KING PHILIP’S WAR.

I have now reached the story of the longest and bloodiest war which the colonists had yet waged with the Indian. It is known in colonial history as King Philip’s war, and belongs more to the histories of Massachusetts and Connecticut than to that of Rhode Island, although two of its bloodiest battles were fought on Rhode Island soil. Like all wars with barbarians it is filled with strange mixtures of barbarism and heroism, the savage warrior often rising in the pursuit of his ideal to a moral grandeur which his civilized antagonist failed to attain. And although like the war with the Pequots it was fatal to those who began it, it has left one of great names of Indian history, and brought into play some of the greatest traits of Indian character.

First and most faithful of the allies of the English was Massasoit, Sachem of the Wamponoags. A pestilence too malignant to be controlled by the medical science of the natives had decimated his tribe and exposed him to the ambition of the Narragansetts, his immediate neighbors, a little before the arrival of the Pilgrims. Perceiving only the present danger, he looked upon the advent of the white man as a means of preserving his independence, and eagerly made a covenant with him which he faithfully kept to the end of his life, (1661). At his death his eldest son, Wamsutta, or Alexander as he was called by the English, succeeded to his authority, but not to the confidence of his allies. Suspicion arose; he was accused of plotting against the colonists, and though an independent chief, summoned to appear at the General Court at Plymouth. Disobeying the summons, he was threatened with personal violence, and reluctantly yielding set forth with his warriors and women, some eighty in all, under the escort of a small body of troops commanded by Major Winslow. The indignity was too great for the unfortunate chief. Winslow saw that he was sinking under fatigue—for the weather was very hot—and wounded pride, for wrong was hard to bear. “Take my horse,” he said, touched with compassion. “No!” replied the chief with a last touch of pride, “there are no horses for my wife and the other women.” When they reached Winslow’s house, which was on the way he sickened, and though allowed to turn back, quickly died. Deep was the indignation of the Indians at this treatment of their sachem, and even some of the colonists felt that they had gone too far.

But there was one among them into whose breast the wrong sank deepest, for it called him to avenge not only a chief but a brother. That brother was known in colonial history as Philip of Pocanoket. The story of Philip has been variously told, some looking upon him as a crafty savage loving the wiles and cruelty of Indian warfare and fighting with no other object than immediate success; others as an Indian patriot contending for the independence of his country. In either case, if we judge him by the standard of his own people, he was a great ruler in peace and a valiant leader in war.

We are told that it was a sore grief to the young sachem to see the white man daily taking a firmer hold of the soil, and the red man melting before him. But how could the march of the invader be stayed? The arrow was a feeble weapon with which to oppose the firelock, the tomahawk even in the strongest hand was no match for the sabre. The foresight, judgment, method and power of combination of the white man enabled him to provide for the future while making wise provision for the present. While he was well supplied with food, the Indian was starving. While he was warmly clad, the Indian was exposed almost naked to the rudest blasts of winter. Philip saw the danger and resolved to face it.

His first step was to secure allies by winning over the neighboring tribes. It was a broad field for diplomacy, wherein Indian not Christian ethics prevailed, and was well suited to his bold and wily nature. Yet with all his wiles he could not so completely cover his track as not to excite the suspicions of the English. He was summoned to Plymouth and closely questioned. But the hour for action was not yet come and he succeeded in allaying suspicions by giving up his arms.

But treason beset his path. A “praying Indian,” as the converts of Eliot were called, who had lived some years with Philip as secretary and counselor, betrayed the secret of the sachem’s preparations. The betrayal cost him his life but saved the Colony by compelling Philip to begin his outbreak before his preparations were completed. It is said that when he saw the necessity he cast himself upon the ground and wept bitterly.

But there was no escaping it, and collecting his forces he fell upon the settlements with fire and sword, and what was still more dreaded, the scalping knife and tomahawk. The first to feel his fury was the border town of Swanzey, where houses and barns were burnt and nine of the inhabitants put to death and seven wounded. Succor came promptly from Plymouth and Boston. The Indians fell back upon Mount Hope, Philip’s favorite seat. Mutilated corpses and burning dwellings marked the track of the pursued. The pursuer looked round him in vain for an enemy. A few dogs prowled round the deserted wigwams, but not an Indian was to be seen.

And here comes into view one of the boldest leaders of the colonists in their wars with the natives, Benjamin Church, of Plymouth, a man skilled in all the arts of Indian warfare, and in whose ardent nature a sound judgment and self-control were combined with intrepidity and enterprise. He pressed close upon the track of the enemy, crossed the bay to Aquidneck, and after a six hours’ fight with a superior force was compelled to take refuge on board a sloop just as his ammunition began to fail.

The war was fairly begun, and for over a twelvemonth raged with various fortunes but unabated fury. Plymouth and Massachusetts suffered most, but it left bloody traces in Rhode Island also.

For unfortunately for Rhode Island, Philip’s favorite seat was that beautiful range of hills, some twelve miles long, which separates the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay from Narragansett Bay, thus bringing him within the limits of the present Town of Bristol. Tradition still points to a rock on the southernmost hill where the “noble savage” loved to sit and gaze on the waters as they held their way to the Atlantic, revolving, perhaps, in his embittered mind, a bloody vengeance upon his arrogant foe. It was from Mount Hope that he set forth to strike his first blow, and thither that he returned to fall by the hand of a traitor. “But a small part of the domain of my ancestors is left,” he said to his friend, John Borden. “I am determined not to live till I have no country.”

Part only of the bloody record as I have already said belongs to Rhode Island. In the modern Town of Tiverton, known in those earlier colonial days as Pocasset, there was a swamp—seven miles in length—one of those difficult spots wherein Indian warriors love to concentrate their forces in the hour of danger. Here, amidst intricate paths and trembling morasses Philip first awaited the assault of the enemy. The colonists came up bravely to the charge, but were bravely repulsed with the loss of sixteen men. Then they resolved to take possession of the avenues to the swamp and starve the Indians into surrender. But the wily Philip after standing a siege of thirteen days made good his escape by night and took refuge on the Connecticut River, where he was joined by the Nipmucks, a Massachusetts tribe which he had won over to his fortunes. Surprises, pursuits, gallant stands, fearful massacres follow. At Brookfield it is an ambush followed by a siege. At Deerfield there was a battle in which the Indians were worsted, then a second trial of strength in which the town was burnt. At Hadley the enemy came while the inhabitants were in the meeting-house engaged in their devotions. For a while the men, who had brought their arms with them and were well trained to the use of them, thus held their ground firmly. But the surprise had shaken their nerves, and they were beginning to cast anxious glances around them, when suddenly in their midst appeared a venerable man clad in the habiliments of another age and with a sword in his hand. With a clear, firm voice he roused the flagging courage of the villagers, reformed their ranks and led them to the charge. A Roman would have taken him for one of the Dioscuri—a Spaniard for St. Jago. What wonder that the Hadleyites thought him a divine messenger, and if with such a proof of God’s favor to inspirit them, they sprang forward with dauntless hearts and drove their enemy before them. When the victory was won, the same clear voice bade them bow their heads in prayer, and when they raised them again the mysterious speaker was gone. None but the village preacher knew that it was Goffe, the regicide.

A surprise and massacre have left their name to Bloody Brook. Springfield was burned. But at Hatfield Philip received a check, and having laid waste the western frontier of Massachusetts, turned his steps toward the land of the Narragansetts. For the success of the war depended mainly upon the decision of that still powerful tribe. In the beginning a doubtful treaty had been patched up between them and the English. But their hearts were with their own race, and when Philip came they resolved to cast in their fortunes with his. The colonists prepared themselves sternly for the contest. Fifteen hundred men were enlisted in Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut; a body of friendly Indians joined them, and though it was mid-winter, thinking only of the necessity of striking a decisive blow they began their march. Volunteers from Rhode Island joined them on the way, but Rhode Island as a colony was not consulted.

The Narragansetts were on their own ground and had chosen the strongest point for their winter quarters. It was an island of between three and four acres in the midst of a vast swamp in the southwestern part of the State, three or four miles from the present village of Kingston. To the trees and other natural defences the Indian chief had added palisades and such appliances as his rude engineering suggested. Here he had built his wigwams and stored his provisions, and prepared to pass the winter.

Towards this fated spot at the dawn of a December Sabbath the little army of Puritans took their way. The snow was falling fast and the wind dashed it in their faces, but bated not their speed. By one they were in front of the stronghold, and though weary with the long march and faint with hunger they pressed eagerly forward. The only entrance was over the trunk of a tree. The Indian guns and arrows covered every foot of the way. The colonists undaunted rushed on—officers in the van. First to feel the murderous Indian aim was Captain Johnson, of Roxbury. Captain Davenport, of Boston, fell next, but before he fell penetrated the enclosure. More than two hours the battle raged with unabated fury. At one time the English made their way into the fort, but the Indians rallied and forced them back again. But over-confident in the natural strength of their fortress they had neglected to secure with palisades a strip which they had thought sufficiently guarded by a sheet of water. The English discovered it, and crossing took the astonished natives in the rear. At the same time some one shouted, “Fire their wigwams.” The fatal flame caught eagerly the light boughs and branches of which the frail tenements were made, and in a few moments the fort was all ablaze. Imagination shrinks appalled from the scene that followed. Night was coming on. The snow storm had set in with fresh violence. A thousand Indian warriors lay dead or wounded within the fort. Five hundred wigwams were burning within the same narrow compass—consuming alike the bodies of the wounded and the dead. The women and children, like their protectors, perished in the flames. Eighty of the English, too, were killed—a hundred and fifty were wounded. Had the wigwams been spared there would have been food and shelter for the victors. But victors and vanquished were driven out into the bleak night, weary and spent with long marching and fasting—the Indian to crouch in an open cedar swamp not far from the fort—the English to return to the spot from whence they had set out in the morning for this dreadful victory—Smith’s plantation, near the present village of Wickford. Several of the wounded died by the way. Even after this blow Philip succeeded in arousing the Maine and New Hampshire tribes to his support, and the war still raged for a while through the New England settlements. Rhode Island suffered severely. Warwick was burned, and the cattle driven off. Tradition says that when the enemy approached Providence, Roger Williams, now a very old man, went out to meet them. “Massachusetts,” he said, “can raise thousands of men at this moment, and if you kill them, the King of England will supply their places as fast as they fall.” “Let them come,” was the reply, “we are ready for them. But as for you, brother Williams, you are a good man; you have been kind to us many years; not a hair of your head shall be touched.” Fifty-four houses in the northern part of the town were burned, but the fearless old man was not harmed.

Many of the colonists took refuge on Aquidneck, where the inhabitants of Newport and Portsmouth received them with great kindness. To protect the island a little flotilla of four boats, manned each by five or six men, was kept sailing around it day and night. There was no rest for old or young. April opened a brighter prospect. Canonchet, chief of the Narragansetts was taken prisoner. A young Englishman attempted to examine him. “You much child; no understand matters of war. Let your brother or your chief come. Him I will answer,” was his haughty reply. He was offered his life if his tribe would submit, but refused it. The offer was renewed and he calmly said, “Let me hear no more about it.” He was sent to Stonington, where a council of war condemned him to death. “I like it well,” said he; “I shall die before my heart is soft, or I have said anything unworthy of myself.” That as many as possible of his own race should take part in his execution Pequots were employed to shoot him, Mohegans to cut off his head and quarter him, and the Niantics to burn his body. When all this had been done, his head was sent to the Commissioners at Hartford as “a taken of love and loyalty.”

Throughout the spring and early summer the war still raged with unabated violence. The Rhode Island Assembly was so hard pushed that it was compelled to repeal the law exempting Quakers from military service. A few days before the capture of Canonchet he had surprised a party of Plymouth men near Pawtuxet. A battle was fought in an open cedar swamp in Warwick. But at last fortune seemed to turn towards the English. Philip’s allies began to fall from him. His wife and children were taken prisoners. Captain Church with a chosen band was on his trail. Hunted from lair to lair he sought refuge at Mount Hope. A few followers still clung to his fortunes. His mind was harassed by unpropitious dreams, and in his weariness his pursuers came upon him unawares. As he rose to flee he was shot down by a renegade Indian. The victors drew his body out of the swamp, cut off his head, and dividing the trunk and limbs into four parts hung them upon four trees. The head was sent to Plymouth where it was hung upon a gibbet. One hand was sent to Boston where it was welcomed as a trophy, and the other was given to the renegade who shot him, by whom it was exhibited for money. His son was sold into West India servitude.

With the death of Philip the war ended, although there were occasional collisions and bloodshed. For two members of the New England confederacy it had been a war of desolation. Connecticut, the third, escaped unharmed. Rhode Island, which had never been a member of it and had never been consulted concerning the war, although some of its leading incidents occurred within her borders, suffered most. Her second town was burned, her plantations laid waste and the inhabitants of her main-land driven for shelter to the island.

With the vanquished it went hard. Many were killed in battle, some were shot in cold blood by the sentence of an English court-martial. Many were sold into slavery—with this distinction in favor of Rhode Island, that while the other colonies sold their prisoners into unqualified servitude, she established for hers a system of apprenticeship by which the prospect of ultimate freedom was opened to all.