USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Lowell > Memories of the Indians and pioneers of the region of Lowell [Mass.] > Part 3
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KING PHILLIP'S WAR.
At the beginning of King Phillip's War, in 1675, the white population of New Eng- land, as computed by Mr. Bancroft, num- bered fifty-five thousand souls; the red race was nearly as numerous; and both were about equally expert in the use of firearms ; though the moral superiority of the whites, coupled with their superior dis- cipline, gave them a decided advantage in the struggle. The white settlements had been so far extended during the previous fifty years, that the settlers could now hardly avoid encroaching on the hunting- grounds reserved to the Indians, or prevent fields. Nor did they exercise that justice, magnanimity, and forbearance toward their red neighbors, which might have postponed
Gookin adds that Wannalancet afterward persevered in his new mode of life, kept the Sabbath, and heard the word of God diligently, notwithstanding some of his people abandoned him on this account .- their cattle destroying the Indians' corn- For it is not to be forgotten, that only a part of the Indians in the "praying towns," so called, ever embraced Christianity. The rest were corrupted, rather than improved, the impending struggle. And yet, how. by contact with the whites ; and Gookin de- ever fairly and however magnanimous!y they might have dealt, they could not have saved from ultimate extinction the weaker race upon whose lands they had settled. -- clares that " excepting their rational souls, they were like usto the wild ass's colt, and 1.ot many degress above the beasts." The whole population suffered from their con- Like the savages of Australia, like the tiguity to the border savages of the wilder- Hottentots of South Africa, like the na-
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tives of British India, like the Moors of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffer- Barbary, like the Aztecs of Mexico, the ing, and ready to perish in the cause he islanders of the Pacific, and inferior races had espouzed. With heroic qualities and everywhere, these Indians could not but bold achievements that would have graced melt away like polar ice under a tropical a civilized warrior, and have rendered sun. The first English axe that rung in him the theme of the poet and the histo- the primeval forest sounded the red man's rian; he lived a wanderer and a fugitive knell.
in his native land, and went down, like a
The dire collision came-not because lonely bark foundering amid darkness and the Devil was piqued at the prosperity of tempest-without a pitying eye to weep the New England churches, as good mas- his fall, or a friendly hand to record his ter Hubbard quaintly suggests-not be- struggle." cause Phillip was the victim of wrongs which could only be wiped out in blood -- but rather because Providence willed that this great continent should be inhabited by people, and not by a handful of savages in stereotyped barbarism. The whites are not to be blamed for struggling in defence of their new acquisitions ; neither are the reds to be blamed for contending even un-
Nor should his faithful adherents be forgotten. Rather let history ascribe all honor to the brave patriots who stood round him in bis sullen grandeur and des- a powerful, enlightened and progressive perate struggle with the inevitable. - Though abandoned from day to day by their allies, though beset by traitors in the council and cowards in the field, though hunted from swamp to swamp like culprits or wild beasts, starving on to death in defence of their wild lands and groundnuts and horseflesh,-worn out by wild liberties. Both acted in obedience to toil, by famine, by disease, by the hard- ships and ravages of war,-with no sleep the instincts with which God and nature had endowed them. Providence put Phil- for their eyes or slumber for their eyelids, lip at Mount Hope, as it put Lincoln in -- with but the faintest hope of victory, the White House, and Napoleon in the and no thought of renown,-they stood by Tuilleries. Fighting for as holy a cause as claimed ---
tongue ever pleaded or trumpet pro- stancy that has never been surpassed even
" For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods"'-
he surely' deserves the honors of monu- ment and pæan.
their falling chief with a martyr-like con- by the brightest of the patriots and he- roes whose deeds illustrate the historic page.
It is said that Phillip was forced into this war, prematurely, by his younger braves,
" We picture him to ourselves," says Ir- and that he wept bitterly when the bloody ving of Phillip, in his Sketeb-Book; "we conflict began; but the fatal die being picture him to ourselves, seated among once cast, he girded himself with a lion's his care-worn followers, brooding in si- heart to the work of extirpating the whole lence over his blasted fortunes, and acquir- white race in New England. Ile made ing a savage sublimity from the wildness peace with his Indian enemies, and labor- and dreariness of his lurking-place. De- ed to combine all, the Christian Indians feated, but not dimayed -crushed to the not excepted, in a general coalition against earth, but not humiliate1-he seemed to the English. Neither Pontiac, nor Red grow more haughty beneath disaster and Jacket, nor Tecumseh, nor Osceola, dis- to experience a fierce satisfaction in drain- played grander abilities or a more com- ing the last dregs of bitterness. He was prehensive statemanship than this Indian a patriot attached to his native soil-a Hercules. But the work which he attempt - prince true to his subjects, and indignant ed was such as must have baulked and of their wrongs-a soldier daring in bat- baffled even the Hercules of mythology. tle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of As the stars in their courses fought against
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Sisera, so did all the powers above now Island and other islands in the harbor .-- combine against Phillip. For he fought Here, exposed to disease, despair, hunger, the battle of barbarism against civilization ; cold, and every species of hardships, they and history, while lamenting his fate, must passed the winter of 1675-6. Many of rejoice that his enterprise failed. them died ; many more lost all confidence
The events of this war-the conference in the colonists. Their habits of honesty, and treaty of Phillip and his counsellors sobriety, and industry, were lost; and with the colonial magistrates in the old their demoralization was complete.
church in Taunton-the infraction of that
On the approach of hostilities, seeing treaty -- the intercession of the Apostle El- himself placed between two fires, and be- iot-the new conference and treaty at ing determined to act a neutral part in the Plymouth-the three years' peace-the sanguinary contest, Wannalancet withdrew, treachery and death of Phillip's private with a portion of his people, from the secretary, Sausaman-the trial, condem- neighborhood of the white settlers, and nation and execution of his supposed mur- lodged himself at Pennacook. Alarmed at derers-the uncontrollable violence of his withdrawal, the General Court sent Phillip's braves demanding to be led on messengers, in September, 1675, to pur- against the whites -- the burning of Swanzey suaue him to come back. But instead of -the great fight in Dismal Swamp-the returning, he withdrew, with his people burning of Medford, Sudbury, Marlbo- still further into the wilderness, and pass- rough, and Lancaster-the killing of Phil- ed the winter of 1675 and 1676 about the lip himself in Skunk Swamp-the thousand headwaters of the Connecticut, where there atrocities on both sides-all these are re- was a good supply of moose, deer, bears, corded by Hubbard, Mather, Gookin, and other wild beasts. Subsequent events Church, and Drake, and need only be re- ferred to here.
will show that those who remained at Wamesit would have done wisely to have accompanied Wannalancet to his new win- ter abode.
Wannalancet and our local Indians, faithful to the counsel of Passaconaway, gave no beed to the solicitations of Phillip, In September, 1675, shortly after the and never espoused his cause. As the con- opening of the campaign, a hundred armed scouts, under Captain Mosely, marched up the Merrimack to Pennacook, where Con- cord now stands, and where Wannalancet sometimes took up hisabode; and finding the wigwams and winter stores of the In- sequence of this, they suffered more during this war than any other of Eliot's towns. Some of them were put to death by Phillip for giving notice of his designs ; some were put to death by the colonists as Phillip's accomplices ; some fell in battle in behalf dians there deserted, wantonly burned of the whites ; while others fell victims to them. About the same time, a haystack the undiscriminating hatred of the colo- in Chelmsford, belonging to Lieutenant nial rabble, whose passions, on the slightest James Richardson, was burned by some provocation, or suspicion, broke out with- skulking Indians of Phillip's party. But out restraint against the "praying Indians." the inhabitants at once attributed it to the
The good faith of some of these " pray- Wamesit Indians, though the owner of it ing Indians " being suspected by the Gen. protested that it could not have been set eral Court, laws were passed forbidding on fire by them. Hereupon, Count Oakes, the natives in the " praying towns " from with a body of troops, was ordered to bring going beyond the limits of their several all the Wamesit Indians to Boston. On villages, under severe penalties. Not con- the twentieth day of October, he accord- tent with these precautions, the General ingly sent word to the General Court that Court afterward caused five hundred he had arrested the Indians of Wamesit- Christian Indians, from various places, to about a hundred and forty-five in number be carried to Boston, and confined on Deer -and had them with him ou the way to
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Boston. Thirty-three of them were able- wounded; and one of them, a little boy, bodied men, unarmed. The rest were old, the son of a chief, was killed. The mur- decrepit men, women, children and infants. derers were subsequently indicted and Many of them were naked, and all desti- tried for this crime; but in this, as in the tute of food. The General Court now or- other case, the jury were dominated by the dered all the old men, women and children popular prejudice against the red men .- to be returned to their homes. The others " To the great grief and trouble generally were carried to Boston, where three of them of magistracy and ministry, and other wise were sold as slaves. The rest after being and godly men," says Gookin, these wan- kept for some time in prison in Charles- ton murderers were acquitted.
Fearing a continuance of these outrages,
town, were found innocent of setting the haystack on fire, (though the House of Numphow and John a Line, the local Deputies had passed a vote declaring them chiefs of Wamesit, together with the In- guilty ;) and they were returned to Wam- dian teachers, Samuel Numphow, Simon esit, escorted by Lieutenant Richardson, Betokom, and Mystic George, and all the the owner of the property destroyed.
Christian Indians then remaining here, fied into the wilderness, on their way toward
While on their return home, an incident occurred which shows the brutality of the French settlements in Canada, expect- some of the colonial population. They ing to find Wannalancet, who, as already happened to march through Woburn while stated, had previously removed beyond the train-band was exercising ; and Knight, the reach of either of the belligerents. one of the campany, deliberately levelled The authorities at Boston, hearing of their his gun, and shot one of the Indians dead. departure, sent Lieutenant Henchman of For this cold-blooded murder he was in- Chelmsford, to persuade them to return. dicted and tried by a jury of his peers, This they declined to do ; and the letter but pleaded " that his gun went off by ac- which they sent to Henchman, giving the cident ;" and as " the witnesses were mealy- reasons for their declinal, being a good mouthed in giving evidence," the jury, specimen of native composition, written though " sent out again and again by the by Simon Betokom, one of their teachers, judges, who were much dissatisfed," base- who had been Eliot's pupil, is deserving ly returned a verdict of acquittal. of insertion here.
Not long after this, a barn filled with "To Mr. Thomas Henchman, of Chelmsford. hay and graiu, the property of this Lieuten- I, Numphow, and John a Line, we send a mes- ant Richardson, was burned to the ground. Senger to you again ( WVecoposit) with this ans- wer, we cannot come home again, we go towards the French, we go where Wannalancet is ; the reason is, we went away from our home, we had help from the Council, but that did not do us good, but we had wrong by the English. 2dly. The reason is we went away from the English, for when there was any harm done in Chelms- ford, they laid it to us, and said we did it. but we know ourselves we never did harm to the English. but we go away peaceably and quietly. Sdly. As for the Island, we say there is no safe- ty for us, because many English be not good, and may be they come to us and kill us, as in the other case. We are not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry the English have driv -. en us from our praying to God and from our teacher. We did begin to understand a little of praying to God. We thank humbly the Council. We remember our love to Mr. Hench- man and James Richardson."* The perpetrators of this incendiary act, as the proprietor of the barn then thought, and as was afterward ascertained, were not . of the Wamesit Indians, but were parti- zans of Phillip. But the scoundrel mob of Chelmsford persisted in charging it up- on the Indians of Wamesit, and " took the law into their own hands." On the fif- teenth of November, 1675, fourteen armed men from Chelmsford came to Wamesit, and called the Indians, who were chiefly helpless women and children, out of their wigwams; but no sooner had they appeared than two of the Chelmsford ruffians, named [Signed with the mark of Numphow and John Line.] Lorgin and Robbins, fiendishly fired upon them two charges of buck shot. Five of See Gookin's History of the Christian Indians, in the second volume of the Transactions of the Ameri- can Autiquarian Society, p the Indian women and children were
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They failed to find Wannalancet ; and valids were lodged, and burned them allto twenty-three days after writing this letter death in one funereal pyre. In this, as in to Henchman, worn out with wandering previous cases, the murderers went " un- up and down in the woods in winter, and whipt of justice." The better classes were reduced to the last extremity for want of indeed shocked at these atrocities ; but the food, the greater part of them resumed great mass of the colonists seemed to think their residence at Wamesit. Three com- it a small matter to kill an Indian in cold missioners-Eliot, Gookin and Willard- blood. As we proceed, however, we shall were then sent to them to assure them of find the saying terribly true, that " history the good will of the Council, and to create hath its revenges." Whole hecatombs of if possible, a more humane feeling toward white lives will yet be sacrificed as a them among the people of Chelmsford .-- propitiatory offering to appease the manes In connection with this mission of peace of those thus barbarously murdered.
and good-will, a descendant of the last History delights to relate that two holy named commissioner - Joseph Willard, and heroic men-Eliot and Gookin -- Esq., of Boston-in his excellent " Willard struggled manfully to the last in defence Memoir,?' makes the following just re- of these expiring tribes. With an elo- mark :-- " Harrassed and persecuted as quence inspired from above, they denounc- were the Christian Indians, the marvel is ed this barbarous treatment of these un- that they did not turn to a man against happy Indians, whom God had made, for the English, and manifest those traits of whom Christ had died, and against whom, character which are ever so dear to the or most of whom, no man could bring any savage nature. If here and there they just accusation. But they received no were driven to madness, it was the inevi- thanks from the magistrates, and were in- table consequence of their wrongs. Had sulted in the streets by the " rascal rabble " they been well treated by the Massachusetts of Boston.
In their pursuit of their chief, Wanna- public sentiment for the hour-they would lancet, the fugitives this time met with have been a strong wall of defence to the better success than in their former flight. colonists, as those in Connecticut were to They found him, and joined his party, and that Colony. In the spring of 1676, this remained with him till the close of the war. was done ; and they rendered effectual aid But before they found him they experienced in bringing the war to a close .??
all the horrors of a French retreat from
The woes of the Wamesit Indians were not Moscow. Their chief, Numphow, and ended even here, though Lieutenant Tho- Mystic George, one of their teachers, and mas Henchman was appointed as their guar- various other men, women and children, dian. On the fifth of February, 1676, we perished in the woods of hunger, cold and find them petitioning to be removed from fatigue. Even after being thus driven in- Wamesit, giving as a reason that, in all to the wilderness by the barbarities of the probability, "other Indians would come colonists, Wannalancet still proved him- and do mischief shortly, and it would be self the white man's friend, always sending imputed to them, and they would suffer notice to the colonial authorities when he for it." Finding this petition disregarded, heard of the approach of their enemies .- and themselves in imminent danger, they But I menst now leave Wannalancet and again fled in terror toward Canada; but his people in the woods, while I record what befell the white settlers of the region persons who were blind and lame, and too to which our narrative relates.
they left behind them six or seven aged infirm to be removed. History weeps to In August, 1675, shortly after the open- relate that the cowardly villains of Chelins- ing of the contest, the house of Lieutenant ford came to Wamesit by night, set fire Henchman, in Chelmsford, was fortified to the wigwams in which these helpless in- with a garrison, and so continued for
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several months. About the same time, the (May, 1676), intelligence of the approach forty-eight families which then constituted of the enemy having been received, an the population of Billerica (including additional force was placed in this fort, and Tewksbury) were, by order of the Council, Captain Henchman took command. This gathered into twelve garrisons for safety ; proved an effectual check to the incur- but John Farmer, the historian of Biller- sions of Phillip's party. In the following ica, states that that town received no August, Phillip being slain in Skunk essential injury during this war; though Swamp, the war closed, the settlers re- the people were harrassed with visits from sumed their customary avocations, and the the partisans of Phillip, as were also the tide of population rolled on with now people of Dracut and Chelmsford. Two vigor .*
Before passing from this war, it may not be amiss to sum up briefly its results. The loss of life on the part of the Indians is un- known ; but it was doubtless much greater than that of the colonists. The military
sons of Samuel Varnum, ancestor of Gen- eral Varnum-who was four years Speaker of the National House of Representatives, and once President pro tempore of the Senate, and whose remains now rest in peace on the banks of the murmuring operations of the whites involved the ex- Merrimack in Dracut-were shot while penditure of five hundred thousand dollars. crossing the river in a boat. Six hundred colonists were killed. Thir-
On the third of February, 1676, some of teen towns, containing six hundred houses, Phillip's partizans attacked Chelmsford, were destroyed by fire. Both races took and burned several buildings. Colburn's a savage delight in compelling their garrison on the east side of the Merri- enemies, in the language of Sir Walter mack was now strengthened, and nearly Scott, " to taste of the tortures which an- all the outer settlements were deserted. ticipate hell," and exhausted their inge- A second attack was made on the twentieth nuity in devising new modes of protract- ing the agonies of their captives. On the captive to a stake, bit off his nails, tore of March, and Joseph Parker was wounded. Other depredations were also committed one hand, a crew of savages tied a white in the region round about.
On the nineteenth of April, 1676,-a out his hair by the roots, pulled out his day signalized since by the memorable tongue, gouged out his eyes, cut out pieces conflicts of Lexington and Baltimore,- of his flesh and threw them into the fire, compelled him to run the gauntlet of their tomahawks, clubs and knives, and finally roasted bim to death by a slow fire. On the other hand, it must be remembered, the colonists, when Phillip was slain, de- Captain . Samuel Hunting and Lieutenant James Richardson, were ordered by the Governor and Council, with all dispatch, to take command of a party of English and friendly Indians, march to Pawtucket Falls, and erect fortifications against the allies nied his body the decency of a burial, but of Phillip. Their instructions were as fol- cut off his head and bore it in trinroph lows :- " If you meet wh the enimy you through the colony on a pole ; and even are to use yor best skill & utmost endeuer seized his only son, a guileless boy of nine to slaye, kill & destroy ym. * * * You years, shipped him to the Bermuda Islands, are wh all care to Gouvern the soldiers and sold him as a slave. Men that are under yr command according to the Rules dogs may strike a balance in favor of of God's word & the wholesome laws of the which party they please; men that are
country & take care to punish all profanes & wickednes."*
A fort was accordingly built at Paw- tucket Falls, commanded by Lieutenant Richardson. In the following month,
Mass. Archives, vol. 63, p. 212.
G For original authorities touching King Phillip's War, see Hubbard's Indian Wars; Increase Mather's Brief History; Church's History of King Phillip's War; Mather's Magnalia, vol. 2, pp. 4-5-199; Callen- der's Historical Discourse, pp. 126-136; Ciahime'y Ilist. U. S. vol. 1. pp. 346-351; Gookim's Historyc Christian Indians, 2 Am. Ant. Soc. Coll. Ses a' Drake's History of Boston, and his Book of th dians; Barry's History of Massachusetts, etc.
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men will pronounce the conduct of both people were placed under the guardianship parties superlatively execrable.
. WANNALANCET.
of Colonel Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable, who received twenty pounds sterling per annum for keeping them ; and lands were
Wannalancet and the Wamesit Indians, given to them on Wickasauke Island. The whom we left in the northern wilderness, number thus placed at Wickasauke Falls kept wisely aloof from the contest until the was about ten men and fifty women and return of peace. Their final return was children; fifteen men and fifty women and accomplished by intrigue. Major Waldron, children having been removed elsewhere who then commanded a military force at and " bound out to service ;" -- a most un- Dover, New Hampshire, contrived by grateful requital for their steadfast friend- diplomatic persuasion, to lure the Indians, ship to the colonists. Calling-one day on far and near, to the number of four hun- the Rev. Mr. Fiske, the minister in Chelms- dred, to engage with him in a general ford, Wannalancet kindly inquired about military muster. While performing their all his old acquaintances, and particularly evolutions, they were all suddenly sur- whether that town had suffered much rounded and taken as prisoners of war. during the late war. Mr. Fiske replied Two hundred of them, some of whom that the people there had not suffered were as innocent of hostile acts or designs
much, but had been highly favored, and against the colonists as babes unlorn, were he thanked God for it. " Me, next," re- shipped to the West Indies, and in spite plied Wannalancet, referring to his own of the solemn remonstrance of the Apostle kind offices in defense of his white neigh- Eliot, sold into perpetual slavery. Among bors, notwithstanding they had been his those thus trepanned by Waldron was the persecutors,
gentle Wannalancet, with his tribe. A Nor did the kind offices of Wannalancet number of them were falsely accused of terminate even here. In March, 1677, having borne arms against the colonists ; during the war between the French and some of these were sent off and sold as English, he ealled on Captain Henchman slaves with other Indian eaptives, and the in Chelmsford, informed him that the Mo- rest of the accused were publicly executed hawks, who were in league with the French at Boston. Even one of the sons of Nump- against the English colonists, were up the how barely eseaped the gallows.
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