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The Pokanokets constructed on the banks
of the Kickemuit River a bath to which they resorted for the cure of the
ills that assailed them, and there is reason for believing that both they
and the Narragansetts had others of a like character in other places. This
bath consisted of a structure built of non-combustible materials or cut in
the clay banks, and was heated in the same manner as that employed in
preparing the clambake for cooking as already outlined. In this building
they then sat and smoked while the perspiration rolled down their dusky
bodies, concluding with a plunge in the river.
Such was the federation that occupied the land
surrounding the place at which that little band of devoted pilgrims first
set foot on the New World. They had fled from England to Holland that they
might escape the rigorous discipline of the established church, and
exercise their own free will in the matter of religious worship; but
Holland was not their destination; it was simply the place of a temporary
sojourn, until the hand of destiny led them across the dark waters in
search of a broader field of endeavor. We are sometimes impressed with a
belief that they were the instruments of fate sent hither to establish in
the newly discovered western hemisphere a new order, out of which,
eventually, there was destined to arise a greater freedom, a broader
humanity, than the world had before known. It is no wonder that they, in
their zeal, speak of their escapes from the extraordinary perils that
beset them both on the water in their frail bark, and subsequently on the
land, as due to the special dispensation of Divine Providence. Their safe
passage of the stormy sea in late autumn; their landing at a place the
entire population of which had been wiped out, thus reducing to a minimum
the probability of molestation by natives who had no reason to love the
English, no reason to look upon them in any light but that of marauders
who might without provocation and without warning attack them with their
terrible weapons of fire and thunder, or carry them away into slavery as
had been done before; and the kindly greeting they received after their
first unpleasant encounter with the natives, all conspire to impel us of
this more skeptical age to indulge them in attributing this first
successful issue of their venture to the intervention of the hand that
guided the tribes of Israel through their many tribulations, until,
purified by the fire of adversity, they arose triumphant and bore the ark
of the covenant into the Promised Land. If there was one thing more than
another, or more than all others, that showed the protecting hand of
Providence, it was the disposition of the Great Sachem of the Wampanoags
and his people to extend to the strangers the right hand of friendship,
and to dwell side by side with them in amity for half a century; for until
the outbreak of King Philip's war, there was no serious trouble between
the whites and the Wampanoags. Minor outbreaks and personal acts of
violence there were, but, in general, they lived side by side in peace and
security, and while there were discords, suspicions and wars with others,
the Wampanoags, under the guiding hand of their Great Sachem Massasoit,
remained faithful to their treaty obligations.
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Massasoit of the Wampanoags
Massasoit of the Wampanoags
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