When his warriors had fallen in battle, been sold
into slavery or corrupted by bribes, when his old men and women, and
children had perished, when the first of the enemy had laid in ashes
the wigwams and villages of the Pokanokets and their allies, when to
his race there was neither seed-time nor harvest, he came to the home
of his ancestors, and there his troubled spirit, contrasting sadly in
death as in life with the placid scenes of nature around, passed
forever away. He fell by the hand of his own race,--
"Darkly, sternly, and all alone
A spoil--the richest and the last."
Philip's son, a boy nine years of age, was sold into slavery, and the
royal race of Massasoit was extinct.
As all our information of Carthage and the Punic wars has been
transmitted by Roman authors, so our knowledge of Philip and the war of
1675-6, is derived from partial and in some instances prejudiced
sources. Yet it is just to say that our ancestors made no concealment
of the facts, although the comments of Mather and Hubbard are often
strangely barbarous in spirit. And further, we may be certain that our
Pilgrim Fathers were true to the light that was in them; and that their
memory will grow green with years and blossom through the flight of
ages.
If to-day we have seen the bright side of Indian character, contrasted
with the few harsh features of the New England colonists, it is that
this occasion, while it calls forth feelings of gratitude and reverence
for the men and history of the Past may have somewhat of a practical
value in the Present and the Future.
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