New England colonists repeatedly exploited disunity among Indians, who identified more with their hunting group, headed by a sachem, than with a particular tribe. Savvy English settlers could often turn one group against another. In both of the major Indian uprisings in New England during the seventeenth century, the colonists prevailed in part because they were assisted by Indian allies.
In the 1630s the Pequot Indians grew alarmed at the steady stream of English settlers to southeastern Connecticut. After several clashes in 1636, the colonists demanded that the Pequots surrender tribe members responsible for the attacks and pay tribute in wampum. When the Pequots refused, the governments of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth declared war. In 1637 the New England armies, bolstered by warriors of the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes, traditional foes of the Pequots, attacked a Pequot village enclosed by a wooden palisade. When Pequots attempted to flee, the English set fire to the village, trapping the Indians and killing nearly all 400 inhabitants.
The Narragansett and Mohegan Indians were aghast. They had intended to replace their own deceased relatives by adopting captured foes, especially women and children. The English way of fighting, they complained, was “too furious and slays too many people.” Bradford, too, commented on the “fearful sight” of the trapped Pequots “thus frying in the fire,” but he remembered to praise God for “so speedy a victory.” The Pequots were crushed.
In the 1670s Metacom, a Wampanoag sachem, concluded that the only way to resist the English incursion was to drive them out by force of arms. By then, many Wampanoags had acquired flintlock muskets and learned to use them; warfare had become far more lethal. In 1675, after Plymouth colony had convicted and executed three Wampanoags, Metacom
A rare English painting of an Indian sachem circa 1700, perhaps a gift for the tribe's support in war.
Source: Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 224 Benefit Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02903.
Ignited an uprising that ravaged much of New England. Scores of sachems led attacks on more than half of the ninety puritan towns in New England, destroying twelve. About 1,000 puritans were massacred; many more abandoned their farms.
The next year the colonists went on the offensive, bolstered by Mohawk allies. The New England militias destroyed Wampanoag villages and exhausted the Wampanoag’s gunpowder. The Mohawks ambushed and killed Metacom, presenting his severed head to puritan authorities in Boston. The Wampanoag retreated into the Great Swamp in Rhode Island and built a large fort. The colonists surrounded and burned the fort, massacred 300 Indians, and destroyed the winter stores. In all, about 4,000 Wampanoags and their allies died in what was called “King Philip’s” war—King Philip being the colonist’s derisive name for Metacom.
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