get at them. These are called Cliff-dwellers. And there
were some who lived on top of high, steep hills, which were very hard to
climb. These Indians raised large crops of corn and other plants.
Do you think, if you had been an Indian, you would have liked to see
white people coming in ships across the waters and settling down in your
country as if they owned it? They did not all pay for the land they
took, like William Penn and General Oglethorpe. The most of them acted
as if the country belonged to them, and it is no wonder the old owners
of the country did not like it, or that there was fierce fighting
between the white and the red men.
Do you remember the story of Canonicus and the snake skin, and that of
Miles Standish and the chiefs? There was not much fighting then, but
there was some soon after in Connecticut, whither a number of settlers
had come from Boston and others from England. Here there was a warlike
tribe called the Pequots, who became very angry on seeing the white men
in their country.
They began to kill the whites whenever they found them alone. Then the
whites began to kill the Indians. Soon there was a deadly war. The
Pequots had made a fort of trunks of trees, set close together in the
ground. They thought they were safe in this fort, but the English made
an attack on it, and got into it, and set fire to the Indian wigwams
inside. The fight went on terribly in the smoke and flame until nearly
all the Pequots were killed. Only two white men lost their lives. This
so scared the Indians that it was forty years before there was another
Indian war in New England.
I have told you about the good chief Massasoit, who was so kind to Roger
Williams. He was a friend to the white men as long as he lived, but
after his death his son Philip became one of their greatest enemies.
Philip's brother was taken sick and died after he had been to Plymouth,
and the Indians thought that the people there had given him poison.
Philip said that they would try to kill him next, and he made up his
mind to fight them and drive them out of the country. The Indians had
guns now, and knew how to use them, and they began to shoot the white
people as they went quietly along the roads.
Next they began to attack the villages of the whites. They would creep
up at night, set the houses on fire, and shoot the men as they came out.
The war went on for a long time in this way, and there were many
terrible fights.
At one pla
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