contemplating war, that they were oiling their guns, which they had
purchased from the traders, and were sharpening their hatchets. The
Plymouth Government was alarmed. "The Indians are impertinent in their
bearings towards all Englishmen," wrote a prominent settler to the
Governor, and so that officer of the crown sent word to Philip that he
wished to see him and hold a conference with him at Taunton. At first
the proud chief refused to come to meet the English, but he apparently
changed his intentions, for on April 10th, 1671, a message was received
from him, inviting the officers of the Plymouth Government to meet him
in a "pow-wow," but demanding that two hostages should be sent him as
a guarantee of his own safety. When these were received, he came to
Taunton with many followers, and, seeing military preparations among
the English in the town, took up a position upon the outskirts, near a
mill, and refused to move from this ground until three commissioners
sent from Massachusetts came out to meet him, and persuaded the now
unfriendly chief that no harm would be done him if he came to greet
the Governor. So, with glances of suspicion and distrust, the Indians
entered the church where was the Governor, surrounded by soldiers
in slouch hats with broad brims, long swords, iron breastplates and
unwieldy guns. The followers of King Philip were naked to the waist,
had their faces and bodies painted in many colors, and were, for the
most part, armed with long bows and with quivers full of arrows,
although a few who knew how to use them had guns in their hands.
"I charge you with warlike designs against us," said Governor Prince.
"Many have told me that you and yours prepare for open hostility
against the English."
In the dark eyes of Philip gleamed the fire of intense anger, as he
replied:
"It is an untruth. I have sharpened my hatchets and arrows because I
feared an attack by the Narragansetts, who are unfriendly to me and
mine." As he spoke, the looks of defiance which his warriors cast at
the English showed that if the soldiers should dare to lay a hand upon
their chieftain, there would be certain bloodshed.
A long talk was now held, and, in the end, the defiant Sachem agreed
to renew the old peace covenant between himself and the English, and
to surrender all firearms into their hands as long as there was any
suspicion of war upon their part. But he had no intentions of doing
this and of thus placing himself at the mercy of the English, nor could
he have forced his warriors to do so had he so wished, for the Indians
had come into possession of large numbers of muskets which they used
for killing game, and which they considered as much a necessity as
their own clothes. Thus, although the conference ended in peace, the
English soon took measures to enforce the compliance with its terms and
so awakened intense hatred and anger in the hearts of King Philip's
men. The guns of the Assowomsett and Middleboro Indians were seized by
force; the Saconet braves were threatened with war if they refused to
deliver up their firearms, and, as in September only seventy guns had
been handed in to the Plymouth authorities, they again summoned proud
Philip to appear before them and to give the reason why his men did not
live up to their agreement. He did not appear before them until he was
fully prepared to answer the accusations.
The charges against the Wampanoag Sachem were that he had neglected to
bring in his arms; that he had refused to come to the English court
when sent for; that he had harbored bad Indians; had been insolent to
the Massachusetts magistrates, and had misrepresented matters to them.
To these accusations he replied that he was as much a subject of the
King of England as were the Plymouth Colonists themselves, which was
true; that as he was a subject of the King he was not obliged to run
at the beck and call of the Colonists, for they were only subjects as
he himself was; and that he was unable to make his men give up their
guns as they needed them for supplying themselves with deer meat and
wild turkeys. His arguments were good, but he could not convince the
hard-fisted magistrates of the righteousness of his cause.
"You must sign a new treaty with us," said stern Governor Prince. "And
you must agree to pay tribute of one thousand English dollars every
year in fur and peltries. Also bring us five wolves' heads a year and
do not engage in war with other tribes, or sell your lands to others,
without consulting first the Plymouth Council. As for delivering the
guns to us, this you need not do, as you say that your warriors need
them for obtaining game in order to live by, but, if you further
insult our white ambassadors you must expect to smart for it."
"How! How!" muttered King Philip, as he withdrew. "Ugh! You English
want everything your way, but it shall be as you say."
So, turning his face towards Mount Hope, he had soon disappeared into
the forest and only the sighing of the wind in the pine branches
came to the ears of the relentless counsellors, who, sure of their
strength and resources, had begun to use force upon the weaker and
less energetic race. They watched his retreating form with frowns of
determination upon their brows.
For three years peace reigned in the forest. The Narragansetts,
Wampanoags, and Nipmucks resigned themselves to the inevitable
domination of the English, but hunters and trappers told of the sullen
manner of the independent Indians and of the lack of stockades at the
far distant towns of the interior. The great body of Colonists went
upon their way in fancied peace and security, tilled the soil, cut down
the trees of the forests, and broke new roads through the wilderness
with no thought of danger. So low was the interest in the Provincial
militia that no elections for military officers were held by the people
and their officers were appointed by the general court. But suddenly
an episode occurred which woke the slumbering spirit of war and again
fired the angry passions of both red men and white. This was a murder.
There had been living among the Wampanoags at Nemasket, an Indian
converted to Christianity by John Eliot, a Puritan missionary. This
savage was named Sassamon, a cunning and plausible fellow, who
accompanied King Philip to the last conference with the Governor, as
an interpreter. He was close to Philip, was in his confidence, and
hearing him speak often of a desire to go to war against the English,
he one day journeyed to Plymouth, and told the people there to be on
their guard, for the Wampanoag chief was determined to massacre them
if he had a favorable opportunity. This alarming news was not believed
by Governor Prince, "for," said he, "all Indians are, by nature,
untruthful and wish to make you fear them." So the Puritans paid little
heed to this information, especially as Philip, himself, soon came to
the settlement, declaring that he wished for peace; that he had heard
of Sassamon's talk; and that he wanted to tell them that such sayings
were untruthful and absurd.
Today a few survivors of the Nemasket tribe of Indians live upon
the edge of Assowomset Pond, four miles south of the village of
Middleborough, Massachusetts, and on the surface of this quiet sheet
of water was found floating the body of Sassamon, in the spring of the
year. Bruises upon his body aroused the suspicions of the whites, who
came to the belief that he had been killed during the winter and his
remains thrown beneath the surface of the pond, in revenge for his
treacherous talk. Three Indians were arrested on suspicion, but they
claimed that Sassamon had been drowned while fishing and that the marks
upon his body were caused by contact with the ice. In spite of this,
they were called before a jury of whites and Indians, and, upon the
evidence of an Indian who claimed that he was an eye witness of the
affair, were sentenced to be hung. The last red man to swing for the
crime confessed that the other Wampanoags had really murdered the red
man and that he had been a looker-on, but not a participator in the
deed. In spite of thus turning "States Evidence" he was first reprieved
and then executed, and, although there was no actual proof of King
Philip's connection with this terrible affair, it was evident that
he had decreed that Sassamon should die as a fit punishment for his
tale-bearing to the English settlement.
The execution of the three Indians aroused the angry passions of
the Wampanoags to fever heat and they soon began to annoy the white
settlers who had the misfortune to live in the neighborhood of Mount
Hope. The peaceful folk at Plymouth now had rumors of ravage and
excesses of all kinds. Houses were robbed while the men were in the
fields at work; cattle were shot when they were beyond the hearing of
the farmers' wives; corn was stolen; outbuildings were set on fire
in the night, and sheep were mysteriously slaughtered. A Christian
Indian came, one day, to Governor Prince, and said: "Strange warriors
swarm to King Philip's village. His women and children are being sent
to the Narragansetts. He and his men are thick as flies, and they are
armed and ready for a long war." Alarm and terror spread among the
far-distant settlements, and some persons of imaginative minds saw
comets in the form of blazing arrows shoot across the skies, while
the thunder of hoofs of invisible horsemen, and the whistle of unseen
bullets, were heard upon the still air as the peace-loving villagers
walked to and from their meeting-houses. "To arms! To arms!" was the
cry, as the rumors of the Indian uprising grew more and more frequent,
and the stern-faced Puritans oiled their Cromwellian muskets, cleaned
out the fuse pans, and set their wives busily to work moulding leaden
bullets. War--cruel, savage, relentless war, was soon to burst upon the
white settlers of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
And, as we look upon the events which led up to this conflict, we see
that King Philip and his men had good reason to make one desperate
attempt to rid the country of the superior race of whites. "What can
we do against you English?" Philip had said in a conference at Bristol
Neck. "If we surrender our arms to you, you do not deliver them back
to us without charging us a fine; you take our land away from us and
pay us practically nothing. You cheat us whenever we have dealings
with you. As we have no fences around our cornfields, your horses and
cattle trample out our food. You sell our men liquor, get them drunk,
and then, when they hurt the sober Indians and your cattle, you fine us
so heavily that we must needs sell our land to pay it. When you English
first came to our country, my father Massasoit was a great man, and you
white men were weak and poor. He gave you more land than I now possess.
Yet you seized upon my brother Alexander, forced him to come to you
with a loaded pistol, and killed him by your cruel treatment. You will
not believe the testimony of our brothers in your court, and every
lying white man's tale against us is credited."
These accusations were all true; the English had crowded the men of
a different race and manner of living back into the interior, and,
desiring their land, had cheated, browbeaten and robbed them of their
possessions with a supreme contempt for their feelings. To compete with
the Puritans, the Wampanoags had to adopt their ways, but they were
content with their own manner of living; were satisfied with their
wigwams and primitive method of tilling the soil, and did not want the
care or trouble of tending to flocks of sheep and herds of cattle,
which made the white man rich and prosperous. It was the stronger race
against the weaker, and, as has always happened, the Indians had to
give way to those of greater intelligence and thrift.
Philip was driven to bay and forced into a fight by the passions which
he was unable to control, yet he must have known that he could not win.
The Narragansetts had not joined him. The surrounding tribes gave him
little assurance that they would fight with him to the bitter end, and,
although tradition has it that the Indians had seven or eight thousand
fighting men, it is probable that their actual numbers were about
three thousand five hundred. No general conspiracy had been organized,
and, although many individual Indians were sure to join with Philip's
warriors, he could count upon no assistance save that of his own
followers. So the hostilities began with the odds decidedly against the
native Americans.
The little village of Swansea, Massachusetts, was not far from the
Wampanoag capital of Mount Hope, and here on Sunday, June the 20th,
1675, a war party of eight Indians crept stealthily into the quiet
street as the settlers were at church. They entered a house, upturned
tables, chairs, and bedsteads; stuck arrows through the pictures, and
then killed some peaceful cows grazing on the village common. But
an old man and his son were at home, and, as they saw the thieving
savages issuing from a neighbor's house, the father seized his musket
and told his boy to "shoot a robbing varmint." Putting the gun to his
shoulder the young man fired from a window, dropped a savage with the
first bullet, and turned around smiling, when the Indian crawled to
his feet and made off. Later in the day some friendly Indians came to
the village and asked why the brave had been shot. "Because he was a
robber," replied the old man. "Is he dead?" "Yea," was the answer.
"That is good," shouted the boy who had pulled the trigger, and, from
the looks of hate upon the faces of the visitors, it could be seen that
they were maddened by the young man's idle words.
Messengers were sent in haste to Plymouth, troops were ordered to march
to Taunton, and, at the same time, the next Sunday was appointed as a
solemn one for prayer and the chanting of psalms, with the request that
war be turned aside. But these supplications to heaven were to be of
no avail, for, as the settlers of Swansea returned from their meeting
house upon the next Lord's day, suddenly the wild warwhoops of the
savages and crack of rifles was heard from the depths of the woods, on
either side of the path. One Puritan soon lay dead upon the ground,
another was badly wounded through the body, and two young men who were
running back to the village for a large gun, were found dying in the
road, as the fleeing settlers came slowly towards their homes, with
faces towards the lurking foe and their few muskets speaking loudly in
answer to the wild whoops of the painted braves. Barricading themselves
in the strongest farmhouses, they fought a desultory battle all through
the day, but next morn six persons were found dead in an outlying log
house, which was farther from the protection of the village. Their
heads were scalped and their bodies had been brutally disfigured.
There were forty thousand English in New England, and, at the first
news of this tragedy, men donned their armor, seized their guns, and
soon were marching in numbers towards the scene of hostilities. The
Praying Indians--those converted by the English missionaries--refused
to join with King Philip's men and either did not fight at all, or
marched with the whites. The Pequots and Mohegans of Connecticut would
not take the field against the Colonists, for the war had broken out a
year before King Philip had intended it to, and he had not had time to
persuade these to become his allies. He, himself, is said to have wept,
as the tidings of these first outrages of the war were brought him,
for, savage as he was, he no doubt relented at the idea of disturbing
the long peace which his father--the good Massasoit--had preserved
with the Puritans. But the die was cast; from now on there was to be
no rest for the Indian Sachem; and, although he must have known that,
in the end, he would surely be defeated, he plunged into the campaign
with a brave resolution to conquer the oppressors of his people. His
own following consisted of six hundred warriors, eager and ready for
the fray. The Narragansetts were willing to assist, the Nipmucks and
the Indians residing upon the Connecticut River were prepared for
a long war, and all the Indians upon the coast of Maine, fully two
hundred miles away, were soon engaged in the common cause of the
race--the extermination of the whites. Tradition has it that between
seven and eight thousand fighting men were enrolled in the war under
the leadership of Philip, but, in reality, there were probably about
thirty-five hundred.
On June 20th, a panting messenger came into Plymouth upon a blown and
winded horse.
"Arm! Arm!" he cried to the settlers. "The house of John Winslow at
Swansea has been plundered by the Indians and many houses have been
burned while the people had been at church. War is begun and we must
defend ourselves to the last ditch."
A stalwart Captain--a carpenter by trade, and Church by name--was one
of the first to bear the dreadful news.
"To arms!" he shouted, as he ran to the house where muskets and balls
were kept. "We'll soon show King Philip's men that the Puritans can
fight as well as they can hoe corn." And, before two houses were
passed, twenty horsemen galloped down the main street in the direction
of Taunton; their swords gleaming in the bright sun, and their
breastplates flashing like the saucepans in the kitchens of the good
housewives.
Church was a stout soldier and as ready with his broadsword, as he
was with his hammer and saw. His spirit was burning for a fight,
and, joined next day by numbers of friendly Indians and troops, under
Major Cudworth and Bradford, he pressed on to Swansea, meeting people
fleeing from their homes, wringing their hands, and bewailing the
losses of their houses and their herds. A part of his force was sent to
escort a guide called Brown to his home at Wanamoiset, on June 23rd,
and, meeting a part of the garrison going out to bring in corn from
some deserted houses, they told the drivers not to go on as Indians
were near. "We do not fear them," said the foragers, "for we could
handle King Philip's whole army," and thus boasting and laughing, they
proceeded onward. But scarcely had they gone more than two miles, when
loud war-cries sounded from either side of the forests, accompanied by
the sharp crack of rifles, and, to their dismay, they found themselves
in an ambuscade. "Turn, men, back to the town," shouted the head of
the force, but, although they quickly retreated, six of their number
were shot and fell into the roadway, where the skulking braves soon
made short work of them. In the following week this settlement, for
which they gathered provisions, was abandoned to its fate, and the
inhabitants sought refuge in Rhode Island.
Meanwhile two hundred and fifty fighting men of Boston had joined the
intrepid Church at Swansea, where there was skirmishing with lurking
Indians in the brush, but no battle with any great numbers of King
Philip's men. "On, on, to Mount Hope!" was the slogan of the eager
Puritans, as, with over five hundred warriors, the angry settlers
crossed over the bridge at Swansea, and, with horsemen upon the flanks
to prevent an ambuscade, pushed on towards the home of King Philip.
They passed by groups of empty wigwams, the smoking ruins of the
homes of settlers, Bibles torn to pieces and thrown into the roads in
defiance of their Christian teachings; while the heads of men and women
stuck on stakes bore full witness of the fury of the savages. The rain
fell in torrents as they pressed forward to the Indian town, but, when
they rushed exultantly amid the homes of the Wampanoags, not a savage
was to be seen, and a heavy trail towards the shore showed that all had
escaped to the inland country. Disgusted, but not disheartened, the
white men camped for the night in the drenching mist and rain, and,
leaving a force to build a fort, after a few days of fruitless search
for the savages, the soldiers retired to Swansea and Rehoboth.
Philip had been too clever to be caught at his own home, which was
without strong defenses, and had crossed the mouth of the Taunton River
to the Pocasset swampland, where he and his men had hidden themselves.
He was too wise to engage in open battle with the English, his tactics
being those of defense and quick forage, rather than that of meeting
the whites upon even terms. Furthermore, he hoped to prolong the war
until he could get other western tribes to join with him and thus
eventually drive the English into the sea. Should he have some great
victory, he expected to gain the assistance of the powerful Mohawks
of New York State, and with these to aid him in battle, the Colonists
would have little chance for success. So--sullenly and craftily--he
lay in the dense undergrowth, waiting for the English to find him in
his lair, while he dispatched numerous messengers to the surrounding
tribes, asking for the aid in this desperate war.
And he did not have long to wait for the enemy, as Captains Church
and Fuller were soon upon his trail, with thirty-six men who were
burning for a shot at the despoilers of their homesteads. They crossed
the river and penetrated the dense Pocasset swamp, where suddenly a
few of their number in advance ran into a small body of the savages.
These fled, without offering to fight, and so the rest pushed forward
upon the track which the great body of Indians had left as they had
retreated into a dense pine swamp. But, suddenly, the sharp rattle of
a snake sounded from the undergrowth. Another and still another was
heard, and, more terrified by this enemy than by the savages, Church
turned to his men to say:
"Back, boys! These serpents are worse than the Black Serpents whom we
search for. We must out of this and look for the cunning varmints by a
different route."
So they retreated from the wood, passed down the shore towards a neck
of land called Punkatee, and soon came upon fresh Indian signs and
a wigwam full of plunder. This made them push on much faster, and
suddenly they were overjoyed to see two of the enemy in a field of
ripening peas. Church and his men immediately fell flat upon their
faces, hoping to surprise the two savages, but the eyes of the braves
were keen. They saw the glint upon the steel breastplates of the
English, and so took to their heels. A fence lay in their path, and as
they climbed it, one turned around to discharge his gun. As he did so,
a Puritan hit him with a bullet, so that he dropped into the thicket
upon the other side, with a great yell of rage and pain. The English
rushed forward, hoping to capture him, but, like a cat with nine lives,
he wriggled away in the thick underbrush and disappeared.
The Puritans pressed forward, but the sharp ping! ping! from fifty
Indian rifles spoke from the silent forest, which warned them that they
were surrounded. Blood-curdling yells of defiance sounded in hideous
unison as they advanced, and, perceiving that they were in an ambush,
Captain Church cried out: "Retreat! Retreat to the fence, lie down
behind it, and stand off these yelping wolves." The soldiers obeyed,
and, as they reached this friendly shelter, the hill in front of them
was fairly black with the swarming warriors of King Philip, whose
bright guns glittered in the sun. As they spread out to surround the
small band of Puritans, the rattle of bullets in the grass warned the
gallant Church that he must retreat, or else all would be lost.
Giving the order to fall back to the beach, the intrepid Captain soon
had his men near the water's edge, where they protected themselves
behind fallen boulders and stripped off their coats, so as to let their
friends see them from the opposite shore. The soldiers were so hungry
that they stopped to gather some raw peas upon the way, being peppered
by the Indian bullets as they did so, and losing one of their number.
At last they all tumbled down behind an old hedge where Captain Church
lay, and remained quiet under a withering fire from the Indians, who
took possession of the ruins of an old stone house that overlooked
them, and endeavored to pick off as many as they could. A hot fight
went on. Things began to look black for the small band of Puritans, who
were now outnumbered ten to one, and whose powder and ball began to
grow very scarce.
In this situation, a sail boat approached from the opposite shore, with
a canoe trailing at the stern, but the Indians kept up such a warm
fusillade at her that they made her keep some distance away. "Send your
canoe ashore," shouted the men, "and take us off, for our ammunition is
near gone and we will be overpowered."
But the fellows upon the boat were afraid to venture nearer and kept a
safe distance away.
"If you don't send your canoe ashore," roared Church, "I will fire upon
you myself. Come--paddle in so that some of my men can get away."