The earliest contacts
between the Wampanoag and Europeans occurred during the
1500s as fishing and trading vessels roamed the New England
coast. Judging from the Wampanoag's later attitude towards
the Pilgrims, most of these encounters were friendly. Some,
however, were not. European captains were known to increase
profits by capturing natives to sell as slaves. Such was the
case when Thomas Hunt kidnapped several Wampanoag in 1614
and later sold them in Spain. One of his victims - a Patuxet
named Squanto (Tisquantum) - was purchased by Spanish monks
who attempted to "civilize" him. Eventually gaining his
freedom, Squanto was able to work his way to England
(apparently undeterred by his recent experience with Captain
Hunt) and signed on as an interpreter for a British
expedition to Newfoundland. From there Squanto went back to
Massachusetts, only to discover that, in his absence,
epidemics had killed everyone in his village. As the last
Patuxet, he remained with the other Wampanoag as a kind of
ghost.
To Squanto's tragic
story must be added a second series of unlikely events.
Living in Holland at the time was a small group of English
religious dissenters who, because of persecution, had been
forced to leave England. Concerned their children were
becoming too Dutch and the possibility of a war between
Holland and Spain, but still unwelcome in England, these
gentle people decided to immigrate to the New World. The
Virginia Company agreed to transport them to the mouth of
the Hudson River, took their money, and loaded them on two
ships (Speedwell and Mayflower) with other English
immigrants not of their faith. The little fleet set sail in
July only to have the Speedwell spring a leak 300 miles out
to sea. Accompanied by the Mayflower, it barely made it back
to Plymouth without sinking. Repairs failed to fix the
problem, so in September everyone was crammed aboard the
Mayflower, and the whole mess sent merrily on its seasick
way to the New World.
Landfall occurred near
Cape Cod after 65 days and a very rough passage, but
strangely enough, the Mayflower's captain, who had managed
to cross the Atlantic during hurricane season, suddenly was
unable to sail around some shoals and take them farther
south. This forced the Pilgrims to find a place to settle in
Massachusetts and try to survive a New England winter with
few supplies. For the Virginia Company, there was no
problem, since in 1620, Great Britain claimed the boundary
of Virginia reached as far north as the present border
between Maine and New Brunswick. So the Pilgrims were still
in Virginia (although perhaps a little farther north than
originally promised), but remembering Britain's concern at
the time about French settlement in Nova Scotia, the
misplacement of the Pilgrims to New England may not have
been entirely an accident.
Skipping past the
signing of the Mayflower Compact, the first concerns of the
new arrivals were finding something to eat and a place to
settle. After anchoring off Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, a
small party was sent ashore to explore. Pilgrims in every
sense of the word, they promptly stumbled into a Nauset
graveyard where they found baskets of corn which had been
left as gifts for the deceased. The gathering of this
unexpected bounty was interrupted by the angry Nauset
warriors, and the hapless Pilgrims beat a hasty retreat back
to their boat with little to show for their efforts. Shaken
but undaunted by their welcome to the New World, the
Pilgrims continued across Cape Cod Bay and decided to
settle, of all places, at the site of the now-deserted
Wampanoag village of Patuxet. There they sat for the next
few months in crude shelters - cold, sick and slowly
starving to death. Half did not survive that terrible first
winter. The Wampanoag were aware of the English but chose to
avoid contact them for the time being.
In keeping with
the strange sequence of unlikely events, Samoset, a Pemaquid
(Abenaki)
sachem from Maine hunting in Massachusetts, came across the
growing disaster at Plymouth. Having acquired some English
from contact with English fishermen and the short-lived
colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River in 1607, he walked
into Plymouth in March and startled the Pilgrims with "Hello
Englishmen." Samoset stayed the night surveying the
situation and left the next morning. He soon returned with
Squanto. Until he succumbed to sickness and joined his
people in 1622, Squanto devoted himself to helping the
Pilgrims who were now living at the site of his old village.
Whatever his motivations, with great kindness and patience,
he taught the English the skills they needed to survive, and
in so doing, assured the destruction of his own people.
Although Samoset
appears to have been more important in establishing the
initial relations, Squanto also served as an intermediary
between the Pilgrims and Massasoit, the Grand sachem of the
Wampanoag (actual name Woosamaquin or "Yellow Feather"). For
the Wampanoag, the ten years previous to the arrival of the
Pilgrims had been the worst of times beyond all imagination.
Micmac war parties had swept down from the north after they
had defeated the Penobscot during the Tarrateen War
(1607-15), while at the same time the Pequot had invaded
southern New England from the northwest and occupied eastern
Connecticut. By far the worst event had been the three
epidemics which killed 75% of the Wampanoag. In the
aftermath of this disaster, the Narragansett, who had
suffered relatively little because of their isolated
villages on the islands of Narragansett Bay, had emerged as
the most powerful tribe in the area and forced the weakened
Wampanoag to pay them tribute.
Massasoit, therefore,
had good reason to hope the English could benefit his people
and help them end Narragansett domination. In March (1621)
Massasoit, accompanied by Samoset,
visited Plymouth and
signed a treaty of friendship with the English giving them
permission of occupy the approximately 12,000 acres of what
was to become the Plymouth plantation.
However, it is very
doubtful Massasoit fully understood the distinction between
the European concept of owning land versus the native idea
of sharing it. For the moment, this was unimportant since so
many of his people had died during the epidemics that New
England was half-deserted. Besides, it must have been
difficult for the Wampanoag to imagine how any people so
inept could ever be a danger to them. The friendship and
cooperation continued, and the Pilgrims were grateful enough
that fall to invite Massasoit to celebrate their first
harvest with them (The First Thanksgiving). Massasoit and 90
of his men brought five deer, and the feasting lasted for
three days. The celebration was a little premature. During
the winter of 1622, a second ship arrived unexpectedly from
England, and with 40 new mouths to feed, the Pilgrims were
once again starving. Forgiving the unfortunate incident in
the graveyard the previous year, the Nauset sachem Aspinet
brought food to Plymouth.
Massasoit
To the
Narragansett all of this friendship between the Wampanoag
and English had the appearance of a military alliance
directed against them, and in 1621 they sent a challenge of
arrows wrapped in a snakeskin to Plymouth. Although they
could barely feed themselves and were too few for any war,
the English replaced the arrows with gunpowder and returned
it. While the Narragansett pondered the meaning of this
strange response, they were attacked by the Pequot, and
Plymouth narrowly avoided another disaster. The war with the
Pequot no sooner ended than the Narragansett were fighting
the Mohawk. By the time this ended, Plymouth was firmly
established. Meanwhile, the relationship between the
Wampanoag and English grew stronger. When Massasoit became
dangerously ill during the winter of 1623, he was nursed
back to health by the English. By 1632 the Narragansett were
finally free to reassert their authority over the Wampanoag.
Massasoit's village at Montaup (Sowam) was attacked, but
when the colonists supported the Wampanoag, the
Narragansett
finally were forced to abandon the effort.
After 1630 the
original 102 English colonists who founded Plymouth (less
than half were actually Pilgrims) were absorbed by the
massive migration of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony near Boston. Barely tolerant of other Christians, the
militant Puritans were soldiers and merchants whose basic
attitude towards Native Americans was not one of friendship
and cooperation. Under this new leadership, the English
expanded west into the Connecticut River Valley and during
1637 destroyed the powerful Pequot confederacy which opposed
them. Afterwards they entered into an alliance with the
Mohegan upsetting the balance of power. By 1643 the Mohegan
had defeated the Narragansett in a war, and with the full
support of Massachusetts, emerged as the dominant tribe in
southern New England. With the French in Canada focused to
the west on the fur trade from the Great Lakes, only the
alliance of the Dutch and Mohawk in New York stood in their
way.
Boston traders had
tried unsuccessfully to lure the Mohawk away from the Dutch
in 1640 by selling firearms, but the Dutch had countered
with their own weapons and in the process dramatically
escalated the level of violence in the Beaver Wars which
were raging along the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. The
barrier fell when the English captured New York from the
Dutch in 1664 and signed their own treaty with the Mohawk.
Between 1640 to 1675 new waves of settlers arrived in New
England and pushed west into native lands. While the
Pilgrims usually had paid or asked permission, the Puritans
were inclined to take. There was an especially large amount
of immigration after 1660 when the Restoration ended the
military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, and Puritans were
in extreme disfavor with the new English monarchy of Charles
II. At the same time there had been a fundamental change in
New England's economy. After the Mohawk treaty, many of the
Boston fur traders left New England and moved west to Albany
near the Iroquois. No longer restrained by the possibility
of war with the English, the Iroquois fell on the Algonquin
in western New England and began driving them east at the
same time English settlement was rapidly swallowing lands in
the east.
By 1665 Native
Americans in southern New England were simply in the way.
The English no longer needed their wilderness skills to
survive, and fishing and other commerce had largely replaced
the fur and wampum trade which had been the mainstays of the
colonial economy during the early years. While there was
nothing to equal the devastation of 1614-20, the native
population had continued to decline from continuing
epidemics: 1633, 1635, 1654, 1661 and 1667. The Puritans'
"humane" solution to this after 1640 was the missionary work
of John Eliot and others to convert the native population.
How "humane" these efforts actually were is a matter of
opinion. Converts were settled in small communities of
"Praying Indians" at Natick, Nonantum, Punkapog, and other
locations. Natives even partially resistant to the Puritan
version of Christianity were unwelcome. Attendance at church
was mandatory, clothing and hair changed to proper colonial
styles, and even a hint of traditional ceremony and religion
was grounds for expulsion. Tribal culture and authority
disintegrated in the process.
Even Massasoit fell in
with the adoption of English customs and before his death in
1661, petitioned the General Court at Plymouth to give
English names to his two sons. The eldest Wamsutta was
renamed Alexander, and his younger brother Metacomet became
Philip. Married to Queen Weetamoo of Pocasset, Alexander
became grand sachem of the Wampanoag upon the death of his
father. The English were not pleased with his independent
attitude, and invited him to Plymouth for "talks." After
eating a meal in Duxbury, Alexander became violently ill and
died. The Wampanoag were told he died of a fever, but the
records from the Plymouth Council at the time make note of
an expense for poison "to rid ourselves of a pest." The
following year Metacomet (Wewesawanit) succeeded his
murdered brother as grand sachem of the Wampanoag eventually
becoming known to the English as King Philip.
Philip does not appear
to have been a man of hate, but under his leadership, the
Wampanoag attitude towards the colonists underwent a drastic
change. Realizing that the English would not stop until they
had taken everything, Philip was determined to prevent
further expansion of English settlement, but this was
impossible for the Wampanoag by themselves since they were
down to only 1,000 people by this time. Travelling from his
village at Mount Hope, Philip began to slowly enlist other
tribes for this purpose. Even then it was a daunting task,
since the colonists in New England by this time outnumbered
the natives better than two to one (35,000 versus 15,000).
Philip made little attempt to disguise his purpose, and
through a network of spies (Praying Indians), the English
knew what he was doing. Summoned to Taunton in 1671, Philip
listened to accusations and signed an agreement to give up
the Wampanoag's firearms. However, he did not stay around
for dinner afterwards, and the guns were never surrendered.
As English
encroachment continued, Philip eventually won promises of
support from the Nipmuc, Pocumtuc and Narragansett. Because
the Narragansett needed time to build a supply of ammunition
and guns, it appears the uprising was planned for the spring
of 1676. Meanwhile, the English saw what was coming, and the
tension was becoming unbearable. In January, 1675 the body
of John Sassamon, a Christian Indian informer, was
discovered in the ice of Assowampset Pond. Three Wampanoag
warriors were arrested, tried for the murder, and hanged.
After this provocation, Philip could no longer restrain his
warriors, and amid rumors the English intended to arrest
him, Philip held a council of war at Mount Hope. He could
count on the support of most of the Wampanoag except for
those on the off-shore islands. For similar reasons, the
Nauset on Cape Cod would also remain neutral, but most
Nipmuc
and Pocumtuc were ready for war along with some of the
Pennacook and Abenaki. The Narragansett, however, had not
completed preparations and had been forced to sign a treaty
with the English.
In late June a
Wampanoag was killed near the English settlement at Swansea,
and the King Philip's War (1675-76) began. The Wampanoag
attacked Swansea and ambushed an English relief column.
Other raids struck near Taunton, Tiverton, and Dartmouth.
Despite being forewarned and their advantage in numbers, the
English were in serious trouble. Well-armed with firearms
(some French, but many acquired through trade with the
English themselves), the Wampanoag and their allies even had
their own forges and gunsmiths. Drawing from virtually every
tribe in New England, Philip commanded more than 1,000
warriors, and even the tribes who chose to remain neutral
were often willing to provide food and shelter. Only the
Mohegan under Oneko (Uncas' son) remained loyal to the
English. Particularly disturbing to the colonists was the
defection of most of the "Praying Indians." When Puritan
missionaries attempted to gather their converts, only 500
could be found. The others had either taken to the woods or
joined Philip. Their loyalty still suspect, the Praying
Indians who remained were sent to the islands of Boston
Harbor and other "plantations of confinement."
The English assembled
an army at Plymouth in July and marched on Philip's village
at Mount Hope (near Bristol, Rhode Island) burning every
Wampanoag village enroute. They trapped the Wampanoag in a
swamp on Pocasset Neck, but they managed to evacuate their
women and children by canoe across the bay to the Pocasset
of Queen Weetamoo (Alexander's widow). Philip and his
warriors then slipped away leaving the English besieging an
empty swamp! Leaving his women and children under the care
of the still-neutral Narragansett, Philip moved west into
the Nipmuc country of central Massachusetts. Although
English accounts usually credit Philip as being present at
almost every battle in the war, this would have been
physically impossible. Philip provided political leadership,
while others like Anawon, Tuspaquin, Sagamore Sam (Nipmuc),
and Sancumachu (Pocumtuc) led the actual attacks. From
Philip's new location in the west, the war then resumed at
an even more furious pace than before. The Nipmuc raided
Brookfield and Worcester and then combined with the Pocumtuc
to attack settlements in the Connecticut River Valley. After
a raid at Northfield, a relief force under Captain Beers was
ambushed south of town and more than half killed. Three
survivors were captured and burned at the stake. In
September Deerfield and Hadley were attacked forcing the
colonists to abandon their homes and fort-up together in
Deerfield. Facing a winter without food, 80 soldiers under
Captain Thomas Lothrop were dispatched with 18 teamsters to
gather the abandoned crops near Hadley. All went well until
the return journey, when the expedition was ambushed by the
700 Pocumtuc at Bloody Brook south of Deerfield. Another
English force with 60 Mohegan warriors arrived too late and
found only seven survivors.
Having dealt with the
northern settlements on the Connecticut River, Philip's
warriors began to work south attacking Hatfield,
Springfield, Westfield, and Northampton (three separate
times). Even with the help of the Mohegan, the English in
western Massachusetts were hard-pressed, and by late fall,
they were on the defensive and confined to a handful of
forts. By this time Philip felt confident enough to return
to the Narragansett in Rhode Island and collect his women
and children. Travelling west to the Connecticut River, he
moved north to the vicinity of Deerfield and then west into
the Berkshire Mountains where he established his winter
quarters just across the border from Massachusetts at
Hoosick, New York. Gaining new recruits from among the
Sokoki (and even a few Mahican and Mohawk), the population
of Philip's village at Hoosick grew to more than 2,000, and
the winter of 1675-76 was a long, terrible battle with
hunger.
For obvious reasons,
the English considered neutral tribes who helped the
Wampanoag as enemies, but their efforts to stop this widened
the war. At the outbreak of the fighting, the Narragansett
had gathered themselves in single large fort in a swamp near
Kingston, Rhode Island. Although it appeared they were on
the verge of annulling their treaty with the English and
entering the war on the side of Philip, the only thing they
had been guilty of during the first six months of the
conflict was providing shelter for Wampanoag women,
children, and other non-combatants. In December of 1675,
Governor Josiah Winslow of Plymouth led a 1,000 man army
with 150 Mohegan scouts against the Narragansett. The
English demanded the Narragansett surrender of any Wampanoag
who remained and join them against Philip. When this was
refused, the English attacked. Known as the Great Swamp
Fight (December 19, 1675), the battle almost destroyed the
Narragansett. In all they lost more than 600 warriors and at
least 20 of their sachems, but the English also lost heavily
to and was in no condition to pursue the Narragansett who
escaped. Led by their sachem, Canonchet, many of the
survivors joined Philip at Hoosick.
Philip in the meantime
had attempted to bring the Mohawk into the war against New
England. New York's governor Edmund Andros was a royal
appointee with little love for the Puritans in Massachusetts
and at first kept his colony neutral. This changed when he
learned of Philip's efforts to enlist the Iroquois. From
long experience, the Iroquois were not comfortable with the
presence of a large group of heavily-armed Algonquin on
their borders (they had been at war with them for more than
a century), and after several Mohawk were killed near
Hoosick under questionable circumstances, refused Philip's
request. Encouraged by Governor Andros, the Mohawk became
hostile and forced Philip to leave New York. He relocated
east to Squawkeag in the Connecticut Valley near the border
of Massachusetts and Vermont. Philip did not wait for warmer
weather to resume the war. In February he launched a new
series of raids throughout New England using his most
effective weapon ...fire. Victims included: Lancaster,
Medfield, Weymouth, Groton, Warwick (Rhode Island),
Marlborough, Rehoboth, Plymouth, Chelmsford, Andover,
Sudbury, Brookfield, Scituate, Bridgewater, and Namasket.
As English soldiers
rushed about trying to cope, they fell victim to ambushes.
In March Canonchet and the Narragansett almost wiped out one
command (60 killed), and in another fight shortly afterwards
killed 70 more. With these successes Philip was able to
gather a large number of warriors at Squawkeag, but he was
unable to feed them. Although he was able to raid the
English with impunity and fend off the Mohawk, Philip
desperately needed to clear English settlement from the area
so his people could plant corn and feed themselves. For this
reason, the Narragansett and Pocumtuc joined forces in
attacks on Northfield and Deerfield during the spring of
1676. Both raids were ultimately repulsed with heavy losses.
Meanwhile, Philip's followers needed seed corn for spring
planting. Canonchet volunteered in April for the dangerous
task of returning to Rhode Island where the Narragansett had
a secret cache. He succeeded, but on the return journey was
captured and executed by the Mohegan.
Canonchet's
death seemed to dishearten Philip and marked the turning
point of the war. Philip moved his headquarters to Mount
Wachusett, but the English had finally begun to utilize
Praying Indians as scouts and became more effective. In May
Captain William Turner attacked a fishing camp at Turner's
Falls killing over 400 (including the Pocumtuc sachem
Sancumachu). Before forced to retreat by superior numbers,
the English also killed several gunsmiths and destroyed
Philip's forges. Turner lost 43 men on his retreat to
Hatfield , but the damage had been done. Philip's
confederacy began to break up, and it was everyone for
himself. Some Nipmuc and Pocumtuc accepted an offer of
sanctuary by New York and settled with the
Mahican
at Schaghticook. Others joined forces with the Sokoki
(western Abenaki) and moved north to Cowasuck, Missisquoi,
and Odanak (St. Francois) in Quebec. Philip and the
Wampanoag, however, chose to return to their homeland in
southeast Massachusetts.
Throughout the summer
the Wampanoag were hunted down by Captain Benjamin Church's
rangers and Praying Indian scouts. Philip went into hiding
near Mount Hope, but Queen Awashonks of the Sakonett
surrendered and switched sides. On August 1st Philip escaped
during an attack on his village, but the English captured
his wife and son who were sent as prisoners to Martha's
Vineyard. Five days later, the Pocasset were caught near
Taunton, and Weetamoo (Alexander's widow) drowned while
trying to escape. The English cut off her head and put it on
display in Taunton. Philip and Anawon remained in hiding in
the swamp near Mount Hope until betrayed by an informer,
John Alderman. Guided by Alderman, Benjamin Church's rangers
surrounded Philip on August 12th. Alderman shot and killed
Philip (for which he was given one of Philip's hands as a
trophy). Philip's corpse was beheaded and quartered. His
head was displayed on a pole at Plymouth for 25 years.
Anawon was captured on August 28th and later killed by a
mob, and Tuspaquin was executed by firing squad after he
surrendered. Philip's wife and son were reportedly sold as
slaves to the West Indies, but it appears they were instead
exiled from Massachusetts and joined the Sokoki at Odanak.
The war should have
ended with Philip's death, but peace treaties were not
signed for another two years. Meanwhile, the English
continued to hunt down Philip's allies and those who had
helped them. An expedition under Captain Richard Waldon
attacked the Nashua in the midst of peace negotiations
during 1676 killing 200. The prisoners were sold as slaves.
Samuel Mosely followed this with an unprovoked attack on the
neutral Pennacook. Other expeditions against the
Androscoggin and Ossipee finally drew the Kennebec and
Penobscot of the eastern Abenaki into the war. In November,
1676 an English army attacked Squawkeag and destroyed the
corn needed for the coming winter. The Sokoki withdrew north
to the protection of the French in Canada, but the English
had provoked the Abenaki and Sokoki into at least 50 years
of hostility.
With Philip and most
of their leaders dead, the Wampanoag were nearly
exterminated. Only 400 survived the war. The Narragansett
and Nipmuc had similar losses, and although small bands
continued to live along the Connecticut River until the
1800s, the Pocumtuc disappeared as an organized group. For
the English, the war was also costly: 600 killed and more
than half of 90 settlements attacked with 13 destroyed.
Edward Randolph, an agent of the crown, estimated 3,000
natives were killed, but his estimate appears to have been
very conservative. From a pre-war native population in
southern New England of 15,000, only 4,000 were left in
1680, and the harsh peace terms imposed by the English
placed them in total subjugation. In what has been called
the Great Dispersal, the Algonquins in southern New England
fled either to the Sokoki and French in Canada, or west to
the Delaware and Iroquois.
Except for the
villages on the off-shore islands which had remained
neutral, the surviving mainland Wampanoag after the war were
relocated with the Sakonnet or mixed with the Nauset in
Praying Villages in western Barnstable County. The Wampanoag
community on Martha's Vineyard has persisted to the present
day, although the one on Nantucket was destroyed by an
unknown epidemic in 1763. The mainland Wampanoag became
increasingly concentrated near Mashpee, but Massachusetts
withdrew recognition during the 1800s. Without benefit of a
treaty with the United States, only the Wampanoag at Gay
Head have been able to gain federal recognition. ( 2008,
Retrieved on May 14, 2008 from http://
www.wampanoag.com/)
Ohio Mayflower
Descendants
