King Phillip's War

499 Pages·1991·13.86 MB·English

SACHEM METACOM OF THE WAMPANOAG, SON OF MASSASOIT
(WHOM IT AMUSED THE WHITES TO REFER TO AMONG THEMSELVES
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AS “KING PHILLIP” AND AS “BLASPHEMOUS LEVIATHAN”)
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION,
THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
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1. The brothers Wamsutta and Metacom were nicknamed Allexander (sic) and Phillip (sic) because the whites were into supplying
Native American leaders with offensively grandiloquent and therefore implicitly derogatory names, more or less in the mode in
which they were in the habit of condescending to their black slaves: such ostentatious names (in the case of black men, names such
as “Pompey” or “Caesar”) implicitly gestured toward their low standing in the eyes of the whites, marking them as pretenders, as
con artists, warning whites not to take them seriously as human beings or as leaders. In period documents the name that was
assigned was being spelled “Phillip,” as the name assigned to his brother was being spelled “Allexander,” with two l’s.
The epithet “blasphemous leviathan,” with its echoes of Moby-Dick the white whale which Captain Ahab sought to destroy,
is per the Reverend Cotton Mather. There being no accurate depiction of sachem Metacom, I have generally relied here upon the
Imperial Daguerreotype of the famous American actor Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) taken at the Matthew Brady Studio, with him in
costume as the tragic hero “Metamora” of the oft-staged play METAMORA: OR THE LAST OF THE WAMPANOAGS about Metacom,
written in 1828 by Concord’s John Augustus Stone. This is a bitmapped image of a modern salted paper print from that original
collodion negative, which is a gift of The Edwin Forrest Home at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington
DC. I am using the Old English character “thorn” (þ) above to represent the actual mark made by Metacom because his “P” signature
had an ascender. (In the evolution of that actual thorn character during medieval times, it got transformed into something similar to
a “y.” That longer ascender got losted somehow, and the upper part of the letter became more and more open. So the letter “y” in
the signs saying “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe” is the same letter that was used in Old English to represent the “th” sound. When someone
uses this now to make a name appear archaic, he or she is only following the medieval evolution of the thorn. Of course I have my
doubts about the correctness of pronouncing it as if it were the consonant in “yes,” the correct pronunciation being as in “thorn.”
And, of course, Phillip was attempting a P, not a medieval thorn which no way would he have known about. I am merely using an
available font character to approximate what Phillip signed.)
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A WEEK: In the words of the old nursery tale, sung about a hundred PEOPLE OF
years ago, —
A WEEK
“He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide,
And hardships they endured to quell the Indian’s pride.”
In the shaggy pine forest of Pequawket they met the “rebel
Indians,” and prevailed, after a bloody fight, and a remnant
returned home to enjoy the fame of their victory. A township
called Lovewell’s Town, but now, for some reason, or perhaps
without reason, Pembroke, was granted them by the State.
“Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four,
And of the rebel Indians, there were about four-score;
And sixteen of our English did safely home return,
The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn.
“Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die,
They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English Chaplin; he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew.”
Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and
their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses
nor hear any war-whoop in their path. It would be well, perchance,
if many an “English Chaplin” in these days could exhibit as
unquestionable trophies of his valor as did “good young Frye.”
We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish,
or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is
true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are
exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the
clearings to-day? —
“And braving many dangers and hardships in the way,
They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May.”
But they did not all “safe arrive in Dunstable the thirteenth,”
or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth “day of May.”
METACOM
MYLES STANDISH
BENJAMIN CHURCH
CAPTAIN JOHN LOVEWELL
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A WEEK: We passed Wicasuck Island, which contains seventy acres or
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more, on our right, between Chelmsford and Tyngsborough. This was a
favorite residence of the Indians. According to the History of A WEEK
Dunstable, “About 1663, the eldest son of Passaconaway [Chief of the
Penacooks] was thrown into jail for a debt of 45, due to John Tinker,
by one of his tribe, and which he had promised verbally should be paid.
To relieve him from his imprisonment, his brother Wannalancet and
others, who owned Wicasuck Island, sold it and paid the debt.” It was,
however, restored to the Indians by the General Court in 1665. After
the departure of the Indians in 1683, it was granted to Jonathan Tyng
in payment for his services to the colony, in maintaining a garrison
at his house. Tyng’s house stood not far from Wicasuck Falls. Daniel
GOOKIN Gookin, who, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Robert Boyle, apologizes for
presenting his “matter clothed in a wilderness dress,” says that on
the breaking out of Philip’s war in 1675, there were taken up by the
Christian Indians and the English in Marlborough, and sent to
Cambridge, seven “Indians belonging to Narragansett, Long Island, and
Pequod, who had all been at work about seven weeks with one Mr.
Jonathan Tyng, of Dunstable, upon Merrimack River; and, hearing of the
war, they reckoned with their master, and getting their wages, conveyed
themselves away without his privity, and, being afraid, marched
secretly through the woods, designing to go to their own country.”
However, they were released soon after. Such were the hired men in
those days. Tyng was the first permanent settler of Dunstable, which
then embraced what is now Tyngsborough and many other towns. In the
winter of 1675, in Philip’s war, every other settler left the town,
but “he,” says the historian of Dunstable, “fortified his house; and,
although ‘obliged to send to Boston for his food,’ sat himself down in
the midst of his savage enemies, alone, in the wilderness, to defend
his home. Deeming his position an important one for the defence of the
frontiers, in February, 1676, he petitioned the Colony for aid,” humbly
showing, as his petition runs, that, as he lived “in the uppermost
house on Merrimac river, lying open to ye enemy, yet being so seated
that it is, as it were, a watch-house to the neighboring towns,” he
could render important service to his country if only he had some
assistance, “there being,” he said, “never an inhabitant left in the
town but myself.” Wherefore he requests that their “Honors would be
pleased to order him three or four men to help garrison his said
house,” which they did. But methinks that such a garrison would be
weakened by the addition of a man.
“Make bandog thy scout watch to bark at a thief,
Make courage for life, to be capitain chief;
Make trap-door thy bulwark, make bell to begin,
Make gunstone and arrow show who is within.”
Thus he earned the title of first permanent settler. In 1694 a law was
passed “that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians
should forfeit all his rights therein.” But now, at any rate, as I have
frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories
of truth and justice, which are the State’s best lands, for fear of
far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights
therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General
Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters’
camp itself.
PHILIP
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A WEEK: It is stated in the History of Dunstable, that just before PEOPLE OF
his last march, Lovewell was warned to beware of the ambuscades
A WEEK
of the enemy, but “he replied, ‘that he did not care for them,’
and bending down a small elm beside which he was standing into a
bow, declared ‘that he would treat the Indians in the same way.’
This elm is still standing [in Nashua], a venerable and
magnificent tree.”
METACOM
CAPTAIN JOHN LOVEWELL
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1620
December 18 (December 8, Old Style), Friday: The intrusives and the indigenes first encountered one another
(unless, that is, there had been prior observations by the Patuxet, which had gone undetected). The intrusives
then coasted round, and ran in under the lee of Clark’s Island in Plymouth Harbor, in a north-easter that
evening.
As Henry Thoreau would record the event in his journal in August 1851 while bumming around on the coast,
“On Friday night Dec 8th o.s. the Pilgrims exploring in the shallop landed on Clark’s Island (so called from
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the Master’s mate of the May Flower) where they spent 3 nights & kept their first sabbath.”
BOSTON HARBOR
“MOURT’S RELATION”
Clark’s Island3 Sunday night On Friday night Dec 8th o.s. the Pilgrims exploring in the shallop landed on
Clark’s Island (so called from the Master’s mate of the May Flower) where they spent 3 nights & kept their first
sabbath. On Monday or the 11th o.s. they landed on the rock. This island contains about 86 acres and was once
covered with red cedars which were sold at Boston for gate posts– I saw a few left –one 2 ft in diameter at the
ground –which was probably standing when the pilgrims came. Ed. Watson who could remember them nearly
fifty years –had observed but little change in them. Hutchinson calls this one of the best islands in Mass. Bay.
The Town kept it at first as a sacred place –but finally sold it in 1690 to Sam. Lucas, Elkanah Watson, & Geo.
Morton.... Mr Thomas Russel –who cannot be 70 –at whose house on Leyden st. I took tea & spent the evening
–told me that he remembered to have seen Ebeneezer Cobb a nat. of Plymouth who died in Kingston in 1801
aged 107 who remembered to have had personal knowledge of Peregrine White saw him an old man riding on
horse back –(he lived to be 83)– White was born at Cape Cod harbor before the Pilgrims got to Plymouth– C.
Sturgis’s mother told me the same of herself at the same time. She remembered Cobb sitting in an arm chair like
the one she herself occupied with his silver locks falling about his shoulders twirling one thumb over the other–
Russell told me that he once bought some primitive woodland in P. which was sold at auction the bigest Pitch
pines 2 ft diameter –for 8 shillings an acre– If he had bought enough it would have been a pasture. There is still
forest in this town which the axe has not touched says Geo. Bradford. According to Thatchers Hist. of P. there
were 11,662 acres of woodland in ’31. or 20 miles square. Pilgrims first saw Bil. sea about Jan 1st –visited it
Jan 8th.
The oldest stone in the Plymouth Burying ground 1681 (Coles? hill where those who died the first winter were
2. It is believed that the name of the 1st mate of the Mayflower was Thomas Clark.
3. Clark’s Island: Bear in mind, Thoreau was “a-botanizing” here on the grounds of another former racial concentration camp for
Christian Indians like the one on Deer Island in Boston harbor.
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buried –said to have been levelled & sown to conceal loss from Indians.) Oldest on our hill 1677 In Mrs
Plympton’s Garden on Leyden st. running down to Town Brook. Saw an abundance of pears –gathered excellent
June-eating apples –saw a large lilack about 8 inches diameter– Methinks a soil may improve when at length
it has shaded itself with vegetation.
Wm S Russel the Registrer at the Court House showed the oldest Town records. for all are preserved –on 1st
page a plan of Leyden st dated Dec. 1620 –with names of settlers. They have a great many folios. The writing
plain. Saw the charter granted by the Plymouth Company to the Pilgrims signed by Warwick date 1629 & the
box in which it was brought over with the seal.
Pilgrim Hall– They used to crack off pieces of the Forefathers Rock for visitors with a cold chisel till the town
forebade it. The stone remaining at wharf is about 7 ft square. Saw 2 old arm chairs that came over in the May
flower.– the large picture by Sargent.– Standish’s sword.– gun barrel with which Philip was killed – – mug &
pocket-book of Clark the mate– Iron pot of Standish.– Old pipe tongs. Ind relics a flayer
a pot or mortar of a kind of fire proof stone very hard–
only 7 or 8 inches long. A Commission from Cromwell to Winslow? –his signature torn off. They talk of a
monument on the rock. The burying hill 165 ft high. Manomet 394 ft high by state map. Saw more pears at
Washburn’s garden. No graves of Pilgrims.
Seaweed generally used along shore– Saw the Prinos Glaber inkberry at Bil. sea. Sandy plain with oaks of
various kinds cut in less than 20 yrs– No communication with Sandwich– P end of world 50 miles thither by
rail road– Old. Colony road poor property. Nothing saves P. but the rock. Fern-leaved beach–
KING PHILLIP
PLYMOUTH ROCK
MYLES STANDISH
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TIME Magazine, at the end of 1991, got this picture from the Granger Collection to use to illustrate their
Columbus Special about how certain strange and divisive people are now insisting on the celebration of
American diversity:
The Patuxents were not altogether mistaken about the Pilgrims
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LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?
— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.
LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Metacom, Metamora, “King Phillip”
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1622
The fur trade on the lower Connecticut River had grown enough by this point in time that the Dutch were
establishing a permanent trading post near Hartford. Their intention was to trade with all of the tribes in the
region, but the Pequot had other ambitions and were determined to dominate the Connecticut trade. They first
attacked the Narragansett, not so much to seize a disputed hunting territory in southwest Rhode Island, but to
keep these powerful rivals away from the new Dutch post. The next step would be for the Pequot to use a
combination of intimidation and war to tighten their grip on the region’s trade by subjugating the neighboring
Nipmuc and Mattabesic. However, some Mattabesic chose to ignore them and tried to trade with the Dutch,
prompting the Pequot to attack several groups of Mattabesic who had gathered near the Dutch trading post for
trade. The resident trader for the Dutch West India Company, Jacob Elekens, would grow annoyed at these
Pequot efforts to monopolize the fur trade, and by way of retaliation, he would seize Tatobem, a Pequot
sachem, and threaten to kill him unless the Pequot ended their campaign of harassment and paid a ransom for
his release. The Pequot would bring 140 fathoms of wampum to the post for Tatobem’s release, which Elekens
would accept, but having expected beaver rather than these strange little shell beads, he would kill Tatobem
anyway. All the Pequot would get for their fathoms of wampum would be his dead body. Understandably
outraged, the Pequot would burn the trading post, but the fur trade was far too important for the Pequot and
Dutch to permit some dead sachem and some charred trading post to stand in the way of mutual prosperity.
The Dutch would replace Elekens with Pieter Barentsen who spoke Algonquin and was trusted by the Pequot,
and after a suitable round of apologies and gifts “to cover the dead,” trade would resume. Two important
changes would result from this brief confrontation which had lasting impacts. The Dutch never again would
attempt to prevent the Pequot from dominating the other tribes in area, and in effect would grant them a
monopoly in the Connecticut fur trade. Unchallenged, the Pequot would aggressively expand their control over
the Mattabesic tribes along the Connecticut River, either by forcing them to sell their furs to Pequot traders or
by exacting a heavy tribute for the privilege of trading directly with the Dutch.
At the end of Tisquantum’s life he coughed up blood and died, leaving “sundry of his things to sundry of his
English friends as remembrances of his love; of whom they had a great loss,” but at the end of the Walt Disney
movie bearing his name as understood, Squanto, its hero is still young and healthy. As the film credits roll we
are informed (referring of course to “King Phillip’s War”) that the Plymouth whites would eventually forget