KING PHILIP'S WAR

Building their Forces

Initially, neither side consisted of a unified military force. Philip brought with him to the conflict many of the Wampanoags, including the Pocassets under Weetamoe, widow of Philip’s brother, Alexander. Weetamoe had remarried after Alexander’s death but then abandoned her second husband, Peter Nunnuit, when he joined with the English. As her third husband, she took the Narragansett sachem Quinapin. Weetamoe was a female sachem—women were able to assume this leadership position when there were no qualified male descendants of the previous sachem.

A prominent Wampanoag sachem who rejected Philip’s efforts to enlist her in the war, despite being his cousin, was Awashonks of the Sakonnets. Benjamin Church, the most successful English military leader of the war, met with Awashonks prior to the initial raids on Swansea and learned that Philip had sent six men to persuade her to join in the war. She, in turn, had instituted a dance—a ritual commonly held when a great decision was to be made—and invited Church to attend. That Awashonks was reluctant to agree to Philip’s request was evident by her invitation to Church, and she not surprisingly agreed to remain at peace with the English. According to Church, he later visited the Pocassets and learned from Peter Nunnuit that Philip had held a similar dance and was preparing for war, convinced that the English were prepared to hold him accountable for Sassamon’s death.

Pequot War

King Philip's War was not the first major conflict between the native peoples and the New England colonists. That distinction belongs to the Pequot war of the 1630s. In 1634, John Stone, an English coastal trader, was killed by a Nian-tic band subservient to the Pequots. The English held the Pequots accountable for his death and demanded financial restitution as well as the individuals who had killed Stone. However, Sassacus, the leading Pequot sachem, was either unwilling or unable to turn over the killers.

In July 1636, another group of Niantics allied with the Narragansetts killed a trader named John Oldham off Block Island. Massachusetts Bay Colony sent Captain John Endecott to put to the sword all males on Block Island and sail up the Connecticut River to find Oldham's killers, who reportedly had taken refuge with the Pequots. Endecott did as told but then continued to the mouth of the Pequot River (now the Thames) and burned a Pequot village.

The Pequots responded in force, killing settlers in the area. In May 1637, Connecticut Colony appointed John Mason to lead a militia against the Pequots. Mason attacked the Pequot village at Mystic, which was surrounded by a stockade. Faced with strong resistance, Mason gave up on capturing the village intact and instead put it to the torch, shooting inhabitants as they rushed out. Perhaps hundreds burned to death.

After the Mystic Massacre, the Pequots broke up into small groups to escape the English. Sassacus, who had been absent during the attack on his village, sought help from the Mohawks. To appease the English, however, the Mohawks killed the Pequots and sent Sassacus' head to the English as a peace offering. The surviving Pequots signed the Treaty of Hartford on September 21, 1638, essentially dissolving the Pequots as a people.

Among the surrounding tribes, the Nipmucs entered the war immediately. The Narragansetts initially resisted the call to arms, joining only after English heavy-handedness in dealings with them, such as forcing a treaty on the still-peaceful Narragansetts, ultimately drove them into alliance with Philip.

Early Battles

Nipmuc warriors under Matoonas achieved the first significant victory of the conflict, attacking Mendon in Massachusetts Bay Colony on July 14, 1675. A few days later, a large English force entered the Pocasset swamp on the opposite side of Mount Hope Bay from the peninsula on which Philip and his Wampanoags had their village. The English came upon a rear-guard force and lost seven or eight men. A smaller force then attempted to block Philip’s escape. Nonetheless, Philip was able to move with his warriors across the Taunton River and reach Nipmuc country to the north. He was forced to leave behind approximately 100 women and children, most of whom were sold into

Slavery—an action that the English often took with Indians they considered hostile or recalcitrant.

A contingent of Mohegans under Oneko who were loyal to the English engaged Philip in battle on July 30 near Old Rehoboth, Rhode Island. Philip lost 23 of his men, but he and his remaining forty escaped and moved farther north to join Nipmucs at Menameset near where Braintree, Massachusetts, stands today. The growing force, along with a Nipmuc victory on August 2 known as Wheeler’s Surprise, attracted additional allies in the escalating war against the English. In the Nipmuc battle, eight English colonists were killed in an ambush, and both Captain Edward Hutchinson and Captain Thomas Wheeler were wounded. Hutchinson later died of his injuries. Wheeler wrote an account of the battle, A Thankefull Remembrance of Gods Mercy to Several Persons at Quabaug or Brookfield, in which he describes the sudden attack, with the Indians sending “out their shot upon us as a showre ofhaile,” and his men fleeing from the onslaught. The entire narrative represents an attempt, he writes, to show “what the Lord did against us in the Loss of several persons Lifes... and also what great things he was pleased to do for us...

The Spreading War

Over the next several months, the war spread throughout the New England colonies, with town after town attacked, houses burned, and villagers killed. Fear spread like an epidemic throughout New England, and many of the colonists felt largely defenseless.

Philip’s role in the war is impossible to determine precisely. He certainly was the most important figure in the conflict, but he may actually have participated in a relatively small number of attacks. His personal prestige was great, and he well understood how to fight effectively in the wooded terrain of New England. Yet his military tactics were not unique to him, but rather the traditional tactics of his people: small-scale hit-and-run attacks to spread fear, destroy food supplies, and, of course, kill the enemy. Although it would be erroneous to see Philip as a modern type of commanding general planning all of the individual battles, he certainly was a major recruiter. Regardless of how much he was in charge of the daily fighting, the English perceived him as their primary opponent.

Philip, for example, was not at the Great Swamp Fight in December 1675. There a combined army from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, mandated by vote of the United Colonies (also known as the New England Confederation, which was formed in 1643 to coordinate matters of importance to the three colonies), attacked a Narragansett village. The battle occurred in what was known as the Great Swamp, located at present-day South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The English feared that the Narragansetts were planning to enter the war and decided to engage in a preemptive strike. The battle, under the leadership of Governor Winslow of Plymouth, initially seemed to be a victory for the English, as approximately 600 Narragansetts

Died. However, the attack brought the Narragansetts into the burgeoning war, which ultimately cost the English dearly.

On January 27, 1676, the Narragansetts, furious at the English, attacked Pawtuxet, Rhode Island (encompassing parts of today’s Warwick and Cranston). Winslow’s army then began a pursuit of the Narragansetts, only to suffer a series of attacks and run out of food, finally being reduced to eating their horses. On February 3, Winslow gave up and sent his men home, ending a pursuit that history has come to call the “hungry march.”

By the end of 1675, the Wampanoags, Nipmucs, and Narragansetts (the latter including their great sachem Canonchet) had joined together against the English. Philip, meanwhile, was in New York attempting to recruit the Mahicans to his cause. Philip was welcomed by the Mahicans at their village at Schaghticoke, north of Albany. He apparently recruited a sizable number of Mahicans, with the estimates ranging from about 400 to 2,100.12

Although New York Governor Andros generally had good relations with the native peoples, he feared that the New England war would spread into his own colony. As a consequence, he encouraged the Mohawks—the traditional enemies of the Wampanoags and other New England tribes—to attack Philip. The Mohawks attacked in late February, killing close to 500 of Philip’s men. Philip survived the attack and returned to New England, where he continued to be an important figure in the war. Nevertheless, other sachems, such as Canonchet and the Nipmuc sachems Monoco and Muttawmp, were more directly involved in the ensuing battles.

Mary Rowlandson

No visual portrait of Philip exists. The most famous supposed portrait, an engraving by Paul Revere in 1772 for an edition of Benjamin Church’s history of the war, is now widely agreed to be a composite copy of three engravings of other Indians, with details of dress added based on Church’s description of Philip. A particularly interesting first-hand narrative account of Philip, however, occurs in Mary Rowlandson’s memoirs of her time in captivity. Wife of a minister, Rowlandson was captured along with three of her children during a raid on Lancaster, Massachusetts, on February 10, 1676. During her three-month captivity, she was taken to see Philip. The Wampanoag sachem invited her to sit down and asked if she would like to smoke. Rowlandson admits in her account that she used to enjoy smoking a pipe, a practice that she assigns to the devil’s temptations within a narrative filled with religious lessons.

During her stay in Philip’s camp, she received a request from him “to make a shirt for his boy, which I did, for which he gave me a shilling.” Rowlandson notes that she offered the money to her “master,” the Narragansett sachem Quinapin, who was Weetamoe’s third husband. Quinapin, however, told Rowlandson to keep the shilling, and she bought some horse meat with it. Philip’s second request was for her to make a cap for his son; in turn, Rowlandson received an invitation to dinner: “I went and he gave me a pancake, about as

Big as two fingers; it was made of parched wheat, beaten, and fried in bear’s grease, but I thought I never tasted pleasanter meat in my life.” Apparently, Rowlandson’s skill as a seamstress spread, for two women subsequently asked her to make a shirt for a husband and a pair of socks. In both instances, she received food in payment and then invited Weetamoe and Quinapin to dinner.13

Rowlandson’s account of her interactions with Philip as well as with some of her other captors clearly shows that, although certainly a captive, she generally met with respect, especially from Philip, who treated her as a guest and almost a business associate.

Changing Fortunes

The war continued to go Philip’s way throughout March as his Wampanoags and their allies scored a number of victories, including an ambush of a Plymouth Colony militia column that was making its way from Rehoboth, Massachusetts. On March 26, near where Central Falls, Rhode Island, now stands, the force of 63 men under Captain Michael Pierce was attacked. Forty-two members of the militia died in the fighting. Three days later, Canochet led a Narragansett attack on Old Rehoboth, Rhode Island, burning approximately 100 buildings, including the home of Roger Williams.

The tide began to turn in April, as the English continued to implement new tactics in large part modeled after those practiced so successfully by their adversaries. The English began to use Indian allies to locate the warring groups, deliberately tried to eliminate Indian food supplies, and, especially through the leadership of Benjamin Church, substituted surprise attacks for traditional formations and methods of engagement ill suited to wooded terrain. Church offers his own account of one such innovation in words apparently dictated to his son:

And his manner of marching through the woods was such, as if he were discovered, they appeared to be more than they were. For he always marched at a wide distance, one from another, partly for their safety; and this was an Indian custom, to march thin and scatter.14

In more modern terms, Church had some of his men marching point, others guarding the flanks.

The turnaround was not, of course, instantaneous. On April 3, 1676, the English captured one of the greatest war leaders, Canonchet, who reportedly behaved so bravely and nobly at his execution that even the English onlookers were impressed. However, an assault on Sudbury, Massachusetts, west of Boston, on April 21, led by the Nipmuc sachem Muttawmp, was successful. In that battle, several groups of would-be rescuers also were attacked and suffered heavy casualties. The total English fatalities were high. The following day, the victors appeared at Marlborough and shouted 74 times, informing frightened inhabitants of the number of English they thought they had killed.

Another English disaster occurred on May 19, when approximately 150 men under Captain William Turner attacked an Indian camp at Peskeompskut on the Connecticut River near Deerfield, Massachusetts. The “Peskeompskut Massacre” ensued, with a large number of men, women, and children being killed when the attackers opened fire on their wigwams. When nearby warriors arrived, however, the English retreated. The retreat quickly turned into a disorganized flight, and 39 English soldiers, including Turner, were killed.

The attack on Peskeompskut, while disastrous for both parties, may have weakened Indian resolve. By this time, Philip was the most hunted leader among the warring groups and had to spend much of his time trying to avoid English search parties. He returned to his home ground at Mount Hope, and the number of Indian surrenders and captures increased rapidly.

During June 1676, Potuck led 80 Narragansetts in to surrender. Ninigret surrendered his Niantics on July 15. Shoshonin and 180 Nipmucs surrendered on July 25, with Shoshonin turning in another Nipmuc leader, Matoonas, apparently in an attempt to save himself. Matoonas was eventually executed (shot to death) on Boston Common.

On July 31, Philip’s uncle was killed and his sister was captured. The next day, Church captured Philip’s wife, Wootonekanuska, and their nine-year-old son, for whom Philip had requested Mary Rowlandson to sew a shirt and cap. Both would be sold into slavery, probably somewhere out of the colonies such as the West Indies, and disappear from history, although various legends came to be associated with the son’s future. In one story he survived to become the ancestor of a family in Battle Creek, Michigan, whose family Bible notes that they are the descendants of Philip’s son.

Despite the son’s youth, there was considerable sentiment for executing him, with Increase Mather sanctioning this punishment. There also was clear recognition among the English of what the boy’s capture would mean to Philip. Mather wrote of the capture of Philip’s wife and son:

Thus hath God brought that grand Enemy into great misery before he quite destroy him. It must needs be bitter as death to him, to loose his Wife and only Son (for the Indians are marvellous fond and affectionate towards their Children) besides other Relations, and almost all his Subjects and Country too.15

Church’s account conveys a similar observation through the words of other Indians:

“Sir, you have now made Philip ready to die, for you have made him as poor and miserable as he used to make the English, for you have now killed or taken all his relations.” That they believed he would now soon have his head, and that this bout had almost broke his heart.16

William Hubbard refers to Philip’s “Treasures, his beloved Wife and only Son.”17 What today would seem highly commendable—deep affection for

One’s children—was perceived, from a Puritan perspective, as a weakness to be eradicated. In fact, the Puritans tried to persuade Indian parents to be stricter disciplinarians and enforce Christian principles of conduct.

Philip suffered another blow around August 6 when his sister-in-law, Weetamoe, drowned while trying to escape from the English across the Taunton River. When her body was discovered, she was decapitated and her head placed atop a pole in Taunton.

DEFEAT Philip's Death

Benjamin Church offers a vivid first-hand account of Philip’s death. The climactic event in the war began with one of Philip’s men informing Church where the sachem was camping at Mount Hope. According to Church, the informant acted because Philip had killed his brother for offering unwelcome advice, perhaps counseling surrender. Alderman, who killed Philip, has been named as the individual who supplied Church with intelligence about Philip’s location, but Church’s account does not identify the informer by name and implies that the informer and the killer were different men.

In any case, Church planned his strategy for an early morning attack on August 12. Captain Roger Goulding led a small group to flush out the hidden Indians and drive them toward Church’s men. Among the men whom Church positioned to prevent Philip’s escape were an Englishman (generally identified as Caleb Cook) and Alderman, a Wampanoag who had previously abandoned Weetamoe in favor of assisting Church.

Before Church’s trap was completely laid, a shot rang out. Goulding had seen an Indian who he thought had discovered the ambush and opened fire, sending the Wampanoags into flight. According to Church’s account:

They were soon in the swamp, and Philip the foremost, who, starting at the first gun, threw his petunk [a pouch probably containing bullets] and powder horn over his head, catched up his gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small breeches and stockings, and ran directly upon two of Captain Church’s ambush. They let him come fair within shot, and the Englishman’s [Cook’s] gun missing fire, he bid the Indian [Alderman] fire away. And he did so to purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart, and another not above two inches from it. He fell upon his face in the mud and water, with his gun under him.18

Most of Philip’s men escaped, but the great sachem lay dead. Church withheld the news from his men until they had completed searching the swamp, perhaps so they would not be distracted from their task. Then Church’s men gathered, and he conveyed the news, to which the army responded with three loud cheers.

Church ordered Philip to be brought out of the mud, describing the fallen leader as “a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast.”19 Because, according to Church, Philip was responsible for many Englishmen lying unburied, he should be treated similarly. Church had one of his Indian allies behead Philip and quarter him, the standard English punishment for treason. Before carrying out his orders, the man noted that Philip had been a great man who inspired much fear in his enemies. Then Church gave Alderman Philip’s head and one of his hands. The head would be mounted on a pole at Plymouth, where it remained for nearly 20 years. The hand, marked by a gun blowing up at some earlier date when Philip was shooting, remained with Alderman, who earned money by exhibiting it in a pail of rum. Church’s men soon afterward received their pay at Plymouth: 4 shillings and sixpence per man for the battle. In addition, each head of a dead enemy brought 30 shillings. There was no extra sum for Philip.

The End of the War

Annawon, a veteran Wampanoag warrior and Philip’s war leader, escaped the ambush at Mount Hope. By late August, he had been sighted near Rehoboth, Massachusetts. On August 28, Church’s militia, guided by an elderly Wampanoag man, surrounded his camp in Squannakonk Swamp. The guide explained that he felt obliged to follow Church because he had spared his life but that he would not fight against Annawon. Realizing that his chance of escaping was small, and perhaps finally tired of the long conflict, Annawon surrendered.

Church’s account evinces considerable respect for Annawon in the manner of one old soldier to another. The two dined together, and Church allowed Annawon to enter the woods alone. When he returned, he had with him a pack. In it was Philip’s belt made of wampum and decorated with flower, bird, and animal designs. Annawon also pulled out of the pack two additional belts, two horns of powder that Philip had used to paint himself, and a red blanket. These items, the old warrior explained, Philip wore while conducting important business in his position as a leader. The conveying of the items to Church symbolically marked the end of the war (although fighting in New England would continue sporadically for some time) as well as the end of a rich cultural era for the Wampanoags and other New England native peoples.

Church intended that Annawon be spared, apparently drawing a distinction between the leader who makes war and a loyal soldier. That distinction, however, was lost on others. Church traveled to Boston, and when he returned to Plymouth he found that Annawon and another of Philip’s captains, Philip’s brother-in-law, Tispaquin, whose life Church also had promised to spare, had been executed.

Tispaquin’s wife and son were sold into slavery. The Nipmuc leaders Monoco, Muttawmp, and Shoshonin were executed, the last despite having delivered Matoonas to the English. The war dragged on longer in Maine, where Abenaki victories continued throughout the fall of 1676. The fighting

Finally came to an end in August 1677, when Governor Andros, acting under the direction of the Duke of York, who feared that the war might allow the French to make inroads in English territory, negotiated a peace agreement. On April 12, 1678, the English and Abenakis signed the Treaty of Casco, formally concluding the conflict in the north.

Awashonks, who had rejected Philip’s overtures to join him in the war, saw her land reduced to a small allotment in Little Compton, Rhode Island. After a few years, she was never heard from again. The Little Compton community died out, but small Wampanoag communities—on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod—survived the war and retained something of their culture.

Philip had been defeated and killed, but his name survived as a result of its link to the war that he fought. There would be no more significant Indian wars in New England, although the Abenakis of Maine would suffer harsh effects from the French and Indian War (1756-1763), losing most of their land by the time Maine became a state in 1820. The English had incurred heavy casualties during King Philip’s War: One out of every 10 adult males in Massachusetts, for example, was either killed or captured.20 Yet despite the major English losses, the war secured their dominion over New England. The region now was truly “New England.”

The Pilgrims would move into American history books, where in a twist of fate they ironically would be remembered most of all for sitting down to dine with their Indian hosts. Schoolchildren by the millions would learn about the so-called first giving but little of what transpired afterward.