In many places the English found the wigwams deserted, and the corn-fields
growing to waste, with none to harvest the grain. There were heaps of
earth also, which, being dug open, proved to be Indian graves, containing
bows and flint-headed spears and arrows; for the Indians buried the dead
warrior’s weapons along with him. In some spots, there were skulls and
other human bones, lying unburied. In 1633, and the year afterwards, the
smallpox broke out among the Massachusetts Indians, multitudes of whom
died by this terrible disease of the old world. These misfortunes made
them far less powerful than they had formerly been.

For nearly half a century after the arrival of the English, the red men
showed themselves generally inclined to peace and amity. They often made
submission, when they might have made successful war. The Plymouth
settlers, led by the famous Captain Miles Standish, slew some of them in
1623, without any very evident necessity for so doing. In 1636, and the
following year, there was the most dreadful war that had yet occurred
between the Indians and the English. The Connecticut settlers, assisted by
a celebrated Indian chief, named Uncas, bore the brunt of this war, with
but little aid from Massachusetts. Many hundreds of the hostile Indians
were slain, or burnt in their wigwams. Sassacus, their sachem, fled to
another tribe, after his own people were defeated; but he was murdered by
them, and his head was sent to his English enemies.

From that period, down to the time of King Philip’s war, which will be
mentioned hereafter, there was not much trouble with the Indians. But the
colonists were always on their guard, and kept their weapons ready for the
conflict.

"I have sometimes doubted," said Grandfather, when he had told these