The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World* (28 page)

 

◆◆◆ The Pokanokets represented just 5 percent of the total Indian population of New England. If Philip was to have any hope of winning a war, he needed a significant number of the other tribes to join him. He knew he could probably count on the Pocassets and the Nemaskets, who were both led by his relatives, but it was questionable whether the Indians on Cape Cod and the islands, where Christianity had made large inroads, would follow him into war. Closer to home, the Massachusetts, who were so cozy with Winslow, would never join him. Uncas and the Mohegans, along with the remnants of the Pequots, also had strong ties to the English. The Nipmucks, on the other hand, were the Pokanokets' ancient and trustworthy friends, a relationship strengthened by Massasoit's final years with the Quabaugs.

There were two important unknowns. To the south of Pocasset were the sakonnets, led by the female sachem Awashonks. The sakonnets' loyalties were difficult to determine, as were the Narragansetts', the traditional foes of the Pokanokets. some progress had been made in establishing a common ground between the two tribes, but the Narragansetts were too large to speak with a single voice. Their young warriors were anxious to fight, but the tribe's older, more cautious sachems were reluctant to go to war.

In putting together a pan-Indian force to fight the English, Philip was attempting to accomplish what not even the great Narragansett sachem Miantonomi had been able to pull off in the 1640s. Miantonomi had been known for his bravery in battle, while Philip appears to have had a different sort of charisma. His growing desperation and anger over how he'd been treated by Plymouth Colony made him extremely attractive to many Indians across the region, all of whom had experienced some version of the Pokanokets' problems with the English. If they did not band together now, the opportunity might never come again.

For their part, the English remained confident that Philip had committed himself to peace. Instead of being concerned by the Pokanokets' growing desire for guns and ammunition, they saw it as a financial opportunity. Incredibly, in the fall of 1674, Plymouth magistrates voted to repeal a law prohibiting the sale of gunpowder and ammunition to the Indians.

Then, in January of 1675, John sassamon, the Harvard-educated Indian who had once served as Philip's interpreter, paid a visit to Josiah Winslow.

 

◆◆◆ Although Philip considered him dishonest, sassamon was nonetheless the son-in-law of Philip's sister Amie. In fact, he lived on land given to him by Amie's husband, Tuspaquin, known as the Black sachem of Nemasket. Despite his connection to Native royalty, sassamon was working once again for the missionary John Eliot and was minister to a group of Praying Indians in Nemasket.

In January, sassamon informed Josiah Winslow that Philip was on the verge of war. This was not what the governor of Plymouth wanted to hear. Even when sassamon warned that his life would be in danger if anyone learned that he had spoken with the governor, Winslow's reaction was to dismiss the claim as yet another Indian rumor.

At forty-three, Winslow was no longer the bold young man who had shoved a pistol in Alexander's chest. His health had become a concern (he may have had tuberculosis), and the prospect of a major Indian war was simply not part of the future he saw for Plymouth.

Not long after his meeting with the governor, sassamon's dead body was discovered beneath the ice of Assawompsett Pond in modern Lakeville, Massachusetts. Left lying on the ice were his hat, his musket, and several ducks he had shot. It certainly appeared as if sassamon had accidentally fallen through the ice and drowned. But when the Indian who found the body pulled it from the pond, no water poured from his mouth—an indication that sassamon had been dead before he went through the ice. The body was also bruised and swollen around the neck and head.

When word of sassamon's death reached Winslow, the governor of Plymouth finally began to believe that the Pokanokets might be up to something. An investigation was launched, and in March Philip voluntarily appeared in court to answer any questions the officials might have. strenuously denying his involvement in sassamon's death, the sachem insisted that this was an Indian matter and not the concern of the Plymouth government. The court, however, continued its investigation and soon found an Indian who claimed to have witnessed the murder. Conveniently hidden on a hill overlooking the pond, he had seen three Indians—Tobias, one of Philip's senior counselors; Tobias's son; and one other—seize sassamon and violently twist his neck before shoving his lifeless body beneath the ice. On the strength of this testimony, a trial date was set for June 1.

As the date of the trial approached, Philip's brother-in-law Tuspaquin bailed out Tobias. This enabled Tobias to speak with Philip, who was concerned that he would be the next one on trial. To no one's surprise, Philip chose not to attend the hearing. Instead, he remained at Mount Hope, where he surrounded himself with warriors and marched to within sight of the border of swansea, a town founded just eight years before that abutted the Pokanokets' lands at Mount Hope. Reports began to filter in to Plymouth that large numbers of “strange Indians” were making their way to the Pokanoket homeland.

The last thing Philip wanted was to go to war before all was ready. They did not have enough muskets, bullets, and especially gunpowder. But events were quickly spinning beyond any single person's control. If the English insisted on putting Tobias and the others on trial, he might have no choice.

A panel of eight judges, headed by Winslow, ran the trial. There were twelve English jurors assisted by six Praying Indians. Winslow later claimed they were the “most indifferentest, gravest, and sage Indians,” but this did little to alter Philip's belief that the verdict had already been decided.

According to English law in the seventeenth century, two witnesses were required to convict someone of murder. But the English had only a single witness, and as it came out in the trial, before supposedly witnessing the murder, he had been forced to give up his coat to Tobias to pay off a gambling debt. Even so, all eighteen members of the jury found Tobias and the others guilty. It was a shocking miscarriage of justice.

The executions were scheduled for June 8. As the condemned were brought to the gallows, all three Indians continued to maintain their innocence. Tobias was hanged first, followed by his friend. But when it came time to execute Tobias's son, the rope broke. Whether this was by accident or was planned, it had the desired effect. As the young Indian struggled to his feet, with the still-twitching bodies of his father and family friend suspended in the air above him, he was given the chance to save his life. so he changed his story, claiming that the other two had indeed killed sassamon while he looked on helplessly. With the boy's confession, the authorities now had the number of witnesses the law required, even if it was after the fact.

Traditionally, a condemned man had his life spared after a failed execution. But a month later, with war raging across the colony, Tobias's son was taken from his cell and shot to death with a musket.

 

◆◆◆ The trial had been a travesty of justice—and an insulting challenge to the authority of the Pokanoket leader. Now, it seemed, was the time for Philip to take the opportunity given him by the English and lead his people triumphantly into battle.

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The site of King Philip's village on the eastern shore of the Mount Hope Peninsula in the early 1900s.

His warriors were surely ready for it. Young, with little to lose and everything to gain, the fighting men of the Pokanokets now had the chance to win back their people's land. It was a year ahead of Philip's original schedule, but the season was right. The trees and underbrush were thick with new leaves, providing the cover the warriors needed when attacking the English. The swamps, which the Indians traditionally used as sanctuaries in times of war, were still mucky with spring rain, and the English soldiers could never enter them. If they waited until midsummer, it would be too late. They did not have the stores of gunpowder they had hoped to have in a year's time, nor the firm commitments they had planned to get from the other tribes, but there was nothing they could do about that now. They needed to strike soon and furiously.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Governor Winslow remained hopeful that the present troubles would blow over. But except for writing a single letter to Philip in the weeks after the trial for sassamon's murder, he failed to take an active role in stopping a possible outbreak of violence. Puritan historians later insisted that Philip pushed his people into the conflict. The English residents of swansea told a different story. According to an account recorded in the early part of the following century, Philip and his counselors “were utterly averse to the war” in June 1675. swansea resident Hugh Cole later told how Philip sent him word that “he could not control his young warriors” and that Cole should abandon his home and seek shelter on Aquidneck Island. Another tradition claimed that when Philip first heard that one of his warriors had killed an Englishman, he “wept at the news.”

He had reason to weep. Even with recent recruits from neighboring tribes, his fighting force amounted to no more than a few hundred poorly equipped warriors. Even worse, they were situated on a peninsula. If they were unable to fight their way north into the heart of Plymouth Colony, their only means of escape from Mount Hope was by water.

But the English had weaknesses of their own. Unlike the Indians, who traveled across the countryside as the seasons changed, the English lived in houses that were fixed permanently to the ground. As a consequence, all their possessions—including clothing, furniture, food, and livestock—were there for the taking. As they were about to discover, an Indian war was the worst fate imaginable for the English of Plymouth Colony.

PART III

THIRTEEN

BY THE MIDDLE
of June 1675, the Pokanokets' war dance had entered its third week. The warriors had their faces painted, their hair “trimmed up in comb fashion,” according to a witness, “with their powder horns and shot bags at their backs” and with muskets in their hands. They danced to the beat of drums, the sweat pouring from their already greased bodies. With each day, the call for action grew fiercer. Philip knew he could not hold them back much longer.

The powwows had predicted that if the Indians were to be successful in a war, the English must draw the first blood. Philip promised his warriors that on sunday, June 20, when the English would all be away from their homes at church meetings, they could begin pillaging houses and killing livestock, thus beginning a game of cat and mouse that would gradually lead the English into war.

On Mount Hope Neck, just a few miles north of Philip's village, was a cluster of eighteen English houses at a place known as Kickemuit. As June 20 approached and the hostility of the nearby Indian warriors increased, several residents decided it was time to abandon their homes and seek shelter elsewhere. To the north, on the other side of a bridge across the Palmer River, was the home of the minister John Miles. The residents began to flock to this large house, which after being reinforced against possible Indian attack became known as the Miles garrison, a place of safety in war. A few miles to the east in Mattapoisett, there was also the Bourne garrison, a large stone structure that soon contained sixteen men and fifty-four women and children.