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ENGLISH DEFENSIVE OPERATIONS (1676)
Meanwhile, in late February or early March, the re- doubtable Capt. Church conferred with the Plymouth Council of War respecting their proposal to send 60 or 70 men to protect Rehoboth "or some other of their Out-Towns. . . He told them, That if the Enemy re- turned into that Colony again, they might reasonably ex- pect that they would come very numerous; and that if he should take Command of the Men, he should not lye in any Town or Garrison with them, but would lye in the Woods as the Enemy did: And that to send out such small Companies against such Multitudes of the Enemy that were now Mustered together, would be but to de- liver so many Men into their hands, to be destroyed, as the worthy Capt. Wadsworth and his Company were. His advice upon the whole was, That if they sent out Forces, to send not less than 300 Souldiers; and that the other Colonies should be asked to send out their Quota's also; adding, That if they intend to make an end of the
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DEATH OF KING PHILIP
War, by subduing the Enemy, they must make a business of the War, as the Enemy did. . . . He told them, That if they would send forth such Forces as he should direct to, he would go with them for Six weeks March, which was long enough for Men to be kept in the Woods at once; and if they might be sure of Liberty to return in such a space, Men would go out chearfully. And he would engage 150 of the best Souldiers should immedi- ately list Voluntarily to go with him, if they would please to add 50 more; and 100 of the Friend Indians; and with such an Army he made no doubt he might do good Serv- ice. . . "
There was an objection on the ground of cost, and a feeling that the employment of any Indians was a doubt- ful expedient. But in June Plymouth decided to send out 150 English and 50 Indians, "expecting Boston and Connecticut to join with their Quota's." By the terms of the order, this force was to be "sent forth towards the frontiere p'tes of this collonie, to be vpon motion to scout to and frow for the safety of the collonie."
The tide was turning in defensive operations. Aside from the instances in which they were hopelessly out- numbered, the colonial forces inflicted much heavier losses than they suffered, due to their better judgment and marksmanship under fire. The apparent victories of the Indians brought them no substantial advantage; their plunder served them little. They, on the other hand, had no resources adequate to a long campaign, and began to suffer for want of food. Some of the lesser tribes, deprived of their customary fields and impressed with the futility of further warfare, began overtures for peace before their great leader was killed.
DEATH OF KING PHILIP (1676)
August 11, Capt. Church learned that King Philip was at Mount Hope Neck, and arranged to be guided to him by an Indian who held Philip responsible for his brother's death. Church threw his force around the place, "and took care to place them at such distance as none might pass undiscovered between them, charg'd 'em to be care-
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ful of themselves, and of hurting their friends: And to fire at any that should come silently thro' the Swamp." The Indian camp was aroused, and "They were soon in the Swamp and Philip the foremost, who starting at the first Gun threw his Petunk and Powder-horn over his head, catch'd up his Gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small breeches and stockings, and ran directly upon two of Capt. Churches Ambush; they let him come fair within shot and the English mans Gun missing fire, he bid the Indian fire away, and he did so to purpose, sent one Musket Bullet thro' his heart, and another not above two inches from it; he fell upon his face in the Mud and Water with his Gun under him." The body was quar- tered and the head sent to Plymouth on a day of thanks- giving. Cotton Mather said, "God sent them in the head of a Leviathan for a thanksgiving feast."
COST OF THE WAR
The war was a terrific drain on the colonies of New England. Their total white population at its outbreak was probably between 30,000 and 40,000, of which per- haps 6,000 to 8,000 were men of fighting age, which in those days was between 16 and 60. Channing says, "Of the five thousand men of military age in Masachusetts and New Plymouth, one in ten had been killed or cap- tured." The chroniclers of the time estimated a total English loss of 600 to 800 in the course of the war, which would sustain this proportion.
It is not easy to accept estimates that the Indian pop- ulation in the region affected by the war was as large as the white. The native death rate in the plague that preceded by a few years the arrival of the Plymouth colonists had been very high. A careful computation accounts for about 10,500 Indians, a few hundred of whom, however, professed Christianity; and a few hun- dred others saw the wisdom of friendship with the Eng- lish, though without the religious formality.
At the outbreak of the war there were in Massachus- etts 64 towns; in Rhode Island, 6; in Connecticut, 23;
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in New Hampshire 4; and in Maine, 13. Half of the 80 or 90 towns within the field of hostilities suffered more or less severely from the torch; and a dozen were wholly destroyed. The colonists spent £100,000 on their mili- tary defense, an amount in excess of the value of their entire personal property.
It was a long and peculiary terrible war, its issues vital to both parties. Notwithstanding the heavy losses in property as well as lives the settlers staunchly held their own, courageously retrieved their homes. Numer- ous chronicles exist of the greatest personal bravery in the defense of frontier homes. The burning of whole towns did not prevent the reconstruction of those in which enough of the inhabitants remained alive. The growth of the frontier was blocked-it was even thrust back-for a time, but for a time only. The question of English supremacy over the Indians in New England had been decided in a fashion which made it unnecessary ever to settle that particular matter again.
END OF THE WAR (1678)
With the death of Philip, the power of the Indians of southern New England was destroyed. The Wampan- oags, Narragansets and Pequods and their lesser allies were all but wiped out, and some terrified remnants of the enemy tribes fled westward beyond the Hudson. Nev- ertheless the death of King Philip did not immediately end Indian attacks, which continued intermittently for as much as two years, quite as fiercely as during the time when Pometacom was supposed to be personally direct- ing the war. Massachusetts forces played a part, and Capt. Church continued his military services until 1704.
The remainder of the fighting, however, was almost all in the North and East, within the present boundaries of Main and New Hampshire. Indian raids in all their accustomed horror ravaged the coast settlements east of Massachusetts until the winter of 1677-1678 settled over that country. The local colonists, aided by a force of 200 English and 40 Natick Indians from Massachusetts,
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accomplished such execution and destruction among the enemy than when cold weather came they were ready to ask for peace. The English, worn with a hard campaign, were not in a position to insist on severe terms, so an agreement to let bygones be bygones was concluded February 12, 1678. Thus ended King Philip's war.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[See also the bibliographies following Chapters ii (Geography) ; iv (Plymouth) ; vi (Indians) ; viii (Sister Settlements) ; ix (New England Confederation) ; xviii (External Relations) ; and the General Bibliography at the end of Volume V.]
ABBOTT, John C .- History of King Philip (N. Y., Harper, 1857) .- Well oriented account of the war and its preliminaries.
ADAMS, James Truslow .- The Founding of New England (Boston, At- lantic Monthly Press, 1921) .- Fair account of English treatment of Indians.
APES, William .- Eulogy on King Philip (Boston, 1836) .- Defense of Philip by a Christian Indian of some education.
BARBER, John Warner .- Massachusetts Historical Collections (Worces- ter, 1839) .- Comprehensive gazetteer of Massachusetts; quotes ex- tensively from local histories which, however, must be used with it to assure full information.
CALLENDER, John .- Historical Discourse on the Civil and Religious Affairs of the Colony of Rhode Island [Rhode Island Historical Soci- ety Collections, Vol. IV] (Providence, 1838) .- Reprint of an account first published in 1739; helpful on social development of the time and relations with the Indians.
CHANNING, Edward .- History of the United States (6 vols. published, N. Y., Macmillan, 1905-1925). See especially : Vol. I, Chaps. xi, "The Coming of the Pilgrims"; xii, "The Great Emigration"; Vol II, Chap. iii, "Virginia and New England".
CHURCH, Benjamin .- History of King Philip's War [Edited by Henry Martin Dexter] (2 vols., Boston, Wiggin and Lunt, 1865) .- Account by one of the outstanding participants in the Indian wars, dictated to his son, Thomas Church, some years after the events described.
DEARBORN, Henry A. S .- Sketch of the Life of the Apostle Eliot (Roxbury, Norfolk County Journal Press, 1850) .- Pamphlet.
DRAKE, Samuel Gardner .- Book of the Indians (9th ed., Boston, Mus- sey, 1845)-Most elaborate secondary book; careful; extensively documented.
EASTON, John .- Narrative of the Causes Which Led to Philip's Indian War [Edited by Franklin B. Hough] (Albany, Munsell, 1858) .- Con- temporary and first-hand account by a Rhode Island Quaker; notable for its freedom from prejudice against the Indians.
FORBES, Allan .- Towns of New England and Old England (2 vols., Bos- ton, State Street Trust Co., 1920-1921; also N. Y., Putnam) .- Corre- lation of New England settlements with those in the mother country; splendidly illustrated.
GOOKIN, Daniel .- Historical Collections of the Indians of New England (Boston, 1792) .- Principally valuable for its account of the Christian
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Indians, by a contemporary and neighbor of John Eliot. Gookin was appointed Magistrate of the Indians under an order of the General Court.
HAYWARD, John .- Gazetteer of Massachusetts (Boston, 1849) .- Much of this is Barber's book, vebatim, but there are some additions. Must be supplemented by town histories.
HODGE, Frederick Webb .- Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907) .- Good ma- terial on outstanding individuals among the Indians, and on the wars.
HOYT, Epaphras .- Antiquarian Researches Comprising a History of the Indian Wars (Greenfield, 1824) .- A secondary work with much detail on the outrages.
HUBBARD, William .- History of the Indian Wars in New England [Edited by Samuel G. Drake] (Roxbury, 1865) .- Story by a con- temporary; first published in Boston, 1677.
LOVE, William DeLoss .- Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (Boston, Pilgrim Press, 1900) .- Bibliography of a na- tive missionary; includes an account of Eliot's work and its develop- ment.
MATHER, Increase and MATHER, Cotton .- History of King Philip's War [Edited by Samuel G. Drake] (Boston, 1862) .- Reprints in par- allel the contemporary account in Increase Mather's Brief History and that in Cotton Mather's Magnalia, written twenty years subse- quently and taken in large part from Hubbard.
MORTON, Nathaniel .- New England's Memorial (Boston, Congrega- tional Board, 1855) .- Originally published at Cambridge, 1669.
ORR, Charles .- History of the Pequot War (Cleveland, Holman-Taylor, 1897) .- Also in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections.
ROWLANDSON, Mary .- Narrative of Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (Cambridge, 1682) .- First-hand story of the life of a prisoner among the Indians.
SYLVESTER, Herbert Milton .- Indian Wars of New England (3 vols., Boston, 1910) .- Very detailed and exhaustive; numerous notes.
WINSOR, Justin .- Memorial History of Boston (4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1880-1881) .- See pp. 311-328, 465-481, by Edward E. Hale and J. Ham- mond Trumbull.
CHAPTER XX
GOVERNMENTAL CRISIS (1664-1686)
BY SHERWIN LAWRENCE COOK*
Boston Review
THE ATTITUDE OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1665
The failure of the Commission of 1664 to bring Massa- chusetts into a tractable state was only a temporary check. King Charles and his capable minister Clarendon were entering on a vast colonial policy. Charters and grants were made in Jersey and the Carolinas. A royal government was provided in New York and the philoso- pher, John Locke, was called upon to draw up an elabor- ate project for reviving in America the feudal system which had practically ceased to exist in England. An- other step in this general colonial policy was the renewal of the attempt to harness the "Bay mare."
The economic development in the southern and island colonies made them fit naturally into England's scheme for controlling colonial shipping, products and markets. It was no hardship for them to send their staples to England or English colonies and to receive in return English manufactures. It is quite otherwise with the northern colonies of which Massachusetts was the com- mercial center.
Having no staple product for exchange in England these colonies naturally turned to commerce and by the time the Navigation Acts were passed had developed under
*This chapter and the following have been rearranged since reception by the editor so as to allow a consecutive treatment of the constitutional episode from 1665 to 1689. Hence, both authors participated in both chapters.
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the leadership of Massachusetts a network of routes spreading out in every direction. This prosperous trade was perhaps the greatest impediment in the way of Eng- land's new commercial policy.
The independent attitude of Massachusetts is the great- est testimony to the strength and power which she had developed in the laissez faire period of the Puritan Revo- lution. The Confederation of the United Colonies re- moved some of the interior strains. Commercial pros- perity contributed an economic self-reliance. The colony was in everything except name a self-sufficient indepen- dent commonwealth. The founders felt little or no con- cern that the colony was fast deviating from the path mapped out in the charter of 1629, justifying all doubt- ful innovations in the greater law, "Salus populi est sup- rema lex." Massachusetts felt no hesitation over usur- pation of prerogative powers when the growing trade of the colony demanded the coining of money, and no sense of patriotic disloyalty when the proposition of a commer- cial alliance with the Dutch colonies was favorably enter- tained.
Nor were the terms of the charter any impediment to the territorial expansion in every direction, including the appropriation of the lands belonging to the Mason and Gorges families. Trade routes had developed in every direction with the aid of Dutch shipping, and promised increasing prosperity. By hard labor and industry and by letting nothing interfere with her will, Massachusetts had become the most powerful of all the English over- seas possessions ; and now contemplated making a stand for her hardwon autonomy, possibly with force if neces- sary.
English authorities were at a loss to know how to han- dle this recalcitrant colony. John Evelyn who was a member of the Council for Plantations in 1671 noted in his diary the concern over the Massachusetts situation, saying that what the Council "most insisted on was to know the condition of New England, which appearing to be very independent as to their regard to Old England or his Maty, rich and strong as they now were, there
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CONTINUANCE OF THEOCRACY
were greate debates in what style to write them, for the condition of that Colony was such that they were able to contest with all other Plantations about them, and there was feare of their breaking from all dependence on this Nation ; . . some of our Council were for sending them a menacing letter, which those who better under- stood ye peevish and touchy humor of that Colonie, were utterly against." These latter had their way, and a tact- ful letter was dispatched to Massachusetts. This year and the next (1672) the Council frequently discussed the advisability of sending a commissioner to investigate conditions and see first if it were really true that the col- ony considered or was strong enough actually to attempt breaking away from the mother country, but nothing definite was done.
CONTINUANCE OF THEOCRACY (1665-1670)
The magistrates having fought off the King's commis- sioners in 1665 probably felt easier. So far as immedi- ate circumstances went, they were justified in this; but they had seen their standing and official actions attacked as never before. The theocracy had been jostled. There must have been a sense that in England the General Court was in as doubtful repute as the charter, and the murmur from a voteless majority was growing more dis- tinct. The colony's agent in London kept the magistrates informed of what was done and said in these complaints about them; but it is clear that the Massachusetts gov- ernment counted on the King's preoccupation with Euro- pean affairs and the inference was correct.
In the summer of 1669 appeared a division in ecclesi- astical affairs which showed as Hutchinson says, that the close union between magistrates and elders was not inde- structible. The First Church in Boston, at the death of Wilson, invited Davenport of New Haven, a man much more rigid than the majority of the members of the Bos- ton Church. Opposition arose and two parties defined themselves not only in the Church, but in the State. A group of seceders formed a separate society (the later Old South) and seventeen ministers hinted that three
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GOVERNMENTAL CRISIS
elders of the first church in Boston had garbled letters received from New Haven. At first it was an affair of teeth and claws among the clergy and church-members; but by May, 1670, the House of Deputies took sides with the First Church.
At the next session of the General Court, some of the ministers petitioned it for a convention to clear up the dissensions, and the complexion of the House having changed since the last election, the General Court sided with the clergy and the practice of the churches "in their purest constitution." It was a good specimen of the way the magistrates and the elders, found it to their interests to work together. Stipends to ministers were lessened, but, says Hutchinson, "as long as the charter continued, their influence in the affairs of government continued." Whenever the magistracy disapproved the clergy's pro- ceedings, the ecclesiastics yielded more or less. When the magistrates stood in the annual elections the clergy's influence with the electorate of church members was something to propitiate.
How far did the theocracy touch the non-member pop- ulation? That large part of the people might not think much about independence from England, but it did know it was taxed and had no vote. If many admitted being "gospel-glutted" in 1687, they must have been so in 1675. The mass of the people must have felt that the time for a change was coming.
The merchant class was divided in opinion; they did not wish to see the Navigation Acts enforced, but they did not wish any group, lay or clerical, to interfere with business. It is safe to say that while they were good Yankees they were prepared to offer no such excruciat- ing testimonies as the extremists demanded. A merchant knew well enough, through the channels open to merch- ants, that England could crush Massachusetts and the rest of New England. On the other hand both politi- cians and merchants knew that England needed this bulk- head on the northeastern Atlantic coast against the French, who, were it removed, could sweep down on New York and the southern colonies.
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RANDOLPH EPISODE
THE RANDOLPH EPISODE (1675-1677)
By the year 1675 the throne was completely reestab- lished in England. The ecclesiastical status of the nation was settled by the various Conformity Acts which revised the national Episcopal Church, and definitely created the large non-conformist group which was to be so impor- ant a political force for two centuries thereafter. For the time being this element, which was in sympathy with the extreme Protestantism of New England, was not in a position to aid the colonists. On the other hand, from 1675 to 1677 Massachusetts was engaged in the fiercest Indian war of the colony's history.
It cannot be seriously argued that the Crown made no efforts to come to terms with the Bay Colony. The Crown acknowledged large and distinct rights in Massa- chusetts under the charter; but Massachusetts, while cry- ing "Charter" with all its might, insisted throughout on interpreting it in one way while the Crown from which it originally sprang, interpreted it in another way.
After England made peace with Holland in 1674, the King abolished the old Council Committee; and in Feb- ruary, 1675, he established the Committee of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, commonly called the Lords of Trade, that operated until 1696. One of the immediate results of this new activity was that New England took an outstanding position in their scheme of work. In July, 1676, Edward Randolph arrived in Boston with a letter from the King, demanding that agents be sent to Eng- land to answer questions about infractions of the Charter. Randolph had been instructed also to report on affairs in the colony in general. He was a type of Englishman with whom America was to become fully acquainted; of ability, great industry, very zealous, honest on the whole for a man with prejudices, yet wholly unaware that in the new world had been developed a character and mode of thinking quite different from any in the old. Holding a succession of royal and colonial offices, he was a sort of unofficial general adviser and counsellor of the Royal in- terests. His public virtues were not many. He was
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scrupulously honest. In all the offices he held no money stuck to his fingers. He was a thorough-going small poli- tician, quite willing to exaggerate facts in his reports and make half truths serve his purpose. He did not seek facts for their own sake. He set up the fact for himself ; and, true partisan that he was, put all his efforts, some of them specious, into establishing it. Like the class with which he was most in sympathy he had no toleration for the Puritan system. That men arduously should make a home for themselves to preserve a spiritual or govern- mental ideal, meant nothing at all to him. The King's subjects were the King's subjects, no more nor less.
Randolph believed that the rulers persisted in one equi- vocation after another about the franchise, religious tol- eration, allegiance, the Navigation Acts, sovereignty. On the other hand, he managed to make himself generally and thoroughly disliked, and was obliged to pocket inso- lence on the magistrates' part that hurt the English au- thority and name.
He reported that having presented himself before Gov- ernor Leverett and the council (July, 1677), he read to him the King's letter. Leverett remained covered and when Randolph had finished told him these matters were of small moment. No answers were given him, such as the King's letter demanded; and after a long waiting and observation of the lay of the land, he received a list of 23 changes of notation of the Navigation Acts, and 6 changes of other subjects. Randolph went back to Eng- land with a copy (not the original) of a letter from the General Court to the King. It answered nothing and merely rendered Randolph's report more interesting to the Lords of Trade.
He stated that Governor Leverett declared that Parlia- ment's laws did not apply to Massachusetts, and that the colony was to decide in controversies between it and England. Apparently the ruling group in Massachusetts had already taken an irreconcilable stand. The less prejudiced minutes of the English Calendar of State Pa- pers also show that merchants trading with New Eng- land testified to flagrant breaches of the Navigation Acts
From the portrait owned by Harvard University
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR WILLIAM STOUGHTON
CHARTER IN DANGER
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on the part of the Massachusetts traders. The colony had worked itself into a position where it sought to pick and choose among Parliament's laws applying to it. What displeased it, were to be disregarded; what helped it, were obeyed heartily enough.
PREPARATION TO WITHDRAW THE CHARTER (1671-1680)
Stoughton and Bulkeley went over as agents in 1677, their errand being to make the best of a bad job. Their powers were limited and they had to reckon with the ac- tivities of Randolph. Some of his charges would not hold water; but it was clear that the colony had violated the Navigation Acts, had denied appeals to England, had re- fused to administer the oath of allegiance to the mother country as directed while ordaining the local oath, and that most conspicuously it had put English subjects to death for their religious opinions.
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