Page:King Philip's war, and Witchcraft in New England (IA kingphilipswarwi00hutc).pdf/12

 extirpation of the English inhabitants. At the first arrival of the English the Indians were treated with kindness, to obtain their friendship and favor; but they having no acquaintance with fire-arms, the English grew by degrees less apprehensive of danger, finding by means of corselets of armor that they were not much exposed to danger from bows and arrows of so simple construction as those of the Indians.

The quarrels which the Indians had always been engaged in amongst themselves were a further security to the English, who on the one hand endeavored to restrain them from open war with one another, and on the other to keep up so much contention as to prevent a combination, and to make an appeal to the English, as umpires, necessary from time to time. The English before their arrival had such ideas of the sachems that at the first meetings respect was shown them in some proportion to what would have been required by the prince of a petty state in Europe; but the base sordid minds of the best of them, and the little authority they had over their own subjects, soon rendered them contemptible.

At New Plymouth the governor, in the first treaty with Massasoit in 1620, acquainted him that King James considered him as his good friend and ally. This was too great an honor for Massasoit, who was content to acknowledge the king to be his sovereign. The next year the governor caused the petty sachems to sign an instrument in which they owned themselves to be subject to King James. Subject, however, was a word of which they had no precise idea. For nearly forty years together the settlers at Plymouth were under no great concern from neighboring Indians, Massasoit, or Ousamequin, always courting the friendship of the English.

After his death and the death of his eldest son, Wamsutta, or Alexander, Metacom or Philip, bis second son, a man of great