The indefatigable Metacom, like that Indian hero of our own
times, Tecumthe, had passed years in endeavoring to appease ancient
enmities and to lull jealousies, in order that all of red blood might
unite in crushing a foe that promised, should he be longer undisturbed in
his march to power, soon to be too formidable for their united efforts to
subdue. The premature explosion in some measure averted the danger. It
gave the English time to strike several severe blows against the tribe of
their great enemy, before his allies had determined to make common cause
in his design. The summer and autumn of 1675 had been passed in active
hostilities between the English and Wampanoags, without openly drawing any
other nation into the contest. Some of the Pequots, with their dependent
tribes, even took sides with the whites: and we read of the Mohegans being
actively employed in harassing the Sachem, on his well-known retreat from
that neck of land, where he had been hemmed in by the English, with the
expectation that he might be starved into submission.
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