. Yet during this time individual Indians
committed many enormous outrages of robbery and murder, for which the
sachems of the tribes were not responsible. The Mohegans, under Uncas,
had become very powerful. They had a fierce fight with the
Narragansets. Miantunnomah was taken captive. Uncas put him to death
upon Norwich plain by splitting his head open with a hatchet. The
Mohegan sachem tore a large piece of flesh from the shoulder of his
victim, and ate it greedily, exclaiming, "It is the sweetest meal I
ever tasted; it makes my heart strong."

Marauding bands of Indians often committed murders. The efforts of the
English to punish the culprits would exasperate others, and provoke
new violence. Indications of combinations among the savages were
frequently developed, and the colonists were often thrown into a
general state of alarm, in anticipation of the horrors of another
Indian war.

In the year 1644, a Massachusetts colonist visiting Connecticut was
murdered on the way by an Indian. The English demanded the murderer.
The Indians, under various subterfuges, refused to give him up. The
English, in retaliation, seized upon eight or ten Indians, and threw
them into prison. This so exasperated the savages that they raised the
war-whoop, grasped their arms, and threatened dire revenge. By
boldness and moderation the English accomplished their ends, and the
murderer was surrendered to justice. A few weeks after this an Indian
entered a house in Stamford. He found a woman there alone with her
infant child. With three blows of the tomahawk he cut her down, and,
plundering the house, left her, as he supposed, dead. She, however, so
far recovered as to describe the Indian and his dress. With great
difficulty, the English succeeded in obtaining the murderer. The
savages threw every possible impediment in the way of justice, and
assumed such a threatening attitude as to put the colonists to great
trouble and expense in preparing for war.

In view of such perils, in the year 1645, the colonies of
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a
confederacy, under the name of the _United Colonies of New England_.
They thus entered into an alliance offensive and defensive. Each
colony retained, in its domestic concerns, its own government and
jurisdiction. Two commissioners from each colony formed a board for
managing the common affairs of the Confederacy. This was the germ of
the present Congress of the United St