King Philip

Chapter VI

Commencement of Hostilities

Enthusiasm of the young Indians.

The old warriors, conscious of the power of the foe whose fury they were about to brave, were not at all disposed to precipitate hostilities, but Philip found it difficult to hold his young men under restraint. They became very insolent and boastful, and would sharpen their knives and tomahawks upon the door-sills of the colonists, vaporing in mysterious phrase of the great deeds they were about to perform.

John Sassamon.

Betty's Neck.

There was at this time a Christian Indian by the name of John Sassamon, who had learned to read and write, and had become quite an efficient agent in Christian missions to the Indians. He was esteemed by the English as truly a pious man, and had been employed in aiding to translate the Bible into the Indian language, and also in preaching to his countrymen at Nemasket, now Middleborough. He lived in semi-civilized style upon Assawompset Neck. He had a very pretty daughter, whom he called Assowetough, but whose sonorous name the young Puritans did not improve by changing it into Betty. The noted place in Middleborough now called Betty's Neck is immortalized by the charms of Assowetough. This Indian maiden married a warrior of her tribe, who was also in the employment of the English, and in all his interests had become identified with them. Sassamon was a subject of King Philip, but he and his family were on the most intimate and friendly relations with the colonists.

Private secretary of Philip.

The conspiracy.

Incredulity of the English.

Philip needed a private secretary who could draw up his deeds and write his letters. He accordingly took John Sassamon into his employment. Sassamon, thus introduced into the court and cabinet of his sovereign, soon became acquainted with the conspiracy in all its appalling extent and magnitude of design. He at once repaired to Plymouth, and communicated his discovery to the governor. He, however, enjoined the strictest secrecy respecting his communication, assuring the governor that, should the Indians learn that he had betrayed them, his life would be the inevitable forfeit. There were many who had no faith in any conspiracy of the kind. Rumors of approaching perils had been rife for many years, and the community had become accustomed to them. Most of the Massachusetts colonists thought the Plymouth people unnecessarily alarmed. They listened to the story of Sassamon with great incredulity. "His information," says Dr. I. Mather, "because it had an Indian original, and one can hardly believe them when they do speak the truth, was not at first much regarded."

Sassamon soon after resigned his situation as Philip's secretary, and returned to Middleborough, where he resumed his employment as a preacher to the Indians and teacher of a school.

Sassamon to be murdered.

By some unknown means Philip ascertained that he had been betrayed by Sassamon. According to the Indian code, the offender was deemed a traitor and a renegade, and was doomed to death; and it was the duty of every subject of King Philip to kill him whenever and wherever he could be found. But Sassamon had been so much with the English, and had been for years so intimately connected with them as their friend and agent, that it was feared that they would espouse his cause, and endeavor to avenge his death. It was, therefore, thought best that Indian justice should be secretly executed.

Death of Sassamon.

Indians arrested.

Early in the spring of 1675 Sassamon was suddenly missing. At length his hat and gun were found upon the ice of Assawompset Pond, near a hole. Soon after his body was found beneath the ice. There had been an evident endeavor to leave the impression that he had committed suicide; but wounds upon his body conclusively showed that he had been murdered. The English promptly decided that this was a crime which came under the cognizance of their laws. Three Indians were arrested under suspicion of being his murderers. These Indians were all men of note, connected with the council of Philip. An Indian testified that he happened to be upon a distant hill, and saw the murder committed. For some time he had concealed the knowledge thus obtained, but at length was induced to disclose the crime. The evidence against Tobias, one of the three, is thus stated by Dr. Increase Mather:

Proof of the murder.

"When Tobias came near the dead body, it fell a bleeding on fresh, as if it had been newly slain, albeit it was buried a considerable time before that." In those days of darkness it was supposed that the body of a murdered man would bleed on the approach of his murderer.

Execution of the Indians.

The prisoners were tried at Plymouth in June, and were all adjudged guilty, and sentenced to death. The jury consisted of twelve Englishmen and four Indians. The condemned were all executed, two of them contending to the last that they were entirely innocent, and knew nothing of the deed. One of them, it is said, when upon the point of death, confessed that he was a spectator of the murder, which was committed by the other two.

Superstitious notions.

The summary execution of three of Philip's subjects enraged and alarmed the Wampanoags exceedingly. As the death of Sassamon had been undeniably ordered by Philip, he was apprehensive that he also might be kidnapped and hung. The young Wampanoag warriors were roused to phrensy, and immediately commenced a series of the most intolerable annoyances, shooting the cattle, frightening the women and children, and insulting wayfarers wherever they could find them. The Indians had imbibed the superstitious notion, which had probably been taught them by John Sassamon, that the party which should commence the war and shed the first blood would be defeated. They therefore wished, by violence and insult, to provoke the English to strike the first blow. The English established a military watch in every town; but, hoping that the threatening storm might blow over, they endured all these outrages with commendable patience.

Insolence of the Indians.

They capture a settler.

On the 20th of June, eight Indian desperadoes, all armed for fight, came swaggering into the town of Swanzey, and, calling at the door of a colonist, demanded permission to grind their hatchets. As it was the Lord's day, the colonist informed them that it would be a violation of the Sabbath for them to do such work, and that God would be displeased. They replied, "We care neither for your God nor for you, but we will grind our hatchets." They then went to another house, and, with insulting carousals, ransacked the closets, helping themselves abundantly to food. The barbarian roisterers then proceeded blustering along the road, when they chanced to meet a colonist. They immediately took him into custody, kept him for some time, loading him with taunts and ridicule, and then dismissed him, derisively telling him to be a good man, and not to tell any lies or work on the Lord's day.

The first blood.

Growing bolder and more insolent as they advanced, they began to shoot the cattle which they saw in the fields. They encountered no opposition, for the houses were at some distance from each other, and most of the men were absent at public worship. At last they came to a house where the man chanced to be at home. They shot his cattle, and then entered the house and demanded liquor. Being refused, they became very boisterous in threats, and attempted to get the liquor by violence. The man at last, provoked beyond endurance, seized his gun and shot one of them, inflicting a serious but not mortal wound. The first blood was now shed, and the drama of war was opened. The young savages retired, bearing their wounded companion with them, and breathing threatenings and slaughter.

Day of fasting.

The next Thursday, June 24th, had been set apart by the colonists as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, in view of the alarming state of affairs. Upon an impartial review of all the transactions, it is difficult to see how the colonists could have avoided the war.

Letter of Governor Winslow.

"I do solemnly protest," says Governor Winslow, in a letter written July 4th, 1675, "we know not any thing from us which might have put Philip upon these motions, nor have heard that he pretends to have suffered any wrong from us, save only that we had killed some Indians, and intended to send for himself for the murder of John Sassamon."

Murders by the Indians.

As the people in Swanzey were returning from church on fast-day, a party of Indians, concealed in a thicket by the road side, fired upon them, killing one instantly, and severely wounding many others. Two men who set off in haste for a surgeon were waylaid and murdered. At the same time, in another part of the town, a house was surrounded by a band of Indians, and eight more of the colonists were shot. These awful tidings spread rapidly, causing indescribable alarm. One man, afraid to remain in his unprotected dwelling, hastily sent his wife and only son to the house of the Rev. Mr. Miles, which was fortified, and could be garrisoned. He remained a few moments behind to take some needful things. The wife had gone but a short distance when she heard behind her the report of a gun. True to woman's heroic love, she instantly returned to learn the fate of her husband.

Flight of the colonists.

He was lying in his blood on the threshold of his door, and the savages were ransacking the house. The wretches caught sight of her, pursued her, killed both her and her son, and took their scalps. In this terrible state of alarm, the scattered and helpless colonists fled with their families, as rapidly as they could, to the garrison house. Two men went from the house to the well for water. They fell, pierced by bullets. The savages rushed from their concealment, seized the two still quivering bodies, and dragged them into the forest. They were afterward found scalped, and with their hands and feet cut off. Such were the opening acts of the tragedy of blood and woe.

Energy of Philip.

Assistance implored.

Flight of Philip.

With amazing energy and with great strategetic skill, the warriors of Philip, guided by his sagacity, plied their work of destruction. It was their sole, emphatic mission to kill, burn, and destroy. The savages, flushed with success, were skulking every where. No one could venture abroad without danger of being shot. Runners were immediately sent, in consternation, from all the frontier towns, to Plymouth and Boston, to implore assistance. In three hours after the arrival of the messenger in Boston, one hundred and twenty men were on the march to attack Philip at Mount Hope. But the renowned chieftain was too wary to be caught in the trap of Mount Hope Neck. He had sent his women and children to the hospitality of distant tribes, and, abandoning the Neck, which was nearly surrounded by water, traversed with his warriors the country, where he could at any time plunge into the almost limitless wilderness.

March of the army.

The little army from Massachusetts moved promptly forward, pressing into its service all the available men to be found by the way. They marched to Swanzey, and established their head-quarters at the garrison house of the Rev. Mr. Miles, a Baptist clergyman of exalted character and of fervent piety, who was ready to share with his parishioners in all the perils of protecting themselves from the border ruffians of that day. About a dozen of the troops, on a reconnoitring party, crossed the bridge near the garrison house. They were fired upon from an ambush, and one killed and one wounded. The Indians fled, hotly pursued by the English, and took refuge in a swamp, after having lost sixteen of their number.

The Soykonate tribe.

Awashonks.

Captain Church.

Upon the eastern shore of Narraganset Bay, in the region now occupied by Little Compton and a part of Tiverton, there was a small tribe of Indians in partial subjection to the Narragansets, and called the Soykonate tribe. Here also a woman, Awashonks, was sachem of the tribe, and the bravest warriors were prompt to do homage to her power. Captain Benjamin Church and a few other colonists had purchased lands of her, and had settled upon fertile spots along the shores of the bay. Awashonks was on very friendly terms with Captain Church. Though there were three hundred warriors obedient to her command, that was but a feeble force compared with the troops which could be raised both by Philip and by the English. She was therefore anxious to remain neutral. This, however, could not be. The war was such that all dwelling in the midst of its ravages must choose their side.

The embassadors of Philip.

Philip sent six embassadors to engage Awashonks in his interest. She immediately assembled all her counselors to deliberate upon the momentous question, and also took the very wise precaution to send for Captain Church. He hastened to her residence, and found several hundred of her subjects collected and engaged in a furious dance. The forest rang with their shouts, the perspiration dripped from their limbs, and they were already wrought to a pitch of intense excitement. Awashonks herself led in the dance, and her graceful figure appeared to great advantage as it was contrasted with the gigantic muscular development of her warriors.

The council.

Immediately upon Captain Church's arrival the dance ceased. Awashonks sat down, called her chiefs and the Wampanoag embassadors around her, and then invited Captain Church to take a conspicuous seat in the midst of the group. She then, in a speech of queenly courtesy, informed Captain Church that King Philip had sent six of his men to solicit her to enter into a confederacy against the English, and that he stated, through these embassadors, that the English had raised a great army, and were about to invade his territories for the extermination of the Wampanoags. The conference was long and intensely exciting. Awashonks called upon the Wampanoag embassadors to come forward.

Appearance of the embassadors.

They were marked men, dressed in the highest embellishments of barbaric warfare. Their faces were painted. Their hair was trimmed in the fashion of the crests of the ancient helmets. Their knives and tomahawks were sharp and glittering. They all had guns, and horns and pouches abundantly supplied with shot and bullets.

Exciting conference.

Rage of Captain Church.

Captain Church, however, was manifestly gaining the advantage, and the Wampanoag embassadors, baffled and enraged, were anxious to silence their antagonist with the bludgeon. The Indians began to take sides furiously, and hot words and threatening gestures were abundant. Awashonks was very evidently inclined to adhere to the English. She at last, in the face of the embassadors, declared to Captain Church that Philip's message to her was that he would send his men over privately to shoot the cattle and burn the houses of the English who were within her territories, and thus induce the English to fall in vengeance upon her, whom they would undoubtedly suppose to be the author of the mischief. This so enraged Captain Church that he quite forgot his customary prudence. Turning to the Wampanoag embassadors, he exclaimed,

"You are infamous wretches, thirsting for the blood of your English neighbors, who have never injured you, but who, on the contrary, have always treated you with kindness."

Then, addressing Awashonks, he very inconsiderately advised her to knock the six Wampanoags on the head, and then throw herself upon the protection of the English. The Indian queen, more discreet than her adviser, dismissed the embassadors unharmed, but informing them that she should look to the English as her friends and protectors.

Awashonks to remain friendly.

Captain Church, exulting in this success, which took three hundred warriors from the enemy and added them to the English force, set out for Plymouth. At parting, he advised Awashonks to remain faithful to the English whatever might happen, and to keep, with all her warriors, within the limits of Soykonate. He promised to return to her again in a few days.

The Pocasset tribe.

Just north of Little Compton, in the region now occupied by the upper part of Tiverton, and by Fall River, the Pocasset tribe of Indians dwelt. Wetamoo, the former bride of Alexander, was a princess of this tribe. Upon the death of her husband and the accession of Philip to the sovereignty of the Wampanoags, she had returned to her parental home, and was now queen of the tribe. Her power was about equal to that of Awashonks, and she could lead three or four hundred warriors into the field. Captain Church immediately proceeded to her court, as he deemed it exceedingly important to detach her, if possible, from the coalition.

Wetamoo joins Philip.

He found her upon a high hill at a short distance from the shore. But few of her people were with her, and she appeared reserved and very melancholy. She acknowledged that all her warriors had gone across the water to Philip's war-dance, though she said that it was against her will. She was, however, brooding over her past injuries, and was eager to join Philip in any measures of revenge. Captain Church had hardly arrived at Plymouth before the wonderful successes of Philip so encouraged the Indians that Wetamoo, with alacrity and burning zeal, joined the coalition; and even Awashonks could not resist the inclinations of her warriors, but was also, with reluctance, compelled to unite with Philip.

Indian warfare.

The colonists much scattered.

War was now raging in all its horrors. A more harassing and merciless conflict can hardly be imagined. The Indians seldom presented themselves in large numbers, never gathered for a decisive action, but, dividing into innumerable prowling bands, attacked the lonely farm-house, the small and distant settlements, and often, in terrific midnight onset, plunged, with musket, torch, and tomahawk, into the large towns. These bands varied in their numbers from twenty to thirty to two or three thousand. The colonists were very much scattered in isolated farm-houses through the wilderness. In consequence of the gigantic growth of trees, which it was a great labor to cut down, and which, when felled, left the ground encumbered for years with enormous stumps and roots, the colonists were eager to find any smooth meadow or natural opening in the forest where, for any unknown cause, the trees had disappeared, and where the thick turf alone opposed the hoe. They often had neither oxen nor plows. Thus these widely-scattered spots upon the hill-sides and the margins of distant streams were eagerly sought for, and thus these lonely settlers were exposed, utterly defenseless, to the savage foe.

An illustration.

Heroic woman.

The following scene, which occurred in a remote section of the country at a later period, will illustrate the horrible nature of this Indian warfare. Far away in the wilderness, a man had erected his log hut upon a small meadow, which had opened itself in the midst of a gigantic forest. The man's family consisted of himself, his wife, and several children, the eldest of whom was a daughter fifteen years of age. At midnight, the loud barking of his dog alarmed him. He stepped to the door to see what he could discover, and instantly there was a report of several muskets, and he fell upon the floor of his hut pierced with bullets, and with a broken leg and arm. The Indians, surrounding the house, now with frightful yells rushed to the door. The mother, frantic with terror, her children screaming around her, and her husband groaning and weltering in his blood, barred the door and seized an axe. The savages, with their hatchets, soon cut a hole through the door, and one of them crowded in. The heroic mother, with one blow of the axe, cleft his head to the shoulder, and he dropped dead upon the floor. Another of the assailants, supposing, in the darkness, that he had made good his entrance, followed him. He also fell by another well-directed stroke. Thus four were slain before the Indians discovered their mistake.

Dispatching the Indians.

Succor arrives.

They then clambered upon the house, and were soon heard descending through the capacious flue of the chimney. The wife still stood with the axe to guard the door. The father, bleeding and fainting, called upon one of the little children to roll the feather bed upon the fire. The burning feathers emitted such a suffocating smoke and smell that the Indians were almost smothered, and they tumbled down upon the embers. At the same moment, another one attempted to enter the door. The wounded husband and father had sufficient strength left to seize a billet of wood and dispatch the half-smothered Indians. But the mother was now so exhausted with terror and fatigue that her strength failed her, and she struck a feeble blow, which wounded, but did not kill her adversary. The savage was so severely wounded, however, that he retreated, leaving all his comrades, six in number, dead in the house. We are not informed whether the father recovered of his wounds. Some distant neighbors, receiving tidings of the attack, came with succor, and the six dead Indians, without much ceremony, were tumbled into a hole.

Volumes might be filled with such terrible details. No one could sleep at night without the fear of an attack from the Indians before the morning. In the silence of the wilderness, many a tragedy was enacted of terror, torture, and blood, which would cause the ear that hears of it to tingle.

Defiance of the English.

Horrible sight.

The day after the arrival of the English force in Swanzey the Indians again appeared in large numbers, and with defiant shouts dared them to come out and fight. Philip himself was with this band. A party of volunteers rushed furiously upon the foe, killed a number, and pursued the rest more than a mile. The savages retired to their fastnesses, and the English traversed Mount Hope Neck until they came to the imperial residence of Philip. Not an Indian was to be found upon the Neck. But here the English found the heads of eight of their countrymen, which had been cut off and stuck upon poles, ghastly trophies of savage victory. They took them down and reverently buried them.

Destruction of corn.

It was now the 29th of June, and the Indian corn-fields were waving in luxuriant growth. Philip had not anticipated so early an outbreak of the war, and had more than a thousand acres planted with corn. These fields the English trampled down, and destroyed all the dwellings of the Indians, leaving the Neck barren and desolate. This was a heavy blow to Philip. The destruction of his corn-fields threatened him with starvation in the winter. The Indians scattered in all directions, carrying every where terror, conflagration, and death.