KING PHILIP (Time of the Indian War, 1675-1676)

Book: The Beginner's American History

Chapter: X | King Philip

Author: D. H. Montgomery

Death of Massasoit; Wamsutta and Philip; Wamsutta's sudden death.

When the Indian chief Massasoit died, the people of Plymouth lost one of their best friends. Massasoit left two sons, one named Wamsutta, who became chief in his father's place, and the other called Metacom, popularly known as Philip. They both lived near Mount Hope, in Rhode Island.

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The governor of Plymouth heard that Wamsutta was stirring up the Indians to make war on the whites, and he sent for the Indian chief to come to him and give an account of himself. Wamsutta went, but on his way back he suddenly fell sick, and soon after he reached home he died. His young wife was a woman who was thought a great deal of by her tribe, and she told them that she felt sure the white people had poisoned her husband in order to get rid of him. This was not true, but the Indians believed it.

Philip becomes chief; why he hated the white men; how the white men had got possession of the Indian lands.

Philip now became chief. He called himself "King Philip." His palace was a wigwam made of bark. On great occasions he wore a bright red blanket and a kind of crown made of a broad belt ornamented with shells.

THE BELT WHICH KING PHILIP WORE FOR A CROWN.

King Philip hated the white people because, in the first place, he believed that they had murdered his brother; and next, because he saw that they were growing stronger in numbers every year, while the Indians were becoming weaker.

When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massasoit, Philip's father, held all the country from Cape Cod back to the eastern shores of Narragansett Bay; that is, a strip about thirty miles wide. The white settlers bought a small piece of this land. After a while they bought more, and so they kept on until in about fifty years they got nearly all of what Massasoit's tribe had once owned.

The Indians had nothing left but two little necks of land, which were nearly surrounded by the waters of Narragansett Bay. Here they felt that they were shut up almost like prisoners, and that the white men watched everything that they did.

How King Philip felt; signs of the coming war; the "Praying Indians"; the murder

King Philip was a very proud man—quite as proud, in fact, as the king of England. He could not bear to see his people losing power. He said to himself, if the Indians do not rise and drive out the white men, then the white men will certainly drive out the Indians. Most of the Indians now had guns, and could use them quite as well as the whites could; so Philip thought that it was best to fight.

The settlers felt that the war was coming. Some of them fancied that they saw the figure of an Indian bow in the clouds. Others said that they heard sounds like guns fired off in the air, and horsemen riding furiously up and down in the sky, as if getting ready for battle.

But though many Indians now hated the white settlers, this was not true of all. A minister, named John Eliot, had persuaded some of the red men near Boston to give up their religion, and to try to live like the white people. These were called "Praying Indians." One of them who knew King Philip well told the settlers that Philip's warriors were grinding their hatchets sharp for war. Soon after, this "Praying Indian" was found murdered. The white people accused three of Philip's men of having killed him. They were tried, found guilty, and hanged.

Beginning of the war at Swansea; burning of Brookfield.

Then Philip's warriors began the war in the summer of 1675. Some white settlers were going home from church in the town of Swansea, Massachusetts; they had been to pray that there might be no fighting. As they walked along, talking together, two guns were fired out of the bushes. One of the white men fell dead in the road, and another was badly hurt.

The shots were fired by Indians. This was the way they always fought when they could. They were not cowards, but they did not come out boldly, but would fire from behind trees and rocks. Often a white man would be killed without even seeing who shot him.

At first the fighting was mainly in those villages of Plymouth Colony which were nearest Narragansett Bay; then it spread to the valley of the Connecticut River and the neighborhood. Deerfield, Springfield, Brookfield, Groton, and many other places in Massachusetts were attacked. The Indians would creep up stealthily in the night, burn the houses, carry off the women and children prisoners if they could, kill the rest of the inhabitants, take their scalps home and hang them up in their wigwams.

At Brookfield the settlers left their houses, and gathered in one strong house for defense. The Indians burned all the houses but that one, and did their best to burn that, too. They dipped rags in brimstone, such as we make matches of, fastened them to the points of their arrows, set fire to them, and then shot the blazing arrows into the shingles of the roof.

When the Indians saw that the shingles had caught, and were beginning to flame up, they danced for joy, and roared like wild bulls. But the men in the house managed to put out the fire on the roof. Then the savages got a cart, filled it with hay, set it on fire, and pushed it up against the house.

This time they thought that they should certainly burn the white people out; but just then a heavy shower came up, and put out the fire. A little later, some white soldiers marched into the village, and saved the people in the house.

The fight at Hadley; what Colonel Goffe did.

At Hadley, the people were in the meeting-house when the terrible Indian war-whoop* rang through the village. The savages drove back those who dared to go out against them, and it seemed as if the village must be destroyed. Suddenly a white-haired old man, sword in hand, appeared among the settlers. No one knew who he was; but he called to them to follow him, as a captain calls to his men, and they obeyed him.

The astonished Indians turned and ran. When, after all was over, the whites looked for their brave leader, he had gone; they never saw him again. Many thought that he was an angel who had been sent to save them. But the angel was Colonel Goffe, an Englishman, who was one of the judges who had sentenced King Charles the First to death during a great war in England. He had escaped to America; and, luckily for the people of Hadley, he was hiding in the house of a friend in that village when the Indians attacked it.

*War-whoop (war-hoop): a very loud, shrill cry made by the Indians when engaged in war, or as a shout of alarm.

How a woman drove off an Indian.

In this dreadful war with the savages there were times when even the women had to fight for their lives. In one case, a woman had been left in a house with two young children. She heard a noise at the window, and looking up, saw an Indian trying to raise the sash. Quick as thought, she clapped the two little children under two large brass kettles which stood near. Then, seizing a shovel-full of red-hot coals from the open fire, she stood ready, and just as the Indian thrust his head into the room, she dashed the coals right into his face and eyes. With a yell of agony the Indian let go his hold, dropped to the ground as though he had been shot, and ran howling to the woods.

The great swamp fight; burning the Indian wigwams; what the Chief Canonchet said.

During the summer and autumn of 1675 the Indians on the west side of Narragansett Bay took no open part in King Philip's War. But the next winter the white people found that these Indians were secretly receiving and sheltering the savages who had been wounded in fighting for that noted chief.

For that reason, the settlers determined to raise a large force and attack them. The Indians had gathered in a fort on an island in a swamp. This fort was a very difficult place to reach. It was built of the trunks of trees set upright in the ground. It was so strong that the savages felt quite safe.

Starting very early in the morning, the attacking party waded fifteen miles through deep snow. Many of them had their hands and feet badly frozen. One of the chief men in leading the attack was Captain Benjamin Church of Plymouth; he was a very brave soldier, and knew all about Indian life and Indian fighting.

In the battle, he was struck by two bullets, and so badly wounded that he could not move a step further; but he made one of his men hold him up, and he shouted to his soldiers to go ahead. The fight was a desperate one, but at length the fort was taken. The attacking party lost more than two hundred and fifty men in killed and wounded; the Indians lost as many as a thousand.

After the battle was over, Captain Church begged the men not to burn the wigwams inside the fort, for there were a great number of old men and women and little Indian children in the wigwams. But the men were very mad against the savages, and would not listen to him. They set the wigwams on fire, and burned many of these poor creatures to death.

Canonchet, the chief of the tribe, was taken prisoner. The settlers told him they would spare his life if he would try to make peace. "No," said he, "we will all fight to the last man rather than become slaves to the white men." He was then told that he must be shot. "I like it well," said he. "I wish to die before my heart becomes soft, or I say anything unworthy of myself."

Philip's wife and son are taken prisoners; Philip is shot; end of the war.

The next summer Captain Church, with a lot of "brisk Bridgewater lads" chased King Philip and his men, and took many of the Indians prisoners. Among those then taken captive were King Philip's wife and his little boy. When Philip heard of it, he cried out, "My heart breaks; now I am ready to die."

He had good reason for saying so. It was the custom in England to sell such prisoners of war as slaves. Following this custom, the settlers here took this boy, the grandson of that Massasoit who had helped them when they were poor and weak, and sold him with his mother. They were sent to the Bermuda Islands, and there worked to death under the hot sun and the lash of the slave-driver's whip.

Not long after that, King Philip himself was shot. He had been hunted like a wild beast from place to place. At last he had come back to see his old home at Mount Hope once more. There Captain Church found him; there the Indian warrior was shot. His head and hands were cut off,—as was then done in England in such cases,—and his head was carried to Plymouth and set up on a pole. It stood there twenty years.

King Philip's death brought the war to an end. It had lasted a little over a year; that is, from the early summer of 1675 to the latter part of the summer of 1676. In that short time the Indians had killed between five and six hundred white settlers, and had burned thirteen villages to ashes, besides partly burning a great many more. The war cost so much money that many people were made poor by it; but the strength of the Indians was broken, and they never dared to trouble the people of Southern New England again.

Summary

In 1675 King Philip began a great Indian war against the people of Southeastern New England. His object was to kill off the white settlers, and get back the land for the Indians. He did kill a large number, and he destroyed many villages, but in the end the white men gained the victory. Philip's wife and child were sold as slaves, and he was shot. The Indians never attempted another war in this part of the country.