WARS WITH THE INDIANS
The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the affairs of
the New England colonies, was characterized by widespread excitement and
deep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere. Scarcely a section
of the territory from Maine to the frontier of New York and the towns of
Long Island but felt the strain of impending change in its political
status. The winning of the charters and the capture of New Amsterdam
were momentous events in the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island and
Connecticut; while the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and the
acrimonious debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly the
towns of that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, and
contentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state of
perturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as to
jurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut's
charter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east to
Flushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people into
discordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already mentioned,
an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or another seems to
have made trouble in nearly every part of the British world, appeared at
this time in Long Island and, denying Connecticut's title to the
territory, proclaimed the King. In January, 1664, he established a
government at Setauket, with himself as president. This event set the
towns in an uproar; Captain Young from Southold, upholding Connecticut's
claim, came "with a trumpet" to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed Long
Island Sound to support Scott's cause; and at last Connecticut herself
sent over officers to seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would
"sacrifice his heart's blood upon the ground" before he would yield, he
was taken and carried in chains to Hartford.
Both Plymouth and Massachusetts sent letters protesting against the
treatment of Scott, and the heat engendered among the members of the New
England Confederation was intensified by the controversy over New Haven
and the "uncomfortable debates" regarding the title to the Narragansett
territory. Massachusetts wrote to Connecticut in 1662, "We cannot a
little wonder at your proceeding so suddenly to extend your authority to
the trouble of your friends and confederates"; to which Connecticut
replied, hoping that Massachusetts would stop laying further temptations
before "our subjects at Mistack of disobedience to this government." The
matter was debated for many years, and it was not until 1672 that
Massachusetts recognized Connecticut's title under the charter and
yielded, not because it thought the claim just but because "it was
judged by us more dangerous to the common cause of New England to oppose
than by our forbearance and yielding to endeavour to prevent a mischief
to us both."
In Rhode Island conditions were equally unsettled, for the inhabitants
of the border towns did not know certainly in what colony they were
situated or what authority to recognize; and though these doubts
affected but little the daily life of the farmer, they did affect the
title to his lands and the payment of his taxes, and threw suspicion
upon all legal processes and transactions. The situation was even more
disturbed in the regions north of Massachusetts, where the status of
Maine and New Hampshire was undecided and where the coming of the royal
commissioners only served to throw the inhabitants into a new ferment.
The claims of Mason and Gorges were revived by their descendants, and
the King peremptorily ordered Massachusetts to surrender the provinces.
Agents of Gorges appeared in the territory and demanded an
acknowledgment of their authority; the commissioners themselves
attempted to organize a government and to exercise jurisdiction there in
the King's name; but in 1668 Massachusetts, denying all other
pretensions, adopted a resolution asserting her full right of control,
and, sending commissioners with a military escort to York, resumed
jurisdiction of the province. The inhabitants did not know what to do.
Some upheld the Gorges agents and the commissioners; others adhered to
Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts itself there were grave differences
of opinion, for the younger generation did not always follow the old
magistrates, and the people of Boston were developing views both of
government and of the proper relations toward England that were at
variance with those of the more conservative country towns and
districts.
The larger disputes between the colonies were frequently accompanied
with lesser disputes between the towns over their boundaries; and both
at this time and for years afterwards there was scarcely an important
settlement in New England that did not have some trouble with its
neighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over their
dividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme attempted to mow
the same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle with clubs and
scythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of Windsor and Enfield
"were so fiercely engag'd" over a disputed strip of land, reported an
eye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide this controversy by force,
"a resolute combat" ensuing between them "in which many blows were given
to the exasperating each party, so that the lives and limbs of his
Majesties subjects were endangered thereby."
Though clubs and scythes and fists are dangerous weapons enough, the
only real fighting in which the colonists engaged was with the Indians
and with weapons consisting of pikes and muskets. Indian attacks were an
ever-present danger, for the stretches of unoccupied land between the
colonies were the hunting-grounds of the Narragansetts of eastern
Connecticut and western Rhode Island, the Pequots of Connecticut, the
Wampanoags of Plymouth and its neighborhood, the Pennacooks of New
Hampshire, and the Abenaki tribes of Maine. Plague and starvation had so
far weakened the coast Indians before the arrival of the first colonists
that the new settlements had been but little disturbed; but,
unfortunately, as the first comers pushed into the interior, founding
new plantations, felling trees, and clearing the soil, and the trappers
and traders invaded the Indian hunting-grounds, carrying with them
firearms and liquor, the Indian menace became serious.
To meet the Indian peril, all the colonies made provision for a supply
of arms and for the drilling of the citizen body in militia companies or
train-bands. But in equipment, discipline, and morale the fighting force
of New England was very imperfect. The troops had no uniforms; there was
a very inadequate commissariat; and alarums, whether by beacon,
drum-beat, or discharge of guns, were slow and unreliable. Weapons were
crude, and the method of handling them was exceedingly awkward and
cumbersome. The pike was early abandoned and the matchlock soon gave
way to the flintlock--both heavy and unwieldy instruments of war--and
carbines and pistols were also used. Cavalry or mounted infantry, though
expensive because of horse and outfit, were introduced whenever
possible. In 1675, Plymouth had fourteen companies of infantry and
cavalry; Massachusetts had six regiments, including the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery; and Maine and New Hampshire had one each.
Connecticut had four train-bands in 1662 and nine in 1668, a troop of
dragoneers, and a troop of horse, but no regiments until the next
century. For coast defense there were forts, very inadequately supplied
with ordnance, of which that on Castle Island in Boston harbor was the
most conspicuous, and, for the frontier, there were garrison-houses and
stockades.
Though Massachusetts had twice put herself in readiness to repel
attempts at coercion from England, and though both Connecticut and New
Haven seemed on several occasions in danger from the Dutch, particularly
after the recapture of New Amsterdam in 1673, New England's chief danger
was always from the Indians. Both French and Dutch were believed to be
instrumental in inciting Indian warfare, one along the southwestern
border, the other at various points in the north, notably in New
Hampshire and Maine. But, except for occasional Indian forays and for
house-burnings and scalpings in the more remote districts, there were
only two serious wars in the seventeenth century--that against the
Pequots in 1637 and the great War of King Philip in 1675-1676.
The Pequot War, which was carried on by Connecticut with a few men from
Massachusetts and a number of Mohegan allies, ended in the complete
overthrow of the Pequot nation and the extermination of nearly all its
fighting force. It began in June, 1637, with the successful attack by
Captain John Mason on the Pequot fort near Groton, and was brought to an
end by the battle of Fairfield Swamp, July 13, where the surviving
Pequots made their last stand. Sassacus, the Pequot chieftain, was
murdered by the Mohawks, among whom he had sought refuge; and during the
year that followed wandering members of the tribe, whenever found, were
slain by their enemies, the Mohegans and Narragansetts. An entire Indian
people was wiped out of existence, an achievement difficult to justify
on any ground save that of the extreme necessity of either slaying or
being slain. The relentless pursuit of the scattered and dispirited
remnants of these tribes admits of little defense.
The overthrow of the Pequots opened to settlement the region from
Saybrook to Mystic and led to a treaty in 1638 with the Mohegans and
Narragansetts, according to which harmony was to prevail and peace was
to reign. But the outcome of this impracticable treaty was a five years'
struggle between the Mohegan chieftain, Uncas, actively allied with the
colony of Connecticut, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts,
which involved Connecticut in a tortuous and often dishonorable policy
of attempting to divide the Indians in order to rule them--a policy
which led to many embarrassing negotiations and bloody conflicts and
ended in the murder of Miantonomo in 1643, by the Mohegans, at the
instigation of the commissioners of the United Colonies. This alliance
between Uncas and the colony lasted for more than forty years. It placed
upon Connecticut the burden of supporting a treacherous and grasping
Indian chief; it created a great deal of confusion in land titles in the
eastern part of the colony because of indiscriminate Indian grants; it
started the famous Mohegan controversy which agitated the colony and
England also, and was not finally settled until 1773, one hundred and
thirty years later; and it was, in part at least, a cause of King
Philip's War, because of the colony's support of the Mohegans against
their traditional enemies, the Narragansetts and Niantics.
The presence of the Indians in and near the colonies rendered frequent
dealings with them a matter of necessity. The English settlers generally
purchased their lands from the Indians, paying in such goods or
implements or trinkets as satisfied savage need and desire. In so doing
they acquired, as they supposed, a clear title of ownership, though
there can be no doubt that what the Indian thought he sold was not the
actual soil but only the right to occupy the land in common with
himself. As the years wore on, the problems of reservations, trade, and
the sale of firearms and liquor engaged the attention of the authorities
and led to the passage of many laws. The conversion of the Indians to
Christianity became the object of many pious efforts, and in
Massachusetts and Plymouth resulted in communities of "Praying Indians,"
estimated in 1675 at about four thousand individuals. In contact with
the white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented the
settlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the women
and children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, and
developed an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indians
were not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies passed many
laws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the one
condition as well as the other.
But the real danger to New England came not from those Indians who
occupied reservations and hung around the settlements, but from those
who, with savage spirit unbroken, were slowly being driven from their
hunting-grounds and nurtured an implacable hatred against the aggressive
and relentless pioneers. The New Englanders numbered at this time some
80,000 individuals, with an adult and fighting population of perhaps
16,000; while the number of the Indians altogether may have reached as
high as 12,000, with the Narragansetts, the strongest of all, mustering
4,000. The final struggle for possession of the main part of central and
southern New England territory came in 1675, in what is known as King
Philip's War.
Scarcely had the fears aroused by the arrival of a Dutch fleet at New
York and the capture of that city been allayed by the peace of
Westminster in 1674, when rumors of Indian unrest began to spread
through the settlements, and the dread of Indian outbreaks began to
arouse new apprehensions in the hearts of the people. Hitherto no Indian
chieftain had proved himself a born leader of his people. Neither
Sessaquem, Sassacus, Pumham, Uncas, nor Miantonomo had been able to
quiet tribal jealousies and draw to his standard against the English
others than his own immediate followers. But now appeared a sachem who
was the equal of any in hatred of the white man and the superior of all
in generalship, who was gifted both with the power of appeal to the
younger Indians and with the finesse required to rouse other chieftains
to a war of vengeance. Philip, or Metacom, was the second son of old
Massasoit, the longtime friend of the English, and, upon the death of
his elder brother Alexander in 1662, became the head of the Wampanoags,
with his seat at Mount Hope, a promontory extending into Narragansett
Bay. Believing that his people had been wronged by the English,
particularly by those of Plymouth colony, and foreseeing that he and
his people were to be driven step by step westward into narrower and
more restricted quarters, he began to plot a great campaign of
extermination. On June 24, 1675, a body of Indians fell on the town of
Swansea, on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay, slew nine of the
inhabitants and wounded seven others. Though assistance was sent from
Massachusetts and Plymouth, the burning and massacring continued,
extending to Rehoboth, Taunton, and towns northward. The settlements
were isolated before the troops could reach them, their inhabitants were
slain, cabins were burned, and prisoners were carried into captivity.
The Rhode Islanders fled to the islands; elsewhere settlers gathered in
garrisoned forts and blockhouses and in new forts hastily erected.
Though the authorities of Connecticut and Massachusetts sent agents
among the Nipmucks hoping to prevent their alliance with Philip, the
effort failed, and by August the tribes on the upper Connecticut had
joined the movement and now began a determined and systematic
destruction of the settlements in central New England. The famous
massacre and burning of Deerfield took place on September 12, the
surviving inhabitants fleeing to Hatfield, leaving their town in ruins.
Hatfield, Northfield, Springfield, and Westfield were attacked in turn,
and though the defense was sometimes successful, more often the
defenders were ambushed and killed. So widespread was the uprising that
during the autumn, a desultory warfare was carried on as far north as
Falmouth, Brunswick, and Casco Bay, where at least fifty Englishmen were
slain by members of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes.
As yet the Narragansetts, bravest of all the southern New England
Indians, whose chief was Canonchet, son of the murdered Miantonomo, had
taken no part in the war. But as rumor spread that they had welcomed
Philip and listened to his appeals and were probably planning to join in
the murderous fray, war was declared against them on November 2, 1675,
and a force of a thousand men and horse from Plymouth and Massachusetts
was drawn up on Dedham plain, under the command of General Josiah
Winslow and Captain Benjamin Church. On December 19, the greater part of
this force, aided by troops from Connecticut, fell on the Narragansetts
in their swamp fort, south of the present town of Kingston, and after a
fierce and bloody fight completely routed them, though at a heavy loss.
The tribe was driven from its own territory, and Canonchet fled to the
Connecticut River, where he established a rallying point for new forays.
His followers allied themselves with the Wampanoags and Nipmucks and
began a new series of massacres. In February and March, 1676, they fell
upon Lancaster, where they carried off Mrs. Rowlandson, who has left us
a narrative of her captivity; upon Medfield, where fifty houses were
burned; and upon Weymouth and Marlborough, which were raided and in part
destroyed. Repeated assaults in other quarters kept the western frontier
of Massachusetts in a frightful condition of terror; settlers were
ambushed and scalped, others were tortured, and many were carried into
captivity. Even the Pennacooks of southern New Hampshire were roused to
action, though their share in the war was small. Here a hundred warriors
sacked a village; there Indians skulking along trails and on the
outskirts of towns cut off individuals and groups of individuals,
shooting, scalping, and burning them. No one was safe. Again the
commissioners of the United Colonies met in council and ordered a more
vigorous prosecution of the campaign. More troops were levied and
garrison posts fortified, but the first results were disastrous.
Captain Pierce of Scituate was ambushed at Blackstone's River near
Rehoboth, and his command was completely wiped out. Sudbury was
destroyed in April, and a relieving force escaped only with heavy loss.
But the strength of the Indians was waning. Canonchet, run to earth near
the Pawtuxet River, was captured and sentenced to death, and his
execution was entrusted to Oneko, the son of Uncas. His head was cut off
and carried to Hartford, and his body was committed to the flames. The
loss of Canonchet was a bitter blow to Philip, who now saw his allies
falling away and himself deserted by all but a few faithful followers.
The campaign--at last well in hand and directed by that prince of Indian
fighters, Benjamin Church, now commissioned a colonel by General
Winslow--was approaching an end. Using friendly savages as scouts,
Colonel Church gradually located and captured stray bodies of Indians
and brought them as captives to Plymouth. Finally, coming on the trail
of Philip himself, he first intercepted his followers, and then,
relentlessly pursuing the fleeing chieftain from one point to another,
tracked him to his lair at his old stronghold, Mount Hope. There the
great chief who had terrorized New England for nearly a year was slain
by one of his own race. His ornaments and treasure were seized by the
soldiers, and his crown, gorget, and two belts, all of gold and silver
of Indian make, were sent as a present to Charles II. With the death of
Philip, August 12, 1676, the whole movement collapsed, and the remaining
hostile Indians, dispersed and in flight, with their leaders gone and
starvation threatening, sought refuge among the northern tribes. Thus
the last effort to check the English advance in southern and central New
England was brought to an end. From this time on, the Indians in
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut lingered for a century and
a half, a steadily dwindling remnant, wards of the governments and
occupants of reservations, until they ceased to exist as a separate
people.
The havoc wrought by the war was a great blow to the prosperity of New
England. Probably more than six hundred whites had been slain or
captured, and hundreds of houses and a score of villages had been burnt
or pillaged; crops had been destroyed, cattle driven off, and
agriculture in many quarters brought to a complete standstill. In 1676,
there was little leisure to sow and less to reap. Provisions became
increasingly scarce; none could be had near at hand, for none of the
colonies had a surplus; and attempts to obtain them from a distance
proved unavailing. Staples for trade with the West Indies decreased; the
fur trade was curtailed; and fishing was hampered for want of men. To
add to the confusion, a plague vexed the colonies. It seemed to all as
if the hand of God lay heavily upon New England, and days of humiliation
and prayer were appointed to assuage the wrath of the Almighty. A
Massachusetts act of November, 1675, ascribed the war to the judgment of
God upon the colony for its sins, among which were included an excess of
apparel, the wearing of long hair, and the rudeness of worship, all
marks of an apostasy from the Lord "with a great backsliding." The
Puritan fear of divine displeasure adds a relieving note to the general
despondency and must have stiffened the determination of the orthodox
leaders to resist to the utmost all attempts to liberalize the life of
the colony or to alter its character as a religious state patterned
after the divine plan. King Philip's War probably strengthened the
position of the conservative element in Massachusetts.