PHILIP OF POKANOKET
AN INDIAN MEMOIR
by Washington Irving
As monumental bronze unchanged his look:
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook:
Train'd from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bierThe fierce extremes of good and ill to brookImpassive- fearing but the shame of fear-A stoic of the woods- a man without a tear.
CAMPBELL.
IT IS to be regretted that those early writers, who treated of thediscovery and settlement of America, have not given us more particularand candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourished insavage life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are full ofpeculiarity and interest; they furnish us with nearer glimpses ofhuman nature, and show what man is in a comparatively primitive state,and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm ofdiscovery in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of humannature; in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moralsentiment, and perceiving those generous and romantic qualitieswhich have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating inspontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost theexistence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of hisfellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold andpeculiar traits of native character are refined away, or softened downby the levelling influence of what is termed good-breeding; and hepractises so many petty deceptions, and affects so many generoussentiments, for the purposes of popularity, that it is difficult todistinguish his real from his artificial character. The Indian, on thecontrary, free from the restraints and refinements of polished life,and, in a great degree, a solitary and independent being, obeys theimpulses of his inclination or the dictates of his judgment; andthus the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, growsingly great and striking. Society is like a lawn, where everyroughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eyeis delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he,however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, mustplunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem thetorrent, and dare the precipice.
These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume ofearly colonial history, wherein are recorded, with great bitterness,the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the settlers of NewEngland. It is painful to perceive even from these partial narratives,how the footsteps of civilization may be traced in the blood of theaborigines; how easily the colonists were moved to hostility by thelust of conquest; how merciless and exterminating was their warfare.
The imagination shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual beings werehunted from the earth, how many brave and noble hearts, of nature'ssterling coinage, were broken down and trampled in the dust!
Such was the fate of PHILIP OF POKANOKET, an Indian warrior, whosename was once a terror throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. Hewas the most distinguished of a number of contemporary Sachems whoreigned over the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the Wampanoags, and theother eastern tribes, at the time of the first settlement of NewEngland; a band of native untaught heroes, who made the mostgenerous struggle of which human nature is capable; fighting to thelast gasp in the cause of their country, without a hope of victoryor a thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjectsfor local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely anyauthentic traces on the page of history, but stalk, like giganticshadows, in the dim twilight of tradition.** While correcting the proof sheets of this article, the author isinformed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished anheroic poem on the story of Philip of Pokanoket.
When the pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by theirdescendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New World, fromthe religious persecutions of the Old, their situation was to the lastdegree gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that numberrapidly perishing away through sickness and hardships; surrounded by ahowling wilderness and savage tribes; exposed to the rigors of analmost arctic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shiftingclimate; their minds were filled with doleful forebodings, and nothingpreserved them from sinking into despondency but the strong excitementof religious enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation they were visitedby Massasoit, chief Sagamore of the Wampanoags, a powerful chief,who reigned over a great extent of country. Instead of takingadvantage of the scanty number of the strangers, and expelling themfrom his territories, into which they had intruded, he seemed atonce to conceive for them a generous friendship, and extendedtowards them the rites of primitive hospitality. He came early inthe spring to their settlement of New Plymouth, attended by a merehandful of followers, entered into a solemn league of peace and amity;sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for them thegood-will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indianperfidy, it is certain that the integrity and good faith ofMassasoit have never been impeached. He continued a firm andmagnanimous friend of the white men; suffering them to extend theirpossessions, and to strengthen themselves in the land; and betrayingno jealousy of their increasing power and prosperity. Shortly beforehis death he came once more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander,for the purpose of renewing the covenant of peace, and of securingit to his posterity.
