The year after the war he went to Boston with thirty-seven of his
warriors carrying a present of wampum for the governor. But the
governor would not accept the present until Uncas had given
satisfaction about the Pequots he was hiding. Uncas seemed "much
dejected" by this reception, and at first he denied that he had
any Pequots, but after two days he admitted the fact and promised
to do whatever the council demanded. Half an hour later he came
to the governor and made the following speech. Laying his hand on
his breast, he said:--
"This heart is not mine, but yours; I have no men, they are all
yours; command me any difficult thing, I will do it; I will not
believe any Indian's word against the English. If any man shall
kill an Englishman I will put him to death were he never so dear
to me."
The governor in response "gave him a fair red coat, and defrayed
his and his men's diet, and gave them corn to relieve them
homeward, and a letter of protection to all men, and he departed
very joyful."
Uncas had now become a dangerous rival of Miantonomo, and the
jealousy between them soon grew so great that it threatened to
break out in open war. In 1638 they were both called to Hartford
by the Connecticut authorities to settle the differences between
them.
Miantonomo obeyed this summons at once and set out with a great
company, "a guard of upwards of one hundred and fifty men and
many sachems and his wife and children," and traveled through the
forests that lay between the villages of the Narragansetts in
Rhode Island and the English settlements in the Connecticut
valley.
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