WARS WITH THE INDIANS

The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the affairs of the New England colonies, was characterized by widespread excitement and deep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere. Scarcely a section of the territory from Maine to the frontier of New York and the towns of Long Island but felt the strain of impending change in its political status. The winning of the charters and the capture of New Amsterdam were momentous events in the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island and Connecticut; while the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and the acrimonious debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly the towns of that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, and contentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state of perturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as to jurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut’s charter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east to Flushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people into discordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already mentioned, an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or another seems to have made trouble in nearly every part of the British world, appeared at this time in Long Island and, denying Connecticut’s title to the territory, proclaimed the King. In January, 1664, he established a government at Setauket, with himself as president. This event set the towns in an uproar; Captain Young from Southold, upholding Connecticut’s claim, came “with a trumpet” to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed Long Island Sound to support Scott’s cause; and at last Connecticut herself sent over officers to seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would “sacrifice his heart’s blood upon the ground” before he would yield, he was taken and carried in chains to Hartford.

Both Plymouth and Massachusetts sent letters protesting against the treatment of Scott, and the heat engendered among the members of the New England Confederation was intensified by the controversy over New Haven and the “uncomfortable debates” regarding the title to the Narragansett territory. Massachusetts wrote to Connecticut in 1662, “We cannot a little wonder at your proceeding so suddenly to extend your authority to the trouble of your friends and confederates”; to which Connecticut replied, hoping that Massachusetts would stop laying further temptations before “our subjects at Mistack of disobedience to this government.” The matter was debated for many years, and it was not until 1672 that Massachusetts recognized Connecticut’s title under the charter and yielded, not because it thought the claim just but because “it was judged by us more dangerous to the common cause of New England to oppose than by our forbearance and yielding to endeavour to prevent a mischief to us both.”

In Rhode Island conditions were equally unsettled, for the inhabitants of the border towns did not know certainly in what colony they were situated or what authority to recognize; and though these doubts affected but little the daily life of the farmer, they did affect the title to his lands and the payment of his taxes, and threw suspicion upon all legal processes and transactions. The situation was even more disturbed in the regions north of Massachusetts, where the status of Maine and New Hampshire was undecided and where the coming of the royal commissioners only served to throw the inhabitants into a new ferment. The claims of Mason and Gorges were revived by their descendants, and the King peremptorily ordered Massachusetts to surrender the provinces. Agents of Gorges appeared in the territory and demanded an acknowledgment of their authority; the commissioners themselves attempted to organize a government and to exercise jurisdiction there in the King’s name; but in 1668 Massachusetts, denying all other pretensions, adopted a resolution asserting her full right of control, and, sending commissioners with a military escort to York, resumed jurisdiction of the province. The inhabitants did not know what to do. Some upheld the Gorges agents and the commissioners; others adhered to Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts itself there were grave differences of opinion, for the younger generation did not always follow the old magistrates, and the people of Boston were developing views both of government and of the proper relations toward England that were at variance with those of the more conservative country towns and districts.

The larger disputes between the colonies were frequently accompanied with lesser disputes between the towns over their boundaries; and both at this time and for years afterwards there was scarcely an important settlement in New England that did not have some trouble with its neighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over their dividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme attempted to mow the same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle with clubs and scythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of Windsor and Enfield “were so fiercely engag’d” over a disputed strip of land, reported an eye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide this controversy by force, “a resolute combat” ensuing between them “in which many blows were given to the exasperating each party, so that the lives and limbs of his Majesties subjects were endangered thereby.”

Though clubs and scythes and fists are dangerous weapons enough, the only real fighting in which the colonists engaged was with the Indians and with weapons consisting of pikes and muskets. Indian attacks were an ever-present danger, for the stretches of unoccupied land between the colonies were the hunting-grounds of the Narragansetts of eastern Connecticut and western Rhode Island, the Pequots of Connecticut, the Wampanoags of Plymouth and its neighborhood, the Pennacooks of New Hampshire, and the Abenaki tribes of Maine. Plague and starvation had so far weakened the coast Indians before the arrival of the first colonists that the new settlements had been but little disturbed; but, unfortunately, as the first comers pushed into the interior, founding new plantations, felling trees, and clearing the soil, and the trappers and traders invaded the Indian hunting-grounds, carrying with them firearms and liquor, the Indian menace became serious.

To meet the Indian peril, all the colonies made provision for a supply of arms and for the drilling of the citizen body in militia companies or train-bands. But in equipment, discipline, and morale the fighting force of New England was very imperfect. The troops had no uniforms; there was a very inadequate commissariat; and alarums, whether by beacon, drum-beat, or discharge of guns, were slow and unreliable. Weapons were crude, and the method of handling them was exceedingly awkward and cumbersome. The pike was early abandoned and the matchlock soon gave way to the flintlock both heavy and unwieldy instruments of war and carbines and pistols were also used. Cavalry or mounted infantry, though expensive because of horse and outfit, were introduced whenever possible. In 1675, Plymouth had fourteen companies of infantry and cavalry; Massachusetts had six regiments, including the Ancient and Honorable Artillery; and Maine and New Hampshire had one each. Connecticut had four train-bands in 1662 and nine in 1668, a troop of dragoneers, and a troop of horse, but no regiments until the next century. For coast defense there were forts, very inadequately supplied with ordnance, of which that on Castle Island in Boston harbor was the most conspicuous, and, for the frontier, there were garrison-houses and stockades.

Though Massachusetts had twice put herself in readiness to repel attempts at coercion from England, and though both Connecticut and New Haven seemed on several occasions in danger from the Dutch, particularly after the recapture of New Amsterdam in 1673, New England’s chief danger was always from the Indians. Both French and Dutch were believed to be instrumental in inciting Indian warfare, one along the southwestern border, the other at various points in the north, notably in New Hampshire and Maine. But, except for occasional Indian forays and for house-burnings and scalpings in the more remote districts, there were only two serious wars in the seventeenth century that against the Pequots in 1637 and the great War of King Philip in 1675-1676.

The Pequot War, which was carried on by Connecticut with a few men from Massachusetts and a number of Mohegan allies, ended in the complete overthrow of the Pequot nation and the extermination of nearly all its fighting force. It began in June, 1637, with the successful attack by Captain John Mason on the Pequot fort near Groton, and was brought to an end by the battle of Fairfield Swamp, July 13, where the surviving Pequots made their last stand. Sassacus, the Pequot chieftain, was murdered by the Mohawks, among whom he had sought refuge; and during the year that followed wandering members of the tribe, whenever found, were slain by their enemies, the Mohegans and Narragansetts. An entire Indian people was wiped out of existence, an achievement difficult to justify on any ground save that of the extreme necessity of either slaying or being slain. The relentless pursuit of the scattered and dispirited remnants of these tribes admits of little defense.

The overthrow of the Pequots opened to settlement the region from Saybrook to Mystic and led to a treaty in 1638 with the Mohegans and Narragansetts, according to which harmony was to prevail and peace was to reign. But the outcome of this impracticable treaty was a five years’ struggle between the Mohegan chieftain, Uncas, actively allied with the colony of Connecticut, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts, which involved Connecticut in a tortuous and often dishonorable policy of attempting to divide the Indians in order to rule them a policy which led to many embarrassing negotiations and bloody conflicts and ended in the murder of Miantonomo in 1643, by the Mohegans, at the instigation of the commissioners of the United Colonies. This alliance between Uncas and the colony lasted for more than forty years. It placed upon Connecticut the burden of supporting a treacherous and grasping Indian chief; it created a great deal of confusion in land titles in the eastern part of the colony because of indiscriminate Indian grants; it started the famous Mohegan controversy which agitated the colony and England also, and was not finally settled until 1773, one hundred and thirty years later; and it was, in part at least, a cause of King Philip’s War, because of the colony’s support of the Mohegans against their traditional enemies, the Narragansetts and Niantics.

The presence of the Indians in and near the colonies rendered frequent dealings with them a matter of necessity. The English settlers generally purchased their lands from the Indians, paying in such goods or implements or trinkets as satisfied savage need and desire. In so doing they acquired, as they supposed, a clear title of ownership, though there can be no doubt that what the Indian thought he sold was not the actual soil but only the right to occupy the land in common with himself. As the years wore on, the problems of reservations, trade, and the sale of firearms and liquor engaged the attention of the authorities and led to the passage of many laws. The conversion of the Indians to Christianity became the object of many pious efforts, and in Massachusetts and Plymouth resulted in communities of “Praying Indians,” estimated in 1675 at about four thousand individuals. In contact with the white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented the settlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the women and children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, and developed an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indians were not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies passed many laws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the one condition as well as the other.

But the real danger to New England came not from those Indians who occupied reservations and hung around the settlements, but from those who, with savage spirit unbroken, were slowly being driven from their hunting-grounds and nurtured an implacable hatred against the aggressive and relentless pioneers. The New Englanders numbered at this time some 80,000 individuals, with an adult and fighting population of perhaps 16,000; while the number of the Indians altogether may have reached as high as 12,000, with the Narragansetts, the strongest of all, mustering 4,000. The final struggle for possession of the main part of central and southern New England territory came in 1675, in what is known as King Philip’s War.

Scarcely had the fears aroused by the arrival of a Dutch fleet at New York and the capture of that city been allayed by the peace of Westminster in 1674, when rumors of Indian unrest began to spread through the settlements, and the dread of Indian outbreaks began to arouse new apprehensions in the hearts of the people. Hitherto no Indian chieftain had proved himself a born leader of his people. Neither Sessaquem, Sassacus, Pumham, Uncas, nor Miantonomo had been able to quiet tribal jealousies and draw to his standard against the English others than his own immediate followers. But now appeared a sachem who was the equal of any in hatred of the white man and the superior of all in generalship, who was gifted both with the power of appeal to the younger Indians and with the finesse required to rouse other chieftains to a war of vengeance. Philip, or Metacom, was the second son of old Massasoit, the longtime friend of the English, and, upon the death of his elder brother Alexander in 1662, became the head of the Wampanoags, with his seat at Mount Hope, a promontory extending into Narragansett Bay. Believing that his people had been wronged by the English, particularly by those of Plymouth colony, and foreseeing that he and his people were to be driven step by step westward into narrower and more restricted quarters, he began to plot a great campaign of extermination. On June 24, 1675, a body of Indians fell on the town of Swansea, on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay, slew nine of the inhabitants and wounded seven others. Though assistance was sent from Massachusetts and Plymouth, the burning and massacring continued, extending to Rehoboth, Taunton, and towns northward. The settlements were isolated before the troops could reach them, their inhabitants were slain, cabins were burned, and prisoners were carried into captivity. The Rhode Islanders fled to the islands; elsewhere settlers gathered in garrisoned forts and blockhouses and in new forts hastily erected.

Though the authorities of Connecticut and Massachusetts sent agents among the Nipmucks hoping to prevent their alliance with Philip, the effort failed, and by August the tribes on the upper Connecticut had joined the movement and now began a determined and systematic destruction of the settlements in central New England. The famous massacre and burning of Deerfield took place on September 12, the surviving inhabitants fleeing to Hatfield, leaving their town in ruins. Hatfield, Northfield, Springfield, and Westfield were attacked in turn, and though the defense was sometimes successful, more often the defenders were ambushed and killed. So widespread was the uprising that during the autumn, a desultory warfare was carried on as far north as Falmouth, Brunswick, and Casco Bay, where at least fifty Englishmen were slain by members of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes.

As yet the Narragansetts, bravest of all the southern New England Indians, whose chief was Canonchet, son of the murdered Miantonomo, had taken no part in the war. But as rumor spread that they had welcomed Philip and listened to his appeals and were probably planning to join in the murderous fray, war was declared against them on November 2, 1675, and a force of a thousand men and horse from Plymouth and Massachusetts was drawn up on Dedham plain, under the command of General Josiah Winslow and Captain Benjamin Church. On December 19, the greater part of this force, aided by troops from Connecticut, fell on the Narragansetts in their swamp fort, south of the present town of Kingston, and after a fierce and bloody fight completely routed them, though at a heavy loss. The tribe was driven from its own territory, and Canonchet fled to the Connecticut River, where he established a rallying point for new forays. His followers allied themselves with the Wampanoags and Nipmucks and began a new series of massacres. In February and March, 1676, they fell upon Lancaster, where they carried off Mrs. Rowlandson, who has left us a narrative of her captivity; upon Medfield, where fifty houses were burned; and upon Weymouth and Marlborough, which were raided and in part destroyed. Repeated assaults in other quarters kept the western frontier of Massachusetts in a frightful condition of terror; settlers were ambushed and scalped, others were tortured, and many were carried into captivity. Even the Pennacooks of southern New Hampshire were roused to action, though their share in the war was small. Here a hundred warriors sacked a village; there Indians skulking along trails and on the outskirts of towns cut off individuals and groups of individuals, shooting, scalping, and burning them. No one was safe. Again the commissioners of the United Colonies met in council and ordered a more vigorous prosecution of the campaign. More troops were levied and garrison posts fortified, but the first results were disastrous. Captain Pierce of Scituate was ambushed at Blackstone’s River near Rehoboth, and his command was completely wiped out. Sudbury was destroyed in April, and a relieving force escaped only with heavy loss.

But the strength of the Indians was waning. Canonchet, run to earth near the Pawtuxet River, was captured and sentenced to death, and his execution was entrusted to Oneko, the son of Uncas. His head was cut off and carried to Hartford, and his body was committed to the flames. The loss of Canonchet was a bitter blow to Philip, who now saw his allies falling away and himself deserted by all but a few faithful followers. The campaign at last well in hand and directed by that prince of Indian fighters, Benjamin Church, now commissioned a colonel by General Winslow was approaching an end. Using friendly savages as scouts, Colonel Church gradually located and captured stray bodies of Indians and brought them as captives to Plymouth. Finally, coming on the trail of Philip himself, he first intercepted his followers, and then, relentlessly pursuing the fleeing chieftain from one point to another, tracked him to his lair at his old stronghold, Mount Hope. There the great chief who had terrorized New England for nearly a year was slain by one of his own race. His ornaments and treasure were seized by the soldiers, and his crown, gorget, and two belts, all of gold and silver of Indian make, were sent as a present to Charles II. With the death of Philip, August 12, 1676, the whole movement collapsed, and the remaining hostile Indians, dispersed and in flight, with their leaders gone and starvation threatening, sought refuge among the northern tribes. Thus the last effort to check the English advance in southern and central New England was brought to an end. From this time on, the Indians in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut lingered for a century and a half, a steadily dwindling remnant, wards of the governments and occupants of reservations, until they ceased to exist as a separate people.

The havoc wrought by the war was a great blow to the prosperity of New England. Probably more than six hundred whites had been slain or captured, and hundreds of houses and a score of villages had been burnt or pillaged; crops had been destroyed, cattle driven off, and agriculture in many quarters brought to a complete standstill. In 1676, there was little leisure to sow and less to reap. Provisions became increasingly scarce; none could be had near at hand, for none of the colonies had a surplus; and attempts to obtain them from a distance proved unavailing. Staples for trade with the West Indies decreased; the fur trade was curtailed; and fishing was hampered for want of men. To add to the confusion, a plague vexed the colonies. It seemed to all as if the hand of God lay heavily upon New England, and days of humiliation and prayer were appointed to assuage the wrath of the Almighty. A Massachusetts act of November, 1675, ascribed the war to the judgment of God upon the colony for its sins, among which were included an excess of apparel, the wearing of long hair, and the rudeness of worship, all marks of an apostasy from the Lord “with a great backsliding.” The Puritan fear of divine displeasure adds a relieving note to the general despondency and must have stiffened the determination of the orthodox leaders to resist to the utmost all attempts to liberalize the life of the colony or to alter its character as a religious state patterned after the divine plan. King Philip’s War probably strengthened the position of the conservative element in Massachusetts.