THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT
During the quarter of a century preceding 1675, the growth of the New
England colonies, both in numbers and resources, had been marked. Their
refusal, on the one hand, to observe such of the imperial laws as might
in any way hamper their commerce, and, on the other, the opportunities
offered by the growth of the Empire, under those laws, had resulted in
an enormous expansion, comparatively, in the colonies' intercolonial and
foreign trade. With no Indian war of any magnitude for a generation, and
with ample areas of free land upon which to expand, the frontier
extended rapidly, and the population doubled. At the opening of the
inter-racial conflict which is the subject of this chapter, the settlers
probably numbered about fifty-two thousand, of whom approximately
thirty-seven thousand were located in the seaboard colonies from Maine
to Plymouth, three thousand in Rhode Island, and twelve thousand in
Connecticut.[834] The numbers of the Indians can be estimated with even
less certainty than those of the whites; but it is probable that the
colonists outnumbered them by at least four to one.[835] The
Narragansetts, who were by far the most numerous, as well as the most
powerful, may have counted five thousand individuals in all.[836]
Footnote 834:
There are no exact figures. The estimate in _Century of Population
Growth_, pp. 4 _ff._, is about 54,000. Dexter, _Estimates of
Population in American Colonies_, gives about the same (pp. 26 _ff._).
Palfrey estimates from 40,000 to 45,000 in 1665 (_History_, vol. III,
pp. 35 _ff._). If we accept the usual military ratio of one military
effective to five persons, a contemporary estimate in 1675 by
[William?] Harris gives 44,000, which would be increased by the fact
that Massachusetts insisted upon carrying a smaller proportion of the
military burden than the other colonies. _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1675-76_, p. 220. L. K. Mathews's estimate of 120,000, in her
generally accurate _Expansion of New England_ (p. 56), may be taken
from _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 362, where that greatly
exaggerated figure is given, but as a query, and is disproved by the
additional statistics of 13,000 families and 16,000 effectives given
in the same statement. Osgood adopts the figure of 80,000 (_American
Colonies_, vol. I, p. 543).
Footnote 835:
Palfrey's suggestion of about equal numbers for the two races seems to
have little foundation. _History_, vol. III, p. 167. On the other
hand, Osgood's estimate of only 10,500 (_American Colonies_, vol. I,
p. 543) seems a little low.
Footnote 836:
Hodge, _Handbook_, vol. II, p. 29.
The geographical relations of the two races had been almost as greatly
altered, in a generation, as had their numerical proportions. At the
time of the Pequot war, in 1637, at least four fifths of the entire
white population formed a compact mass along the eastern shore of the
present state of Massachusetts. The scattered settlements of Maine and
New Hampshire, the handful of people about Narragansett Bay, and the
beginnings of the River Towns in Connecticut, were but isolated outposts
in what was otherwise an unbroken wilderness, peopled only by the
savages. The whites were thus hemmed in on every side except the
ocean.[837] By 1675, the situation in southern New England had been
completely reversed. The settled area, which by that year extended
westward from the sea one third of the way across Massachusetts, was
continued from Cape Cod along the Sound and up the Connecticut River,
and the western Massachusetts towns were scattered up the valley of the
latter as far as Northfield. It was now the Indian who found himself,
not simply far outnumbered, but entirely surrounded, by his white
neighbors. It was only in the northeastern settlements, where the
English population was much sparser, and where the short rivers and
broken uplands offered no attractions to tempt the settlers from the
coast, that the earlier conditions still prevailed, and the savages as
yet had free range.
Footnote 837:
The maps in Mathews's _Expansion of New England_ are of great value in
studying the movement of the frontier.
In the Puritan colonies, the practical identity of church and town, and
the whole social, religious, and political life of the people precluded
any wide dispersal of individual settlers in the wilderness. Even when
individuals wished to go off by themselves, they were, as a rule, not
allowed to do so, and Plymouth was not the only colony to take drastic
measures to discipline such as preferred “liveing lonely and in a
heathenish way from good societie.”[838] The unit of the southern New
England frontier was not the solitary hunter or trapper, not even the
family of the pioneer farmer, but the town. When a bit of the wilderness
was cleared, it was to plant therein, not an isolated cabin, but the
homes of an organized community, fully equipped with a church and town
government, destined, almost at once, to be a new centre of civilization
alien to the savage, permanent, irremovable, expanding. When a French
trader or trapper plunged into the forest, and the green leaves closed
behind him, it was to mingle with the life of the natives, which, in its
main aspects, flowed on unaltered by his presence. When, on the other
hand, Englishmen cleared their fields, built a town and a church, and by
virtue of their title-deeds claimed undivided ownership of their newly
acquired square miles of land, it was as if they had planted a great
rock in the stream of savage life, which must thereafter flow around
this new obstruction. As the English frontier crept ever farther and
farther inland, from the shores of ocean and Sound, and up the valleys
of such streams as the Merrimac, Thames, or Connecticut, and town
succeeded town, it was as if, adding stone to stone, great dykes were
being built, which more and more dammed up the waters of native life. It
was almost inevitable that a point would be reached when these
imprisoned waters would burst forth, and possibly carry away all New
England in their flood.
Footnote 838:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 169.
The land-hunger of the whites, however, was insatiable. Almost any
trouble with the natives became a sufficient excuse for an extorted
cession of territory, either immediate or deferred. From the very
beginning, the English had recognized an Indian title to the country, as
distinct from the rights conveyed by the king in his patents. Indeed, in
view of the use to which the settlers wished to put the lands, and the
basis upon which they necessarily lived in relation to the native
occupants, they could not well do otherwise, and peaceful possession was
cheaply secured at the expense of a few coats or hoes. But, as we saw in
an earlier chapter, the Indian theory of ownership was entirely
different from that of the whites; and although the English, for the
most part, observed the legal forms of their own race, the parchments
which the savage signed with his mark were as ethically invalid as a
child's sale of his inheritance for a stick of candy. Not only, in the
beginning, had the natives failed to understand the nature of the
transaction itself, but in their utter ignorance of Europe, and of what
was bound to ensue from the steady stream of emigration thence, they
could not foresee—what was reasonably clear to the colonists—that the
result of their having welcomed the stranger would eventually be their
own annihilation or completely altered status.
Whatever may be thought of the abstract justice of the earlier
purchases, as the whites increased in numbers and comparative power, and
as their first fears of the savages, and the desire to convert them,
gave place to dislike, contempt, spiritual indifference, and
self-confidence, their dealings with them sank to a lower ethical plane.
It took but a few years for the methods of land-acquisition to become
greatly modified. It was no longer considered necessary to treat with
the Indian as an equal, whose just title could be acquired only for a
valuable consideration. The theory was formulated that the native could
be punished for a breach of the Englishman's laws, and that the fine or
damage imposed might take the form of a cession of land. Troubles with
the savages, on a larger scale, resulted in making use of the title by
conquest, by which the larger part of Connecticut was acquired. Later,
in the case of the Narragansetts, as we have already seen, overdue
tribute, of questionable validity, was used by a speculative land
company as a basis for advancing money on mortgage, by means of which it
was hoped to obtain the rich territorial possessions of that entire
tribe. All the colonies, indeed, in order to protect the Indians from
the commoner forms of fraud, and themselves from the dangerous results
of disputes, had made it illegal for individuals to bargain for land;
and the laws requiring the general courts to pass upon all land-dealings
were wise and just, and, undoubtedly, prevented much petty trickery and
mischief. It is needless to point out, however, the subtle temptation
for the colonies to pick a quarrel with the natives, to interfere with
their internal affairs, or to conduct some little military expedition,
when the result was likely to be the acquisition of desirable lands by a
mere show of force.
As the whites encroached more and more upon the Indians, the lands of
the latter gradually came to be looked upon as reservations, upon which
their native owners were allowed to live until a convenient opportunity,
or the growing needs of the settlers, might bring about a farther
advance. Moreover, as the Indian lands dwindled in extent, and the
whites rapidly increased numerically, in proportion to the natives, the
settlers adopted an attitude of superiority and authority over the
native tribes. This really amounted to establishing a protectorate over
them, and relegated them to the rank of dependent peoples shorn of all
sovereign power. It was a natural evolution in the relations between the
two races, but was no more acceptable to the Indians for that reason.
Nor were the Puritans, who were by nature harsh and overbearing, and who
failed to display even the ordinary good manners of the time in their
dealings with the Dutch, likely to exhibit any great amount of tact or
courtesy in those which they had with the despised heathen and “children
of the devil.” Personal pride and a strict observance of etiquette were
marked characteristics of the savages, and chiefs and sachems could not
fail to be stung to the quick when they were summoned, with more and
more frequency, and less and less courtesy, to travel long distances and
answer to complaints before the courts of Plymouth or Massachusetts,
with but little regard for their dignity or standing among their own
people.
Not seldom, moreover, they knew that such a demand was but the prelude
to extending English authority, and sending them home shorn of
possessions and respect. To cite, as an example, a case somewhat closely
connected with the events of this chapter, in 1671, as a sequel to a
rumored rising of the Indians in Plymouth Colony, the Squaw Sachem
Awashunks was summoned to appear; and having done so voluntarily, she
was required to submit “the disposall of her lands to the authoritie” of
the colony, and was forced to engage herself to pay £50, to recompense
the English for their trouble in the matter. As it was impossible that
she could pay any such sum, the eventual “disposall” of her lands would
not be difficult to foresee.[839] Land, as Roger Williams wrote, was
becoming “one of the gods of New England,” and judicial punishments were
coming curiously often to involve forced concessions regarding coveted
bits of territory. Subtly, and perhaps unconsciously, but no less
surely, the land-hunger of the whites was poisoning the wells of
justice.
Footnote 839:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 75.
As a result of the relations, territorial and political, which were
developing between the races, and as a natural corollary of the
protectorate theory, the English were also gradually enacting, on the
one hand, a body of law applicable among themselves to the Indian only,
and, on the other, forcing the “protected” Indians to observe English
law, even when living apart from the settlers. Such regulations as
Connecticut passed for the Pequots on their reservation in the spring of
1675 were evidence of what all the protected Indians might expect in
time. Any native, for example, heathen or Christian, who profaned the
Sabbath day by hunting, fishing, carrying firewood, or other
misdemeanors, was to be fined or whipped; while all were ordered to
“heare the word of God preached by Mr. Fitch, or any other minister sent
amongst them,” subject to four shillings fine or corporal
punishment.[840] A most unjust law, in view of the well-understood
inability of the Indian to withstand the temptation of strong waters,
and the willingness of the colonists, in spite of legal prohibition, to
sell them to him, was that which provided that any native found drunk
should have to labor twelve days for whoever accused him and proved the
case, one half of the proceeds of his labor to go to the accuser, and
one half to the county treasury. It was only necessary, therefore,
secretly to induce a savage to take one or two drinks, in order to
secure six days' forced labor from him _gratis_.[841] We need not credit
the preposterous contemporary accusation that the Massachusetts
government, under a similar law, connived at making Indians drunk, so as
to hasten the work on Castle Island, in order to realize the ample
possibilities for evil in such a statute.[842]
Footnote 840:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 575 _f._
Footnote 841:
_Ibid._, p. 257.
Footnote 842:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 307. This document, apparently by
Capt. Wyborne, was used in the Mason-Gorges case against
Massachusetts.
The close proximity in which the whites and natives dwelt in many places
was the source of endless friction and petty annoyance, particularly to
the Indians. The live-stock of the settlers was forever being allowed to
stray into the cultivated lands of the savages; and at the time of the
troubles in 1671, the colony of Plymouth had to appoint committees in no
less than eleven different towns, “to view the Damage done to the
Indians by the Horses and Hoggs of the English.”[843] The question of
firearms was the subject of frequent legislation by the colonial courts,
and of friction with the natives, in the altered condition of whose life
they had become practically essential as a means of procuring food.[844]
Notwithstanding this fact, and the obvious one that the guns, having
been paid for by the Indians with their own money, were their property,
the English, frequently, when alarmed by rumors of hostility, required
that the savages deliver all their arms into the hands of the
authorities, considering as enemies those who refused.[845] Not only was
this a hardship and a humiliation, but, on a number of occasions, the
English refused to return the weapons, simply confiscating them. In
1671, for example, in Plymouth, after Philip had been required to
deposit the guns of his people with the Court, that body determined that
they were “justly forfeit,” and coolly divided them among the towns of
the colony.[846] At one stroke, not only were the natives deprived of
their means of livelihood and defense, but the weapons, which they had
honestly bought, were thus, by legalized robbery, turned against
themselves. No individual with the instinct of self-respect and
self-preservation could fail to see that his eventual choice would lie
between resistance and virtual slavery.
Footnote 843:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 62.
Footnote 844:
_Cf._ _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 74, 79, 163, 263;
_Massachusetts Records_, vols. IV, pt. ii, p. 564, and V, pp. 44, 304;
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 64.
Footnote 845:
_E.g._, _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 240.
Footnote 846:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 63.
The missionary efforts of the English differed from those of the French
precisely as did their exploitation of the land. In French America, the
religious counterpart of the lonely trapper or trader was the Jesuit
priest, who, cross in hand, and frequently without a companion,
penetrated to the far depths of the forest, to carry his message to the
heathen wherever found. In New England, however, as it was the town and
not the trader that pushed the frontier forward, so the lonely
missionary was replaced by the organizer of communities, and the savages
on the fringe of civilization were gathered into villages within the
bounds of white settlement, there to have the gospel preached to them,
and to be joined in a covenanted church. Such work was practically
negligible in Rhode Island and Connecticut, but, by the outbreak of
Philip's War, had made considerable progress in Massachusetts and
Plymouth. In the latter two colonies, the labors of the Reverend John
Eliot, who had translated the Bible into the Indian tongue, of Thomas
Mayhew, Richard Bourne, and others,—paid for almost wholly with funds
raised in England,—had resulted in the gathering of perhaps four
thousand converts.[847] A considerable number of these “Praying
Indians,” as they were called, were scattered in villages on Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket, and in some twenty localities in Plymouth, and
about eleven hundred were located in Massachusetts. Of the latter, the
earlier and most dependable ones dwelt in the seven towns of Chelmsford,
Littleton, Natick, Marlborough, Hopkinton, Grafton, and Stoughton, which
were located at intervals of a dozen miles or so along the frontier of
the eastern settlements, and which might have been used as a possible
line of defense against any hostile movement from the unoccupied central
portion of the colony, which lay between them and the towns of the
Connecticut River.[848] In a large proportion of cases, the conversion
seems to have been genuine, and the Indians, more particularly in the
seven towns named, to have become sincere friends of the English,
although the more recent converts in the Nipmuck country soon went over
to the enemy.
Footnote 847:
D. Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians of New England,”
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol. I, pp. 195 _ff._ For the work
of these men, which deserves all praise, _vide_ the tracts reprinted
in _Ibid._, Series III, vol. IV.
Footnote 848:
D. Gookin, “Christian Indians,” in _Archeologia Americana_, vol. II,
p. 435.
To the bulk of the savages, however, the humdrum existence led by their
praying brethren in the little reservations allotted to them by the
English, and their position of humble dependence upon the white lords of
the soil, could hardly make a serious appeal. The past was too recent,
and its contrast with the present was too vivid. It was becoming clear
to the dullest witted that the future could hold little else, however,
unless the power of the whites could be broken once and for all.
Massasoit, the aged Sachem of the Wampanoags, who had been a consistent
friend to the settlers since 1620, died in the winter of 1660-61, and
his son Alexander, who succeeded him, also died a few months later. In
fact, his death is said to have been due, in part, to his anger and
chagrin at having been forcibly seized by the authorities of Plymouth
when called upon to make his appearance before them.[849] The change of
relations between the whites and Indians was well exemplified by the
difference between the formal and dignified embassy sent from Plymouth
in 1620, to visit Massasoit and to negotiate a treaty with him, and the
“eight or ten stout men,” under Major Winslow, who surprised Alexander
in his hunting-lodge, seized his arms, and commanded him to travel to
that same Plymouth, to appear before the governor.
Footnote 849:
W. Hubbard, _History of the Indian Wars in New England_ (ed. S. G.
Drake, 1865), vol. I, p. 50. A more favorable account of the Alexander
incident is given in a letter from John Cotton to Increase Mather, in
1677. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VIII, pp. 233 _f._
Philip had not long succeeded his brother Alexander as sachem, when he,
in turn, was curtly summoned to appear before the Court, to clear
himself of rumored disloyalty. Although nothing whatever was proved, and
Philip offered to leave another of his brothers as hostage, he was
forced to sign a treaty ratifying all former ones, acknowledge himself
an English subject, and agree not to alienate any of his lands without
the consent of the Court.[850] Five years later, on renewed rumors of
his disloyalty, his arms were taken away, and he was again forced to
appear before the magistrates. Although once more no evidence was
produced against him, and his arms were returned, he was nevertheless
required to give his note for £40 as part of the charge for the
expedition which had been sent after him.[851] In 1671, for wholly
inadequate causes, he was forced, not to make a new treaty, but, without
option, to sign “several propositions,” by one of which he had to agree
to pay a fine of “one hundred pounds in such things as I have,”
although, as he had no such sum, he asked for three years in which to
pay it. He was also required to acknowledge himself in subjection, not
merely to the English Crown, but to the little colony of Plymouth; to
pay an annual tribute; to sell land only subject to the colony's
approval; and, with exceeding unfairness, to agree in advance to submit,
in case of any dispute between the colony and himself, to the verdict of
the governor as arbitrator.[852] It was on this occasion, as already
noted, that all the guns that his people had delivered to the English
were confiscated.
Footnote 850:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. IV, pp. 25 _f._
Footnote 851:
_Ibid._, pp. 165 _f._
Footnote 852:
_Ibid._, vol. V, p. 79. The accusations against him are on p. 78.
These were only that he had refused to deliver some of his guns; that,
on occasion, he had refused to journey to Plymouth when sent for; that
he harbored enemy Indians; that he had misrepresented Plymouth to
Massachusetts; and that he had been uncivil.
This treatment, accorded to the son of that sachem to whom the now
grasping colony had, in its infancy, owed its very life, and who had
been its friend for over forty years, could not fail to goad him into
rebellion, if, indeed, he had not already considered it. Within four
years from the time when the son of Massasoit affixed his scrawling mark
to the humiliating and confiscatory document, the storm broke which was
to drench New England in a sea of blood.
In the absence of any written records of the Indians, from which the
story of those four years or so of preparation upon their part might be
ascertained, the nature and scope of Philip's plans must remain wholly a
matter of inference from the subsequent events. That he nursed his
revenge, and carried on negotiations with other tribes for a
simultaneous rising against the whites over a considerable territory,
would seem to be well established. On the other hand, the time was more
or less ripe for the inevitable conflict to occur throughout all the
colonies. Once started, the example of a native rising would prove
contagious; and there is little evidence to prove that the widespread
movements along the seaboard were connected by threads that centred in
the hut of the Wampanoag. His tribe itself was weak and inconspicuous,
and in Philip's apparent lack of personal bravery and some of the other
qualities most admired in a savage leader, there is nothing to
indicate—what, indeed, events tend to disprove—that he was personally
popular among the natives. Nor, even if we grant that he was surprised
into hostilities in that spring of 1675, before all his plans had
matured, is there any evidence, in his later conduct of the campaign, of
that great ability for organization which has sometimes been attributed
to him. There seems to be no doubt, however, that at that time he was
engaged in preparing for a general rising, and that he had the sympathy
of some of the other New England tribes.
Meanwhile, the English seem to have been singularly oblivious to the
realities of the situation. They claimed, and undoubtedly felt, that
they had treated the natives with justice. In the beginning, they had
naturally failed to understand the Indian character, government, and
theory of property. As, on the one hand, they came to know these better,
on the other, the contempt they developed for the heathen and the
savage, who, incidentally, was in possession of lands coveted by the
Saints of God, tended to lessen their belief in his abstract rights.
Economically, they had outgrown their early dependence upon the native;
and their increasing sense of safety, due to the rapidly developing
disparity in numbers, tended to make them callous to the feelings of the
“great naked dirty beast,” as Colonel Church described Philip, and they
ceased to fear the power of the savage without coming to respect the
rights of the man.[853] They failed to realize the broader aspects of
the struggle, and even the practical fact that they were driving a still
powerful race of savages into a corner, where they were not likely to
stand at bay without making, at some time, a supreme effort to escape.
Footnote 853:
_Cf._ Winslow's letter of justification in Hubbard, _Indian Wars_,
vol. I, pp. 56 _f._, and “Narrative of the Beginning of the War,” in
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 362 _f._
When the Indians finally did strike back, the English not only were
wholly unprepared but do not seem to have understood the results of
their own acts. Instead of regarding the approaching conflict as an
inevitable consequence of the relations between the two races, and as
having been, more immediately, brought about by themselves, they looked
upon it as sent from God; and in a hasty self-examination as to why the
Deity should have so afflicted them, the Massachusetts General Court
decided that He was then engaged in burning towns and murdering women
and children along the frontier, because Massachusetts had become
somewhat lax in persecuting the Quakers, and because her men had begun
to wear periwigs and their women to indulge in “cutting, curling and
immodest laying out theire haire.”[854]
Footnote 854:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 59 _ff._
The genius of New England has never been military. Her people, in a
cause in which they believe, can fight doggedly and well, but she has
never given to the nation a great soldier, either as leader or
organizer, and King Philip's War presented no exception. From its
nature, it was less a war than a series of raids by the savages and
retaliatory expeditions by the English; but it was the only sort of war
which the colonies could have expected, or for which they ought to have
been prepared. There was, however, practically no intercolonial
organization. The United Colonies, the efficiency of which as a
war-machine had early been damaged by Massachusetts, had received
another blow by the loss of a member when New Haven was absorbed by
Connecticut. Although Plymouth's suggestion, at that time, to dissolve
the Confederacy entirely, had not been approved, the bond had become
looser than ever, and under the altered articles, the representatives of
the three remaining members were to meet only triennially.[855]
Footnote 855:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 324, 319, 340 _ff._
In spite of the invaluable material that the colonies possessed in the
friendly Indians, none of them had been employed as spies among the
enemy, of whose plans preceding the war the colonists seem to have had
no information other than vague rumors. In spite of their experience,
moreover, the settlers appear, in part, to have been curiously ignorant
of Indian warfare. Even in the matter of weapons, they made the mistake,
at first, of equipping men with the wholly useless pike; and in the
earliest expeditions, the English carried the cumbrous old matchlock
guns, which were much inferior to the newer flintlocks used by the
savages.[856] The commissariat frequently broke down, and in a number of
cases important expeditions had to be abandoned because of failure of
supplies. The regulation, necessary on account of the jealousy of the
several colonies, that, in joint operations, the ranking officer of the
colony in which the operations happened to be conducted at the moment
should be the commander-in-chief of the whole, naturally made friction
and tended to confusion.[857] From the same spirit of jealousy, there
also arose disputes, sometimes almost amounting to mutiny, between the
troops of one colony and those of another, which were further fostered
by the lack of unity in plans, and inadequate communication.[858]
Insubordination was not always limited to the rank and file, and in the
case of Colonel Moseley,—who had married a niece of Governor Leverett of
Massachusetts,—rose to such a point, against both his superior officers
and the state, as should have brought him to a court-martial.[859] As
the war progressed, the difficulty of raising troops became great, both
from lack of men in some places and from their disinclination to serve.
In Plymouth, it was ordered that boys under the military age of sixteen
should be used for guard-duty; while any man pressed for service who
refused to obey should be fined five pounds, or made to run the
gauntlet, or both.[860] Connecticut had to offer her troops, officers as
well as men, the plunder of the Indians, as to both their goods and
their persons, in addition to the regular pay, and to forbid any male
resident between the ages of fourteen and seventy to emigrate from the
colony.[861] Massachusetts, “taking into consideration the great
disappointment” that soldiers pressed for duty refused to serve,
provided that those who continued refractory should be punished with
death.[862] On the other hand, the drab coloring of the war, uninspiring
as the conflict was in many of its aspects, was relieved over and over
by exhibitions of a fine courage on the part of individual soldiers, and
of a cool daring in the face of unspeakable horrors, shown by women as
well as men.
Footnote 856:
_Cf._ _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 47; S. G. Drake, _Old Indian
Chronicle_ (Boston, 1836), p. 8; G. M. Bodge, _Soldiers in King
Philip's War_ (Leominster, 1896), pp. 45 _ff._
Footnote 857:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 359.
Footnote 858:
_Cf._ Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 150 _f._
Footnote 859:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 240 _n._; Gookin, _Praying Indians_, pp.
495 _f._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 76. For the mutiny of a Plymouth
officer and his men, _cf._ _Plymouth Records_, vol. V, pp. 189 _f._
There were other cases.
Footnote 860:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, pp. 193, 198.
Footnote 861:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 418, 272.
Footnote 862:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 78.
The character of the war would, in any case, probably have been mainly a
series of raids; but the fact that Philip had apparently to enter upon
hostilities before his preparations were complete, and the lack of unity
and organized effective action among the colonies, made the course of
the contest even more desultory than it might otherwise have been. We
cannot here give more than an outline of the chief events of the
struggle, which was more important in its results than in its
conduct.[863]
Footnote 863:
The general reader may consult Ellis and Morris, _King Philip's War_;
New York, 1906. The volume is more trustworthy than the unfortunate
slip in its opening sentence might seem to indicate.
In the latter part of 1674, John Sassamon, a Christian Indian,
discovered a plot among the natives of Namasket, and immediately
informed the authorities of Plymouth, stating that he would be in danger
of his life if Philip should learn of his disclosures.[864] His fears
were fulfilled, and in January, 1675, he was murdered, apparently by
Philip's orders, the three Indians implicated in his death being seized,
tried, and executed by the English in the following spring.[865] The
Squaw-Sachem Weetamoo, who seems to have been opposed to the rising,
although she was the sister-in-law of Philip, also warned the English of
what was planned; but they do not seem to have taken any measures for
defense, or to have done anything at all beyond remonstrating with
Philip.[866] He had already committed himself too far, however, to have
drawn back, even if he would; and, in spite of the premature discovery
of the design, the younger warriors from neighboring tribes began to
come in and urge the immediate beginning of hostilities.
Footnote 864:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 61.
Footnote 865:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 167.
Footnote 866:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 363.
On June 24, at Swansea, after having provoked a settler to draw the
first blood, the savages fell upon the whites, and killed eight or nine.
Two more, who had been dispatched to get a surgeon, were waylaid and
slain, and their bodies found by an embassy then on its way from the
government of Plymouth to Philip. In the six months since the English
had been told of the plot, they had been strangely inactive. Two days
after the murders at Swansea, however, five companies were mustered,
partly in Plymouth and partly in Boston, and were on the march.[867] A
raid on the Indians by these united forces, on the 30th, so frightened
the savages, that Philip and his followers fled from Mount Hope and took
refuge in a swamp at Pocasset, although the intelligence service of the
English, through their failure to use native scouts, was so imperfect
that they were unaware of the move of the enemy, and did not follow up
the pursuit. Pocasset was in the territory of Weetamoo, and the English,
by driving Philip into her jurisdiction, and failing to follow him,
practically forced her to join with him and his warriors.
Footnote 867:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 66 _ff._
Although, as yet, in spite of their ancient wrongs, the Narragansetts
had shown no hostility, nevertheless, at the instant when the attack on
Philip should have been followed up, the Massachusetts troops received
orders to pass into the Narragansett country, and to “make peace with a
sword in their hand.”[868] Canonicus, the sachem, could not be found;
but the Massachusetts agents, joined by those from Connecticut,
negotiated a treaty with a few unimportant individuals, who were forced
to obligate the tribe to join the English in making aggressive war on
Philip, and to confirm all former land-grants.[869] The English must
have realized, not only that such a treaty was not binding, but that, so
far from gaining the most powerful of the New England tribes as allies,
it would have just the opposite effect. On the other hand, had the
Massachusetts troops remained with those of Plymouth, and pursued and
captured Philip, the war might possibly have been ended at once, and the
Narragansetts not have entered it at all.
Footnote 868:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 75.
Footnote 869:
The text of the treaty is in Hubbard, vol. I, pp. 76 _ff._
Unless we assume the military incapacity of the Massachusetts Court, we
can hardly avoid the suggestion that that colony, and perhaps
Connecticut also, saw an opportunity to strengthen their claims to the
rich lands possessed by the natives whom they were forcing into
opposition, and desired, by being first on the spot and negotiating the
farcical treaty, to establish a basis for future title. That the mind of
Boston was not bent solely upon the defense of the frontier, or the
devilish effects of periwigs, is suggested by a letter from that godly
town on July 6, which announced that “the land already gained is worth
£10,000.”[870] And this in the first fortnight! The good dames—and their
spouses—may be pardoned if they were tempted toward heresy regarding the
fatal results of curling-tongs and switches.
Footnote 870:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 253.
The treaty negotiated, most of the Massachusetts troops were immediately
ordered back to Boston, only about one hundred, under command of Captain
Henchman, being left with those of Plymouth to guard the swamp in which
Philip had taken refuge. After a skirmish on the 18th, these decided
that it was “ill fighting with a wild beast in his own den,” and
resolved to starve Philip out. That wily savage, however, gave his
cautious watchers the slip, and escaped to central Massachusetts, with
his followers. Again owing to inadequate scouting, it was only after
some days that the English found that they were guarding an empty trap,
and then their pursuit had been too long delayed to be successful.[871]
Footnote 871:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 88 _ff._; B. Church, _History of
King Philip's War_ (ed. H. M. Dexter, Boston, 1865), pp. 25 _ff._
Philip's presence decided the Massachusetts Indians, with whom the
colonial authorities were then negotiating. Captains Wheeler and
Hutchinson, with a small party of whites and three Christian Indians,
who were sent to treat with the Nipmucks, were treacherously attacked
near the place the savages had appointed for a parley, and about one
third of the colonists were slain. The survivors fled to Brookfield,
gaining that place in safety only with the help of the Christian
Indians, who had warned them of the treachery in advance, without
avail.[872] The town was attacked by the natives almost before the
whites could reach it, all the buildings being burned except the one in
which the inhabitants had taken refuge. After the inmates, for three
days, had warded off the efforts of several hundred savages to set fire
to the house which was their only protection, they were rescued by Major
Willard and a troop from Lancaster, although the town had to be
abandoned.[873]
Footnote 872:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 107 _ff._; Gookin, _Christian Indians_, pp. 447
_f._; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 99. The latter fails to state
that the rescuers were natives. Wheeler, in his report, also ignored
it, although he subsequently certified to the Indians' good conduct.
Footnote 873:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 68; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 100
_ff._
The Springfield Indians now joined the enemy, and Connecticut and
Massachusetts troops were concentrated at Hadley, under command of Major
Pynchon. On the first of September, Deerfield was attacked for the first
time, and most of the houses burned.[874] The following day the savages
fell upon Northfield, killed eight persons, and destroyed the
buildings.[875] A relief party, under Captain Beers, which, unaware of
the disaster, was bringing up supplies, was ambushed, and twenty men out
of the thirty were killed after a desperate fight, the remainder taking
refuge at Hadley, as did also the inhabitants of Northfield, who now
abandoned their town.[876]
Footnote 874:
Mather, _Philip's War_, pp. 72 _ff._; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I,
p. 110. For the traditional attack on Hadley, and the story of the
regicide Judge Goffe, _vide_ S. Judd, _History of Hadley_ (1905), pp.
138 _ff._, and G. Sheldon, _History of Deerfield_ (1895), vol. I, pp.
93 _f._
Footnote 875:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 130; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. II, p. 44.
Footnote 876:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 110; Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 79;
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 131.
Heretofore, in the Massachusetts operations, Major Treat had been in
command of the Connecticut forces, and Major Pynchon of those from the
Bay Colony, Treat's instructions having been to advise with Pynchon but
to act with him only when convinced of the wisdom of a move.[877]
Massachusetts now decided to abandon the field, and merely to garrison
the towns; but this supine policy, which could not have been permanent,
and was a virtual admission of defeat, did not satisfy Connecticut. As a
result of negotiations, the United Colonies decided to raise the total
number of troops to one thousand, and to put Pynchon in supreme command
in the upper Connecticut Valley. The Commissioners confessed that they
did not know how many troops were already in the field, or anything of
the strength of the enemy.[878] This lack of information was
characteristic both in the major conduct of the war and in minor
operations.
Footnote 877:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 358.
Footnote 878:
_Ibid._, pp. 364, 367. Massachusetts was to supply 527, Plymouth, 158,
Connecticut, 315. The figures were based upon the new Articles of
Confederation, which were unduly favorable to Massachusetts. Based
upon population, they would probably have been about 640, 100, and
260, respectively.
Only a few days after these arrangements were made, Deerfield had been
attacked again, and Captain Lathrop, with about sixty men, “the very
flower of the county of Essex,” was detailed to convoy some provisions
accumulated there into Hadley. Although these troops were operating in a
country filled with hostile savages, and the line of march lay in part
through a dense forest, where they might easily be ambushed, the company
had no scouts ahead, and many of the soldiers had stowed their arms in
the carts, while they themselves gathered grapes by the roadside.
Lathrop was familiar with the road and its dangerous places; but it was
at one of these, the spot where the trail crossed the little stream ever
since known as Bloody Brook, that the troop encountered the fatal result
of their criminal folly. As they were crossing the ford, with their
heavy wagons lumbering in the mud, the Indian war-whoop rang out on all
sides, and the soldiers fell under the bullets of their unseen foe. The
massacre was virtually complete. Hardly a man escaped, and not one would
have done so, had not Colonel Moseley with another small troop, heard
the shooting and hurried to the rescue. He, in turn, was being forced
back, and was facing annihilation, when Major Treat, having likewise
heard firing, hastened up with some Connecticut troops and friendly
Indians, and saved the day.[879] The survivors, however, who fell back
upon Deerfield, were obliged to evacuate the town a few days later, it
thus being the third surrendered to the enemy.
Footnote 879:
Mather, _Philip's War_, pp. 85 _f._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 67, 135
_f._; Sheldon, _Deerfield_, vol. I, pp. 100 _ff._; Hubbard, _Indian
Wars_, vol. I, pp. 113 _ff._
On September 26, a slight attack was made upon Springfield, followed by
demonstrations against Hadley. Some troops having been hurried thither
from Springfield, the Indians, successful in their ruse, if that had
been their plan, returned and attacked that town in force, destroying it
on October 5.[880] Major Appleton now replaced Pynchon as commander; but
Treat having retired with part of his troops to Connecticut, in view of
the danger threatening Hartford, his lieutenant refused to obey
Appleton, as he considered Treat to be his immediate superior. The
matter became a subject of dispute between the colonies, but, the danger
to Connecticut having passed, Treat returned, and Connecticut troops
continued to garrison the Massachusetts towns throughout the
winter.[881]
Footnote 880:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 122; Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 97.
Footnote 881:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 370, 372 _ff._, 380 _ff._
Connecticut from the start had adopted the policy of utilizing to the
full the services of the friendly Indians, which Massachusetts, for the
most part had refused, with disastrous consequences. Not only had she
failed to make use of them as scouts and troops, but by removing the
Praying Indians from the line of towns in which they had been settled,
and placing them in a concentration camp on Deer Island, she had
weakened her whole line of defense.[882] But, unfortunately, it was not
a question of merely failing to utilize valuable resources. Her
treatment of her civilized natives, individually and collectively, must
be considered as cruel and inhumane, although the ministers and the
magistrates seem, on the whole, to have endeavored to restrain the
lawless persecution of the mob, and the savagery of their more brutal
leaders, such as Moseley. Innocent Indians were insulted, and plundered
of their possessions, and, in some cases, their women and children were
murdered in cold blood. Yet juries refused to convict the offenders, and
the General Court frequently yielded to the clamor, until letters from
England, and the discovery of a hideous plot by the whites to massacre
all the converts gathered on Deer Island, awoke them to some sense of
their duty. The blind fury against the Praying Indians was by no means
confined to the rabble. Moseley, whose refusal to use their services in
the war had cost many English lives, treated them at Marlborough and
Nashobeh with the most wanton brutality, although the execution of a
squaw, taken prisoner on his expedition near Hatfield, is, we hope,
unique in American military history. The laconic note of her fate merely
reads that she was “ordered to be torn in peeces by Doggs, and she was
soe dealt withal.”[883] It recalls, however, the earlier advice of
Massachusetts, that the Indians be hunted down with mastiffs.[884]
Although he was censured for his various acts of inhumanity and
insubordination, no action was taken against Moseley by the authorities,
who thus share his guilt; and so high did the feeling run that it became
dangerous, even in Boston, for such men as Eliot and Gookin to speak a
word in defense of the persecuted Christian natives.
Footnote 882:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 46, 55, 57, 64, 84.
Footnote 883:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 101 _n._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 69; Gookin,
_Christian Indians_, pp. 455 _ff._, 500 _ff._
Footnote 884:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 168.
In the early winter, it seemed as if the enemy had been successful
everywhere. Philip, who apparently had not been present in any of the
fights, had gone into winter quarters near Albany,[885] but it is
probable that the war had long since passed out of his control; and
there is nothing to indicate any concerted plan governing the actions of
the various tribes now, or soon to be, on the war-path. By far the most
powerful of those surviving were the Narragansetts; and their Sachem
Canonchet, the son of Miantonomo, both from his position and his
ability, was probably a more important factor than Philip; although, as
yet, in spite of the ancient wrong done him in the judicial murder of
his father, and the recent act of the English in forcing the treaty of
July 15 upon some of his people, the sachem had committed no overt act
against the settlers. A number of hostile Indians, however, had fled to
his country for refuge; and in October, either from a deliberate purpose
to provoke him into active hostility, or in the vain hope that he would
be forced into an alliance with them by threats, the Massachusetts
authorities required him to sign a treaty ratifying the one of July 15,
and agreeing to give up all refugees to the English.[886] It is doubtful
whether the sentiment of his people would have permitted this surrender;
but, in any case, little opportunity was given to test it, and on
November 2, only two weeks after having forced Canonchet to sign a
humiliating peace, the English abruptly declared war.[887] Old Uncas,
who had hated the Narragansetts for a lifetime, had long been scheming
to bring about the conflict, and the land possessed by Canonchet and the
refugee Awashonks was a most potent argument. A journal-letter from a
citizen of Boston, dated only a few days after the treaty with the
Narragansett, complains of his not having delivered up the squaw-sachem,
but that there was prospect of force being used, and that, if she could
be captured, “her Lands will more than pay all the charge we have been
at in this unhappy War.”[888] About a week after the date of this
letter, the Commissioners of the United Colonies, at the same meeting at
which war was declared, arranged for a levy of a thousand more troops,
and an immediate expedition was planned against the Narragansetts, under
command of Governor Winslow of Plymouth.[889] The Massachusetts Council,
with an eye to the long-coveted country, proclaimed that, if her
soldiers “played the man,” and drove the Narragansetts out of it, the
army should receive allotments of the land in addition to their
pay.[890]
Footnote 885:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 397, 407.
Footnote 886:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 360.
Footnote 887:
_Ibid._, p. 357.
Footnote 888:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 236; _Old Indian Chronicle_, p. 36.
The various units of the new force, after sundry isolated skirmishes
with the enemy, finally united at Pettisquamscott, late in the afternoon
of December 18, and lay in the open that night in a severe snowstorm.
The Indians, between three and four thousand in number, had taken refuge
in a fortified position, on an island of four or five acres, in the
middle of a large swamp, about sixteen miles from the English camp.
Before daybreak, on the morning of the 19th, the army began its march,
reaching the swamp about one in the afternoon. Some of the enemy were
encountered upon its edge, but immediately fled, pursued, without order,
by the English, straight to the entrance of the native fort. For three
hours the fighting was desperate, and it was only after darkness began
to fall that the colonists succeeded in capturing the Indians'
blockhouse and other works. Then came the same order which had been
issued in the Pequot swamp fight thirty years earlier, and the torch was
applied to the four hundred wigwams and accumulated stores of the
savages. It is impossible to tell how many of the warriors fell in the
fight, or how many of the old people, women, and children were roasted
alive in the flames; but the contemporary estimates run from four
hundred to a thousand or more. The English loss was about seventy killed
and a hundred and fifty wounded.[891]
Footnote 889:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 357; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol.
II, p. 384; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 69; _Plymouth
Records_, vol. V, pp. 182 _f._
Footnote 890:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 180.
Footnote 891:
_Ibid._, pp. 190 _f._ _Cf._ _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 398.
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 144 _ff._; Mather, _Philip's War_,
p. 108; Church, _King Philip's War_, pp. 53 _ff._ _A Continuation of
the State of New England_ (London, 1676), estimates the English losses
as, killed and wounded, 207, and 600 Indians killed.
Although the Narragansetts had received a terrible blow, they had not
been so nearly annihilated as had the Pequots in the preceding
generation; and the English, in view of their own actions, could now
look for nothing less than a war to the death, waged with a ferocity
equal at least to their own. An immediate levy of a thousand additional
men was arranged for, divided among the colonies, and a new expedition
was sent into the Nipmuck country, where the Narragansetts had joined
some of Philip's forces.[892] The commissariat broke down, and the short
campaign, known as “the hungry march,” accomplished nothing. On February
10, the savages fell upon Lancaster and nearly destroyed the town.
Within the next few weeks, attacks were made upon such widely separated
points as Medfield, Northampton, Hatfield, Providence, Groton,
Longmeadow, and Marlborough.
Footnote 892:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 184; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p.
391.
The Indians, however, had suffered severely during the winter from want
of food, and, as spring came on, Canonchet realized that crops must be
raised during the summer if the war were to be maintained. He proposed
that the conquered lands in the Connecticut Valley be planted, and he
himself, with a small party, volunteered to go back to Seakonk, near
Mount Hope, to procure seed-corn. The venture cost him his life, for he
was taken captive by a party of Connecticut men and Indians operating in
the Narragansett country, and was immediately condemned to death. When
told of the sentence, the savage, who possessed to the full the courage
lacked by Philip, replied that “he liked it well that he should die
before his heart was soft, or had spoken anything unworthy of
himself.”[893]
Footnote 893:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. II, p. 60.
[Illustration:
Warrant signed by Governor Winslow of Plymouth for Sale of Indian
Captives as Slaves
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
In spite of further attacks by the Indians, one as near Boston as
Sudbury, the tide now turned in favor of the English throughout southern
New England. A heavy blow was struck at the Upper Falls of the
Connecticut, where a great company of natives had gathered to fish, and
where Captain Turner inflicted a severe defeat upon them, in spite of
his own heavy losses. The privations of the winter, the prospect of
semi-starvation to come, the loss of Canonchet, and the breakdown of
Philip as a leader, rapidly sapped the morale of the natives, who became
disorganized and demoralized. Detachments of English hunted down and
slaughtered or captured the scattered bands of savages. Philip, who had
returned to his old home near Mount Hope, narrowly escaped being taken
early in August, his wife and son falling into the hands of the English.
A few weeks later, he himself was slain in a swamp, by one of Captain
Church's Indians, and the main phase of the war, which, by bearing his
name, has unduly exalted his part in it, was over.[894]
Footnote 894:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 265; Church, _King Philip's War_,
pp. 145 _ff._
Hostilities, however, continued in the eastern settlements of Maine and
New Hampshire for two years longer. Owing to their scattered character,
and the difficulty of inflicting any telling blow upon the savages, who
could disappear into the limitless forests, and were supplied by the
French with arms and other necessities, Maine suffered proportionately
even more severely than its more populous neighbors to the south. The
story of the war there is the record of tragedy after tragedy enacted in
lonely farmhouse or isolated village. One episode only, and that because
of its later effect upon the Indian relations of the settlers, need be
alluded to. In the autumn of 1676, following the signing of a treaty in
July and a proclamation by the Massachusetts Court, several hundred
natives congregated at Major Waldron's house at Dover, with the
intention, apparently, of accepting terms of amnesty, and of testifying
to their friendly relations with the whites although there were some who
had borne arms against them. Unexpectedly, they were all taken into
custody by Massachusetts agents and carried off to Boston, and a large
proportion of them was sold into slavery in the West Indies. There are
various versions of the affair, and it is impossible to unravel the
truth, but, whether rightly or not, the eastern Indians felt that they
had been treacherously dealt with, and never forgot or forgave the
transaction.[895] Massachusetts, moreover, was unable to protect the
eastern settlements; and the treaty finally made with the Indians, in
the spring of 1678, carried the humiliating condition that the whites
were to pay an annual tribute to the natives.[896] The unfortunate
result of the war in that section was that the Indians felt themselves
superior to the whites in power, and they had come to believe that the
word of the latter could not be trusted.
Footnote 895:
_Cf._ Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 304 _ff._; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I,
pp. 354 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 72.
Footnote 896:
Belknap, _History_, vol. I, p. 129. He does not give the text, nor is
it in the _N. H. Prov. Papers_, though there is a letter relative to
it in the latter, vol. I, p. 365.
The captives taken in Philip's War were variously treated. Some, who
were considered especially guilty, were killed, and great numbers were
distributed among the whites as servants for a limited period. Many were
sold into slavery in the West Indies.[897] Among these unfortunates were
the wife and son of Philip, the latter a little lad of nine.[898] Even
the life of this grandson of Massasoit hung in the balance, and the
clergy, to whom the problem of his disposal was referred, advised that
he should be slain; but, as usual, the people were more merciful than
the ministers. Although even the Old Testament offered difficulties in
the way of precedents, John Cotton and Increase Mather thought that they
might be found, and called for the lad's blood,[899] Mather pointing out
that, although David indeed spared the life of little Hadad, it might
have been better had he not. The saintly Eliot, who throughout the war
had pleaded with the people of Massachusetts for justice and mercy for
the Christian Indians, as Williams had pleaded for the Pequots a
generation before, protested against the whole system of selling off the
natives, and in a letter to the Governor and Council uttered the
prophetic saying that “to sell soules for mony seemeth to me a dangerous
merchandize.”[900] But his voice, like Williams's, found no echo.
Footnote 897:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 297 _f._ The Assembly in Barbadoes
drew a bill to prevent the importation of these Indian slaves from New
England. _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1674-75_, p. 378.
Footnote 898:
Church, _King Philip's War_, p. 127.
Footnote 899:
Their letters are in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VIII,
p. 689.
Footnote 900:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 452.
[Illustration:
Reverend John Cotton's Opinion that Philip's Son should be put to
Death
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
The losses that the colonies had suffered were enormous. Maine did not
recover for half a century, and there was not a white man left in
Kennebec County. In Massachusetts sixteen towns were wholly destroyed or
abandoned, and four in Rhode Island.[901] Along the entire New England
frontier burned buildings and abandoned farms bore mute witness to the
fury of the struggle. Plymouth reported her war expenses as £11,743,
Connecticut hers as £22,173, and Massachusetts hers as £46,292, a total
equivalent to-day of over $2,000,000.[902] One man out of every sixteen
of military age had been killed. The struggle, however, had been
inevitable, and it is fortunate that it occurred when it did; for it is
improbable that the colonies could have sustained a double attack from
south and north had the domestic contest coincided with the French war
fifteen years later. Although they had been weakened in some respects,
their losses were only temporary, while the removal of the Indian menace
within their borders was a permanent gain. The ruined towns were
rebuilt, new lands were opened up, and the fact that, entirely by their
own efforts and without aid from England, the colonists had won
possession of their territory with the unlimited expenditure of their
own blood and treasure was of no little effect, then and later.
Footnote 901:
_Cf._ Mathews, _Expansion of New England_, pp. 57 _ff._; Hubbard,
_Indian Wars_, vol. II, pp. 39 _ff._; _Old Indian Chronicle_, pp. 101
_f._
Footnote 902:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 402, 392, 393.