Читать книгу Poems of American History - Группа авторов - Страница 21

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KING PHILIP'S WAR AND THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION

Metacomet, or Philip, had succeeded his father, Massasoit, as chief of the Wampanoags, and endeavored to maintain friendly relations with the English, but in June, 1675, some of his young men attacked the village of Swansea, and started the desperate struggle known as King Philip's War. For months the Indians ravaged the frontier, and on September 18 all but annihilated a picked force of eighty men, the "Flower of Essex," under Captain Thomas Lathrop, which had been sent to Deerfield to save a quantity of grain which had been abandoned there. Only nine of the eighty survived.

THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD OF THE BLOODY BROOK

[September 18, 1675]