Note 80 — Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham

Capt. Standish and his company went to the Wessagusset settlement to warn the men of the conspiracy. After days of cautious waiting and veiled exchange of threats with some of the leading Massachusetts Indians, Standish got four of them into a room with about an equal number of his men and assassinated three, including Pecksuot and Wituwamat, whose head he took to Plymouth. In other ambuscades, with some aid by Weston’s men, the Pilgrim expeditionary force killed several others. The Wessagusset settlers, who had been reduced to great want and dependence on the Indians, abandoned their place, most going to the Maine coast to work for the fishermen and get passage back to England. The story is told most fully in Edward Winslow, “Winslow’s Relation,” in Young (ed.), Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (“Everyman’s Library,” 1936), 313-332, or some other edition of Winslow’s Good News from New England.