The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish (Revised edition)

An Indian Chief's White Bride is "The Wept"

A second very pleasant reading of Fenimore Cooper's THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH has brought it home to me how little I know of the history of Colonial Connecticut. This great novel of 1829 has also made me want to know more about King Philip's War of 1675-6 and the tormented Indian insurgents brought to blood-dripping, scalping, tomahawking life by Cooper. ***

New England was settled by religious dissenters from England seeking liberty of conscience -- for their own sects, but not for anyone else's. James Fenimore Cooper was no friend of religious fanaticism, especially New England Puritanism. But as an artist he was fair. Almost all the white characters are earnest "religionists." We see the land and the savages through their religious filters. Their isolated community of Wish-Ton-Wish (meaning "the whipporwill or "American night hawk" according to Cooper) is led by "the Puritan," Captain Mark Heathcote. ***

In his less than godly youth, Captain Heathcote had roistered and later soldiered against King Charles I with England's future Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Heathcote, in pursuit of increasingly narrow religious ideals, then decamped to the New World. His much younger wife died giving birth to their son Comfort. Just before his father and some followers moved on from Boston to the wilds of northern Connecticut, young Comfort Heathcote took Ruth Harding to wife. Their blended story takes up again in the early 1660s when the little band has felled the trees and planted crops in the beautiful remote valley they call Wish-Ton-Wish. Lord Protector Cromwell died in 1658 and a second Stuart, the "merry monarch," Charles II, now reigns in London. His vengeance begins to stretch even to New England in pursuit of his father's executioners. ***

The Indian troubles and the fear of witches were just becoming somewhat serious in Massachusetts. They had barely touched Connecticut. But the Indians began to probe the Puritan's community. In the process a 15 year old Narragansett Indian chief's son, Conanchet, is captured and spends many months among the whites. There he is befriended and secretly taught English by Submission, a mysterious old Puritan soldier and companion of Captain Heathcote. Conanchet is partially moved away from his savage roots through the kindness of Mistress Ruth Heathcote and other whites, as well as through their severe, unsmiling form of Christianity. Submission proves one of several regicides hiding out in New England from searchers of the Crown. ***

Conanchet becomes the object of a tribal rescue attack on Wish-Ton-Wish. Nonetheless, he saves the lives of some white children entrusted to his care. But his tribal warriors carry off both a simple minded Puritan boy and the seven year old daughter of Mistress Heathcote, also called Ruth. Years pass. Young Ruth is now Narra-mattah, married to the great young chief Conanchet and mother of his baby son. ***

Conanchet and his Narragansetts have been swept up in the 1675-6 rising of King Philip (Metacom) and together with him raid Wish-Ton-Wish. Having captured a handful of the whites, including Mistress Ruth who had years before befriended him, Conanchet mysteriously breaks off the successful attack and returns his wife to her parents. This greatly angers King Philip. A bit later, through the mediation of his friend, old soldier Submission, Conanchet also sends his infant son to his wife Narra-mattah. ***

Shortly thereafter whites leading Mohicans and other Indian scouts attack Conanchet and Metacom deep in a wilderness. King Philip escapes. But Conanchet is captured and handed over for judgment by the New England Commissioners to his Indian captors. He is given a brief furlough which he uses to say farewell to wife and child. On his death by tomahawk, young Ruth's mind collapses and she dies of instant grief. Months later her sorrowing mother also pines away to her grave. The novel ends 150 years later, around 1800, when a chronicler of the legend visits the thriving but still remote village of Wish-Ton-Wish. In the family graveyard he finds two graves apart from the others, but side by side. They are marked: "The Narragansett" and "The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish." ***

The novel richly, profoundly and empathetically probes white-Indian relationships. It also shows how each group's religious conceptions prevent them from facing cold facts as they are and needlessly creating enmities. This is also a classic early study of weather, ecology and stewardship of the land. Surprising is it to me that a really memorable grand opera has yet to emerge from this tragic legend. Or at least a BBC miniseries as good as what was made of Fenimore Cooper's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. -OOO-