USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 21
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No race has better understood the policy of divide and con- quer than the Saxon. It has been the history of its progress and empire. To the Pilgrim fathers it was a native instinct. One by one the tribes which had acknowledged the rule of the chief fell from their allegiance, and, yielding to the intrigues of their white neighbors, asserted their independence. Mas- sasoit's chief residence was on Narragansett bay, at what is now the town of Bristol, at a spot called Sowams by the Wampa- noags, Pokanoket by the Narragansetts, and Mount Hope by the early colonists. Here, at the headland of the peninsula which commanded the beautiful bay, with its swarming waters and fertile islands, "the very garden of New England," the old chieftain, " the earliest and firmest friend of the Pilgrims," had his seat of patriarchial government ; and here resided with him two sons, Wamsutta and Pometacom or Metacomet. To these young sachems the names of Alexander and Philip were given on occasion of a visit to Plymouth court, about the year 1656.
Wamsutta or Alexander, the elder of the brothers, increased his power by a marriage with Wetamoo, squaw sachem of Pocasset (now Tiverton), the chief of the Indian villages on the eastern mainland. On the death of Massasoit, Wamsntta, who had shared the government during the declining years of his father, became chief sachem. The proud spirit of the young chiefs had long chafed under the quiet submission of their aged father and the general policy of non-resistance which he main- tained to the close. That any general plan of conspiracy was thins early conceived is not probable, but there is little doubt that the germ of a concerted action by savage tribes of the con- tinent lay deep within their politic souls. There was example of the power of union close at their doors in the military force of the United Colonies, and proof that such alliance was not beyond the reach of Indian diplomacy in the wonderful struc- ture of the confederation of the six nations of the New York province.
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Massasoit was hardly in his grave before rumors were rife in the Plymouth colony that Wamsutta was plotting against the English, and the distinct charge was brought that he had al- ready made overtures to the Narragansetts, the hereditary enemies of his tribe. Summoned before the general court at Plymouth, he did not appear, wherenpon he was seized by an armed force at one of his hunting stations and forcibly carried off prisoner, with his train of warriors and women, some eighty in number. Crazed with anger and fatigue, he fell ill and was permitted to return home on promise of attendance at the next court and the surrender of his son as a hostage. He died be- fore he reached his wigwams. The more moderate of the Puri- tans did not hesitate to condemn this rigor. The Indians did not forget it. The widow nursed her feelings of revenge. The injury rankled deep in the heart of the brother, and stirred to life the fated germs which came to full fruition in such disaster, devastation and death as had never before fallen upon the Eng- lish settlements.
Metacomet, or Philip, now became chief sachem. He still further strengthened his power by marriage with the sister of Wetamoo, widow of Wamsutta, the squaw sachem of the Po- cassets. From the very beginning of his sway he undertook the vast enterprise of a union of the tribes to the alternative of Indian independence or English extermination. Prudent and politie, his line of conduct effectually cloaked his designs. Answering without hesitation the summons of the general court. he made submission, consented to treaties, even to pay tribute; in a word agreed to whatever was required of him by the Ply- mouth authorities. By what means he soothed the jealousies of the neighboring tribes, assuaged their rivalries and brought. them to a common action is not, will never be known. Indian history is in a manner a sealed book. We know their motives and see the results, but not their methods. Strange Indians were constantly at Mount Hope, and Philip's emissaries were heard of wherever there was disaffection. The mere presence of his ancient men with Ninecraft, sachem of the Narragan- setts in 1669, was held sufficient evidence of a plot to warrant the arrest of that chief. At this time also Governor Lovelace, of the New York province, informed Governor Arnold of Rhode Island of apprehensions had at the east end of Long Is-
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land of a rising by the Narragansetts, but in the same letter said that he did not thin' them in a condition strong enough to make any such attempt. But in the spring of 1671 Lovelace was of another mind. In a letter to Governor Prince he says, "I verily believe by what relations I have met with, even of our own (New York) Indians, the defection seemed almost uni- versal." Again Philip, not yet ready, bent to the storm. At a conference held at Taunton in April his men gave up their arms, and in September he made submission at Plymouth.
No data exist by which even to approximate the number of the Indian tribes to which Philip addressed himself. We only know that in the report of the king's commissioners, made in December, 1660, the Rhode Island colony is credited with the "greatest number of Indians," but as yet there had been no harmony of feeling or action between them and the neighbor- ing tribes.
Early in May, 1667, on information of the suspicions deport- ment of the Indians, especially of Philip, the Rhode Island council which sat in the intermissions of the assembly, had or- dered the disarming of all the Indians on the island, leaving the magistrates of Providence and Warwick to do as they saw fit ; and on the 10th, fully satisfied of the existence of plots, every Indian above sixteen was ordered by proclamation to leave the island. Only a license from the governor, the deputy governor or two assistants in the island was an adequate pass- port. But even at this juncture the number on the island proper must have been small. It does not appear that this or- der had been repeated.
On the eastern mainland Philip naturally turned to his sister- in-law, Wetamoo, the squaw sachem of Pocasset (now Tiverton) who, although she had condescended, after Wamsutta's death, to a marriage with an Indian of lesser degree, was eager to re- venge the death of her first husband. Beyond, on the head- land opposite to Rhode Island, was the tribe of the Sogknonates, who occupied the territory from Fogland ferry to the sea, some seven to eight miles long ; Seconnet, later Little Compton. Their squaw sachem, Awashonks, timid or prudent, hesitated, controlled by the advice of Mr. Benjamin Church, who had lately made a settlement on the point, and chanced upon a great dance at the very moment when she was entertaining Philip's messengers. She was herself quite willing to be dissuaded
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from joining the league, but the young braves would not be held back. For weeks Philip entertained the youth of the tribes from near and far, at Mount Hope, with dances, until crazed with excitement, and even he could not longer control them. In an unfortunate hour, furious with the indignity put upon him in the hanging of his exeentioners, as though he were a vassal of the English power and not a lord of the soil, he yielded to the entreaty of his braves and consented to the beginning of depredations.
For four years constant rumors had alarmed the borders. The plans of Philip, it is generally believed, were laid for an uprising in the spring of 1676, but as usual in time of extreme tension, the outbreak was hastened in an unforseen manner. One of John Eliot's "praying Indians" of the Massachusetts tribe, who had received instruction at Harvard College and later served Alexander and Philip as secretary, discovered and be- trayed the plans of the sachem to the Plymouth governor. In- dian justice quickly reached the traitor, who was found dead in an ice pond. The executioners were in their turn betrayed, tried by a mixed jury of whites and Indians, found guilty and put to death. From this time Philip kept his men in arms, moving from place to place, gathering forces and to avoid sur- prise.
Alarmed at the near approach of hostilities, Mr. Jolin Easton, the deputy governor of Rhode Island, together with three other magistrates, relying on their ancient friendship, sought an in- terview with Philip. By Easton's own account of the interest- ing event the Indians had the best of the argument. Indeed, what answer could be made to Philip's complaint that " when the English first came their king's father (Massasoit) was as a great man and the English as a little child ; he constrained other Indians from wronging the English and gave them corn and showed them how to plant, and was free to do them any good, and had let them have one hundred times more land than now the king had for his own people." To the magistrates' persuasion that he should abandon the thought of war " for the English were too strong for them," the Indians said "then the English should do to them as they did when they were too strong for the English."
Not less striking was Philip's reply to John Borden, of Rhode Island, a warm friend who nrged him to peace. " The
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English who came first to this country were but an handful of people, forlorn, poor and distressed. My father was then sachem. He relieved their distresses in the most kind and hos- pitable manner. He gave them land to build and plant upon. He did all in his power to serve them. Others of their own countrymen came and joined them. Their numbers rapidly in- creased. My father's counsellors became uneasy and alarmed lest, as they were possessed of firearms which was not the case with the Indians, they should finally undertake to give law to the Indians and take from them their country. They therefore advised him to destroy them before they should become too strong and it should be too late. My father was also the father of the English. He represented to his counsellors and warriors that the English knew many sciences which the Indians did not; that they improved and cultivated the earth and raised cattle and fruits, and that there was sufficient room in the country for both the English and the Indians. His advice prevailed. It was concluded to give victuals to the English. They flourished and increased. Experience taught that the advice of my father's counsellors was right. By various means they got possession of a great part of his territory. But he still remained their friend till he died. My elder brother became sachem. They pretended to suspect him of evil designs against them. He was seized and confined and thereby thrown into sickness and died. Soon after I became sachem they disarmed all my people. They tried my people by their own laws and assessed damages against them which they could not pay. Their land was taken. At length a line of division was agreed upon between the En- glish and my people and I myself was to be responsible. Some- times the cattle of the English would come into the cornfields of my people for they did not make fences like the English. I must then be seized and confined until I sold another tract of my country for satisfaction of all damages and costs. Thus tract after tract is gone. But a small part of the dominion of my ancestors remains. I am determined not to live till I have no country.
With such a spirit there was no room for composition. Nor was there more disposition to arrangement on the part of the English, for hardly had the Rhode Island mediators departed from the Ferry, the scene of their interview, " without any dis- curtionsness." when they were notified by the Plymouth gov-
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ernor that he intended " in arms to conform Philip," that is to re- duce him 'to subjection. All hopes of peace were now at an end. Hostilities were preceded by individual depredations. The war opened by an attack made at Swansea on Sunday, the 24th of June, 1675, on the people returning from public worship. Philip's young braves would no longer be restrained. At first only deserted houses on the neck of Pocanoket were plundered, but a shot being fired and an Indian wounded, the savages could not be controlled. A number of whites were waylaid and killed. Troops soon arrived and under the guidance of Mr. Benjamin Church, of Little Compton, the neck was occupied and Philip withdrew from Mount Hope to a swamp at Pocasset, where he successfully defended himself and drove back the soldiers, and later, hard pressed, escaped toward the Nipmucks in Worcester county.
During the summer and autuom the Indians hung about the Massachusetts and Connecticut settlements with brand and tomahawk. No further doubt existing that the Narragansetts were in alliance with Philip, the commissioners of the United Colonies declared war against them in November and in Decem- ber marched an army of fifteen hundred to two thousand men to their reduction. The Indians' force at the beginning of the war has been estimated by the highest authorities at ten thou- sand warriors ; of these the Narragansetts alone had two thou- sand, those of the Plymouth country at least four thousand.
But perhaps because of the precipitancy of the war the scheme of Philip to the westward seems to have failed. The Long Island Indians, none of whom were warlike tribes, and always held well in hand by the governor of the New York province, were early disarmed and their canoes secured, while an armed sloop patrolled the sound to prevent the crossing of the ill disposed. Watches were kept, block houses erected on the coast and heavy guns sent to the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, both of which were under New York authority. Later in October, news reaching New York of an extraordinary confederacy of the Indians and a threatened at- tack on Hartford of from five to six thousand and of disturb- ance at the Navesinks, the same stringent rules were applied in the vicinity of New York and all the canoes in the sound east of Hell Gate were ordered into the block house. A few days later proclamations were sent out commanding the erection
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and fortification of a block or palisadoed house in every town or village in the province. The sale of powder at Albany to the Indians was prohibited by an order of council. In Mary- land the Susquehannas rose. Fortunately for the New England colonies the great Mohawk confederacy stood aloof and the river Indians, of whom the chief were the Mohegans, who ocen- pied the eastern border between the Hudson and the Connec- ticut colony, were controlled by Uncas, their sachem, a revolted Pequot and a faithful ally of his English neighbors. The ex- tent of the alarm is itself proof of the genins of Philip.
On the 18th of December, 1675, the English troops found the Indians with Philip at their head, gathered with their families to the number of three thousand on a piece of npland or high ground three or four acres in extent, in the midst of a difficult swamp in what is now South Kingstown, about seven miles nearly due west from Narragansett south ferry. The Narragan- setts had surrounded his camp with pallisades and a heavy abattis of inclined trees. They were thoroughly provisioned and well armed. And here it may be stated that the Indians were now well used to firearms, though owing to the disarma- ment to which Philip had been forced to submit, the supply of muskets, powder and ball was small. Not until their territory was invaded did the Narragansetts forget their old league of friendship with the Rhode Island colony, and the English array was almost at their wigwams before they fell upon the isolated garrisons of the whites.
The first overt act of the war was the surprise of Bull's garri- son at South Kingstown about the 15th of December. On the 18th, the weather being intensely cold, the English army marched through heavy snow to the assault of the fortified enclosure. Besides the enlisted quotas of Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut, one thousand men, including a troop of horse, there marched one hundred and fifty Indians, Mohegans of the tribe ruled by Uncas, and the remains of the broken Pequots, eager for revenge on the destroyers of their race. With the volunteers who joined the marching body in the Rhode Island colony the number could not have been less than fifteen hundred men. No records show how many men the councils of war in the Rhode Island towns mustered for this engagement, nor yet if there were any regularly enlisted. Indeed, but for the recent massacres of the outlying garrisons,
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it is questionable whether any of her people would have volun- teered for the fray. They were commanded by General Josiah Winslow, with whom rode, as an aid and counsellor, Captain Ben- jamin Church, who was already well known for his knowledge of Indian character and ways, and who now showed not only great personal courage, but high military qualities, prudence, judgment and foresight, which won for him his indisputable place in history as the foremost Indian fighter of his day.
Arriving before the narrow entrance to the enclosure, which was flanked by a block house, early in the afternoon, the Eng- lish sought in vain to force the passage or climb over the sharp breastworks. For three hours the carnage raged, at one time the assailants being driven from the assault. At last an en- trance was effected in the rear by the reserve guard. The Indians, out of powder and ball, had but their bows and arrows with which to resist this double attack. The wigwams were fired and the enclosure blazed with the flames of five hundred dwellings. Night closed the dreadful scene. In this, the most deadly bat- tle in the history of New England, the Indians lost in killed, wounded and prisoners not less than one thousand, of whom one-third perished in the flames and as many more in the fight.
To the English the victory was at a heavy cost. How many were slain, how many wounded, how many perished in the show on the return is not now known. The estimates vary from two to four hundred. But among these were a large number of the officers that led the assault. Six of the captains fell in the first attempt to force the entrance. Church himself was badly wounded. From motives of policy, as well as humanity, he had opposed the firing of the wigwams. Owing to this error the victors and the vanquished alike suffered. One half of the losses of the English are ascribed to the want of shelter for the wounded on the night of the battle, and in the forced march homeward in the cold and snow of the December night. No positive evidence has come down as to the presence of Philip at this fight. That there were Wampanoags of his adherents among the Narragansetts is certain from the refusal of Canon- chet, the Narragansett chief, to the demands of the English in November, but according to Church's recital Philip himself was at this time on the Hoosac river, engaged in an attempt to enlist the Mohawks in the general cause.
Andros, governor of New York, writing to the governor of
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Maryland a few days before the swamp fight, says that, " bas- ing their action on their means in the Plymouth and Massa- chusetts colonies, the eastern Indians were endeavoring by all means of command and profit to engage the Maquas (Mohawks) and sent to all other parts, as far as Canada." All accounts agree that Philip failed in these negotiations, and some assert that he was driven from the Hoosac by a descent of their war- riors. However this may be, he is found in the spring with the Narragansetts. They had then made their winter quarters in a " rocky swamp," about twenty miles to the northward of Wick- ford, where the English troops went into garrison. The winter, rude in the beginning, was unusually mild in January. The troops, re-inforced, dislodged the Indians from their new po- sition, pursued their broken organization, and were then dis- banded.
The war was by no means over, the hostile tribes gathering in the spring in the Nipmuck country, in the rear of Wachuset hills, in the neighborhood of Worcester, where it is supposed that Philip joined them. The upper towns of Rhode Island colony, trembling not only for safety, but for life, besought aid of the general assembly. This body convened on the 13th of March, 1676, at Newport, to consider the hazardous situation, replied by letters to the appeals of Providence and Warwick that the colony was not "of ability to maintain sufficient gar- risons for the security of the ont-plantations," and advised the inhabitants to come into the island, which was most seenre. The Newport and Portsmouth inhabitants had taken care, they said, that land should be provided by the towns for those to plant who could not otherwise find land, and pasturage for a cow would be given to each family ; and they warned those that stayed out with their cattle, provisions and ammunition that it was at their own hazard and to the probable advantage of the enemy. On the same day, to further enforce the orders of the council of war on the island, they directed that every Indian from twelve years old and upward in the custody of the inhab- itants should be secured, a keeper attending him by day and securely locking him up at night, under heavy forfeitnre This order was published in the towns of Newport and Portsmouth by beat of drumn.
To temper this rigor the assembly voted that " noe Indian in this colony be a slave, but only to pay their debts or for their
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bringing up or custody they have received or to perform cove- nant as if they had been countrymen not in war." How many Indians there were on the island at this time is not known, the census taken in separate lists of English, Negroes and Indians in April, as also the provision of corn, guns, powder, shot and lead, having disappeared from the archives, nor is there author- ity for even an approximate estimate.
The fears of the petitioners on the mainland were immediately realized. Warwick was sacked and burned, only one house, and that of stone, escaping. On the other hand, only one of the inhabitants was slain. Providence was deserted. The town records give the names of thirty men only "That stayed and went not away." The venerable Roger Williams, the father of the colony, now seventy-seven years of age, was the captain of the train band. It is related that when the Indians approached the town he went out alone to meet and admonish them. " Massachusetts," said he, so runs the tradition, "can raise thousands of men at this moment, and if you kill them the King of England will supply their places as fast as they fall." " Well, let them come," was the reply, "We are ready for them. But as for you, Brother Williams, you are a good man; you have been kind to us many years ; not a hair of your head shall be touched." The town was assaulted on the 29th or 30th of March. Some fifty-four houses at the north end were burned. There is no record of any killing of persons. Certain it is that Roger Williams was not harmed.
In April, the assembly, at an adjourned meeting, held on the first Tuesday, organized a service of boats for defense of the waters of the bay ; four boats, with five or six men in each, well furnished, one-third of the men to be of Portsmouth if thonght best. The persons charged with the ordering and em- ploy of these were : Mr. John Easton, deputy governor, Mr. Walter Clarke, Captain John Cranston, Mr. John Coggeshall and Mr. Caleb Carr for Newport ; Captain John Albro, Mr. Robert Hodgson and Mr. Robert Hazard for Portsmouth. Power was given them to increase or diminish the number of boats, as they found cause. This is the first mention of a naval force on the records. It appears from other sources that it con- sisted of sloops, and that the colony had sent out several sloops well manned in June of the previous year. It is claimed by Mr. Arnold, the historian of the state, that it is the first instance
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in the history of the colonies when a naval armament was relied on for defense. "It was," he says, "the germ for a future Rhode Island squadron a century later, and for an ultimate American navy."
It was further voted that a barrel of powder be supplied to Portsmouth, and the two great guns lying in the yard of the late deceased Mr. William Brenton be pressed for the country's ser- vice and carried to Portsmouth, and placed one in the ferry neck, the other at or near the house of Mr. John Borden. The pow- der and guns were entrusted to Captain John Albro, Mr. Robert Hazard. Lient. William Correy and John Sanford, who were empowered at the charge of the conntry to cause the guns to be set on carriages and fitted for service, and to appoint for the care and ordering of each. And further the company and council of the most judicious was invited at their next sitting of the assembly, which was adjourned to meet again the next Tuesday, the 11th inst., at Henry Palmer's house in Newport.
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