the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the
stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave
praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them.”^73 The
slaughter shocked the Narragansetts, who had wanted merely to subjugate the
Pequots, not exterminate them. The Narragansetts reproached the English for
their style of warfare, crying, “It is naught, it is naught, because it is too
furious, and slays too many men.” In turn, Capt. John Underhill scoffed, saying
that the Narragansett style of fighting was “more for pastime, than to conquer
and subdue enemies.” Underhill’s analysis of the role of warfare in
Narragansett society was correct, and might accurately be applied to other
tribes as well. Through the centuries, whites frequently accused their Native
allies of not fighting hard enough. The Puritans tried to erase the Pequots even
from memory, passing a law making it a crime to say the word Pequot.
Bradford concluded proudly, “The rest are scattered, and the Indians in all
quarters are so terrified that they are afraid to give them sanctuary.”^74 None of
these quotations entered our older textbooks, which devoted just one and a
quarter sentences to this war on average. While no new book quotes Bradford
—they don’t often quote anyone!—they do tell how the English colonists
destroyed the Pequots. Perhaps as a result, future college students, unlike mine,
will no longer come up with savage when asked for five adjectives that apply
to Indians.
Today’s textbooks also give considerable attention to perhaps the most
violent Indian war of all, King Philip’s War. This war began in 1675, when
white New Englanders executed three Wampanoag Indians and the
Wampanoags attacked. One reason for the end of peace was that the fur trade,
which had linked Natives and Europeans economically, was winding down in
Massachusetts.^75 Pathways to the Present presents students with the Native
side of this conflict by quoting a Native leader, Miantonomo: “Our fathers had
plenty of deer and skins, our plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and
of turkeys, and our coves full of fish and fowl. But these English having gotten
our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees;
their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and
we shall be starved.” The Americans also quotes Miantonomo, and several
other recent books do a decent job explaining King Philip’s War, which is
important, because this was no minor war. “Of some 90 Puritan towns, 52 had
been attacked and 12 destroyed,” according to Nash. “At the end of the war