USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 14
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Both of these two organizations were born of a need growing out of increasing difficulties with the Indians, developed strength in Indian fighting, and matured in the three great wars of the United States-the Revolution, the Civil Conflict, and the World War.
The Pequot War-The first of the ruthless wars waged by soldiers from Boston and other towns of the colony was brought about by quar- rels between neighboring tribes. Three of these, the Narragansetts, the Mohegans and the Pequots, dwelt in strips of territory between Rhode Island and the Hudson River. The Mohegans were tributaries of the Pequots, and were restive under the forced union. One of the Mohegans came to Boston in 1631, trying to interest the whites in his tribe's affairs by making promises of profitable trading if some of their number would but come and locate on the Connecticut River. A few years later, 1633, a group of traders, under a Captain Stone, of Virginia, while traveling up the stream, were attacked by the Pequots and murdered. The Boston
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magistrates threatened to punish the miscreants, but nothing effective was done.
English families from Cambridge, Dorchester and other towns settled along the Connecticut, 1636, and during that same year, John Oldham, of Watertown, was one of the first to be slain by the Indians from Block Island. The Bay Colony threatened to kill every male savage on the island, but did little more than burn over their cornfields and destroy a few wigwams. The net result was to irritate the Pequots and increase their contempt of the whites. All that winter the tribe captured, tor- tured and slew one by one the pioneers in their section, until the number reached thirty. The folk in Connecticut had to take the offensive or gradually be wiped out. A request for help was sent to Boston and her neighboring towns. Massachusetts raised a company of one hundred and sixty men. Meanwhile John Mason, a former resident of Dorchester, in command of such troops as were on the ground, with the Mohegans as allies, moved against the Pequots, bringing them to bay in one of their stockades near the Mystic. Of the Massachusetts soldiers, only twenty, under Captain Underhill, actually took part in the affray. The Indians were surprised at night, and with fire, steel and lead were attacked with a savagery quite equal to anything the Indian had shown. No quarter was given. A few of the Indians escaped to another fort, but the reinforced white men slaughtered them with even greater viciousness. It was but a few hours when all was over as far as the Pequots were concerned. What few had escaped took to the swamps with their old, their wives and chil- dren, where they were surrounded by the English forces. After a parley, the aged and children were allowed to surrender; the most of the rem- nant were slain. A few of the prisoners were sold as slaves to the West Indies; some were made servants in the homes of the English. In no contemporaneous account of this affair is anything but approval given of the deed. The Puritans felt themselves the "Chosen of the Lord," doing the work of Jehovah in thus wreaking vengeance upon the heathen. Whatever of obligation was felt by the first comers to the aborigine whose land they took, it soon passed into indifference, then to a hate that determined on the extinction of the race. Nor was the Puritan alone in arriving at such an opinion and pushing it to its logical conclusion. Practically every white colony on the American coast did its best, and worst, to obliterate the Indian. To sum up the first punitive expedition of the colonists: the white forces had two killed; the Pequots, a tribe estimated to number 3,000, were slain or consigned to a living death. As a tribe they were known no more.
King Philip's War-King Philip's War, culminating in 1676, was but the inevitable result of the attitude of the Puritan towards the Indian.
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As "the enemies of the Puritans," to quote the words of one of the pas- tors, "were the enemies of God," the Indian had either to submit to the dominance of the white man or be put to the sword. The new country could not be God's country until the "devils that infested it should be removed." Roger Williams had milder ideas of conquering the Indian. John Eliot had made a brave experiment at Natick, and in gathering together the "Praying Indians" of New England. He had done even a more notable thing in translating the Bible into the savage vernacular, although he could not transmute its teachings into Indian hearts and lives. Before the outbreak of Philip, he had told Eliot that he cared no more for his religion than he did for the "Apostle's" button which he held in his hand while speaking.
The war that followed threatened the very existence of the white race in New England. Had there been any great unity among the tribes, it is probable that they could have wiped the English settlements from off the earth. As it was, the copper peril came nearer to Boston than it ever had before, although none of the warfare was carried on close to the town. No attempt need be made here to trace the course of Philip's War except as it touched the Boston settlement. The Governor of the colony, and the Military Committee were Boston men, and most of the direction of the warfare came from the council chamber in the Boston Town House. From this locality, if we include all the present area of the city, came a large part of the Massachusetts soldiers who fought in the various sections of the country where battles were decided. It is said that within three hours after the call to arms against the foe, Boston had gathered together one hundred and ten men, ready to march down into Rhode Island and Connecticut, where the danger was then present. John Leverett, the Governor, was an old soldier and probably wanted to lead the campaign himself, but his presence was needed at home.
Philip had alarmed the people of Swansea by attacking two nearby houses and advancing on the town, but meeting opposition had returned to Mount Hope, continuing his depredations in the vicinity. Both Plym- outh and the Bay colonies were thoroughly aroused by the coming to a head of the trouble that had been brewing since the Pequot skirmish, and all lower New England prepared for war, hoping to quench the ardor of Philip before the Indian insurrection spread. Messengers were sent to the Narragansetts and Nipmucks to warn them not to give aid to Philip. A small army was sent, "three hundred foot and about eighty horses, besides several carts laden with provisions and munition and armes . . . . two vessels with provisions and munitions to supply the forces. The Council has appointed a fast for tomorrow to seek God in this matter for a blessing upon our forces. Major-General Dennison was chosen general
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of these forces but was taken sick and Captain Savage is sent commander- in-chief. Captain Prentice is Commander of the Horse, and Captain Henchman and Captain Mosley, Captain of the Foot."
Boston Leaders-All this is from Leverett's letter written to the Gov- ernor of Connecticut, dated June 28, 1675. There were eight companies in Boston at this time, the captains of which were: Thomas Clarke, Thomas Savage, James Oliver, William Hudson, Daniel Henchman, John Richards, John Hull and (John) Clarke. The commander mentioned by the Governor as taking the place of the ill Dennison was the father of Perez Savage, who later was captain of a Boston company. Both father and son fought with distinction during the war, Perez being wounded several times. Thomas, in addition to being the chief of this expedition into Rhode Island, was appointed one of the War Committee, and the next year became treasurer as a successor to Richard Russell.
Henchman, a former teacher in the Latin school, fought and handled his men with skill all through the conflict, becoming the most prominent of the Boston representatives as the war went on.
Samuel Mosely was one of those swash-buckling, picturesque indi- viduals who belongs rather on the page of a romantic novel than in a quiet record of Indian fighting. It is related of him, that having taken fifteen friendly Indians from their stronghold in Marlborough, he sent them tied together to Boston to be tried for an attack on Lancaster. At another time, in the heat of battle, he removed his wig and hung it on a tree, thereby taking a very unfair advantage of his Indian foe, for what was the use in fighting a man who scalped himself? In the second year of the war he proposed the raising of another company, the pay for which he was willing to receive from the captives he made.
Although Boston men were never in any of the massacres of Philip's War, the town lost as great a proportion of her men as did others. A fifth of the Massachusetts troops came from Boston, this being about the rela- tive proportion of her citizens to that of the colony-the population of the colony being about 25,000 at this time. About fifty Boston folk lost their lives, including the four captains of companies, Davenport, Johnson, Mosely and Hutchinson.
Eliot's Disciples Moved to Deer Island-The town suffered all the terrors from rumors that any place does which is not in the fighting zone, without any of the dangers. All manner of rules were made to prevent even a single savage from entering the tight little peninsula. Eliot's "Praying Indians" of Natick, two hundred of them at first, were penned up on Deer Island, much to the distaste of Boston. Later there were five hundred or more crowded together on the Island, which worried the town
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even more. The Indians had come without resistance, and the cooping up, semi-starvation, and ill protection from the cold of the winter ren- dered them incapable of resistance had there been any urge towards this end.
King Philip had a habit of deserting his women and children in stress of war, leaving them open to ready capture. Captured they were, but fearing, perhaps, to keep many of them as house or farm servants, their captors shipped them to the West Indies, where they were sold into slavery. The most of this business was carried on through Boston. Whatever of profit there may have been in these transactions, it in no way covered the monetary losses of the war. Special taxes were laid, the churches contributed liberally to the poor and the towns which suffered most, and the sums raised for the warriors in the field were far beyond the means of so youthful a colony.
As to the prosecution of the war, the initial efforts of the English did little more than scatter the Indians as firebrands might be scattered through a wood-separating them, but only caused a greater conflagra- tion. The towns to the west, even as far as Springfield, Westfield, Had- ley and Hatfield became points of attack. The Narragansetts were wiped out as a power on December 13, 1675, when Johnson and Davenport, at the head of their men, were slain at Tower Hill on Narragansett Bay. The casualties totaled nearly a hundred-thirty-one killed and sixty- seven wounded. Many of those killed or wounded came from Boston and the towns now a part of it.
The Last Campaigns-The victorious army returned to Boston, much to the joy of the belligerent stay-at-homes. The soldiers could not remain for long, for that winter saw the severest engagements of the whole campaign. Probably the most condensed account of the events, written by a contemporary, is that of Captain Hull. In his diary he wrote, and nothing is left out that bears directly on the war :
"Feb. 10, Lancaster spoiled by the enemy. 2Ist, Medfield in part burned by ditto. March 13, Groton burned. 26th, Marlborough burned in part. 28th, Rehoboth assaulted. April 18th, Sudbury part burned by the enemy. Capt. Wadsworth, Capt. Brocklebanck and fifty soldiers slain. May 8th, some houses burned at Bridgewater. IIth, some also toward Plymouth. 18th, the Fall Fight, many Indians slain. 24th, Cap- tain William Davis died. June 29th, day of thanksgiving. Aug. 12, Sagamore Philip, who began the war, was slain."
With Philip's death, the war was practically brought to an end, although fighting still continued to the east until the Treaty of Casco, in 1678. In the proclamation of the annual thanksgiving in December the statement was made: "Of those several tribes and parties that have
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hietherto risen up against us, which were not a few, there now remains scarce a family of name of them in their former habitations but are either slain, captivated, or fled into the remote parts of the wilderness, to lie hid, despairing of their intentions against us."
Never again was there an important Indian war, inspired and led by Indians. And never again did our forefathers regain any of the kindly feelings towards the savage that marked some of their first contacts with this race. The contempt, the hatred aroused by the Pequot expedition was mightily increased by the events of Philip's War. No longer did the fear of an Indian uprising harass the minds of the Puritans. Much they may have lacked of experience in arms before this had been sup- plied. They knew they could fight, and the nucleus of a force ready to go forth to meet any foe was present in the companies and men who were now veterans. As summed up by one not of their number: "The late wars have hardened their infantry, made them good firemen, and taught them the ready use of their arms."
The Revocation of the Charter Threatened-No sooner had Boston and its neighbors overcome one danger than another confronted them. After many years of handling their own state affairs under the charter granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company, this privilege was threat- ened. A new King had come to the throne of England, Charles II, to whose attention was drawn to the various oversteppings of the charter rights by the New England colonists. Before King Philip's War, 1664, commissioners had been sent to look into the affairs of the New England Colonies. Everything had been satisfactory to these men until they arrived at Boston where their power as representatives of the King was not recognized. Nor could satisfaction be gotten by the King and his men in ways direct or otherwise. New England sought only delay, hop- ing, possibly, that a changing crown might alight upon another head, one favorable to the colony. The tactics of the colonists did not prevail. In 1684, the Court of Chancery declared the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company vacated. In May, 1686, the British frigate "Rose" brought to Boston Randolph with commissions for a new government, and the colony was at an end. Joseph Dudley was the provisional royal appointee.
In December of the same year, Sir Edmund Andros arrived as the Governor of the Province of New England. It is probable that no ruler sent from England could have pleased the people, but Andros, efficient as he had been in other royal appointments, failed utterly in his manage- ment of the present one. He offended the religious leaders with his first act by setting up the English service in South Church. He brought con- sternation to the affairs of the people by declaring that with the with-
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drawn charter had gone the titles to the land, that they were now merely tenants of the King instead of landholders. It is unnecessary to relate here the whole story of the rising anger that later swept Andros from the colony.
Andros Driven from the Colony-There were rumors in 1689 that James II had been displaced as regent by William of Orange and Mary. It soon was felt by the people that if the King who had sent Andros could be deposed, so could the King's agent. Just what is the secret history behind the events that followed will never be known. Cotton Mather, the younger, wrote, in the Life of Reverend Cotton Mather: "Then a Strange Disposition entered into the Body of our people to assert our Liberties against the Arbitrary Rulers that were fleecing them." Mather further explains the provisions made by the leaders for preventing "a bloody revolution" by taking the lead in any outbreak, and quietly guid- ing the course taken by "an ungoverned multitude." But with all the wise provisions, there was an uprising purely of the people. First to the south of Boston, and soon after to the north, together with troops that came in from the country-side, the mob closed on the royalist officials whom they seized and placed in jail. Andros promptly fled to a fort on Castle Island, but realizing that the constantly increasing throng were quite capable of taking both the fort and him, he discreetly surrendered and was held for some time as a prisoner. A provisional government was established by the insurgent New Englanders, based on that to which. they had become accustomed under the old charter.
All this occurred months before authentic news arrived of the acces- sion of William and Mary. Soon word came, to send Andros back to England, the colony, meanwhile, to continue with the government which they had established. Things were moving along in a manner that pleased the belligerent residents of Boston, for they were practically back where they had been before the revocation of the charter. It was, no doubt, with pleasure that they got rid of the despised Andros.
This incident, at first sight, hardly has a place in the military history of Boston. It is related partly to draw attention to the speed with which a religious people were becoming militant. The Bostonians and their friends nearby were developing a readiness for battle that boded ill for any who should attempt to cross them. This had proved to be a blood- less insurrection, but only so because there was order, numbers, and arms behind their demands. Again, and what is of far greater interest, this revolution, whatever it meant to those who had a part in it, was a fore- runner of that greater Revolution, the only one so called in American history. The colonist had learned to defend what he thought were his rights against the Indian; in the Andros affair he had proved himself capable of defending what was his against anyone.
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French and Indian Wars-The next period in the military history, the so-called French and Indian wars, which extended over nearly a century of interrupted but ever recurring strife, was of a far different character and far greater danger than the Indian skirmishes through which New England had come so successfully. In the wars against the Indians the advantage had been with the Colonials, for they had the arms, the gunpowder, the coats of mail, the intelligence and discipline, and the leadership which placed them far in advance of the savage. In the wars that now followed, they had to meet a combined foe, where the skill and resources of the veteran soldiers of the French were united with the cunning and cruelty of the Indian. It was farmer and churchman against a trained army which had a horde of savage allies. It speaks well for the courage of the colonists, if not for their wisdom, that they never seemed to recognize that they were on the defensive. The wars, for the most part, were car- ried on in French territory, or at least upon ground to which the owner- ship had never been determined. Always the plans were for expeditions into Canada, rather than protective measures on behalf of their own homes. The wisest defensive is often a vigorous offensive, and if we are to judge by results, it proved so in the French and Indian wars. Without capable leaders, with the generation that had destroyed the Pequots and defeated Philip now either dead or too old to take the field; with the resources of the colony drained to almost the minus point in freeing New England from the menace of savage attacks, decade after decade the colonists fought stubbornly against the odds that threatened always to overwhelm them, until they settled the question, once for all, that neither France nor the Indian should have any further part or share in the con- trol and destiny of America.
Opening Events-"About the year 1685," wrote Edward Randolph, "The French of Canada encroached upon the lands of the subjects of the Crown of England, building forts upon the heads of the great rivers, and, extending their bounds, disturbed its inhabitants." This seems to have been the first stated recognition of the danger threatening the colonies from the north. Andros, in 1688, made a great tour of the province, sup- posedly to secure the amity of the Indians. While away, Boston became very greatly excited over alarms that reached the town from Casco Bay, sending troops there. Andros was highly indignant that soldiers should have been levied in his absence and forbade any further proceedings. Instead he marched with a thousand men into the Indian territory, built a fort or two, left garrisons, but failed to come in contact with any of the savages. This and other acts led to the suspicion, unfounded no doubt, that Andros was actually in league with the Indians, a suspicion that may have had something to do with his later overthrow in Boston. When
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Bradstreet succeeded Andros as Governor, the garrisons placed in Maine refused to stay there, the most of the troops mutinying and coming home. Indian outbreaks immediately followed, "and the colonists found the absence of Andros was even more dangerous than his presence." At Cocheco, now Dover, New Hampshire, and at Pemaquid, Maine, the aborigines were supremely successful; the capture of Pemaquid being really notable, for this was one of the forts built and garrisoned by Andros and it was taken by what was probably the first sustained and direct attack ever made by the American Indians against a fortified place.
Sir William Phipps Attacks Quebec-Such were the beginnings of the French and Indian wars. The colonists captured Port Royal, a fort garrisoned by seventy men, by sending against it a force of four or five hundred carried by seven vessels. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were claimed, at this period, by Massachusetts. A sailor, Sir William Phipps, was in command of the successful expedition. Over encouraged by this minor victory, a congress of the provinces meeting in New York in May, 1690, decided that the sway of the French should be ended by the capture of Montreal and Quebec. The New Yorkers were to march on Montreal; the New Englanders were to sail to Quebec. It was one of the most fool- hardy enterprises conceivable. There was not one real leader at the head of either expedition. The command of the New York contingent was given to General Fitz-John Winthrop, son of the second John Winthrop, who died in Boston November 27, 1707. Phipps was in charge of the Quebec expedition. The place that the sailor-soldier hoped to take, was a natural fortress, protected by the defensive works built by Prevost, a trained engineer, under the direction of Frontenac. It was considered impregnable, manned as it was by 2,700 men, more than the total of the attacking provincials. There is no need to describe the utter failure of this foolhardy expedition. The French boasted afterward that all the damage done could be repaired for twenty crowns.
Nor was the foray under Winthrop any more successful. The Prov- ince was utterly cast down by these untoward events. The failure of their soldiery had been complete ; the impoverished treasury was called upon to bear the exceedingly large expense incurred ; and they were now open to a return attack by the French and their savage allies. Indian hostilities did break out at Haverhill, but fortunately in 1697 England and France came to terms at the peace of Ryswick, which provided that the territorial boundaries of the French and English possessions in America should remain unchanged.
The Second Failure to Take Quebec-In 1702 England became in- volved in war again, this time against both France and Spain, and with it
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the Province. Port Royal, that little place in Nova Scotia now known as Annapolis, became the seat of warfare and after two attempts was cap- tured. In June, 1711, fifteen English ships of war, together with forty transports carrying five veteran regiments arrived in Boston. St. John Bolingbroke "the most brilliant Tory of his time," had planned a great expedition against the French in Canada, the troops and ships sent to Boston being but a part of the wonderful scheme, the colonies as far south as Virginia being expected to furnish the balance of the power and troops there were to drive the foe out of Canada. This was a wonderful time for Boston, the fleet remaining in the harbor for more than a month. But it was one for which she paid, since Massachusetts furnished £40,000 toward the provisioning of the fleet, a sum more than double that of New York, Pennsylvania and other sections provided.
The plan of attack was the same as the ill-starred Phipps affair, foot troops against Montreal, the transports and men-of-war against Quebec. The ships sailed. While sailing up the St. Lawrence River in a fog, eight of the vessels were wrecked with the loss of 884 men. A council of war was held which urged an abandonment of the enterprise and an immedi- ate return to England. The expedition on its way towards Montreal was also abandoned. The whole affair was an ignominious failure. Only the peace of Utrecht saved the day for this country by giving to England without the necessity of fighting for it, the possession of Hudson Bay, of New Foundland (which the returning fleet of Walker had not even attacked) and of Acadia. The boundaries of the latter place were so indefinitely outlined as to soon furnish another occasion for strife. If there was anything of gain in the course of events it rested only in the realization that was coming to the minds of the men of New England that, bad as they were as soldiers, those of the mother country seemed little better. "Marlborough's veterans" had been even more prompt than had the Provincial troops to quite a failing enterprise. It is doubtful whether New Englanders ever regained the blind confidence in the fight- ing qualities of the British trained soldiery even though they were of the same origin as themselves. Boston was meanwhile learning the lesson that the constant succession of English wars (news of which was usually long in reaching the town), laid them open to sudden attack from the sea. One of the first things done by the settlers with Winthrop had been the fortifying of Castle Island, the strengthening of which, as well as other pregnable approaches, now became one of the burdens thrust upon the place. The town's records from 1725 on are full of plans and acts looking to the strengthening of the harbor defenses.
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