged by the meager meal of fish, lobster, and cold spring water—with no bread—that was offered them.

  The colonists had discovered in America that water was an attractive and healthy drink, but in England most men drank only beer and looked on water as unhealthy and dangerous.

  Sixty more new mouths to feed raised serious problems. Later at harvest time the Plymouth planters would have plenty. In the meantime, the newcomers were afraid that the planters would soon eat up the provisions they had brought. So it was agreed, and sanctioned before Governor Bradford, that the planters should keep all of their crops if they did not accept any of the newcomers’ supply. The newcomers could keep the
provisions they had brought, if they did not claim any of the planters’ corn when the harvest was ripe.

  All law-abiding newcomers not of the Plymouth company were welcomed to the colony, but they must donate an annual bushel of corn to the general store kept for emergency, and serve in the common defense. They would not have trading privileges with the Indians, because this trade the Pilgrims kept strictly for themselves.

  That year each family gathered the full ears and brought in great heaping baskets to fill their bins with golden plenty. Under the new system, those who had abundance could sell or barter with those who would buy.

  “Some of ye abler sorte and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.”

  The Sailing of the Anne and of the Great Fire That Perilously Threatened the Community Provision but Was Notably Prevented and Assuaged

  The Anne was taking on her cargo of clapboard and all the beaver and other skins the colony had. She was taking back a few passengers who had come over to visit the country and others who, being discontented, did not want to remain.

  The crews of the Anne and the Little James went ashore. They had assembled about a keg of rum in a house adjoining the general storehouse, and were making a night of it with songs and drunken gaiety around the fireplace, where flames blazed against the cold. The fire roared up the chimney and a stiff wind sent the sparks swirling in the darkness. A spark started a fire in the thatched roof, and it soon blazed up in the wind.

  The dreaded cry “Fire” rang through the town.

  “Save the storehouse or we be overthrown,” cried the Captain.