Once Upon A Time In Connecticut | Page 6

fireproof compartment built into the end wall of the room, there hangs to-day one of the two original copies of the Connecticut Charter. It is in a good state of preservation, its lettering is clear and distinct, and so is the portrait engraved upon it of King Charles the Second who gave it to Governor John Winthrop. A part of its present frame is made from the wood of the Charter Oak. The other copy, that is, what remains of it, can be seen in the box which is owned by the Historical Society.
When, after the Revolutionary War, the Colony of Connecticut became the State of Connecticut, the charter of the colony was adopted without alteration as the State Constitution. No change was made in it until 1818.
The old oak tree, known to Indian legend and better known in Connecticut's story, lived, honored and protected, until its fall in the great storm of August 21, 1856.
REFERENCES
1. Trumbull, Benjamin. History of Connecticut. Maltby Goldsmith & Co. New Haven, 1818.
2. Trumbull, J. Hammond (editor). Memorial History of Hartford County. E. L. Osgood. Boston, 1886.
3. Andrews, Charles M. "The River Towns of Connecticut," in Johns Hopkins University Studies, vn, 1-3, September, 1889. Baltimore, 1889.
4. Love, Wm. De Loss. The Colonial History of Hartford. Hartford, 1914.
5. Love, Wm. De Loss. "Hartford, the Keeper of Connecticut's Charter," in Hartford in History, Willis J. Twitchell (editor). Hartford, 1899.
6. Bates, Albert C. Article on "Charter Oak" in Encyclopoedia Americana.
7. Hoadly, Charles J. The Hiding of the Charter. Case, Lockwood & Brainard. Hartford, 1900.

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS
The two Indian chiefs of whom we hear most in the early history of Connecticut were Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts. A great Indian battle called the "Battle of the Plain" took place once, near Norwich, between these rival tribes led by these two rival chieftains.
The Mohegans were a part of the Pequot tribe, and the Pequots, or "Gray Foxes," were the fiercest, most cruel, and warlike of all the Indians who roamed through the forests of Connecticut before the English came. The white settlers soon had trouble with them, and when the Pequot War, which was a war between the settlers and the Indians, began, in 1637, Uncas came with some of his Mohegan warriors and offered to guide the English troops through the woods to the Pequot fort.
Now Uncas was himself a Pequot by birth and belonged to the royal family, and it seems strange that he should not take part with his own people. But not long before this he had rebelled against the chief sachem, Sassacus, and had tried to make himself independent. "He grew proud and treacherous to the Pequot sachem," says the old chronicle, "and the Pequot sachem was very angry and sent up some soldiers and drove him out of his country." Afterward, when "he humbled himself to the Pequot sachem, he received permission to live in his own country again." But he was restless and dissatisfied. He was said to be of great size and very strong; he was brave too, and had a good deal of influence among the Indians. The settlers needed his help, yet they were half afraid to trust him, knowing that he would be "faithful to them as the jackal is faithful to the lion, not because it loves the lion, but because it gains something by remaining in his company." Before he would accept him as a guide, Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, commander of the fort at Saybrook, said to him, "You say you will help Captain Mason, but I will first see it; therefore send twenty men to Bass River, for there went six Indians there in a canoe, fetch them, dead or alive; and you shall go with Mason or else you shall not."
Uncas went off with his men and found these Indians. He killed four of them and brought back another as a prisoner, and the colonists, feeling more certain of his fidelity, took him with them on their expedition.
Miantonomo, the Narragansett sachem, did not go himself, but he sent one hundred of his warriors, for he, too, hated the Pequots, who had lately overrun the country and made themselves a terror to their neighbors. The Narragansetts lived near them, just over the Rhode Island border. They were a larger tribe than the Pequots and more peaceful and civilized, and their chief, Miantonomo, was friendly to the English settlers and had been generous in his dealings with them. He and his uncle Canonicus, who was at this time an old man over eighty, governed the Narragansetts together and were on the best of terms with each other. "The old sachem will not be offended at what the young sachem doth," says the English record, "and the young sachem will not do