The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish

The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish

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Title: The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8888] [This file was first
posted on August 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish
A Tale
By J. Fenimore Cooper

"But she is dead to him, to all; Her lute hangs silent on the wall, And on
the stairs, and at the door, Her fairy step is heard no more."
Rogers.
1871.

To The Rev. J. R. O. of Pennsylvania

The kind and disinterested manner in which you have furnished the
materials of the following tale, merits a public acknowledgment. As
your reluctance to appear before the world, however, imposes a
restraint, you must receive such evidence of gratitude, as your own
prohibition will allow.
Notwithstanding there are so many striking and deeply interesting
events in the early history of those from whom you derive your being,
yet are there hundreds of other families in this country, whose
traditions, though less accurately and minutely preserved than the little
narrative you have submitted to my inspection, would supply the
materials of many moving tales. You have every reason to exult in your
descent, for, surely, if any man may claim to be a citizen and a
proprietor in the Union, it is one, that, like yourself, can point to a line
of ancestors whose origin is lost in the obscurity of time. You are truly
an American. In your eyes, we of a brief century or two, must appear as
little more than denizens quite recently admitted to the privilege of a
residence. That you may continue to enjoy peace and happiness, in that

land where your fathers so long flourished, is the sincere wish of your
obliged friend,
The Author

Preface.

At this distant period, when Indian traditions are listened to with the
interest that we lend to the events of a dark age, it is not easy to convey
a vivid image of the dangers and privations that our ancestors
encountered, in preparing the land we enjoy for its present state of
security and abundance. It is the humble object of the tale that will be
found in the succeeding pages, to perpetuate the recollection of some of
the practices and events peculiar to the early days of our history.
The general character of the warfare pursued by the natives is too well
known to require any preliminary observations; but it may be advisable
to direct the attention of the reader, for a few moments, to those leading
circumstances in the history of the times, that may have some
connexion with the principal business of the legend.
The territory which now composes the three states of Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Rhode-Island, is said, by the best-informed of our
annalists, to have been formerly occupied by four great nations of
Indians, who were, as usual, subdivided into numberless dependent
tribes. Of these people, the Massachusetts possessed a large portion of
the land which now composes the state of that name; the Wampanoags
dwelt in what was once the Colony of Plymouth, and in the northern
districts of the Providence Plantations; the Narragansetts held the
well-known islands of the beautiful bay which receives its name from
their nation, and the more southern counties of the Plantations; while
the Pequots, or as it is ordinarily written and pronounced, the Pequods,
were masters of a broad region that lay along the western boundaries of
the three other districts.
There is great obscurity thrown around the polity of the Indians, who
usually occupied the country lying near the sea.
The Europeans, accustomed to despotic governments, very naturally
supposed that the chiefs, found in possession of power, were monarchs