His conquerors maintained the decorous gravity with which an Indian always
listens to the speech of another, until he had ended; and then the Great
Chief, or Wampanoag, as he had proclaimed himself to be, laid a finger
lightly on the shoulder of his prisoner, as he demanded--
"Why have the people of the Yengeese lost themselves on a blind path? If
the country they have left is pleasant, cannot their God hear then from
the wigwams of their fathers? See--if our trees are but bushes, leave them
to the red man he will find room beneath their branches to lie in the
shade. If our rivers are small, it is because the Indians are little. If
the hills are low and the valleys narrow, the legs of my people are weary
with much hunting, and they will journey among them the easier. Now what
the Great Spirit hath made for a red man, a red man should keep. They
whose skins are like the light of the morning should go back towards the
rising sun, out of which they have come to do us wrong."
The chief spoke calmly, but it was like a man much accustomed to deal in
the subtleties of controversy, according to the fashion of the people to
whom he belonged.
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