38 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. the New England Indians were perpetually harassed by the at- tacks of the M aquas. They were, Gookin says, in time of war, so great a terror to all the Indians before named, that the appearance of four or five Maquas in the woods would frighten them from their habitations and induce many of them to get together in forts. Wood and other contemporary writers con- firm this account ; and the Mohawks were wont, in Con- necticut, to pursue the native Indians and kill them even in the houses of the English settlers.* We find accordingly the population to have been chiefly con- centrated along the seashore and the banks of the Connecti- cut River below its falls. That of the Nipmuck and generally of the inland country, north of the State of Connecticut, was much less in proportion to the territory ; and there do not ap- pear to have been any tribes of any consequence in the nor- thern parts of New Hampshire, or in the State of Vermont. The Indians east of the Connecticut River never were, how- ever, actually subjugated by the Five Nations. In the year 1669, the Indians of Massachusetts carried on even offensive op- erations against the Maquas, marched with about six hundred men into the Mohawk country, and attacked one of their forts. They were repulsed with considerable loss ; but, in 1671, peace was made between them, through the interference of the Eng- lish and Dutch at Albany ; and the subsequent alliance be- tween the Five Nations and the British, after they had become permanently possessed of New York, appears to have pre- served the New England Indians from further attacks. The first emigrants to New England were kindly received by the Indians ; and their progress was facilitated by the ca- lamitous disease which had recently swept off great numbers of the natives, in the quarter where the first settlements were made. The peace was disturbed by the colonization of Con- necticut River. The native chiefs had been driven away by Sassacus, Sachem of the Pequods. From them the Massachu- setts emigrants purchased the lands, and commenced the settle- ment in the year 1635. Sassacus immediately committed hos- tilities. The Pequod war, as it is called, terminated (1637) in the total subjugation of the Pequods, and was followed by for- ty years of comparative peace. The principal event during that period was a war between Uncas, Sachem of the Mohe-
- Trumbull, passim.
