tion of towns had framed its government, it had
its Indian question to dispose of. Three years before the migration led
by Hooker, a crew of eight traders, while making their way up the river
to the Dutch station on the site of Hartford, had been murdered by a
party of Indians subject to Sassacus, chief sachem of the Pequots.
Negotiations concerning this outrage had gone on between Sassacus and
the government at Boston, and the Pequots had promised to deliver up
the murderers, but had neglected to do so. In the summer of 1636 some
Indians on Block Island subject to the Narragansetts murdered the
pioneer John Oldham, who was sailing on the Sound, and captured his
little vessel. At this, says Underhill, "God stirred up the hearts" of
Governor Vane and the rest of the magistrates. They were determined to
make an end of the Indian question and show the savages that such things
would not be endured. First an embassy was sent to Canonicus and his
nephew Miantonomo, chief sachems of the Narragansetts, who hastened
to disclaim all responsibility for the murder, and to throw the blame
entirely upon the Indians of the island. Vane then sent out three
vessels under command of Endicott, who ravaged Block Island, burning
wigwams, sinking canoes, and slaying dogs, for the men had taken to the
woods. Endicott then crossed to the mainland to reckon with the Pequots.
He demanded the surrender of the murderers, with a thousand fathoms of
wampum for damages; and not getting a satisfactory answer, he attacked
the Indians, killed a score of them, seized their ripe corn, and burned
and spoiled what he could. But such reprisals served only to enrage the
red men. Lyon Gardiner, commander of the Saybrook fort, complained to
Endicott: "You come hither to raise these wasps about my ears; then
you will take wing and flee away." The immediate effect was to incite
Sassacus to do his utmost to compass the ruin of the English. The
superstitious awe with which the white men were at first regarded had
been somewhat lessened by familiar contact with them, as in Aesop's
fable of the fox and the lion. The resources of Indian diplomacy were
exhausted in the attempt to unite the Narragansett warriors with the
Pequots in a grand crusade against the white men. Such a combination
could hardly have been as formidable as that which was effected forty
years afterward in King Philip's war; for the savages had not as yet
become accustomed to firearms, and the English