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... Tidings of a very deplorable Disaster brought unto Boston about 5 a Cloak that Afternoon, by a Post from Dedham, viz. , that Captain Pierce (of) Scituate, in Plymouth Colony, having Intelligence in his Garrison at Seaconicke, that a Party of the Enemy lay near Mr. Blackstone's, went forth with 63 English and twenty of the Cape Indians, (who had all along continued faithful, and joined with them; ) and upon their March, discovered rambling in an obscure woody Place, four or five Indians, who, in getting away from us, halted, as if they had been lame or wounded. But our Men had pursued them but a little Way into the Woods, before they found them to be only Decoys to draw them into their Ambuscade: for on a Sudden, they discovered about 500 Indians, who in very good order, furiously attached them, being as readily received by ours. So that the Fight began to be very fierce and dubious, and our Men had made the Enemy begin to retreat but so slowly that it scarce deserved that Name, when a fresh Company of about 400 Indians came in; so that the English and their few Indian Friends were quite surrounded, and beset on every Side. Yet they made a brave Resistance, for about two Hours: during all that Time they did great Execution upon the Enemy, whom they kept at a Distance, and themselves in Order.
For Captain Pierce cast his 63 English and 20 Indians into a Ring, and fought Back to Back, and were double-double Distance, all in a Ring, whilst the Indians were as thick as they could stand, thirty deep. Overpowered with those numbers, the said Captain, and 55 of his English and ten of their Indian Friends were slain upon the Place; which, in such a Cause, and upon such Disadvantages, may certainly be stiled The Bed of Honour. However, they sold their worthy Lives at a gallant Rate; it being affirmed by those few that (not without wonderful Difficulty, and many Wounds) made their Escape, that the Indians lost as many Fighting Men, (not counting Women and Children, ) in this Engagement, as were killed at the Battle in the Swamp, near Narraganset, mentioned in our last Letter, which were generally computed to be above three Hundred. (6) The Turning of the War The battles were not all in favor of the Natives. An early history records that on May 18, At North Hampton, Hadly, and the Towns thereabout, two English Captives, escaping from the Enemy, informed that a considerable body of Indians (30) seated themselves not far from Pacomtuck, and that they were very secure: so that should Forces be sent forth against them, many of the Enemy would (in probability) be cut off, without any difficulty. Peskeompscut, the Indian name for present-day Turners Falls on the Connecticut River, was a favored site for fishing with the local tribes.
The narrow river at that time plunged over a 40 to 50 foot drop. In May 1676, warriors, women, children and old people were gathered there to catch and cure fish. Months of war with the English had used up their limited food stores. While some people fished, others went down river to the abandoned fields at Deerfield where they planted seed. With luck they would be able to harvest a crop in the late summer. Warriors organized cattle raids on the nearby English settlements. (7) Local colonists, some from Springfield 30 miles south, and a few garrison soldiers, responded to the call.
By May 18, 150 men and boys assembled in Hatfield. Capt. William Turner led the group past Bloody Brook and the edge of Deerfield, where they crossed the Deerfield River. Then they wound through about two miles of unbroken forest, crossed the Green River, and then pushed on to Mount Adams which was within a mile of the falls. The history continues, that the English sent to their neighbors in Conn. for a supply of men, but none coming, they raised about an hundred and four score out of their own towns, who arrived at the Indian Wigwams betimes in the morning, finding them secure indeed, yea all asleep without having any Scouts abroad, so that our Soldiers came and put their guns into their Wigwams before the Indians were aware of them, and made a great and notable slaughter amongst them.
Some of the soldiers affirm, that they number above one hundred that lay dead upon the ground, and besides those, others told about an hundred and thirty, who were driven into the River, and there perished, being carried down the Falls. The much-needed victory immediately turned sour. Turners attack had alerted other Indians camped along the river. One groups crossed the river below the falls and took up a position across the trail leading to Deerfield. Capt. Turner apparently had not thought about securing his retreat, reasoning that the attack had been successful and several hundred of the enemy had been slain at the cost of only one English life.
Then, they heard from a captive that Philip was coming. The English party was torn by indecision. Which route should they take in retreat? The Hatfield force broke into small groups, some insisting on one route, others taking a different path back to where the horses had been left.
A few fortunate men managed to get to their horses just before the warriors got to them. Other settlers were forced to push homeward on foot. Warriors followed the panicking English, inflicting casualties whenever possible. Capt. Turner was killed as he tried to cross the Green River. Of the 150 English participants, at least 40 were killed on the retreat.
Some got separated from the main body and had to find their way alone; a few were successful while others never returned. Fear was contagious, as this account shows: An English Captive Lad who was found in the wigwams spake as if Philip were coming with a thousand Indians which false report being famed among the Soldiers, a pack terror fell upon many of them, and they hasted homewards in a confused rout: In the mean while a party of Indians from an Island (whose coming on shore might easily have been prevented, and soldiers before they set out from Hadly were earnestly admonished to take care about that matter) assaulted our men; yea, to the great dishonor of the English, a few Indians pursued our Soldiers four or five miles, who were in number near twice as many as the Enemy. In this disorder, he that was at this time the chief Captain, whose name was Turner, lost his life, he was pursued through a River, received his fatal stroke as he passed through that which is called Green River, etc. as he came out of the Water he fell into the hands of the Uncircumcised, who tripped him (as some who saw it affirm) and rode away upon his horse; and between thirty and forty more were lost in this Retreat. The power of the Indians was broken in this battle. Wars End, and the Aftermath By mid-year, the war had turned.
The Narragansett were completely defeated and their chief, Canonchet, had been killed in April. The Wampanoag and Nipmuck were gradually subdued. In June, Indians attacked Hadley but were repelled by Connecticut soldiers. Massachusetts issued a declaration of amnesty for Indians who surrendered. And by July, Maj. John Talcott and his troops begin sweeping Connecticut and Rhode Island, capturing large numbers of Algonquians who were transported out of the colonies as slaves throughout the summer.
On July 4, Capt. Benjamin Church and his soldiers begin sweeping Plymouth for Wampanoags. Two weeks later, nearly two hundred Nipmucks surrendered in Boston. Capt. Church was finally successful in capturing Philips wife and son. An Indian soldier named Alderman in the service of Capt.
Church killed Philip after his hiding place at Mt. Hope (Bristol, R. I. ) was betrayed. Philips body was drawn and quartered and his head exposed on a pole in Plymouth. Increase Mather wrote, Captured, King Philip was taken and destroyed, and there was he (like as Again was hewed in pieces before the Lord) cut into four quarters, and is now hanged up as a monument of revenging Justice, his head being cut off and carried away to Plymouth, his Hands were brought to Boston. We should not be surprised that the colonists, often hard pressed to win these all-out assaults, developed not only a fear of Indians but a hatred as well.
Treating with the Indians as equals, or even as pseudo-equals was quite beyond their comprehension or in most cases their abilities. This problem conflicted with the general imperial policy to improve relations, especially in peace time. A Land in Desolation The war, which was extremely costly to the colonists in life and property, resulted in the virtual extermination of tribal Indian life in southern New England and the disappearance of the fur trade. The New England Confederation then had their way completely clear for white settlement. Rhode Island found itself the victim of a war it had neither instigated nor declared, and suffered as much as its Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth neighbors.
Providence lost 72 homes and was deserted by most of its inhabitants. Warwick was burned to the ground except for one stone house, while places like Wickford and the ancient settlement of Pawtuxet were utterly destroyed. By March 1676, the area south of the Pawtuxet River had been largely deserted by the English, and by the wars end only the village of Portsmouth and the town of Newport had been spared the ravages of King Philips War. Connecticut's military played a crucial role in the war, and the colony escaped assault with the exception of Simsbury, which was abandoned and burned to the ground. The colonists of Connecticut did not suffer much from hostile Indians, excepting some remote settlers high up the Connecticut River. They furnished their full measure of men and supplies, and their soldiers bore a conspicuous part in that contest between the races for supremacy, according to the Society for Colonial Wars.
In all, more than half of New England's 90 towns were assaulted by native warriors. For a time in the spring of 1676, it appeared to the colonists that the entire English population of Massachusetts and Rhode Island might be driven back into a handful of fortified seacoast cities. Between 600 and 800 English died in battle during King Philips War. Measured against a European population in New England of perhaps 52, 000, this death rate was nearly twice that of the Civil War and more than seven times that of World War II. The English Crown sent Edmund Randolph to assess damages shortly after the war and he reported that 1, 200 homes were burned, 8, 000 head of cattle lost, and vast stores of foodstuffs destroyed. One in ten soldiers on both sides was injured or killed.
Nathaniel Saltonstall noted in 1676, the Indian attacks left in Narraganset not one House left standing. At Warwick, but one. At Providence, not above three. At Potuxit, none left... Besides particular Farms and Plantations, a great Number not be reckoned up, wholly laid waste or very much dignified. And as to Persons, it is generally thought that of the English there hath been lost, in all...
above Eight Hundred. The outcome of King Philips War was equally devastating to the traditional way of life for Native people in New England. Hundreds of Natives who fought with Philip were sold into slavery abroad. Others who might be rehabilitated, especially women and children, were forced to become servants locally.
As the traditional base of existence changed due to the Colonists victory, the Wampanoag and other local Native communities had to adapt certain aspects of their culture in order to survive It is curious that such a conflict is little remembered today, not because of its bloody devastation but for the extent that such a great proportion of the population English and Native American alike was affected. Jacques Arsenault, writing for the University of Georgetown (web), indicates this is because many of the realities of King Philips War do not fit the classical myth of America as the Land of the Free. He states, The final reason for the poor understanding of King Philips War is that the events of the war really dont fit into American Mythology. The evidence of King Philips resistance to an encroaching colonial population would not sit well with peaceful images of the first Thanksgiving, or with the vision of the founders of our nation gathering together to create a nation of freedom, equality and liberty. # # # 1. Increase Mather, Brief History, 49 - 50, b. 1639 -d. 1723, Mather was pastor of North Church in Boston and father of Cotton Mather. 2. Benjamin Thompson, New-England's Crisis, p. 220 3.
Jill Lepore, The Name of War, p. 85, First Vintage Books, 1999. 4 George Ingersoll to Leif Augur, Sept. 10, 1675. 5 Narratives of the Indian Wars 1675 - 1699, edited by Charles H. Lincoln, Ph. D: A World Wide Web Site Containing Information About the Biology, History, and Geology of New England's Largest River (web), University of Massachusetts, Amherst. 6 The battle in which Captain Michael Pierce lost his life is detailed in Drakes Indian Chronicles (pp. 220 - 222) (web) 7 web Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA. About the Author: Walter Giersbach is descended from four colonists who fought in King Philips War, including Michael Pierce, who died in the Cumberland Massacre.
His career was in corporate communications before returning to creative writing. He currently is working on an anthology of short stories that are stylistically reminiscent of O. Henry and a novel set in Taiwan during the Vietnam war. He lives in Connecticut and can be reached at.
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Research essay sample on King Philips War America Most Devastating Conflict
