a century, the Indians had learned
the way to Quebec, and it is probable that during Philip's war some of
the tribes obtained arms and ammunition from that place. During this war
the Pennacooks, under the influence of their chief, Wonnolancet, had
remained neutral, and in July, 1676, at Chocheco, signed with some
others a treaty of perpetual peace. Still, the feeling of the whites was
so strong against all the race, that they placed little reliance on
their former good conduct or present promises. A few months after this
treaty, they induced a large number of Indians, from the various tribes,
to come to the same place, and where all the militia of the provinces
had assembled, and while professing to practice some sham evolutions,
the Indians were suddenly surrounded and captured. Many of the prisoners
so treacherously obtained were executed, and others sold into slavery
for having been in arms against the whites.

Although Wonnolancet and his tribe were discharged, this breach of faith
must have taught him that he could not rely on the white man's promise,
and that neither he nor his tribe was safe on the Merrimac. With this
feeling he, with a part of them, left for Canada in the autumn of 1677.
Although he subsequently returned to visit his former hunting and
fishing grounds, his real home was, for the remainder of his life, near
Quebec, and he with his band became the nucleus of the Indian settlement
there; but it is not apparent that he was at any period the enemy of the
English.

In the course of the war, nearly all the tribes in New England had been
more or less involved in it. The colonists now looked upon them as a
conquered race of heathen, and that their duty was to drive them out,
and enjoy their lands in the manner of the Israelites of old. On the
other hand, the Indians who had made terms of peace, having now for the
first time realized that they had not the ability to cope with the
English in war, and could not trust their friendship in peace, naturally
looked to the French as the protectors of their villages and hunting
grounds. Many of them were willing to place themselves and their
families under their care.

Therefore the Jesuits, who had for a long time been their spiritual, and
often their temporal advisers, began to turn the steps of the broken and
scattered remnants of the tribes who had suffered most in the war, to
the feeble settlement of the Pennacooks, near Quebec, and as early as
1685, the G