american-holocaust

112 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTThe brutish and genocidal encounter to which Mason was referringwas the Pequot War. Its first rumblings began to be heard in July of 1636-two years after a smallpox epidemic had devastated the New England natives"as far as any Indian plantation was known to the west," said JohnWinthrop--when the body of a man named John Oldham was found, apparentlykilled by Narragansett Indians on Block Island, off the RhodeIsland coast. 54 Although he held positions of some importance, Oldhamwas not held in high regard by many of the English settlers-he had beenbanished from Plymouth Colony and described by its Governor Bradfordas "more like a furious beast than a man"-and those whites who foundhis body had proceeded to murder more than a dozen Indians who werefound at the scene of the crime, whether or not they were individuallyresponsible. 5 5 Even in light of the colonists' grossly disproportionate senseof retribution when one of their own had been killed by Indians, this shouldhave been sufficient revenge, but it was not. The colonists simply wantedto kill Indians. Despite the pledge of the Narragansetts' chief to mete outpunishment to Oldham's murderers-a pledge he began to fulfill by sending200 warriors to Block Island in search of the culprits-New England'sPuritan leaders wanted more.Led by Captain John Endicott, a heavily armed and armored party ofabout a hundred Massachusetts militiamen soon attacked the Block IslandIndians. Their plan was to kill the island's adult males and make off withthe women and children; as with Governor Berkeley's later scheme in Virginia,the venture would pay for itself since, as Francis Jennings puts it,"the captured women and children of Block Island would fetch a tidy sumin the West Indies slave markets." 56 The Indians scattered, however, realizingthey had no hope against the colonists' weapons and armor, so thefrustrated soldiers, able to kill only an odd few Narragansetts here andthere, had to content themselves with the destruction of deserted villages."We burnt and spoiled both houses and corn in great abundance," recalledone participant. 57From Block Island the troops headed back to the mainland where, followingthe directions of their colony's governor, they sought out a confrontationwith some Pequot Indians. The Pequots, of course, had nothingto do with Oldham's death (the excuse for going after them was the allegationthat, two years earlier, some among them may have killed twoquarrelsome Englishmen, one of whom had himself tried to murder theGovernor of Plymouth Colony), so when the soldiers first appeared alongthe Pequots' coastline the Indians ran out to greet them. As Underhill recalled:"The Indians spying of us came running in multitudes along thewater side, crying, what cheere, Englishmen, what cheere, what doe youcome for: They not thinking we intended warre, went on cheerefully untillthey come to Pequeat river." 58 It soon became evident to the Pequots whatthe soldiers had come for, even if the cause of their coming remained a