Daniel Gookin, the Praying Indians, and King Philip’s War: A Short History in Documents 2019029740, 2019029741, 9781138745315, 9781138745322, 9781315159690

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
PART I: General Introduction
Daniel Gookin and His Advocacy of Praying Indians
During King Philip’s War
PART II: Central Primary Source Document
Daniel Gookin, An Historical Account of the Doings and
Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the
Years 1675, 1676, 1677
PART III: Ancillary Primary Source Documents
A. Superintendent of the Praying Indians
The Irish Connection: Vincent Gookin Condemns Plan to
“Transplant” Irish to Connaught, 1655
Daniel Gookin Questions Praying Indian Sarah Ahaton on
Her Adultery
Gookin Expresses Outrage over a Rumor That He Was Inciting
Indians to Violence: Correspondence between Daniel Gookin and Thomas
Prence/Prince, 1671
B. War and Internal Conflict
The Reverend John Eliot Petitions against the Selling of Indian
Captives as Slaves
The View from Providence: Excerpts from the Letter of Mary
Pray to Captain James Oliver, October 20, 1675
Job Kattenanit Humbly Petitions for Permission to Rescue
His Children
The Spy Mission: James Quannapohit’s “Relation”
Death Threat against Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth
Richard Scott Assails Gookin’s Character at the Blue Anchor
Tavern
William Harris, Refugee in Newport, Writes to English Secretary of
State Sir Joseph Williamson
C. Scant Mercy
William Wannuckhow and Sons Petition for Their Lives
John Lake Requests a Stay of Sagamore Sam’s Execution in Exchange
for Help Finding His Brother
Daniel Gookin Certifies the Courage of Two Praying Indian Men
Wishing to Free Their Captured Niece from Prison, August 1676
William Ahaton Pleads for the Freedom of a Five-Year Old Relative, July,
1676
Daniel Gookin Certifies That Mary Nemasit, Wife of a Praying Indian
Soldier, Was Sold by Mistake
Gookin Helps a Natick Woman Get Compensation for a
Confiscated Gun
Wait Winthrop and Wamesit Land, 1679–80
Index

Citation preview

DANIEL GOOKIN, THE PRAYING INDIANS, AND KING PHILIP’S WAR

This volume presents a valuable collection of annotated primary documents published during King Philip’s War (1675–76), a conflict that pitted English colonists against many native peoples of southern New England, to reveal the real-life experiences of early Americans. Louise Breen’s detailed introduction to Daniel Gookin and the War, combined with interpretations of the accompanying ancillary documents, offers a set of inaccessible or unpublished archival documents that illustrate the distrust and mistreatment heaped upon praying (Christian) Indians. The book begins with an informative annotation of Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England, in the Years 1675, 1675, and 1677, written by Gookin, a magistrate and military leader who defended Massachusetts’ praying Indians, to expose atrocities committed against natives and the experiences of specific individuals and towns during the war. Developments in societal, and particularly religious, inclusivity in Puritan New England during this period of colonial conflict are thoroughly explored through Breen’s analysis. The book offers students primary sources that are pertinent to survey history courses on Early Americans and Colonial History, as well as providing instructors with documents that serve as concrete examples to illustrate broad societal changes that occurred during the seventeenth century. Louise A. Breen is Associate Professor of History at Kansas State University, where she researches and teaches in the fields of colonial, Atlantic, and revolutionary history. She is the author of Transgressing the Bounds: Subversive Enterprises among the Puritan Elite in Massachusetts, 1630–1692.

DANIEL GOOKIN, THE PRAYING INDIANS, AND KING PHILIP’S WAR A Short History in Documents

Louise A. Breen

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Louise A. Breen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Breen, Louise A., author. | Gookin, Daniel, 1612-1687. Historical account of the doings and sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England, in the years 1675, 1676, 1677. Title: Daniel Gookin, the praying Indians, and King Philip's War : a short history in documents / Louise A Breen. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019029740 (print) | LCCN 2019029741 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138745315 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138745322 (paperback) | ISBN 9781315159690 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Gookin, Daniel, 1612-1687. | King Philip's War, 1675-1676–Sources. | Indians of North America–New England– History–17th century. | Indians of North America–New England– Religion. Classification: LCC E83.67 .B793 2020 (print) | LCC E83.67 (ebook) | DDC 973.2/4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029740 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029741 ISBN: 978-1-138-74531-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-74532-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-15969-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

CONTENTS

PART I

General Introduction

1

Daniel Gookin and His Advocacy of Praying Indians During King Philip’s War

3

PART II

Central Primary Source Document

37

Daniel Gookin, An Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the Years 1675, 1676, 1677

39

PART III

Ancillary Primary Source Documents

123

A. Superintendent of the Praying Indians

125

The Irish Connection: Vincent Gookin Condemns Plan to “Transplant” Irish to Connaught, 1655 125 Daniel Gookin Questions Praying Indian Sarah Ahaton on Her Adultery 132

vi

Contents

Gookin Expresses Outrage over a Rumor That He Was Inciting Indians to Violence: Correspondence between Daniel Gookin and Thomas Prence/Prince, 1671 136

B. War and Internal Conflict

140

The Reverend John Eliot Petitions against the Selling of Indian Captives as Slaves 140 The View from Providence: Excerpts from the Letter of Mary Pray to Captain James Oliver, October 20, 1675 142 Job Kattenanit Humbly Petitions for Permission to Rescue His Children 145 The Spy Mission: James Quannapohit’s “Relation” 147 Death Threat against Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth 156 Richard Scott Assails Gookin’s Character at the Blue Anchor Tavern 156 William Harris, Refugee in Newport, Writes to English Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson 158

C. Scant Mercy

172

William Wannuckhow and Sons Petition for Their Lives 172 John Lake Requests a Stay of Sagamore Sam’s Execution in Exchange for Help Finding His Brother 176 Daniel Gookin Certifies the Courage of Two Praying Indian Men Wishing to Free Their Captured Niece from Prison, August 1676 180 William Ahaton Pleads for the Freedom of a Five-Year Old Relative, July, 1676 182 Daniel Gookin Certifies That Mary Nemasit, Wife of a Praying Indian Soldier, Was Sold by Mistake 183 Gookin Helps a Natick Woman Get Compensation for a Confiscated Gun 185 Wait Winthrop and Wamesit Land, 1679–80 186 Index

189

PART I

General Introduction

DANIEL GOOKIN AND HIS ADVOCACY OF PRAYING INDIANS DURING KING PHILIP’S WAR

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings” In the winter of 1675–76, a frantic father, Job Kattenanit, became separated from his three children during the wrenching conflict known as King Philip’s War, which pitted most of southern New England’s native peoples against English colonists. There was evidence to suggest that the children had been taken under duress to an enemy camp. Yet Kattenanit was an Indian, and his struggle to rescue his family elicited little sympathy. Even though he was a devout Puritan who had served valiantly with English militias, his co-religionists believed that his desire to retrieve his children was just a ploy to carry information to the enemy.1 Modern historians would know very little about Job Kattenanit, other than archival gleanings, if it were not for a singularly distinct account of King Philip’s War written in 1677 by Daniel Gookin, a high-ranking Puritan magistrate and militia officer in Massachusetts who served as Superintendent of the praying Indians – the term used for Indians who had converted to Puritan Christianity.2 In the face of increasingly hostile public opinion during the war, Gookin insisted that praying Indians were overwhelmingly loyal, and recommended integrating them into the war effort. He became such a hated figure that a group of irate colonists threatened his life in February 1676, and by May he lost his seat as a magistrate.3 While most accounts of King Philip’s War from this period placed English colonists in a central role, Gookin’s Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England made praying Indians the main protagonists and argued that the colonists would not have been able to win the war without the help of praying Indians.4 The words “doings” and “sufferings” in the title carried great meaning, for Gookin intended to show that the military

4

General Introduction

accomplishments of praying Indian scouts – the “doings” – were worthy of notice and thanks, while their “sufferings” had earned them a place in providential history. This latter point was perhaps the more controversial. Puritan providentialism held that when God punished his people with horrible afflictions, such as war, it was because he wished to push them back onto the right path – not eradicate them. King Philip’s War had a clear religious meaning for the English: God had allowed the “savage” Indians (who were just pawns in this line of thinking) to assail the godly and test their faith so that they would have a chance to reform themselves and be confirmed as a special people of God. Suffering under the “rod” of the enemy conferred an elevated status upon the sufferers; and Gookin attempted to claim this status for praying Indians.5 They too suffered and emerged – as Gookin showed by demonstrating the unwavering faith of Indian Puritans like Job Kattenanit – stronger Christians. His narrative was both a rebuke to the many colonists in Massachusetts who had heaped cruelties upon praying Indians during and after the war, and a plea to the charitable organization in England that funded the missions to disregard such claims and pay attention to their “particular and real” accomplishments. Gookin realized that telling the story of the praying Indians was important because their chance for acceptance and continued support in the postwar world depended on how people perceived their behavior during the hostilities; thus, the praying Indians had “no small share in the effects and consequences of this war.” Gookin wrote against the grain by arguing that in relation to the praying Indians it was the English – not just the “savage” enemy – who acted as a providential rod of affliction. In the dominant storyline, the English were tested when enemy Indians made them suffer by burning their towns, killing and maiming their family members, taking their children captive, destroying their livestock, and taunting them.6 In Gookin’s telling of the providential history of the war, however, Christian Indians, too, had their faith tested – but it was English Puritans who made them suffer. In the pages of Doings and Sufferings, Gookin relates incident after incident in which Englishmen falsely accused praying Indians of crimes, coveted their land, murdered them, imprisoned them, restricted their movements, interned them on barren islands in the harbor, and stole their possessions. And yet, through all this adversity, the majority remained steadfast in their faith and loyalty. Their “doings” helped the English win the war, and their “sufferings” made them a part of Puritan society, at least as far as Gookin was concerned. Most of his contemporaries thought differently. Doings and Sufferings, because of its central argument that praying Indians performed great exploits and suffered crushing agonies every bit as shattering as those endured by any English person, opens a window onto the lived experiences of praying Indians as individual human beings who were put in an impossible position during King Philip’s War, sometimes having to balance their faith and loyalty to the English against their concern for family and

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings”

5

friends who found themselves – or chose to be – in enemy camps.7 Gookin expends great effort throughout the narrative in describing the challenges faced by many specific individuals and groups whom he knew personally after more than a decade of work in praying towns with missionary and clergyman John Eliot. The extended odyssey of Job Kattenanit to find his children despite unremitting persecution stands out in terms of its ability to put a human face on wartime suffering, but the narrative contains many other poignant accounts of Christian Indians who were sorely tested during the war. The Pennacook sachem Wannalancet, for example, retreated as far away as he could from English habitations for fear of getting caught up in the violence, yet his life was upended by its repercussions; meanwhile Wuttasacomponom, or “Captain Tom,” the leader of a Christian Indian town called Hassanamesit, was controversially accused, convicted and executed for joining the enemy as an active fighter. Remarkably, Gookin – who did not believe Captain Tom ever took up arms for the enemy – depicted the choices he had made in a sympathetic light, saying that sometimes Indians faced so much abuse at the hands of the English that the temptation to go over to the “enemy” became too great. Gookin carefully edited his presentation of the history of the individuals, groups or events he covered. As a magistrate who had the role of developing strategy for the fighting of King Philip’s War, Gookin must have understood that the contacts praying Indians had with non-Christian Indians, and their knowledge of indigenous fighting methods, were invaluable. But he also knew that certain audiences would view all contact with warring Indians, or their ways, as tainted.8 Gookin therefore sometimes omitted certain facts or presented them out of sequence, in order to mute or highlight particular details, depending on his anticipation of audience response or his broader purpose in telling a particular story in the first place. While elevating Job Kattenanit as a key exemplar of self-sacrificing steadfastness in the face of adversity, for example, Gookin did not mention that two of his brothers had participated in violent acts against the English. It is important to keep this in mind while reading Doings and Sufferings. While Gookin had to acknowledge that some switched sides during the war, or had relatives who fought against the English, he argued that it was not Indian perfidy but flawed English policies – such as enslaving captured Indians and selling them out of the region – that drove otherwise faithful people into the arms of the enemy.

King Philip’s War King Philip’s War was named for the Wampanoag sachem, Metacom, whose conflict with the Plymouth colony grew to encompass all southern New England. Metacom had been born into a world where native peoples accommodated and traded with their English neighbors, but by the middle of the

6

General Introduction

century, with the fur trade in decline, the English seemed to be reaping all the benefits.9 As the population grew, English householders’ desire for land outweighed their desire for trade with native peoples.10 Increasingly, colonists encroached on Wampanoag lands and allowed their livestock to roam into the unfenced fields of Indians, destroying their crops. When Philip’s people attempted to get involved in raising hogs and selling meat so that they could sustain themselves financially without having to sell land, colonists found ways to keep them out of the market.11 Throughout the 1660s and early 1670s, the English refused to address these issues, and humiliated King Philip by treating him as a subordinate, or subject.12 In the spring of 1675, the English executed several of Philip’s men whom they had found guilty of murdering the Christian Indian John Sassamon, whom the Wampanoags saw as a traitor. In claiming jurisdiction over a crime among Indians, Plymouth had grievously offended Philip, and in June 1675 Wampanoag looters assailed Swansea. Violence ensued when an Englishman shot and killed an Indian doing damage to English property, and matters escalated from there, igniting a war that encompassed all New England and even spread into the Wabanaki lands of modern-day Maine.13 The looting at Swansea was probably spontaneous, but most historians agree that Philip was planning to resist English authority. Although Philip should not be understood as the leader of all the Indians who ended up joining in the hostilities, he did reach out to as many groups as possible to create a coalition.14 The region’s non-Christian Mohegans and Pequots, on the other hand, sided with the English – a phenomenon that Gookin does not address other than to comment on the long-term strife between Mohegans and Narragansetts, implying that Mohegans who participated in the war were interested in getting back at ancient enemies while Christian Indians had higher motives. Interestingly, Uncas, a reliable ally of the English, had categorically refused to convert, resenting – like King Philip – the ways Christian missions undermined his authority as a sachem.15 When violence broke out at Plymouth, colonial leaders in Massachusetts and Connecticut feared that it would spread and sent out teams of negotiators to ensure the loyalty of neighboring native peoples. The excessive proofs of loyalty that these negotiators demanded, however, alienated potential allies and drove many to support Philip, making it difficult for Indians in the region to remain neutral. When the English insisted on the surrender of guns from groups with whom they had had good relations or demanded that they hand over not only fighters but noncombatants seeking safe havens, they demonstrated their distrust of supposed friends, and insulted their hosts.16 Indians, meanwhile, who were acutely aware of the political rifts between the various English colonies, and between those colonies and the Crown, had not thought in terms of “sides” being defined by “race” or ethnicity. The war would teach them differently.17

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings”

7

Daniel Gookin and the Praying Indians The praying Indians were Massachusett, Nipmuc, Pennacook and Pawtucket Indians who had been converted to Christianity, beginning at mid-century, by the “apostle” to the Indians, John Eliot, and settled – with his help – in “praying towns,” where they were supposed to abide by English rather than indigenous cultural norms.18 Indians were willing to entertain missionary overtures for various reasons: they hoped to harness the Englishmen’s God to help them in the epidemics that periodically scourged the land; to solidify their connection to a powerful new ally; to establish stable land tenure; or to engage with and render new spiritual principles relevant to indigenous world views.19 Often, they did not anticipate the cultural changes that they would be expected to make.20 Ethnicity was not supposed to be a barrier to spiritual camaraderie as far as Puritan thought was concerned; quite the opposite. But once King Philip’s War broke out it became obvious that many colonists had begun to see the Indians as a people apart, and to place far more stock in their ethnic, as opposed to religious identity. In this context, Gookin’s outspoken defense of praying Indians made him a pariah. Gookin came from a family with multifaceted transatlantic interests in both Ireland and the Chesapeake.21 He first ventured to Virginia, where he managed land for his colonizing father, Daniel Gookin, Sr., and then established plantations of his own, including one in Maryland. But when the Virginia governor, William Berkeley, expelled preachers that Gookin and other Puritans had invited from New England, Gookin decided to relocate to Massachusetts, though he retained his holdings in Virginia and engaged in the intercolonial coasting trade. As a colonizer of the Chesapeake, Gookin was well accustomed to unfree forms of labor, and owned slaves.22 In the 1650s, Gookin journeyed to England several times to conduct family business during the Protectorate of Oliver Crowell, who had risen to power in England’s Civil War as military dictator. Gookin’s cousin from Ireland, Vincent Gookin, was then serving in Parliament, and published a tract arguing in favor of humane treatment of the Irish Catholics, even in the wake of a violent rebellion they were blamed for having fomented – something that may have influenced Gookin’s stance two decades later during King Philip’s War.23 While in England, Gookin also accepted an assignment to aid the Western Design, Cromwell’s project to drive the Spanish out of the Americas. Gookin’s role was to try and convince New Englanders to migrate and take up lands in Jamaica, which the English seized from the Spanish in 1655. But New Englanders were not eager to pick up stakes and move to a disease-ridden island.24 To critics who chided them for not being more supportive of a project that

8

General Introduction

might spread Christianity to Indians and slaves, New Englanders could point to the proselytizing efforts going on in their own backyard.25 Gookin’s chances for public preferment in England came to an abrupt halt in 1660, when royal government was restored under Charles II. With his options on the wider transatlantic imperial stage curtailed, Gookin officially took up the post of Superintendent in 1661. The post provided him with a small stipend from the Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England (or New England Company), the London-based charitable organization that supported missionary work in the region. The New England Company published literature reporting on the progress of the mission, as well as Eliot’s “Indian Bible,” which the latter translated into an indigenous language with the help of native linguists. The president of the New England Company was Robert Boyle, who saw the conversion of native peoples as a project in which all Protestants could unite in a common cause rather than perpetuate bitter Civil War rivalries. Boyle’s father, Richard Boyle, had been an authority figure to many of the English families colonizing in Ireland, including the Gookins.26 John Eliot saw “civility” as a key component of conversion. Indian converts were expected to live in “praying” towns, where they could create their own gathered congregations and be guided by properly trained indigenous teachers and civil rulers.27 It was Gookin’s job as Superintendent to oversee the praying Indians’ holding of court sessions, and to encourage economic productivity. In 1674, he wrote an unpublished account about the “Indians of New England” in which he provided detailed descriptions of the praying towns he and Eliot visited, and their efforts to install fitting leaders.28

The Narrative Doings and Sufferings is a loosely chronological history of wartime events relating to Massachusetts and the praying Indians. Gookin deliberately chose to exclude from consideration Indians with whom the English maintained a “good correspondency.” These included the non-Christian Mohegans and Pequots, allies of Connecticut, as well as the Christian Indians who lived on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Cape Cod, and Norwich, Connecticut.29 These did not encounter sustained abuse at the hands of colonists, and therefore did not fit into the pattern that Gookin identified in Massachusetts, where colonists turned against the praying Indians and resisted efforts to incorporate them into the colony’s militias. Gookin further subdivided the praying towns into two categories: “old” and “new,” and excluded the latter from consideration. The “old” towns – Natick, Hassanamesit, Okommakamesit, Punkapoag, Magunkaquog, Wamesit, and Nashobah – founded well before the war, were places where Christian practices were well established. The “new” towns in the

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings”

9

Nipmuc country of central Massachusetts – Manchage, Chabanakongkomun, Maanexit, Quantisset, Wabquisset, and Waeuntug – were, in contrast, only just beginning to coalesce as of 1674, when Gookin and Eliot visited them and held meetings to get them organized; they also had hopes for Weshakim and Quabaug. During their 1674 circuit, Gookin and Eliot had appointed as praying town leaders some of the same figures who emerged as enemies to the English in 1675. Matoonas, for example, who led an attack on Mendon on July 14, 1675, was a Christian Indian whom Gookin had designated constable of Pakachoog.30 Gookin wanted to keep old and new praying towns separate in readers’ minds because otherwise they might conclude that praying Indian loyalty was not as unflagging as he said, or that he was not as good a judge of praying Indian character as he insisted. Gookin believed that hatred of the praying Indians must have been part of the providential judgment on New England. God had blinded Massachusetts to the benefits of praying Indian military aid and allowed the people to succumb to their worst impulses, demanding policies that Gookin abhorred – such as the internment of Christian Indians on Deer Island in Boston harbor. Documentation of the cruelties that colonists heaped upon the praying Indians – and the praying Indians’ abiding faith and loyalty in the face of great adversity – comprises the bulk of the narrative, as Gookin shows the terrible progression of events that flowed from the magistrates’ failure to break through their providential blindness and exert control over the “multitude.” Above all, Gookin argued that the war was meant to test all Christians, not just the English, and it could not be won until the Bay Colony accepted praying Indian help. In the beginning of the war, praying Indians, such as the brothers James and Thomas Quannapohit and Zechary Abram, served valiantly at Mount Hope and Pocasset Swamp trying to contain Philip before he could reach out and convince the Nipmucs of central Massachusetts to join him. Tragically, the linguist Job Nesutan (or Nesuton), who helped Eliot with his translation projects, gave his life in these efforts.31 Meanwhile in central Massachusetts, praying Indians Joseph and Sampson Petavit, or Petuhanit, and George Memecho tried to convince Captain Edward Hutchinson to stay away from a parley near Quabaug with a group of Nipmucs who ended up ambushing his party and then besieging the town of Brookfield; it was only by virtue of praying Indian help that the mortally wounded Hutchinson and other Englishmen made it back to Brookfield.32 Gookin explains that in both instances, the English missed critical opportunities because they did not listen to their praying Indian guides. Had they heeded praying Indians who said they should pursue Philip harder, they would have been able to capture him; and had they held back from the parley at Quabaug, they might not have been ambushed. But if the commanders issued statements extolling praying Indian service (even though they did not accept their advice), some militiamen had already begun to denounce the praying

10

General Introduction

Indians, saying they shot high to avoid wounding other Indians or malingered during fights. And when the siege of Brookfield was followed within a few weeks by an attack on Deerfield – orchestrated by the Pocumtucks, who were previously thought to be “friendly” – most colonists became convinced that all Indians had closed ranks against them. William Hubbard, the clergyman who wrote the most popular history of King Philip’s War, portrayed this attack as proof that the region’s Indians were all in league with one another, “hanging together” like “serpent’s eggs,” just waiting to strike.33 In reality, the Pocumtucks likely feared the worst because their neighbors had asked them to surrender their weapons, just as some Nipmucs – including individuals who had taken up roles in “new” praying towns or contemplated it – were concerned about incursions on their land.34 While praying Indians had served well with Massachusetts militias at the very beginning of the war, protests caused magistrates to suspend their use for many months, until the spring and summer of 1676, when praying Indian units began to serve again with the Massachusetts militias under colonial officers. Within this general framework, Gookin’s narrative charts the route by which the English moved closer or farther from accepting the praying Indians as part of their war effort. In the end, even though colonists began seeing the benefits of praying Indian scouts, they did not view them as fellow providential sufferers, or accept them as part of Puritan society.

Okommakamesit/Marlborough: “A Foundation and Beginning of Much Trouble” During the early fall of 1675, Gookin saw a rapid upsurge in the indiscriminate mistrust of native peoples that had begun to show itself during the summer. He protested the proposal – enacted into law by the end of October – that the Christian Indians of Natick should be separated from the English population and moved to Deer Island, pointing out the obligation that colonial leaders had to protect the descendants of Indians who had formally submitted to the Bay Colony several decades earlier, and the responsibilities that the founders had sworn to fulfill in their 1630 charter.35 In his narrative, he presents the forced move as the humanitarian disaster that it was. Still, it was the trial of the Okommakamesit Indians on trumped-up charges of murder that Gookin described as a key “foundation and beginning of much trouble,” because the mistreatment drove some praying Indians to waver in their loyalty to the English. In late August, 1675, residents of Marlborough suspected that Indians from the praying town of Okommakamesit had murdered seven Englishmen reported dead at Lancaster. Distrusting their magistrates, they called for Samuel Moseley – an English captain known for his uncompromisingly brutal treatment of all Indians – to help them deal swiftly and sternly with the supposed

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings”

11

perpetrators.36 Moseley captured a Nipmuc Indian, known as David, who confessed at gunpoint to another crime and, when pressed further, implicated some of the men at Okommakamesit in the Lancaster murders. Moseley then rushed 15 of them, including 11 Christian Indians, down to Boston, where they faced a vigilante crowd, and cries that they should be executed immediately under “martial law” rather than given the jury trial to which they were entitled as English subjects.37 Although the Okommakamesit men received a trial, the court proceedings were grueling and they feared the whole time that a mob would snatch them out of prison and hang them. Gookin, meanwhile, became wildly unpopular, even among fellow magistrates, because he kept pleading the innocence of the praying Indians. Nathaniel Saltonstall, who wrote a series of accounts on the progress of the war for publication in England, described in disgust how Gookin and Eliot both tried to thwart the popular will by pleading “so very hard for the Indians, that the whole Council knew not what to do about them.” Saltonstall could not comprehend why they allowed Gookin in particular to trouble them “daily” with “his Impertinences and multitudinous Speeches.” Saltonstall applauded James Oliver for telling Gookin “that he ought rather to be confined among his Indians, than to sit on the Bench … his taking the Indians Part so much hath made him a Byword both among Men and Boys.” When Gookin later complained that he was “afraid to go along the Streets,” his colleagues told him “you may thank yourself.”38 In Doings and Sufferings, Gookin explains that “many witnesses” demolished in detail every piece of the evidence against the Okommakamesit defendants. One of the men had been seen with a bloody shirt, not because he had been killing Englishmen but because he and others had been out hunting deer; the weapons found in their fort were not being secretly stockpiled in order to attack the English, but had been allocated to them through funding from the New England Company and dispersed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies; and the English pair of bandoliers that one of them possessed was not stolen from a dead Englishmen, but rather had been given by an English commissary to Christian Indian James Quannapohit, while he was out risking his life to fight the common enemy at Mount Hope during the summer. The commissary and James Quannapohit both confirmed this. Another of the accused, James Akompanet, explained that David had pointed the finger at the praying Indians in Marlborough not just because he was afraid for his life, but because he blamed them for having turned over his brother, Andrew, and his nephew to the English a “fortnight” before his own interrogation; as a result, Moseley, using his usual brutal tactics, got them to admit they had a hand in the killing of Hutchinson at Brookfield, resulting in the summary execution of Andrew and the enslavement of the nephew.39 Finally, while the trials were still in session, two hostile Indians were captured and both said that it was the

12

General Introduction

sachem One-Eyed John, or Monoco, who had murdered the Englishmen at Lancaster. Most of the accused Okommakamesit Indians were acquitted – justifiably, and on the basis of copious evidence, Gookin takes pains to emphasize – except for Joseph Spoonhaut, who was tried by a different jury that heard testimony from Samuel Scripture, a Groton soldier who claimed he heard Spoonhaut admit to the crime.40 The proof of the Okommakamesit Indians’ innocence, however, did nothing to extinguish the popular notion that praying Indians were enemies in disguise. And the bad taste that it left in the mouths of praying Indians made some ponder their alternatives, leading to the events that caused Job Kattenanit to become separated from his children.

The Hassanamesit Disaster In November 1675, Indians hostile to the English convinced a substantial number of praying Indians congregated around the praying town of Hassanamesit to return with them to Menemesit, a refuge for Indians at war with the colonists.41 The group of praying Indians, consisting of about 50 unarmed men and 150 women and children, had gone to the fields of Hassanamesit to harvest and store corn, when suddenly they were surrounded by some 300 well-armed combatants who demanded that they go with them “quietly.” The intruders, as Gookin describes the scene, told them that they intended to seize all the corn so that they would end up “famished” if they stayed, while at the same time emphasizing – and this was key for Gookin – English abuses (see also p.78 of this volume): if we do not kill you, and that you go to the English again, they will either force you all to some island … where you will be in danger to be starved with cold and hunger and most probably in the end be all sent out of the country for slaves. (Gookin, Doings and Sufferings, 476.) This argument resonated strongly, Gookin argued, because the Christian Indian community had been traumatized by the “pretended murder” charges, and some who had endured that ordeal were present. The Christian Indian’s leader, Captain Tom, or Wuttasacomponom, a Nipmuc ruler, “yielded” to the enemy Indians’ arguments and “by his example drew most of the rest.” Sampson and Joseph Petavit, who had earlier served the English so well at the ambush near Brookfield, were among those who left Hassanamesit that day – as was James Printer, although Gookin does not mention his name. While some of the praying Indians who made their way to Menemesit with the Englishmen’s foes did so willingly, and even subsequently joined in hostilities against the English, others, Gookin emphasized, did so with “heavy hearts and weeping eyes.” These included Joseph Tuckapawillin, the religious teacher of

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Hassanamesit; the three children of Job Kattenanit; and others of their friends and relatives. In the narrative, Gookin argues that the English were to blame for what happened at Hassanamesit because of the abuse that they had heaped upon praying Indians. Militiamen went so far as to prevent Kattenanit from attempting to rescue his children, even though he was in possession of a pass from Gookin giving him permission to travel; instead, they seized him and sent him to Boston, where he had to be placed in jail for his own safety. The English cause would have benefited from having these faithful allies as “walls” against hostile incursions, but instead they made a “great scandal” of the Christian religion and inflicted “a very deep wound to the work of Gospelizing the Indians.” Miscreant Englishmen, Gookin complained, had harmed the war effort, injured the missionary enterprise, and added to the sins that New England would have to overcome if it were ever to win the war. The story of the trials and tribulations of Job Kattananit and his brother Tuckapawillin, to whom Gookin refers numerous times throughout the narrative, went a far way toward erasing the image of treacherous praying Indians absconding away to join the enemy, and to prove that this cohort was selfless in their dedication to the cause of God and the English. The incident at Hassanamesit bulked large for Gookin because it made his job as magistrate, and later as chronicler, more difficult. In both roles, he had to explain away an act that the English, whether local or transatlantic, would find highly suspicious. As magistrate, he fulminated against any Indian who would entice praying Indian defections – as he believed the Narragansetts had done – by saying the English had “seased [seized] in order to send away their friends at Naticke other places” – a reference to the fear that the English were gathering praying Indians together at Deer Island to sell them abroad as slaves.42 In Doings and Sufferings, he makes clear that while hostile Indians’ arguments had helped to convince Wuttasacomponom and others to leave, there were some, like Tuckapawillin, who resisted. These latter he regarded as captives who should have been helped, in the same way that English colonists tried to redeem their captured relatives. For those who marched away with the enemy from Hassanamesit more willingly – because they saw no good outcome no matter what course they chose to follow – Gookin showed sympathy. He describes them not as betrayers, but as people who had been forced to make a choice that godly Englishmen might also have made if put in the same situation.

Wamesit: “We Have neither Done nor Saide Anything against the English that They Thus Deale on Us” Okommakamesit was not the only praying town to deal with the hostility of English colonists. Wamesit, whose people were closely related to the Pennacook sachem Wannalancet, suffered mightily at the hands of their English

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neighbors in Chelmsford, who used the war as a means of eradicating them. Located near the Merrimack River, the environs of the praying town had always been a gathering point for many different native peoples who traveled there seasonally for fishing. The presence of “strange” Indians frequently in the area may have been a factor in stoking the fears of English colonists.43 In addition, authorities were suspicious of Wannalancet, who had avoided meeting with colonial leaders to discuss his loyalty at the outset of the war and instead traveled north to avoid hostilities.44 For the praying Indians of Wamesit, a series of nightmarish events ensued that left many dead and the lives of survivors shattered. Residents of Chelmsford twice accused praying Indians from Wamesit of destroying property belonging to Lieutenant James Richardson, who adamantly denied that the praying Indians could have done the damage. Boston magistrates acquitted most of the accused Indians, but when Chelmsford townsmen became convinced once again that the Indians of Wamesit were guilty of an act of war against them – burning a barn – they took matters into their own hands. Fourteen Chelmsford men traveled to Wamesit, asked the Christian Indians to come out of their wigwams, and then watched as two of the party opened fire, wounding five people and killing one child. A prominent praying Indian woman, Sarah, the daughter of a sachem and the widow of two successive praying Indian leaders, was wounded in the attack and saw her son gunned down before her eyes.45 John Eliot later quoted to Robert Boyle, the President of the New England Company in London, what he imagined would have been her heartrending reaction to the tragedy: “Lord thou seest that we have neither done nor saide anything against the English that they thus deale on us.”46 After the shooting, the terrified Indians from Wamesit fled the village and refused to return, but harsh conditions and starvation drove them back within several weeks. The magistrates, realizing there could be trouble, assigned a committee, on which Gookin and Eliot both served, to ride up and, as Gookin describes it, “encourage and settle them, and persuade the English at Chelmsford to be more friendly to them” – an astounding choice of words given the circumstances. The formal instructions from the Council directed the committee to find a solution in which “they who are friends to the English may be secured and the English in those parts also secured and as much as may be satisfied with their settlement,” specifying that the Indians should be “kept to labor” and “bee all disarmed.”47 The English residents of Chelmsford were clearly dismayed that the praying Indians were back in Wamesit. They wrote a petition begging the committee to consider the “dangerous conditions that we are in, in reference to our lives and estate” as a result of the “retourne of the Wamasak Indians amongst us.”48 In it, the townsmen hinted, but did not explicitly state, that they wanted the Indians removed.

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Gookin was frustrated that Indian-hating behaviors played straight into the hands of the enemy. The initial burning of Richardson’s haystack, he explains, was proven to have been done by “some skulking Indians of the enemy, that formerly lived about Groton,” whose purpose was to exacerbate ill feelings between Indian and English Puritans (see also p.74 of this volume): And one principal design of the enemy was to begin a difference between the English and praying Indians living at Wamesit, that so they might either be secured by the English [presumably at Deer Island, which would harm the English reputation even more in Indian eyes] or necessitated to fly to the enemy. (Gookin, Doings and Sufferings, 471.) As both magistrate and chronicler, Gookin could only fume at how easily warring Indians could take advantage of the colonists’ bad behavior when trying to get praying Indians to switch sides. Well-meaning as Gookin’s committee may have been, it left Wamesit leaders with no effective tools to protect themselves either from the machinations of enemy Indians or the wrath of their English neighbors. Keenly conscious of Wamesit’s vulnerability, the leaders Numphow, John Line/Lyne, Simon Betogkum, and Sam Numphow prepared a petition of their own, asking that authorities find them a different place to live because enemy Indians did not like them being “well among the English,” and might deliberately damage English property in hopes that the praying Indians would be blamed. “We pray you consider how we may be secured from the Indians now the snow is of[f] the ground and they come when they will to do mischif near to us,” the petition implored, asking that the magistrates provide them some ground where they would have access to “planding and wo[o]d and … food.”49 In his narrative, Gookin explains that the Wamesit guardian, Jerathmeel Bowers, presented this petition on February 5, but it was ignored due to larger events that overshadowed the fate of a small praying town. When the magistrates did not respond, the terrified Indians, under renewed threats from their English neighbors, fled toward Pennacook (Concord, New Hampshire), except for “six or seven aged persons, blind and lame” who were unable to travel. Some “cruel and wicked” Englishmen then decided to murder the old and helpless praying Indians left behind. The praying Indians of Wamesit continued to suffer after this second flight. Two of their leaders – Numphow and Mystic George, a religious teacher – died of sickness, along with many others who, Gookin says, “through famine and sickness lost their lives.” When Wannalancet brought Indians who wished to be “reconciled” to the English in to Major Waldron at Dover, New Hampshire in August, 1676, they were sent down in September to Boston, where Gookin says some colonists accused members of the group of having fought with the enemy, leading to their executions or transportation out of the country.50 Wannalancet himself was spared, along with

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Sam Numphow, Simon Betogkom, “and very few other men.” Jonathan Tyng, the town founder of Dunstable, later acquired the “Wamesit Purchase,” and Wannalancet, after choosing to go away with relatives affiliated with the French missions near Quebec, later returned to die on familiar ground, living out his last years under Tyng’s protection.51

A Crescendo of Hate: “the Vulgar Spared Not to Load Them with Reproaches” Acts of violence against praying Indians peaked in February, after James Quannapohit and Job Kattananit returned from a spy mission to Menemesit. The Council gave Gookin permission to organize this mission because they were worried about whether the “inland” Indians would ally with the Narragansetts, who had entered the war as of late December, 1675, after the United Colonies preemptively attacked their Great Swamp Fort in Rhode Island, killing hundreds of noncombatants. Quannapohit and Kattananit were under deep suspicion while in Menemesit, but they gained accurate information about enemies’ plans to attack English towns. When the raids began to rain down in February as predicted, however, many colonists believed that it was because the spies had informed the enemy about their vulnerabilities. Panic set in. An anonymous group threatened to assassinate Gookin, while others plotted to row out to Deer Island and kill praying Indians interned there.52 In his narrative, Gookin does not speak specifically about the threat on his life, but emphasizes backlash against Kattenanit and Quannapohit, as well as outrages against praying Indians that occurred within that same month at Wamesit and Nashobah. Kattenanit had made use of his time at Menemesit to devise a plan whereby he would guide praying Indians trapped there back to English-controlled territory if they could escape and meet him at an agreed-upon time and place. Upon his return to the English, he submitted a petition to the Massachusetts magistrates asking that he be permitted to travel once again so that he could “bring in my poor children and some few Godly Christians among them.” Although the Council approved Kattenanit’s petition – and Major Thomas Savage, at the head of a newly launched military expedition, allowed him to “goe forth” – militiamen protested so hard that Savage felt compelled to recall Kattenanit, who had missed the rendezvous and was returning anyway.53 When another militia unit found the traumatized little group of refugees, they robbed them before turning them over to Savage, who had them spend the night at Marlborough before sending them on to Boston and Deer Island.54 At Marlborough, they were taunted and harassed by an irate group of townspeople, “especially women.” Four of the party became so frightened that they ran away. In telling this harrowing tale, Gookin reflects not just on the torment that the relatives and friends of Kattenanit endured, but also on the “mutinous” behavior

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of Samuel Moseley, who inspired the disquiet among the soldiers. The captain’s defiance of both military and political authority should not have been tolerated, writes Gookin, but these were no ordinary times. Moseley was behind another incident, in which he seized and removed the praying Indians of Nashobah from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, in direct defiance of the Council’s order that they stay there in the workhouse of lawyer John Hoar.55 The residents of Concord had directly appealed to Mosely because they knew he would remove the “heathen” from their midst and make sure they were interned. Moseley was a hero of the war for many of the colonists precisely because he always believed Englishmen over any Indian. His militia company included pirates who were spared execution to participate in the war, and he freely admitted to using the harshest possible tactics, having told Governor John Leverett in October 1675 that he had ordered an Indian woman to be torn apart by dogs in the process of seeking out information.56 Because of their volunteer status, the men of Moseley’s unit behaved as if they did not have to obey the typical rules laid out for militias. The populace knew that, unlike many of their magistrates and militia officers, Moseley could be relied upon to use his punishing tactics against any Indian he came across. His use of the word “heathen” to describe the Christian Indians of Nashobah, and his slights against John Hoar, which Gookin carefully records in Doings and Sufferings, reflected his contempt for the missionary enterprise and the authorities who supported it. Townspeople in both Marlborough and Concord appealed over the heads of their properly constituted authorities to Moseley, whom they trusted would act on their behalf. For Gookin, Moseley was a villain, not a hero, and the incident at Nashobah called forth his most pointed criticism. The captain had acted directly against authority, and yet no one in the government was willing to take a stand and punish him. The “Governor and several others” held a conference with the Deputies (lower house of the Legislature), Gookin explains, “manifesting their dissatisfaction at this great irregularity, in setting up a military power in opposition to the chief authority of the country.” Although the deputies appeared to agree that this behavior was disturbing, Moseley met “with no rebuke.” The Court ended up passing a vague order that all “voluntiers in the countryes service” who “do esteeme themselves” outside the conventional command structure should understand that they “shall be subject to all such martiall lawes as are or maybe provided.”57 If this edict were meant for Mosely, he was never punished under it.

Inconvenient Truths and the Passions of the People Gookin’s first order of business in Doings and Sufferings was to establish certain Christian Indians as heroes, not to explore the multiple connections that they had to networks extending outside the praying towns or to loyalties that may

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have competed with the English cause. Although he acknowledges that some praying Indians landed on the side of the enemy, he obscures those instances in a manner that may have seemed either mendacious or naïve, particularly given the spirit of the time.58 Gookin never mentions, for example, that Tuckapawillin was Kattenanit’s brother, or that there were two other siblings, James Printer and Anaweakin, who had been present with warring Indians in violent raids. On February 1, Anaweakin had traveled with a group of Indians, some from the praying town of Magunkaquog, who raided the home of Thomas Eames in current-day Framingham because they thought the family had stolen corn that was missing from where the Indians had stored it.59 James Printer was present a few weeks later at the attack on the town of Medfield, where a note that historians have attributed to Printer was left behind “in a cleft at one of the bridge posts.” Know by this paper, that the Indians that thou hast provoked to wrath and anger, will war this twenty one years if you will; there are many Indians yet, we come three hundred at this time. You must consider the Indians lost nothing but their life; you must lose your fair houses and cattle.60 The attacks on the Eames household and Medfield occurred in the same month, February, when Boston exploded in anger against Gookin for masterminding the Kattenanit/Quannapohit spy mission. We cannot know if people were aware of Kattenanit’s familial relationship with men who had been “with” the enemy, but the hostility directed first toward Kattenanit, and then Tuckapawillin, when his party of refugees was housed for that horrifying night in Marlborough, was profound.61 Gookin’s omission of the Harvard-educated James Printer, a linguist and typesetter, from his narrative seems particularly telling.62 He knew that Printer was one of the defendants in the case against the Okommakamesit Indians, and yet, within the pages of Doings and Sufferings, he does not mention him, though certainly he must have had Printer in mind when describing how those wrongly accused of murder in the fall of 1675 persuaded Christian Indians at Hassanamesit to take their chances and go away with enemy Indians. Gookin must also have had a fairly good idea as to who left the chilling note behind after the attack on Medfield, yet he does not speculate on its authorship, reproducing the note in full only to dismiss it as an example of the “pride and insolence of these barbarians at this time.”63 Neither the activities of Printer, nor the relationship between Kattenanit, Tuckapawillin, Printer and Anaweakin, would have played well with any of his projected audiences.64 When Gookin did cover praying Indians who switched sides and joined the enemy, he arranged the narrative in such a way as to mitigate the impact of

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their stories. The Petavits or Petuhanits, Joseph and Sampson, who had helped Edward Hutchinson to escape the deadly ambush near Quabaug, for example, later “fell off to the enemy” after being taken with the Hassanamesit group. Gookin left them out of the discussion of the Hassanamesit episode, and mentioned their names only in conjunction with the ambush, where he allows that their decision came because of the “harsh dealings of some English” and their being “in a manner constrained, for want of shelter, protection, and encouragement.” This way, the Petavits’ unfortunate choices came as a brief postscript to the main heroic action. In his role as magistrate during King Philip’s War, Gookin probably spoke in the way he wrote, blurring certain inconvenient truths, and thereby appearing weak and naïve to those who said, in gender-charged terms, that he had become a “Byword both among Men and Boys.” Gookin’s faith in praying Indians came because he knew many of them on a personal level, understood the multiple pressures weighing on them, and was willing – within a certain limited scope – to make allowances for that. He also realized that praying Indians’ understanding of indigenous fighting methods, familiarity with terrain, and the very ties to relatives within enemy camps – which seemed so damning – could be useful to the English when spies or go-betweens were needed. No good could have come from advertising these types of ties, Gookin knew when he wrote his narrative. Neither of his audiences – the local colonists who lived under policies he shaped as magistrate, or the anticipated publishers and readers of Doings and Sufferings – would appreciate gray areas.

“It Being Not My Design to Write of the Doings and Sufferings of the English” Strikingly, Gookin devoted little space to the sufferings of the English, including the war’s most famous sufferer, Mary Rowlandson, who was taken captive from Lancaster in February, 1676 and endured more than 11 weeks of captivity.65 Gookin discussed the attack on her home primarily in the context of explaining how Lancaster might have been spared if colonists had acted on James Quannapohit’s intelligence. He deliberately avoided discussing her experience – other than to describe the key role that praying Indians had played in negotiating her release – “it being not my design to write of the doings and sufferings of the English in this tract, but of the Indians, our friends.” Gookin also called attention to the providential punishments meted out to those who had vilified the praying Indians. He included in Doings and Sufferings the story of Sergeant John Shattock (or Shattuck) of Watertown, who vowed at a tavern in September, 1675, that if the Okommakamesit Indians were acquitted for the Lancaster murders, he would never again serve in the colony’s armed forces; they would have to hang him first. No more than 15

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minutes later, Shattock was drowned in a ferry accident between Charlestown and Boston. Gookin implied that Shattuck was being punished for expressing “displeasure and animosity against the poor Christian Indians,” but his fellow colonists would likely have put more emphasis on the harrowing scenes that Shattock had witnessed as a soldier. Earlier in September, Shattock had been serving under Watertown’s Captain Richard Beers, and was sent to evacuate the residents of Northfield, which had been attacked on September 2 by Pocumtuck and Nipmuc Indians under One-Eyed John, or Monoco. Enemies had ambushed the relief column, killing Captain Beers and over half of his soldiers – about 20 in all – and subsequently displayed the heads of some of those who were slain on poles “near the highway.”66 Shattock’s words expressed the rage of militiamen who thought their traditional leaders had lethally misread the intentions of Indians. Another one of the “tremendous dispensations” that Gookin found instructive occurred at Medfield, in February 1676, when Elizabeth Paine Adams met an untimely death on the same day when her husband, Lieutenant Henry Adams, was killed defending the town. Elizabeth was fatally wounded when the gun of the militia captain went off accidentally in a house where she was resting after the attack. Gookin hinted that this dreadful judgment came because her husband was “a person somewhat severe against the praying Indians.”67 Throughout Doings and Sufferings, Gookin speculated on the dire consequences that would befall those who were cruel to praying Indians. He claimed that some who had denounced praying Indians at Okommakamesit as murderers had already been punished by God’s “immediate hand,” while the “back friends” who had manufactured “false informations” against the Natick Indians would similarly find there was a price to pay. Juries who had failed to find perpetrators guilty of the outright murders at Wamesit also came in for scathing criticism.68 And Gookin warned one of the men who had been involved in the burning of elderly Christian Indians in their homes to repent because “God will in due time avenge this innocent blood.”

Suffering and Loss of Property Gookin called attention to the similarity between praying Indian and English losses by emphasizing the theft or destruction of their property. The English, particularly at Natick, had taken “guns, utensils for carts and ploughs, corn and swine, and materials of ironwork belonging to a sawmill,” and offered no restitution. Just because “thieves of the same nation” had plundered colonists of similar items did not make it right, Gookin argued, to steal from praying Indians, who were “honest men” even though they were of the same ethnic stock of attackers.

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Guns, foodstuffs, household and farm implements, and clothing were the items that Gookin most often lists as stolen. The praying Indians accused at Marlborough had their guns confiscated under the pretext that they had been arming themselves to fight the English, and these weapons, though critical not just because of the dangers of war but for hunting, were never returned when the men were found innocent. Samuel Moseley, who was the captain responsible for arresting the men at Marlborough, had official permission to plunder the enemy, and he treated praying Indians no differently. When Mosely forcibly removed 58 praying Indians from Concord, his soldiers, apparently contrary to his instructions in this rare instance, “plundered the poor creatures of their shirts, shoes, dishes, and other such things as they could lay their hands upon.” After they were sent to Deer Island, they were separated from their precious reserves of “corn and other provision,” and had nothing to eat but the clams that island afforded and “some little corn provided at the charge of the honorable Corporation for the Indians, residing in London.” With their possessions “squandered away,” there was little hope for restitution at war’s end. Property was a marker of “civility” that native peoples supposedly lacked. Histories of the war prominently featured lists of the number of houses and other property that the enemy Indians had destroyed in English habitations, not just the killings and captivities.69 Gookin attempted to take a similar tack with the praying Indians by demonstrating that they also had material goods to lose – and ones with important symbolic value. Ticking off the homely goods that were stolen from praying Indians was a way for Gookin to assert their civility, and place their sufferings within the same moral universe as those of the English.70 He must also have seen the war’s economic toll as a direct threat to the progress of the work he had done in the praying towns, which was aimed at inculcating English habits of family governance and work on native peoples. Tuckapawillin rued the loss of his “cattle … plough, cart, chain,” all symbols of English-style agricultural productivity. While thefts of movable goods at the hands of soldiers were rampant, praying Indians often had to abandon their land because of forced internment. Gookin pointed out an incident in which Captain John Gorham of Plymouth and Lieutenant Phineas Upham of Massachusetts were sent to “destroy the enemies’ cornfields” in the Nipmuc country, a tactic that was used to damage the enemy’s war effort by limiting their food supply.71 Instead of despoiling the fields of enemies, however, Gorham and Upham focused their efforts on the more accessible praying Indian towns of Hassanamesit, Manchage and Chabanakongkomun, despite orders to the contrary – a move that did nothing to deprive enemies of their food supply.72 Gookin bemoaned too the way that the war whittled away at Christian Indians’ rights to land that the General Court had laid out for their use, having come to see that land hunger, not just fear, drove colonists to acts of cruelty

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against the praying Indians. In Marlborough, for example, Gookin had entertained hopes prior to the war that the New England Company might fund a school where praying Indian and English children alike could hear lessons, but the war taught him that that ordinary people were more interested in taking over praying Indian land than cooperating with them in town development, particularly when the English pulled up the “fencing stuff” and issued threats against praying Indians who tried to return home and plant there after the war.73

Breaking the Ice “by Their First Adventuring to Treat with the Enemy” The tide of war turned in favor of the English after Philip failed to gain an alliance with the Mohawks, who instead allied with the New York governor Edmund Andros and began attacking Philip and sending raiding parties against New England’s Algonquians, whom they had long regarded as enemies. With this failure, Philip’s alliance with other native peoples – all of whom had different reasons to take up arms from the outset – began to break down. The death of the Narragansett leader Canonchet, together with food shortages, sapped morale.74 Within this context, many native peoples tentatively began to explore various avenues toward peace, sometimes articulating the hope that praying Indians might ease the process. Negotiating the release of English captives bulked large in native efforts at peacemaking, and Gookin, in Doings and Sufferings, emphasizes the key role that Christian Indians Tom Dublet and Peter Conway played as the initial gobetweens in the “redemption” of captive Mary Rowlandson. Gookin argued that the success of this mission, once Nipmuc leaders finally sealed the deal with the English lawyer (and workhouse keeper) John Hoar, caused a rift among the Indian groups allied against the English.75 Philip and the Narragansett leaders became angry and returned to their own country, he says, because they were “utterly against treating with the English,” while “some other of their principle sachems” – the Nipmucs – took heart in the negotiations and wanted to reconcile, believing that the release of captives would “mollify the Englishmen’s minds in order to a peace.” Making all this possible were brave Christian Indians, who had “broke the ice … by their first adventuring to treat with the enemy.” Gookin did not consider the motives that praying Indians themselves may have had, aside from their dedication to the English cause, for wishing peace to return to the region. Tom Dublet, for example, continued working with English negotiators willing to consider talks with Nipmuc leaders about peace long after his work on the Rowlandson exchange was over.76 Because they had friends and relations on both sides, many praying Indians would have wanted a return to peace to ensure the safety of loved ones and, often, fellow Christians.77

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For the purposes of his narrative, Gookin wanted readers to understand the praying Indians as “our” Indians, their selfless actions reflecting nothing more than a single-minded devotion to true religion and the English cause, as if those two things were ineluctably linked. Still, the stories he told in his narrative provided, unintentionally, a window into the complexity of people’s motives in war, and the fluidity of religious and ethnic identity.

“After Our Indians Went Out, the Balance Turned of the English Side” In recounting the events of the spring and summer of 1676, Gookin chose to focus on incidents that pointed toward hope for the future, even though its rays were dim; praying Indians had been vindicated at least in their role as soldiers, and he provides examples of Christian Indian scouts beginning to serve under English commanders in expeditions to current-day Maine, where war with the Wabanakis continued to rage.78 The turning point came in April, when a company of 40 praying Indians was recruited from Deer Island and placed under the command of Samuel Hunting and James Richardson. This unit went to Sudbury in the aftermath of an attack and guarded those who went out to bury the English dead, a service that “had the effect” of reducing the “former hatred,” according to Gookin.79 But all was not well. Gookin barely covered the months of June and July, because it was in those months that the number of praying Indians present in groups of combatants wishing to surrender became evident. Gookin, who had lost his position as magistrate in May, concurred that some of these should be treated harshly. He presided, for example, over a committee that reduced 32 praying Indian children to servitude in English homes because they were present in a group that surrendered in July with Sagamore John (Horowannit, or Quaqunquasit) of Pakachoog in July.80 Gookin himself gained two servants in this way.81 But he also recognized the prejudice that made it difficult for praying Indians thought to have been disloyal to the English to get a fair trial under the law. On June 22, 1676, Massachusetts executed Captain Tom, or Wuttasacomponom, for fighting on the side of the enemy at the attack on Sudbury – a verdict with which neither Gookin nor Eliot agreed. The powerful testimony of English veterans sealed Captain Tom’s fate, but there was much evidence to suggest that Captain Tom was innocent, and his friends who had become leaders among the praying Indian scouts – Andrew Pitimee, James Quannapohit, Job Kattenanit, John Magus, and James Speen – attempted in vain to plead for his life, as did John Eliot, who responded to Leverett’s dismissal of Captain Tom as a “bad … man” with a bold rejoinder: “at the great day he should find that Christ was of another mind.”82 In Doings and Sufferings, Gookin does not cover Captain Tom’s execution where it should have gone chronologically in the text – a sharp contrast to the

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in-depth coverage of the trial and acquittal in September, 1675 of the Indians from Okommakamesit, which had at least cleared the accused praying Indians. The outcome of the Captain Tom trial militated against the idea that colonists would think better of praying Indians once their scouts joined the war effort. In Doings and Sufferings, Gookin includes Captain Tom’s execution only as a postscript to a discussion of his role in encouraging praying Indians to leave Hassanamesit in November, 1675, and follow armed Nipmucs to Menemesit. While he concedes that Captain Tom “should rather have suffered death” than abscond with the “wicked” Indians, he emphasizes the pressures that led praying Indians to make this decision, and insists that Captain Tom would never have done violence to the English: “I had particular acquaintance with him, and cannot in charity think otherwise concerning him in his life, or at his death.” Gookin could not explore the Captain Tom case in any detail at the point within the narrative where it occurred, the summer of 1676, because it contradicted the overall story that he wanted to tell – that colonists were mending their ways in relation to the praying Indians, and that they were living up to the providential requirements to win the war. Massachusetts authorities benefited from the work of praying Indian guides and soldiers, but they would not take their word in court. James Quannapohit gave convincing testimony concerning Captain Tom’s character as a man who had suffered for his faith among the enemy, describing him as a captive not a traitor. He also presented evidence that he had gained in the field as to Captain Tom’s innocence, but this left the magistrates unmoved.83 A petition that Quannapohit signed along with other praying Indian military leaders, including Kattenanit, illustrated the praying Indians’ frustration at their word meaning nothing to people they were trying to help: “If we did think, or had any ground to conceive that they were naught, and were enemies to the English, we would not intercede for them [Captain Tom and his family] but rather bear our testimony against them.” Although magistrates rejected the plea on Captain Tom’s behalf, they did spare his son and other family members, and agreed to be “ready to show favour in sparing the lives and liberty” of others “that have been our enemyes” if they would present themselves and submit to the authority of the “English Government and your disposal” within 14 days.84 James Printer, the brother of Job Kattenant, was able to surrender and avoid prosecution as a result of this provision, although all who responded to the news that they would be able to enjoy their lives and liberty were not so lucky.85Surrendering was dangerous because the English colonists did not recognize the sovereignty of native peoples, considering those who took up arms against them as rebels, not bona fide belligerents who might expect some rights according to the just war tradition.86 Those who could be shown to have killed colonists or destroyed property were held accountable and punished severely, especially because the English believed that

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those harmed during war had a right to retaliate and seek revenge or compensation for the harms done to them.87 Gookin, in his military role, regularly sent out orders to praying Indian scouts to round up all found in enemy camps, not pausing to reflect on the angst that this would have caused praying Indians who were required to bring misery, in some cases, on people they knew.88 His disagreement with how Massachusetts authorities had treated Captain Tom, as exemplified by his comments in Doings and Sufferings, suggests that Gookin was aware of how praying Indians continued to suffer through the war’s aftermath. But to expand on such a perspective would not serve the ends he was trying to achieve in his narrative, and thus Gookin jumps very quickly from May to August, when Philip was killed in Plymouth, allowing him to skip over the grim events of the summer. The presence of Indians like Captain Tom – who had gone away from Hassanamesit with enemies in the previous fall, along with James Printer, the Petavits, and the families of the praying Indian children who came in with Sagamore John – complicated his efforts to present these unfortunates as captives, or to tell a tale that exonerated, in binary fashion, praying Indians as a group.

Not Much of a “jubilee” The one bright spot in May was when Gookin received permission to bring the Christian Indians who had been confined on the harbor islands back to the mainland. Gookin and Eliot then began to hold lectures and court days again in “Nonatum, at Packemit or Punkapog, at Cowate alias the fall of Charles river, at Natick, at Medfield, at Concord, and at Namkeake, near Chelmsford,” where praying Indians attempted to resume their lives. Still, even though Gookin said they experienced liberation from the islands as a “jubilee,” he knew that violence and greater instability remained the praying Indians’ lot in life during the postwar period. They continued to suffer raids at the hands of hostile Mohawks, and colonists bridled at the idea of living close to praying towns, fearing even the presence of Indian servants in their midst.89 In describing the vicious murder of six Christian Indian women and children in August 1676, all Gookin could say was that some measure of justice had been done: all four assailants were convicted of murder, and two were executed.90 Popular narratives and histories of the war from the era did not recognize the immense sacrifices that praying Indians made on behalf of the English. William Hubbard argued that they had only helped out of self-interest, asserting that their “natural Perfidiousness” extended “even to their nearest Relations,” and that native peoples were not yet civilized enough for Christianity to take root.91 Mary Rowlandson, meanwhile, in her captivity narrative – published in 1682 – insisted adamantly that praying Indians were nothing but

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deceitful tricksters.92 She numbered them among the war’s worst aggressors and claimed that some of these impostors had eluded prosecution for their war crimes.93 In this context, Gookin’s willingness to equate English and Indian captivities truly stands out, given that Indians were understood to be the inflictors of pain, and not the sufferers – the captors, and not the captives. Referring to what happened at Hassanamesit, Gookin writes that “some of them [praying Indians] were captivated by the enemy and escaped with their lives, (so, many of the English that were taken captive also did).” In the dominant literature, however, where suffering provided an avenue toward gaining a special chosen status, that avenue was closed to praying Indians. Gookin was left to end his narrative with his own tired and discouraging response to speeches given by the Christian Indians Waban and Piambow, who said that their survival during the war had depended on the charity of the New England Company, which had sent funding for food when they were confined on the islands; the military success of praying Indian soldiers, who had finally been able to prove the Christian Indian community’s “fidelity” to the English; and, of course, God, who had moved Massachusetts leaders to allow Christian Indians to help them. Yet, despite all this service, Waban concluded sadly, “some English were still willing to speak the contrary of them.” Survival, perhaps, was all that could be expected. Gookin could only reply that during his life on earth Christ, though “most innocent,” had also suffered many reproaches. Regretfully, he predicted that the same would be true for the praying Indians, whom he characterized as “martyrs.” They must wait for God, in his good time, to “bring a good issue in the end.”

Taking Stock Gookin sent Doings and Sufferings to the New England Company in England and dedicated it to Robert Boyle, the organization’s president, hoping for publication, but it did not appear in print until 1836, when the early nineteenth century historian Jared Sparks borrowed the manuscript owned by an English clergyman and transcribed it.94 The harsh tone of the piece, with its charge that Satan had infected the minds of those who had abused praying Indians, may have struck a discordant note with transatlantic friends of the Bay Colony who wished to put the colony in the best light possible.95 At home, where Gookin’s stance on praying Indians during the war had offended colonists and certain magistrates alike, the tract’s depiction of some Englishmen as aggressors would have been unacceptable.96 Gookin gives readers the impression in Doings and Sufferings that the acceptance of Christian Indians as scouts held out hope for a better day. But while a number of military officers provided attestations – published in the narrative –

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as to the loyalty and effectiveness of their praying Indian soldiers, Gookin was aware of tensions. Richard Waldron, who relied on praying Indian soldiers in New Hampshire in the years after Philip’s death, complained that Peter Ephraim, a praying Indian who had previously carried out scouting expeditions in southern New England for Gookin, was a troublemaker who inspired others to complain about the food they were given and the requirement that they perform such tasks as cutting brush. Ephraim could not have been the only praying Indian to notice that Englishmen made excessive demands for unequal rewards.97 Eliot was less sanguine than Gookin about the long-term effects of military service on the praying Indian population. He even expressed the wish in his church records that he himself had taken the initiative to write about their experiences during the war.98 Whether Eliot thought he might have fared better in promoting – in a more circumspect way – the value of missionary work among the religious and political figures in England who had supported his work in the past, is unclear. But Eliot was worried that praying towns and missionary impulses alike might become a casualty of the war.99 Fraternization with English militiamen was far from uplifting in Eliot’s estimation, because it led to drinking and debauchery: “Satan improved this opportunity to defile, debase, and bring into contempt the whole work of praying to God.”100 As Eliot saw it, Christian Indians had picked up the bad habits of fellow soldiers and were becoming “defiled” through their contact with the profane elements of society – which, for him, included English soldiers.101 The sustained employment of Indian men as scouts had a tendency to undermine, Eliot likely noticed, one of the key goals of missionary work: to make Indians into productive English-style householders who planted while their wives busied themselves with spinning, cultivating small vegetable gardens, tending to their children and other domestic tasks. A bi-employment that emphasized seasonal absences – just the type of semi-sedentariness that missionaries had always criticized – could easily be seen to subvert “civilization.”102 Nor was such service a path to equality within the Bay Colony. Although colonists were willing to extract from Indians the traits they found valuable – such as adeptness at forest warfare – they failed to see praying Indians as fellow Christians with lives and families in peaceful villages, not just war camps; and indeed, Gookin said very little about women as “doers” in his narrative. Military service may have allowed men to perform skills in line with the traditional male role in indigenous cultures, but this had the potential to make Indian military services into a commodity.103 Gookin should not be understood as some sort of multicultural hero. He had nothing but contempt for Indians who did not accept the tutelage of the English, viewing them as violent “savages” who needed to be vanquished – as also did Eliot.104 Particularly deserving of divine wrath, in his estimation, were

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the Wampanoags and Narragansetts, because these native peoples had been offered the gospel but rejected it (see also p.45 of this volume): And notwithstanding they were very conversant among the English, especially the Narragansetts, and commendable for their industry and labor among the English, yet had the most of them no hearing ears unto the glad tidings of salvation offered in the Gospel, and very few of them delighted in communion with the Christian Indians. (Gookin, Doings and Sufferings, 439.) Gookin’s vision was not an all-inclusive one, but he wished for colonists to differentiate among Indians, and to appreciate those Indians who emulated English ways and followed their direction. In entertaining a vision whereby the English would uplift native peoples and incorporate them into English Puritan society, Gookin ran up against a colonial populace that had begun to characterize people more by ethnicity, or “race,” than religion. They were hungry for land, not contacts with native people. When the war and its attendant atrocities came, their conviction that all Indians were different from them – and treacherous – floated quickly to the surface.105 Gookin perceived all this as an irrational outburst, induced by Satan. If howling mobs had defied the wishes of magistrates during the war, and an uncouth pirate had become a military hero, this, he seemed to hope, would all be rectified and things set to right at the close of hostilities. But few wanted to hear Gookin’s message. The English Puritans of his generation set to work constructing a memory of King Philip’s war replete with English suffering, English civility, English redemption, and undifferentiated Indian savagery.106 The long-term postwar trend was to reduce as many native peoples as possible into servitude, often by taking advantage of their indebtedness – a process that made it difficult for Indians to maintain familial ties and keep indigenous languages alive. It was not until the early nineteenth century, when the idea of the “noble savage” came into vogue, and reformers protested the Indian removals in national politics, that the world was ready for Gookin’s story.107 Today, his account provides raw material for historians wishing to reconstruct, in some small way, a native perspective on King Philip’s War in the absence of any narrative written by an Indian author. While Gookin’s reputation was tarnished because of his support for praying Indians during King Philip’s War, he quickly regained it in the 1680s as a defender of the Massachusetts liberties, particularly after English authorities revoked the Massachusetts charter in 1684, citing – among other things – the colony’s inability to govern, or even defend itself, in the recent war.108 Largely because of his impassioned efforts to preserve colonial rights as much as possible, Gookin was elected again to the Court of Assistants – his status as

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magistrate restored – and was elevated to the rank of major general of the colony’s military forces. When he died in 1687, Gookin was in good repute. At least one magistrate, Samuel Sewall, longed so much to hear Gookin’s voice again that he had a dream about him: Last night I dreamed of military matters, Arms and Captains, and of a suddain, Major Gookin, very well clad from head to foot, and of a very fresh, lively countenance – his Coat and Breeches, of blood-red silk, beckoned me out of the room where I was to speak to him.109 A champion of chartered liberties who speculated in print as to whether Indian conversions would spark the millennium, Sewall had interests similar to those of Gookin.110 If Sewall’s dream indicated an aspiration to follow in Gookin’s footsteps and have his blessing, then Gookin’s legacy as an esteemed figure in Bay Colony history would appear to have been assured.111 For James Quannapohit and other praying Indians, the threat of charter loss had a different impact. In 1685, Quannapohit and the many heirs of George Rumney Marsh, also known as Wenepoykin, Sagamore George, or George No-Nose – son of the great “Squaw Sachem” who had controlled vast amounts of land in the early seventeenth century – were asked to confirm the transfer of their ancestral lands to the Massachusetts towns that now inhabited them. Massachusetts leaders wanted to create or confirm land deeds in this era because they feared crown representatives would try to take their land.112 We cannot know what thoughts might have been running through the mind of Quannapohit on the day when the deed was recorded, but the process must have reminded him of all he had lost in the service of the English. At least his uncle had not died a slave.113 Old George Rumney Marsh, the original owner of the property being deeded, had been sold as a captive to Barbados during the war but had somehow been redeemed so that he was able to live out his last days and die in the home of his nephew, James Quannapohit, in 1681. Christianity continued to be a vibrant part of praying Indian life after King Philip’s War, but the expectation of missionaries such as Eliot and Gookin that conversion might be a pathway toward full householder status for Christian Indians and incorporation into Bay Colony society – even at its lower rungs – was harshly rebuked.114 It is impossible to say exactly when colonists had moved from categorizing people on the basis of culture or religion and begun to differentiate the “other” on the basis of an inchoate sense of “race,” but those sentiments sprang readily to the fore during the war.115 Gookin’s Doings and Sufferings might be read as a barometer of how quickly the change took place, with Gookin seeming to have held out the hope that a treatise on what Christian Indians had contributed and suffered during the war might in some way reset the clock.

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Notes 1 Richard W. Cogley, “A Seventeenth-Century Native American Family: William of Sudbury and His Four Sons,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 153 (April, 1999), 173–179. Contemporary Daniel Gookin, however, indicates that Kattenanit’s father was Naoas, not William of Sudbury. 2 Frederick W. Gookin, Daniel Gookin, 1612–1687, Assistant and Major General of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (New York, Chicago, IL: Donnelly, 1912); Hans Galinsky, “‘I Cannot Join with the Multitude’ – Daniel Gookin (1612-1687), Critical Historian of Indian-English Relations,” Mythos und Aufklarung in der Amerikanischer Literatur/Myth and Enlightenment in American Literature, ed. Dieter Meindl and Friedrich W. Horlacher (Erlangen: Erlanger Forschungen, 1985); J. Patrick Cesarini, “‘What Has Become of Your Praying to God?’: Daniel Gookin’s Troubled History of King Philip’s War,” Early American Literature 44 (2009): 489–515; J. Wingate Thornton, “The Gookin Family,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register I (1847): 345–352; and Kristina Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 3 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 193a. 4 On the vast outpouring of writings about King Philip’s war see Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage, 1999). Daniel Gookin, “An Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the Years 1675, 1676, 1677,” Archaeologia Americana: Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, 2 (Cambridge, 1836), 423–523. 5 On providentialism see Michael P. Winship, Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism in the Restoration and Early Enlightenment (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 6 On the centrality of shared suffering see Lepore, Name of War; and Susan Juster, Sacred Violence in Early America (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). 7 Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018). 8 Jeffrey Glover, “Christian Indians at War: Evangelism and Military Communication in the Anglo-French-Native Borderlands,” in Colonial Mediascapes: Sensory Worlds of the Early Americas, ed. Matt Cohen and Jeffrey Glover (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 357–375. 9 On these transformations see Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003): and James D. Drake, King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675–1676 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000). 10 Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans and the Making of New England, 1500–1643 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). 11 Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” William and Mary Quarterly 51 (1994), 601–624. 12 Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “‘Subjects … Unto the Same King:’ New England Indians and the Use of Royal Political Power,” Massachusetts Historical Review 5 (2003): 29–57. 13 Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King: Indians, English and the Contest For Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 101–118; Brooks, Beloved Kin, 138–139; Yasuhide Kawashima, Igniting King Philip’s War: The John Sassamon Murder Trial

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14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22

23

24 25 26

31

(Lawrence, KS.: University Press of Kansas, 2001); Jill Lepore, “Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal Consequences of Literacy,” American Quarterly 46 (1994), 479–512; and Daniel R. Mandell, King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 2010). Mandell, King Philip’s War, 32–59. Michael Leroy Oberg, Uncas: First of the Mohegans (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003). Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 101–117; Mandell, King Philip’s War, 60–71; and Brooks, Our Beloved Kin. Pulsipher, “Subjects … Unto the Same King.” Richard W. Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians Before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). James P. Ronda, “‘We are Well as We Are’: An Indian Critique of SeventeenthCentury Missions,” William and Mary Quarterly 34 (1977): 66–82; James P. Ronda, “Generations of Faith: The Christian Indians of Martha’s Vineyard,” William and Mary Quarterly 38 (1981): 369–384; Neal Salisbury, “‘Red Puritans’: the ‘Praying Indians’ of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot,” William and Mary Quarterly 31 (1974): 27–54; William S. Simmons, “Conversion from Indian to Puritan,” New England Quarterly 52 (1979): 197–218; Robert J. Naeher, “Dialogue in the Wilderness: John Eliot and the Indian Exploration of Puritanism as a Source of Meaning, Comfort, and Ethnic Survival,” New England Quarterly 62 (1989), 346–368; Harold W. Van Lonkhuyzen, “A Reappraisal of the Praying Indians: Acculturation, Conversion and Identity at Natick, Massachusetts, 1646–1730,” New England Quarterly 63 (1990): 396–428; Elise M. Brenner, “To Pray or To Be Prey, That is the Question: Strategies for Cultural Autonomy of Massachusetts Praying Town Indians,” Ethnohistory 27 (1980): 135–152; and Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons. Ann Marie Plane, Colonial Intimacies: Indian Marriage in Early New England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Audrey Horning, Ireland in the Virginia Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 274–280, 313–315. April Hatfield, Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial Relations in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); and Rachel L. Monroy, On the Trade Winds of Faith: Puritan Networks in the Making of an Atlantic World (PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 2015). Vincent Gookin, The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed (London, 1655); Horning, Ireland in the Virginia Sea, 343–344; and Luke Pecoraro, “Mr. Gookin Out of Ireland, Wholly Upon His Own Adventure”: An Archaeological Study of Intercolonial and Translatlantic Connections in the Seventeenth Century (PhD diss., Boston University, 2015). Carla G. Pestana, The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons, 12–21. Linda Gregerson,“The Commonwealth of the Word: New England, Old England, and the Praying Indians,” in British Identities and English Renaissance Literature, eds. David J. Baker and Willy Maley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 178–193; William Kellaway, The New England Company, 1649–1776: Missionary Society to the American Indians (London: Longmans, Green, 1961); J.R. Jacob, “The New England Company, the Royal Society and the Indians,” Social Studies of Science 5 (1975): 450–455; Nicholas Canny, The Upstart Earl: A Study of the Social and Mental World of Richard Boyle First Earl of Cork (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission.

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27 Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission; Kenneth M. Morrison, “That Art of Coyning Christians: John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts,” Ethnohistory 21 (1974), 77–92. 28 Daniel Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians in New England,” Massachusetts Historical Society Collections 3rd Ser., Vol. I (Boston, MA, 1792), 141–229. 29 Oberg, Uncas; Jason W. Warren, Connecticut Unscathed: Victory in the Great Narragansett War, 1675–6 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014); and David J. Silverman, Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, 1600–1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 30 Gookin, “Historical Collections,” 193. 31 On the key role that Nesuton played in translating Eliot’s publications in the Massachusett language, see Margaret Connell Szasz, Indian Education in the American Colonies (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 113–118. 32 Dennis A. Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country in Southern New England (Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 2001), 159–182; J.H. Temple, History of North Brookfield (North Brookfield, MA: Rand Avery 1887); and Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King, 114–118. A contemporary tract – Thomas Wheeler, A Thankefull Remembrance of God’s Mercy (Cambridge, 1676) – gives no mention to the help of the praying Indians. 33 William Hubbard, A Narrative of the Troubles With the Indians [1677], in Samuel G. Drake, ed., The History of the Indian Wars in New England, 2 vols. (Roxbury, MA., 1865), I: 120. 34 Mandell, King Philip’s War, 71–77; Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country, in Southern New England, 159–182; J.H. Temple, History of North Brookfield (North Brookfield, MA, 1887); and Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King, 114–118. 35 Christine M. DeLucia, Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 48–52. 36 On Moseley’s reputation, see George M. Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (Leominster, MA: Rockwell and Churchill, 1896), 59–62. 37 [Nathaniel Saltonstall], “The Present State of New England,” in Narratives of the Indian Wars [1675], 1675–1677, ed. Charles H. Lincoln (New York: Scribner, 1952), 40. 38 Ibid., 40–41. 39 Margaret Ellen Newell, Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists and the Origins of American Slavery (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 144–145. For the list of verdicts, including that of Great David, who was transported as a slave, see John Noble, Records of the Court of Assistants of Massachusetts Bay, 3 vols. (Boston, MA: Rockwell and Churchill Press, 1901), I: 52–54. 40 Scripture was the husband of Elizabeth Knapp, who had been treated by Samuel Willard for “possession” by a devil several years before her marriage. John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, Updated Edition (New York: Oxford, 2004), 114. 41 Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 225–227. 42 Gookin initially blamed Narragansetts and Wampanoags for taking the praying Indians at Hassanamesit. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 188. 43 Gookin, Historical Collections, 186. 44 Stewart-Smith, Pennacook Indians, 179. 45 Stewart-Smith, Pennacook Indians, 82–83. 46 John Eliot to Robert Boyle, December 17, 1675, in John W. Ford, ed., Some Correspondence between the Governors and Treasurers of the New England Company in London and the Commissioners of the United Colonies in America The Missionaries of the Company and Others (London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1896), 54. 47 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 190; and Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts (Lowell, MA, Courier-Citizen Company, 1917), 108–109.

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48 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 186. 49 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 191. The Wamesits’ fears of sabotage by Indians at war with the English were not unfounded. Mandell, King Philip’s War, 46, reports an incident early in the war in which King Philip had sent a message to the female sachem Awashonks that if she did not stand with him, he would send warriors to loot settlements close to her lands so that the English would blame her people and punish or attack them. 50 David Stewart-Smith, “The Pennacook Indians and the New England Frontier, Circa 1604-1733” (Ph.D. diss., The Union Institute, 1998), 186–193. 51 Ibid. 216–217. On the cultural meaning of the Tyng family’s ownership of the former Wamesit lands, and the process by which the land was “culturally constructed into an English artifact,” see Christa M. Beranek, “Ethnicity, Masculinity and Lineage: The Cultural Biography of a Colonial Massachusetts Parcel of Land,” Historical Archaeology 46 (2012), 75–90. 52 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 192, 193, and 193a; 68: 136; and Jill Lepore, “When Deer Island Was Turned into Devils Island,” in Strangers in Our Land: The Invasion of Native New England, https://nativenewengland.wordpress.com/2016/03/ 30/when-deer-island-was-turned-into-devils-island/. 53 Interestingly Savage’s son, Perez, served as an officer under Moseley’s command at the Great Swamp Fight. Lawrence Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston and His Descendants (Boston, MA: D. Clapp and Son, 1914), 6–7. 54 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30:200; Brooks, Beloved Kin, 289–290, points out that this detachment was probably deliberately sent out to find the refugees, whereas Gookin – at least as far as his narrative was concerned – thought Gibbs’ encounter with the group was serendipitous. 55 Massachusetts Archives Collection, 30: 185A. 56 Mark G. Hanna, Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 158; Samuel Moseley to John Leverett, October 16, 1675, in George M. Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (Leominster, MA: Rockwell and Churchill, 1896), 69. 57 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 5 vols. in 6 (Boston: William White, 1853-1854), V: 71. 58 Kyle F. Zelner, A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen During King Philip’s War (New York: New York University Press, 2009). On Gookin’s difficulties in calling forth troops, see Massachusetts Archives Collection 68:247a. 59 Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 1999), 185; and J.H. Temple, History of Framingham (Framingham, MA, 1887), 71–79. 60 Schultz and Tougias, King Philip’s War, 194–199; Siobhan Senier, Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 374; and Drew Lopenzina, Red Ink: Native Americans Picking up the Pen in the Colonial Period (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2012), 178. 61 Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 247, points out that Kattenanit did not mention his brother’s involvement in the sack of the Eames house to Gookin. 62 Lopenzina, Red Ink, 87–134. 63 Lepore, Name of War, 94–96. 64 Eliot to Boyle, September 6, 1669, Some Correspondence, 29, clearly delineates the relationship between the four brothers. 65 Neal Salisbury, ed., The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson with Related Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 1997). 66 Hubbard, A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England, I: 111; and Schulz and Tougias, King Philip’s War, 163–164.

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67 Schulz and Tougias, King Philip’s War, 198; Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, I: 170, says simply that Adams’ wife was “mortally wounded by a Gun fired afterwards accidentally in the House.” 68 The men were found guilty only of wounding the Indians at Wamesit. Noble, Court of Assistants Records, I: 57. 69 Lepore, Name of War, 71–96, emphasizes the importance of property to English colonial identity, and the extensive accounts of property destruction found in wartime narratives. 70 On the importance of English clothing as a mark of distinction between the “savage” and Christian Indians see Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons 24–5. For evidence of discomfiture at the sight of Indians in English clothing see Ann Little, “‘Shoot That Rogue, for He Hath an Englishman’s Coat On!’: Cultural CrossDressing on the New England Frontier, 1620–1760,” The New England Quarterly, 74 (June, 2001): 238–273. 71 On “feed fights” see Wayne E. Lee, Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 222. 72 Bodge, Soldiers, 287–289. 73 Gookin, Historical Collections, 185–186, 219–221; and Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission, 143–146. 74 Mandell, King Philip’s War, 107–11; Daniel K. Richter, “Cultural Brokers and Intercultural Politics: New York-Iroquois Relations, 1664–1701,” Journal of American History 75 (1988): 40–67; and David J. Silverman, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 91–120. 75 Neal Salisbury, ed., Sovereignty and Goodness of God, 33; Lepore, Name of War, 145–146; and Hilary E. Wyss, Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity and Native Community in Early America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 38–50. 76 Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 203–204; and Henry Nourse, ed., The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1643–1725 (Lancaster: W.J. Coulter, 1884), 112–114. 77 Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 204–205; Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 309. 78 Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “‘Dark Cloud Rising from the East’: Indian Sovereignty and the Coming of King William’s War in New England,” New England Quarterly 80 (2007): 588–613; Kenneth Morrison, The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki-Euroamerican Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984). 79 On the Sudbury Fight see Eric B. Schulz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: the History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (New York: Norton, 1999), 211–220. Being able to bury the dead meant protecting the corpses from the possible defilement. See, for example, Susan Juster, Sacred Violence in Early America (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and Robert E. Cray, Jr., “‘Weltering in their Own Blood’: Puritan Casualties in King Philip’s War,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 37 (2009): 107–123. 80 Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 208–210. 81 “Indian Children Put to Service. 1676,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register VIII (1854): 270–273. Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 316–317, points out how this policy was not only punitive but tantamount to holding the children as “hostages” to ensure the good behavior of the adults; see also Newell, Brethren By Nature, 165–166. 82 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30:205, 205a, 204b; Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 310–312; and William B. Trask, ed., “Reverend John Eliot’s Records of the First

Introduction to “Doings and Sufferings”

83 84 85 86

87 88 89

90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97

98

99

35

Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 33 (1879): 413. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30:172. “Documents Illustrating Gookin’s History of the Christian Indians,” in Archaeologia Americana: Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society 2 (1836), 527–529. Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 309–312, has pointed out that this “amnesty” came about because of the agitation of Christian Indian scouts, not the charitable feelings of the magistrates. James Drake, “Restraining Atrocity: The Conduct of King Philip’s War,” New England Quarterly 70 (1997): 33–56; and Linford D. Fisher, “‘Why Shall Wee Have Peace To Bee Made Slaves?’: Indian Surrenderers During and After King Philip’s War,” Ethnohistory 64 (2017), 91–114. Wayne Lee, Barbarians and Brothers, 222–223, emphasizes that English soldiers expected to be allowed to retaliate for perceived harms to become “whole” again. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 207, 233, 212b, 235b. This angst is a major theme in Brooks, Our Beloved Kin. Neal Salisbury, “Toward the Covenant Chain: Iroquois and Southern New England Algonquians, 1637–1684,” in Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800, eds. Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 61–73. On the increasing restrictions placed on where Indians in New England could reside, and how they could interact with the English populace, see Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “‘Our Sages Are Sageles,’”431–448. Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “Massacre at Hurtleberry Hill: Christian Indians and English Authority in King Philip’s War,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (1996): 459–486. Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, 2: 276. Interestingly Hubbard, earlier in his narrative, discounts the possibility that non-English Christians, such as the Dutch or French, were guilty of deliberately plotting with the Indian enemies of New England. On Rowlandson see Lepore, Name of War, 148; Kathryn Zabelle Derounian, “The Publication, Promotion, and Distribution of Mary Rowlandson’s Indian Captivity Narrative in the Seventeenth Century,” Early American Literature 23 (1988): 239–261; and Derounian, “Puritan Orthodoxy and the ‘Survivor Syndrome’ in Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative,” Early American Literature 22 (1987): 82–93. Salisbury, ed., Sovereignty and Goodness, 98–100. David D. Hall, Ways of Writing: The Practice and Politics of Text-Making in Seventeenth-Century New England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 17–18. Cesarini, “What Has Become of Your Praying to God?” Massachusetts Archives Collection 68: 247, 250. Letter from Richard Waldron, Cochecha, April 18, 1677, in Nathaniel Bouton, ed., Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire, 7 vols. (Concord, NH: George E. Jenks, 1867), I: 362–363. For an example of an order from Gookin to Peter Ephraim telling him to seize or kill Indians who would not submit to his unit see Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 233. William B. Trask, ed., “Reverend John Eliot’s Records of the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 33 (1879): 415. Kathryn N. Gray, John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts Bay: Communities and Connections in Puritan New England (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2013). John Eliot to Robert Boyle, December 17, 1675, in Ford, ed., Some Correspondence between the governors and treasurers of the New England Company, 53.

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100 Trask, ed., “Eliot’s Records,” 415. 101 For the toll that military service continued to take on native soldiers, who did not receive the same consideration or compensation as their English counterparts, see Brian D. Carroll, “‘Savages’ in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham’s Rangers, 1744–1762,” New England Quarterly 85(2012): 383–429. 102 Jean M. O’Brien, “‘Divorced’ From the Land: Resistance and Survival of Indian Women in Eighteenth-Century New England,” in Colin G. Calloway, ed., After King Philip’s War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997), 144–161; R. Todd Romero, Making War and Minting Christians: Masculinity, Religion and Colonialism in Early New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011). 103 Mandell, King Philip’s War; Patrick M. Malone, The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1991); and Romero, Making War and Minting Christians, 195–197. 104 Richard A. Bailey, Race and Redemption in Puritan New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 105 On the tentative ways that colonists understood the differences between themselves and Indians earlier in the century see Karen O. Kupperman, Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). 106 Lepore, Name of War. 107 David J. Silverman, “The Impact of Indentured Servitude on the Society and Culture of Southern New England Indians, 1680-1810,” New England Quarterly 74 (2001), 622–66; Mandell, King Philip’s War. 108 Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (New York: Knopf, 1984); and Richard R. Johnson, Adjustment to Empire: The New England Colonies, 1675–1715 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981). 109 Sewall quoted in Gookin, Daniel Gookin, 198. 110 Mukhtar Ali Asani, “The Growth of Sewall’s Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica,” Early American Literature 7 (1972): 64–75; George Lyman Kittredge, ed., “Letters of Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall relating to New England and the Indians,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts I4 (I9I2), 142–186; and Nan Goodman, The Puritan Cosmopolis: The Law of Nations and the Early American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 83–107. Indians from the praying town of Magunkaquog appealed to Sewall to help keep their land safe from a projected sale to Harvard University in 1715; when their request failed, one of the principle opponents of the sale committed suicide by hanging. See Stephen A. Mrozowski, Holly Herbster, David Brown and Katherine C. Priddy, “Magunkaquog Materiality, Federal Recognition and the Search for a Deeper History,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 13 (2009): 434–446. 111 Ann Marie Plane, Dreams and the Invisible World in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 150–151. 112 Christopher W. Hannan, “Indian Land in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 29 (Summer 2001): 1–12; and Stewart-Smith, “Pennacook Indians.” 113 Deloraine Pendre Corey, The History of Malden, Massachusetts (Malden, MA: John Wilson and Son, 1899), 48; Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall, History of Lynn (Boston: John L. Shorey, 1865), 51–54; and Sidney Perley, The Indian Land Titles of Essex County Massachusetts (Salem, MA: Essex Book and Print Club, 1912), 10–11. 114 On Christian Indian communities in the eighteenth century see Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). 115 On the speed of the changes see Pulsipher, “‘Our Sages Are Sageles,’”; and Drake, King Philip’s War.

PART II

Central Primary Source Document

DANIEL GOOKIN, AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE YEARS 1675, 1676, 1677*

An Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England, 1675, 1676, 1677. Impartially drawn by one well acquainted with that affair, and presented unto the Right Honourable the Corporation residing in London, appointed by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty for promoting the Gospel among the Indians in America.1 Epistle Dedicatory For the Honorable Robert Boyle, Esq., Governor of the Right Honorable Corporation for Gospelizing the Indians in New England. Right Honorable: A few years since I presumed to transmit to your honors a few historical collections concerning the Indians in New England, especially the Christian or Praying Indians, which script (as things then stood) was a true account of that matter.2 And were I to write it again (as things were then circumstanced), I could not add or diminish from the substance of it. But since the war began between the barbarous heathen and the English, the state of affairs is much altered with respect to the poor Christian Indians, who are much weakened or diminished, especially in the colony of Massachusetts in New England. A true, impartial narrative whereof, and of their doings and sufferings and present condition, I have endeavoured to collect, and here humbly to offer for your Honors’ perusal, who

* Archaeologia Americana: Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, 2 (Cambridge, 1836), 423–523. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society. 1 The London-based Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England, initially chartered in 1649 as the President and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. 2 Daniel Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians in New England” (1674), Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, I (1792), 141–227.

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are, under God, as nursing fathers to this despised orphan: the reason of this my undertaking is intimated in the first page.3 All that is defective is the inability and unworthiness of the penman. I humbly entreat your honors to pardon my boldness and weakness, and accept of the matter clothed in a wilderness dress, yet I trust agreeing with truth and verity. The God of heaven and earth bless your Honors, and crown you all with spiritual, temporal, and eternal felicity, and make you more and more tender nursing fathers to Christ’s interests and concerns among the English and Indians in New England; so prays Your obliged servant in this work of the Lord Jesus Christ, D.G. Cambridge, in New England, December 18, 1677 ELIOT’S LETTER The Reverend Mr. John Elliot (teacher unto the Praying Indians) his Letter to the author of this Narrative upon his perusal of it. Sir: I have perused this narrative of the Christian Indians, both their sufferings and doings; though (as you intimate) more might have been said, yet here is enough to give wise men a taste of what hath passed. Leave the rest unto the day of judgment, when all the contrivances and actings of men shall be opened before the seeing eye of a glorious Judge. I do not see that any man, or orders of men, can find just cause of excepting against (human frailties excepted) any thing that you have written. As natural fathers, so foster fathers, are well pleased to hear well of their children. I doubt not but the Right Honorable Corporation will well accept this great service and duty, to give them so clear an account of their foster children, a service which I confess I am not able to perform.4 The Lord bless your good and faithful labour in it. I do heartily and thankfully adjoin my attestation to the substance of all you have written here, and so rest Your worships’ to serve you, John Elliot HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN INDIANS. A TRUE AND IMPARTIAL NARRATIVE OF THE DOINGS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN OR PRAYING INDIANS, IN NEW ENGLAND, IN THE TIME OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND BARBAROUS HEATHEN, WHICH BEGAN THE 20th OF JUNE, 1675. Forasmuch as sundry persons have taken pains to write and publish historical narratives of the war, between the English and Indians in New England, but very little hath been hitherto declared (that I have seen) concerning the Christian Indians,

3 The term “nursing fathers” was used to denote authority figures who were supposed to attend to the spiritual and temporal well-being of a community. 4 Eliot later expressed regret at not having written about the war; see “Rev. John Eliot’s Records of the First Church in Roxbury, Mass.,” New England Historical and Genealogical Record 33 (July, 1879), 415.

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who, in reality, may be judged to have no small share in the effects and consequences of this war; I thought it might have a tendency to God’s glory, and to give satisfaction to such worthy and good persons as have been benefactors and wellwillers to that pious work of Gospelizing the poor Indians in New England, to give them right information how these Christian natives have demeaned themselves in this hour of tribulation.5 And therefore (through divine assistance) I shall endeavour to give a particular and real account of this affair. Before I come to declare matter of fact, I shall premise some things necessary to be understood for the better clearing of our ensuing discourse. The Christian Indians in New England have their dwellings in sundry Jurisdictions of the English Colonies, and that at a considerable distance from each other; more particularly, 1st. Upon the Islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, in which two Islands there inhabit many hundreds of them that visibly profess the Gospel. These Indians have felt very little of this war comparatively; for the English that dwell upon those Islands have held a good correspondency with those Indians all the time of the war, as they did before the war began.6 The only sufferings of these Christian Indians was of their coming up in the summer, during the war, to work for the English in the Massachusetts Colony, whither many scores of them did usually repair to work, whereby they and their families were accommodated with necessary clothing, which is scarce and dear upon those Islands. Besides, several of those Indians belonging to the Islands, being at work at some of the English towns when the war began in the summer, 1675, were not permitted to stay in the Colonies, but were forced to pack away to their own habitations to their great loss, because the English were so jealous, and filled with animosity against all Indians without exception. Hereby they tasted but little of the effects of the war, and therefore they will not so properly fall under our consideration. 2dly. Another considerable number of Christian Indians live within the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth, called the Cape Indians; these also (through God’s favor) have enjoyed much peace and quiet by their English neighbours, and several of them have served the English in the war, especially in the heat of the war, and did acquit themselves courageously and faithfully.7 Indeed, at the beginning

5 Contemporaneous histories of the war included William Hubbard, A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England, From the First Planting Thereof in the Year 1607, to this Present Year 1677 (Boston, MA, 1677); and Increase Mather, A Brief History of the War With the Indians in New England (Boston, MA, 1676). 6 Thomas Mayhew and Thomas Mayhew, Jr., along with John Cotton, Jr., proselytized the Indians living on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, where native peoples shaped an understanding of Christianity that was in concert with their traditional beliefs. See David J. Silverman, “Indians, Missionaries, and Religious Translation: Creating Wampanoag Christianity in Seventeenth-Century Martha’s Vineyard,” William and Mary Quarterly 62 (2005), 141–174. 7 William Leverich, minister of the town of Sandwich in Plymouth Colony, and, after his departure, the lay preacher Richard Bourne, fostered Christianity among the Mashpee Wampanoags of Cape

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of the war, the English of that colony were suspicious of them, and slow to improve any of them in the war, though divers of those Christian Indians manifested themselves ready and willing to engage with the English against their enemies; and this is so much the more remarkable that those Indians proved so faithful to the English interest, considering the war first began in the Colony of Plymouth, by the rashness and folly of Philip, Chief Sachem of the Indians in those parts, unto whom, or to some of his people doubtless, these praying Indians were allied by affinity or consanguinity. Therefore good reason it is, to attribute it to the grace and favor of God, and to the efficacy of religion upon their hearts, that they carried it so well in this war; the greatest sufferings these underwent was, being impeded by the war to come and work in harvest among the English, whereby they had a good helper to get apparel. These also do not fall so properly under consideration in this narrative. 3dly. There were a few other praying Indians, about 40 persons, that began to embrace the Christian religion, who lived near to New Norwich, in Connecticut Colony, who were taught by that worthy and reverend minister, Mr. James Fitch, pastor at Norwich, who had taken much pains to declare the Gospel to the Indians in those parts. But the chief Sachem, Uncas, and his eldest son, Oineko, not being encouragers of the Christian religion, (though otherwise they and their people have joined with the English in the war, and proved faithful, especially against their ancient and implacable enemies, the Narragansetts,) I say, this Sachem and people being generally averse to entertain Christian religion, or countenance any such as did among his people incline to it, hence it came to pass, that those few in those parts that prayed to God are not distinguishable from the rest, and so nothing of remark is spoken of any of them, and hence will not be subjects of this discourse.8 4thly. The fourth and not the least company of Christian Indians, are those that inhabit the Jurisdiction or Colony of Massachusetts, who were taught and instructed in the Christian faith by that indefatigable servant of God and minister of Christ, Mr. John Eliot, (who hath also labored among all the praying Indians in New England, more or less, for about 30 years,) but more especially among those of Massachusetts Colony. And of these Indians, it is, I shall principally speak, who have felt more of the effects of this war than all the rest of the Christian Indians, as may appear in that which ensues.

Cod. Gookin was well aware of missionary work going on at Cape Cod and on the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and included letters from both Richard Bourne and John Cotton, Jr. in his Historical Collections, 196–200. 8 On the missionary James Fitch’s vexed relationship with Uncas, and the latter’s hostility to Christianization see Michael Leroy Oberg, Uncas: First of the Mohegans (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

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For the better understanding of the following discourse, we are to know that all these praying Indians dwelt upon the south side of Merrimack river, and inhabited seven villages, viz. Wamesit, Nashobah, Okkokonimesit, alias Marlborough, Hassannamesit, Makunkokoag, Natick, and Punkapog, alias Pakomit.9 These were for distinction’s sake called the old praying Indian towns, for there were five or six small villages of the Nipmuck Indians that had some people in them inclining to entertain the Gospel, therefore were called, the new praying towns.10 But those latter being but raw and lately initiated into the Christian profession, most of them fell off from the English and joined the enemy in the war, some few excepted, whose hearts God had turned, that came in to Okkokonimesit, or Marlborough, and lived among the praying Indians; they were drawn together there until such time as the one and other were driven and drawn away among the enemy, as shall afterward (God willing) be declared. I am therefore principally to speak of the Christian Indians belonging to the old praying towns above mentioned. The situation of those towns was such, that the Indians in them might have been improved as a wall of defence about the greatest part of the colony of Massachusetts; for the first named of those villages bordered upon the Merrimack river, and the rest in order about twelve or fourteen miles asunder, including most of the frontiers. And had the suggestions and importunate solicitations of some persons, who had knowledge and experience of the fidelity and integrity of the praying Indians been attended and practised in the beginning of the war, many and great mischiefs might have been (according to reason) prevented; for most of the praying towns, in the beginning of the war, had put themselves into a posture of defence, and had made forts for their security against the common enemy; and it was suggested and proposed to the authority of the country, that some English men, about one third part, might have been joined with those Christian Indians in each fort, which the praying Indians greatly desired, that thereby their fidelity might have been better

9 Wamesit was located near the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; Nashobah in current day Littleton, Massachusetts; Hassanamesit in current day Grafton, Massachusetts; Okkokonimesit, or Okommakamesit, near Marlborough, Massachusetts; Makunkokoag, or Magunkog, in current day Hopkinton and Ashland, Massachusetts; Punkapoag in current day Canton and Stoughton, Massachusetts. 10 In Historical Collections, 189–195, Gookin described a journey that he and Eliot had made in 1674 to survey “new” praying towns, with the “design … to confirm their [the Indians’] souls in the Christian religion, and to settle teachers in every town, and to establish civil government among them, as in other praying towns.” He listed the following as “new” towns: Manchage (near current day Sutton, Massachusetts); Chabanakongkomun (near current day Webster and Dudley, Massachusetts); Maanexit (near current day Thompson, Connecticut), Quantisset and Wabquisset (both near current day Woodstock, CT); Pakachoog (near current day Worcester and Auburn, Massachusetts); and Waeuntug (near current day Uxbridge, Massachusetts). Two additional towns, Weshakim (near current day Sterling, Massachusetts) and Quabaug (near Brookfield), Gookin expressed hopes for but did not number as being established to a degree comparable with the others.

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demonstrated, and that with the assistance and company of some of those English soldiers, they might daily scout or range the woods from town to town, in their several assigned stations, and hereby might have been as a living wall to guard the English frontiers, and consequently the greatest part of the Jurisdiction, which, with the blessing of God, might have prevented the desolations and devastations that afterward ensued. This was not only the suggestion of some English, but the earnest desire of some of the most prudent of the Christian Indians, who in all their actions declared that they were greatly ambitious to give demonstration to the English of their fidelity and good affection to them and the interest of the Christian religion, and to endeavour all that in them lay to abate and take off the animosity and displeasure that they perceived was enkindled in some English against them; and hence it was that they were always found ready to comply cheerfully with all commands of the English authority. But such was the unhappiness of their affairs, or rather the displeasure of God in the case, that those counsels were rejected, and on the contrary a spirit of enmity and hatred conceived by many against those poor Christian Indians, as I apprehend without cause, so far as I could ever understand, which was, according to the operation of second causes, a very great occasion of many distressing calamities that befell both one and the other. The great God who overruleth and ordereth all counsels and actions for the bringing to pass his own purpose and desire, was pleased to darken this counsel from such as had the power to put it in practice; and although there was a demonstration, near hand, in the colony of Connecticut for the benefit of such a course as was before proposed and desired, in keeping a fair correspondence with their neighbour Indians, the Mohegans and Pequods, who were not only improved by the English in all their expeditions, but were a guard to the frontiers, whereby those Indians, upon the account of their own interest (for they had no principles of Christianity to fix them to the English), proved very faithful and serviceable to the English, and under God were instrumental for the preservation of that Colony which had but one small deserted village burnt in this war, and very little of their other substance destroyed by the enemy.11 I have often considered this matter and come to this result, in my own thoughts, that the most holy and righteous God hath overruled all counsels and affairs in this, and other things relating to this war, for such wise, just, and holy ends as these; 1st. To make a rod of the barbarous heathen to chastise and punish the English for their sins. The Lord had, as our faithful minister often declared, applied more gentle chastisements (gradually) to his New England people; but

11 On the Connecticut magistrates’ diplomacy with the Mohegans and Pequots, which kept them for the most part safe from the destruction of King Philip’s War, see Jason W. Warren, Connecticut Unscathed: Victory in the Great Narragansett War, 1675–6 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014).

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those proving in great measure ineffectual to produce effectual humiliation and reformation, hence the righteous and holy Lord is necessitated to draw forth this smarting rod of the vile and brutish heathen, who indeed have been a very scourge unto New England, especially unto the Jurisdiction of Massachusetts. 2dly. To teach war to the young generation of New England, who had never been acquainted with it; and especially to teach old and young how little confidence is to be put in an arm of flesh; and to let them see if God give commission to a few (comparatively) of naked men to execute any work of God, how insignificant nothings are numbers of men well armed and provided, and endowed with courage and valor, to oppose and conquer the enemy, until God turn the balance. lt was observed by some judicious, that, at the beginning of the war, the English soldiers made a nothing of the Indians, and many spake words to this effect, that one Englishman was sufficient to chase ten Indians; many reckoned it was no other but Veni, vidi, vici.12 Surely the Lord well knew, that if he should have given his people victory, before they were in some measure corrected of this sin of trusting in arm of flesh, that little glory would accrue to his name by such a deliverance. 3dly. The purging and trying the faith and patience of the Godly English and Christian Indians, certainly was another end God aimed at in this chastisement. And the discovery of hypocrisy and wickedness in some that were ready to cry “Aha!” at the sore calamity upon the English people in this war, and as much as in them lay to overthrow God’s work in Gospelizing the poor Indians. 4thly. Doubtless one great end God aimed at was the punishment and destruction of many of the wicked heathen, whose iniquities were now full; the last period whereof was their malignant opposition to the offers of the Gospel, for the Pakanahats and the Narragansetts, those two great nations upon whom the dint of war hath most especially fallen, (for they are almost totally destroyed,) had once and again the Gospel offered to them. But their chief Sachems malignantly rejected and opposed it, and consequently the people followed their examples. And notwithstanding they were very conversant among the English, especially the Narragansetts, and commendable for their industry and labor among the English, yet had the most of them no hearing ears unto the glad tidings of salvation offered in the Gospel, and very few of them delighted in communion with the Christian Indians. And here I shall insert a matter of remark. After the war began with Philip, the English, having cause to be suspicious of the Narragansetts, sent some soldiers to Mr. Smith’s,13 of

12 In other words, the English were over-confident at the beginning of the war, evincing an attitude similar to that embodied in words attributed to Julius Caesar when he won an easy victory: “Veni, Vidi, Vici [I came; I saw; I conquered].” 13 Richard Smith.

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Wickford, that lived near them, designing thereby to put upon them a necessity to declare themselves friends or enemies, and to push upon them the performances of former articles of agreement between the English and them, at which time, being in July, 1675, they complied to a treaty of continuing in peace and friendship with the English.14 But among other articles, the Narragansetts, by their agent Potuche, urged that the English should not send any among them to preach the Gospel or call upon them to pray to God.15 But, the English refusing to concede to such an article, it was withdrawn, and a peace concluded for that time. In this act they declared what their hearts were, viz. to reject Christ and his grace offered to them before. But the Lord Jesus, before the expiration of 18 months, destroyed the body of the Narragansett nation, that would not have him to reign over them, particularly all their chief Sachems and this Potuche, a chief Counsellor and subtle fellow, who was taken at Rhode Island, coming voluntarily there, and afterward sent to Boston and there executed.16 5thly. And lastly, to mention no more, this doubtless was another end the God of Heaven aimed at in this war, that he might magnify his rich and free grace, in saving and delivering his poor New England people at last, and destroying the greater part of the enemy, and subduing others under them; and this was by his own hand chiefly done, thereby magnifying his grace in answering the incessant prayers of the people of God in England, Ireland, and Scotland, as well as in New England. But I shall forbear to add any more of this kind, and proceed now to declare matter of fact. In April, 1675, before the war broke forth above two months, there being, the March preceding, some agitations between the Government of Plymouth, and Philip, Sachem of Mount Hope, concerning the murder of one John Sasamand, one of the Christian Indians belonging to Massachusetts; but at that time he lived in Plymouth Colony, near Taunton, and was a minister to some Christian Indians thereabouts.17 And Philip was vehemently suspected to be

14 Gookin here describes a treaty of July, 1675, in which negotiators from Connecticut and Massachusetts demanded humiliating proofs of loyalty from the Narragansetts, and then interpreted subsequent non-compliance with subterfuge and hostility. Suspicions concerning Narragansett “fidelity” led to a preemptive strike in the winter of 1675–6. On the July treaty see Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King: Indians, English and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 113. 15 According to William Harris of Providence, who wrote two lengthy letters about King Philip’s War to authorities in England, Potuck was the chief advisor of Quaiapen, the “Old Queen.” Quaiapen was a key leader among the Narragansetts and sister of the great sachem Ninigret. Quaiapen had at first supported the English but then shifted her allegiance. 16 Harris criticized English subterfuge in the capture and eventual execution of Potuck, but Gookin interpreted it providentially. See Harris document below, 158. 17 John Sassamon was a Christian Indian whose murder helped to spark King Philip’s War. Plymouth authorities, believing that Philip was behind the murder, tried and executed three Wampanoag men alleged to have killed him, thereby infringing Philip’s sovereignty. On Sassamon’s

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the contriver of this murder, though executed by others; the story whereof is more particularly set down by Mr. Mather and Mr. Wm. Hubbard, in their histories of the war, which has spared me the labor to recite it in this place; only thus much I may say, pertinent to my purpose, that this John Sasamand was the first Christian martyr of the Indians; for it is evident he suffered death upon the account of his Christian profession, and fidelity to the English.18 I say, about this time, the beginning of April, Waban, the principal Ruler of the praying Indians living at Natick, came to one of the magistrates on purpose, and informed him that he had ground to fear that Sachem Philip and other Indians, his confederates, intended some mischief shortly to the English and Christian Indians. Again, in May, about six weeks before the war began, he came again and renewed the same. Others also of the Christian Indians did speak the same thing, and that when the woods were grown thick with green trees then it was likely to appear, earnestly desiring that care might be had and means used for prevention, at least for preparation for such a thing; and a month after the war began. About the 21st of June, at the first going forth, the English were only employed as soldiers, excepting only three Indians for guides went with Capt. Prentice, viz. one James and Thomas Quannapohutt, alias Rumny Marsh, and Zechary Abram, who all behaved themselves valiantly and faithfully.19 The English at first thought easily to chastise the insolent doings and murderous practices of the heathen. But it was found another manner of thing than was expected; for our men could see no enemy to shoot at, but yet felt their bullets out of the thick bushes where they lay in ambushments. The enemy also used this stratagem, to apparel themselves from the waist upwards with green boughs, that our Englishmen could not readily discern them, or distinguish them from the natural bushes; this manner of fighting our men had little experience of, and hence were under great disadvantages. The English wanted20 not courage or resolution, but could not discern or find an enemy to fight with, yet were galled by the enemy. The Council, having advice hereof from the commanders of the army, judged it very necessary to arm and send forth some of the praying

hybrid identity see Jill Lepore, “Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal Consequences of Literacy,” American Quarterly 46 (1994), 479–512. 18 Eliot noted Sassamon’s death in his church records: “This winter past, John Sossoman was murdered by wicked Indians. He was a man of eminent parts and wit … sent by the church to Asowamsick in Plimouth Pattent to preach the Gospel. Since his death we heare by some godly English of Taunton … that he had the esteeme of a good Christian, and his death was much bewailed.” “Eliot’s Records,” Ibid., 297. 19 Captain Thomas Prentice was captain of a Middlesex County troop of horse. The Quannapohit brothers appear later in the narrative. Gookin regarded Zachary Abram an accomplished soldier, and submitted a petition in 1677, asking that the people of Medfield be compelled to provide Abram, Quannapohit and other Christian Indians a “just share of the spoyle” coming from the sale of prisoners that they had captured who were then sold as slaves. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 235. 20 Lacked.

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Indians to assist our forces, hereby not only to try their fidelity, but to deal the better with the enemy in their own ways and methods, according to the Indian manner of fighting, wherein our Indians were well skilled, and had our [their] council practiced, and also to be as scouts and forlorns to the English; for the Indians generally excel in a quick and strong sight for the discovery of any thing; and then they have a very accurate sagacity in discovering the tracks of man or beast. And also they are subtle and wily to accomplish their enterprise, especially they keep a deep silence in their marches and motions, whereas the English are more prone to talk to one another and make a noise, whereby the enemy, discovering them before they come near, either prepare for them or take their flight, as is most for their advantage. And here I shall take leave, as a parenthesis, to insert a short and true story of an Indian chief, captain under Uncas, who marching in this war as scout with some English soldiers of Connecticut, one of the English soldiers had on a new pair of shoes that made a creaking noise as they travelled. The Indian captain was not quiet until he had persuaded the fellow with creaking shoes to take his moccasins and wear them, and the Indian carried the Englishman’s shoes at his back, and went himself barefoot. Another English soldier had on a pair of leather breeches, which being dry made a rustling noise; the Indian captain was not satisfied until he had persuaded the man to take off his breeches, or else to wet them in the water to prevent their rustling. By this relation, which is a truth, we may observe how circumspect and careful they are in order to obtain advantage of their enemies. 1675, July 2. But to proceed to our purpose. The Governor and Council gave their orders to Major Daniel Gookin (unto whom a peculiar inspection and government of the praying Indians was committed by authority of the General Court) to raise a company of the praying Indians forthwith, to be armed and furnished, and sent to the army at Mount Hope. In pursuance whereof the Major forthwith sent to all the praying Indians for one third part of their able men, who all readily and cheerfully appeared, and being enlisted were about 52. These being armed and furnished were sent to the army under conduct of Capt. Isaac Johnson, the 6th of July, 1675, who returned back after he had delivered them to Major Savage, commander-in-chief of the army at Mount Hope. How those Indians behaved themselves I shall say little, not being an eye-witness thereof, but both Major Savage, Capt. Prentiss, and Capt. Henchman, chief officers in the army, give testimony that the most of them acquitted themselves courageously and faithfully, as may appear by a certificate (in the close of this treatise) under their hands.21

21 Captain Isaac Johnson of Roxbury; Major Thomas Savage, who commanded the Mount Hope campaign; and Captain Daniel Henchman of the Suffolk Regiment.

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At this time the praying Indians at Marlborough were increased to about 40 men, besides women and children; which came to pass by the advice of several Christian Indians that came to them, viz. from Hassanamesit, Magunkoag, Manchage, and Chobonokonomum, who (when the troubles increased) left their places, and came into Marlborough under the English wing, and there built a fort upon their own land, which stood near the centre of the English town, not far from the church or Meeting-House; hence they hoped not only to be secured, but to be helpful to the English, and on this pass and frontier to curb the common enemy; and in all probability it would have produced that effect, but the most holy God for the chastisement of the English and Indians disposed otherwise, as in the sequel will appear. These Indians at Marlborough, some of them having been abroad to scout in the woods (according to the Englishmen’s order) to discover the enemy and secure the place, they met with a track of Indians which they judged to be a greater number by the track, and upon discovery whereof they presently repaired to the chief militia officer of the town named Lieut. Ruddock, and informed him thereof, who presently joined some English with them, and sent forth to pursue the track, which they did, and first seized five Indians and after two more, which were in all seven; these being seized were forthwith sent down to the magistrates at Cambridge, who examined them and found them to be Indians belonging to Narragansett, Long Island, and Pequod, who had all been at work about seven weeks with one Mr. Jonathan Tyng, of Dunstable, upon Merrimack river; and hearing of the wars they reckoned with their master, and getting their wages, conveyed themselves away without his privity, and being afraid marched secretly through the woods, designing to go to their own country, until they were intercepted as before.22 This act of our Christian Indians of Marlborough was an evident demonstration of their fidelity to the English interest. The seven prisoners, after further examination before the council, where they told the same thing as before, were for a few days committed to prison, but afterwards released. But to return to our purpose. Notwithstanding the certificate which hereafter follows, and is before touched, concerning the courage and fidelity of our Christian Indians at Mount Hope, yet I am not ignorant that some officers and soldiers in the army who had conceived much animosity against all Indians, disgusted our Christian Indian soldiers, and reported ultimately concerning them, saying that they were cowards and skulked behind trees in fight, and that they shot over the enemies’ heads, and such like reproaches; but, as the proverb says, ill will speaks no good; but certainly none could better know

22 Jonathan Tyng had settled in Dunstable around 1673, and fortified his house as a garrison during the war, when other Englishmen had fled. Elias Nason, A History of the Town of Dunstable, Massachusetts (Boston, MA, 1877), 23–25.

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their doings than their particular commanders, who have subscribed the certificate, who are men not inferior to any in the army for honesty and fidelity. This I do also know upon my own personal knowledge, that some of those Indian soldiers at their return (viz. John Hunter, Thomas Quannapohitt, and Felix) brought to the governor, John Leverett, Esq., four of the enemies’ scalps, slain by them at the fight at or near Mount Hope, for which they had a reward given them. In this expedition one of our principal soldiers of the praying Indians was slain, a valiant and stout man, named Job Nesutan; he was a very good linguist in the English tongue, and was Mr. Eliot’s assistant and interpreter in his translations of the Bible, and other books of the Indian language.23 The loss of such a useful and trusty man was great in the forementioned respects. Besides, another stout Indian of 86 was wounded by accident, and lost the use of his right arm, his name Thomas Rumny Marsh, the manner thus; he, being a horseman, as is before hinted, under Captain Prentiss, they being at a stand and he sitting on his horse, set the butt end of a long gun he carried upon the ground, and held his hand upon the muzzle of the gun which was charged; the weather being hot, and the horse disturbed by flies, pawed with his fore foot, and turning the cock, (which was half bent,) the piece went off and tore his hand in pieces. It was after a long time cured, but the use of this hand lost; yet this fellow since that time hath done very good service as well as before, as may afterward be mentioned. This company of praying Indians, part of them were sent home and disbanded after 25 days, and the other half were not disbanded until some time after Philip was fled out of his country, and those Indians were part of the number that pursued him; and had their counsel been practised; as I was credibly informed by some upon the place, he had probably been taken, and his distressed company at that time; but God darkened that counsel from us at that time, for Philip’s iniquity being not yet full, and the Indian rod upon the English backs had not yet done God’s errand. About the 26th of July, fifty Mohegans belonging to Uncas, with three of his sons, whereof one was his eldest son and successor, named Oneko, came into Boston, all armed with guns, being conducted by two Englishmen and some of the praying Indians of Natick, where they lodged the night before; they brought a letter from Mr. James Fitch, minister of Norwich, to our Governor and Council, signifying that their Sachem Uncas had sent them to assist the English against their enemy Philip; these had given some intimations of the tender of their service some days before, by six messengers sent on purpose, but they

23 Nesutan had been schoolteacher and instructor in religion at Natick – as had John Sassamon – and also aided Eliot in translating the Bible into the Massachusett language. See Richard W. Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians Before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 118–119, 124. According to Samuel Gardner Drake, The Book of the Indians of North America, 8th ed. (Boston, MA, 1841), 51, Nesutan died during the Mount Hope campaign.

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Sir Peter Lely (British), Portrait of John Leverett, 17th century. Oil on canvas. 43 ½ x 35 inches (110.49 x 88.9 cm) Peabody Essex Museum, Gift of John Treadwell before 1822. 106819. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Mark Sexton

Governor John Leverett John Leverett served as governor of Massachusetts during King Philip’s War. A passionate devotee of the Puritan cause, he had traveled back to England during the 1640s to fight for the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War. Here he is depicted in a military “buff” coat and sword, a probable reflection of the significance he ascribed to fighting for deeply held beliefs.

were not expected to come so speedily as they did. July 29th, those 50 Mohegans and three of our praying Indians of Natick being joined with them for guides, were sent forth from Boston, conducted by Quarter-Master Swift, and a ‘ply of horse, and were ordered at first (by the Governor of Plymouth, into which Colony they were to pass,) to march toward Taunton; but after they were upon their way, the Governor of Plymouth sent them other orders, to go to Rehobah, or Seekonk, which he did unwittingly, not then knowing any thing of Philip’s flight. But this thing was so ordered by the divine hand. For those Mohegans and Natick Indians came to Seekonk the night before that Philip and all his company, being judged about 500 of all sorts, men, women and children, passed on the end of Rehobah, within two or three miles of the town where the Mohegans and Naticks quartered. What forces could be speedily raised in those parts and got to quarter, to pursue Philip, which were not above ten from Taunton, thirty-four from Providence, and thirty from

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Seekonk, all English, who joining together with the Mohegans and Natick Indians made about 128 men, these pursued the enemy vigorously upon the first of August, being the Lord’s Day, and came up with the rear of the enemy about ten o’clock in the forenoon; the enemy had brought his best men into the war to oppose our forces pursuers; but our men, and particularly the Mohegan and Natick Indians, behaved themselves with such courage and activity, as was certified by a letter from Mr. Newman, of Rehobah,24 a minister that was present in the fight, that they slew fourteen of the enemies, principally men, and wounded divers others, whereof one Nimorod, a chief Captain and Councillor to Philip, was one slain; also they took a considerable booty which the Mohegan Indians loaded themselves with, which, together with the extreme heat of the weather, and the wounds of two or three of our side, (but none were slain of eighty-six,) occasioned them to give over the chase for a time to refresh themselves.25 In the interim, the enemy got such a start before our men that they escaped, though Capt. Henchman, with about sixty-eight men, whereof above twenty were of our Natick Indians, came up from Pokasit, where he kept garrison, about noon that day, and pursued the enemy two or three days, but could not come up with him, nor yet Capt. Mosely, who was sent from Boston, with fifty dragoons, to follow the chase, could not overtake the enemy, whose time was not yet come.26 Our praying Indians with Capt. Henchman, being not so loaded with plunder as the Mohegans, moved the Capt. to send them to head the enemy. But he thought it not prudent to break his small company, (for the Providence, Taunton, and Seekonk men were all gone home,) and to hazard so few as eight Indians were, against so considerable and numerous, as Philip was apprehended then to be. But as we were also certainly informed that Philip was so distressed and clogged at that time, his ammunition almost spent also, the Squaw Sachem, and her people, the Womponoges, (his greatest strength,) drawn off from them to the Narragansetts, that he had little above fifty able men left, but many hundreds of old men, women, and children; so that if the counsel of our Christian Indians had been put in practice, according to rational probability they had taken or slain Philip, and so retarded his motion, that the rest might have come up with him and destroyed his party.27 But God’s providence overruled those prudent suggestions, and permitted this, our arch enemy, to live longer, to be a scourge to us.

24 Noah Newman was the minister at Rehoboth. Historian William Hubbard credited Newman with trying to inspire his people to pursue Philip harder. 25 Nimrod was also known as Woonashum; on September 29, 1671, he had been one of the signers of an agreement in which Philip submitted himself to the authority of Plymouth colony and surrendered weapons. Although the treaty averted a crisis that had arisen at that time, Philip was humiliated by its terms. Drake, Book of the Indians, Book III, 28. 26 Samuel Moseley. 27 Weetamoo was known as the “squaw sachem” of Pocasset. She was the sister of Philip’s wife, and had also been married to Philip’s older brother, Wamsutta, whom she and many others believed had been poisoned by the English when he went to Plymouth to negotiate with

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About the latter part of July, 1675, the Council sent Capt. Edward Hutchinson as a commissioner to treat with the Nipmuck Indians, and as a guard and assistant to him, Capt. Wheeler and twenty-five of his troops were sent with him, and three of our Christian Indians for guides and interpreters, named Joseph and Sampson, brothers, and sons to old Robin Petuhanit, deceased, a good man who lived at Hasanamoset,28 together with George Memecho, their kinsman: these three accompanied Captain Wheeler and Captain Hutchinson, and were with them at the swamp near Quabage, when the Nipmuck Indians perfidiously set upon our men and slew seven of our men and wounded others; the Indian, George, was taken prisoner by the enemy, and came home afterward and brought good intelligence.29 The other two brothers, Joseph and Sampson, acquitted themselves very industriously and faithfully, and, by their care and skilful conduct, guided Captain Hutchinson and Captain Wheeler with their company in safety to Brookfield, an English town near adjacent, which was in a few hours after attacked by those Indians, and most of it burnt. They had only time to get together into one of the best houses, which was the same where the two wounded Captains Hutchinson and Wheeler were, with the remnant of their soldiers, and the inhabitants, which, that night and the next day, was besieged and assaulted by the enemy, and divers attempts made to fire it. The particular relation of the matter is declared in the history of the wars, and another printed paper put forth by Capt. Wheeler, being a narrative of the matter, wherein he mentions nothing of those Indians’ service, but yet gave them a certificate under his hand in these words.30 These are to certify that Joseph and Sampson, Indians, that were our guides in the Nipmuck country, behaved themselves courageously and faithfully, and conducted our distressed company in the best way from the swamp, where we were wounded and divers slain, unto the town of Brookfield, and all the time of our being with them, in the inn of

authorities in 1662. While her husband, Petananuet, also known as Ben, supported the English in King Philip’s War, Weetamoo chose to defy English authority. On Weetamoo’s strong leadership before and during the war, see Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018). 28 Gookin knew Sampson as the teacher at one of the “new” praying towns, Wabquissit, and described him as “an active and ingenious person” who “speaks good English, and reads well,” although in his youth he had been a “dissolute person.” His brother, Joseph, was teacher at Chabanakongkomum, where “he was the first that settled this town, and got the people to him about two years since.” Gookin, Historical Collections, 190–191. 29 George Memecho said that he had overheard Philip admit to having been low on soldiers and ammunition “at the swamp in his own country,” managing to escape only because the English did not press their pursuit. Drake, Book of the Indians, Book III, 30. 30 Thomas Wheeler, A Thankefull Remembrance of God’s Mercy to Several Persons at Quabaug or Brookfield (Cambridge, 1676).

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Brookfield, when the enemy attacked us, those two Indians behaved themselves as honest and stout men. “Witness my hand, the 20th of August, 1675. Thomas Wheeler” This certificate those Indians had, and I saw it, and took a copy of it, and I spoke with Captain Wheeler before his death, and he owned it. Besides, James Richardson, now Lieutenant, belonging to the army and living at Chelmsford, and several others that were in that action and are yet alive, owned the same thing; and moreover, both Captain Wheeler and Lieutenant Richardson informed me that the two Indians beforenamed, told Captain Hutchison, before the Indians perfidiously assaulted their company, that they much doubted the fidelity of those Nipmuck Indians, and feared they would be treacherous, and earnestly persuaded Capt. Hutchison and the rest not to adventure to go to them at the swamp; and gave him some demonstrations of it, for there were two English there sent the day before the mischief, and they then observed that which was a ground of their fears.31 But the Captain, being a man of spirit and intent upon his trust, would proceed, and so lost not only his own life but others also, for though he was not killed upon the place, yet he died of his wounds soon after.32 But this shows the prudence and fidelity of the Christian Indians; yet notwithstanding all this service they were, with others of our Christian Indians, through the harsh dealings of some English, in a manner constrained, for want of shelter, protection, and encouragement, to fall off to the enemy at Hassanamesit, the story whereof follows in its place; and one of them, viz. Sampson, was slain in fight, by some scouts of our praying Indians, about Watchuset; and the other, Joseph, taken prisoner in Plymouth Colony, and sold for a slave to some merchants at Boston, and sent to Jamaica, but upon the importunity of Mr. Elliot, which the master of the vessel related to him, was brought back again, but not released. His two children

31 The English emissary Ephraim Curtis, who owned a trading post in central Massachusetts, had encountered resistance and disrespect from Nipmuc sachems in the days prior to the deadly encounter, when Governor John Leverett had sent him to get a sense of Nipmuc loyalties. Historians have pointed out that the Nipmucs had good reason, in the years leading up to the war, to be angry over English assertions of control over land and missionary outreach – factors that made them receptive to Philip’s overtures as the Wampanoag leader fled his home at Mount hope and headed toward the interior of Massachusetts. Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 104–121, 162–171. 32 Gookin insisted that Hutchinson, son of the famous religious dissident Anne Hutchinson, was defeated because of his headstrong belief that he could assess the mood of the Nipmucs better than the Christian Indians who had been sent to help him. Alternatively, war chronicler Nathaniel Saltonstall attributed Hutchinson’s misplaced sense of familiarity to his employment of Nipmuc Indians as laborers on land that Hutchinson owned near Brookfield, a reminder that Indians may have resented Hutchinson as an engrosser of Indian lands: [Nathanial Saltonstall], “The Present State of New England,” in Charles H. Lincoln, ed., Narratives of the Indian Wars [1675], 1675–1677 (New York: Scribner, 1952), 35.

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taken prisoners with him were redeemed by Mr. Elliot, and afterward his wife, their mother, taken captive, which woman was a sober Christian woman, and is employed to teach school among the Indians at Concord, and her children are with her, but her husband held as before, a servant; though several that know the said Joseph and his former carriage, have interceded for his release, but cannot obtain it; some informing authority that he had been active against the English when he was with the enemy.33 There were several others of our praying Indians employed for guides to the forces sent us by Major Willard, to Brookfield, and with Capt. Lathrop and Lieut. Curtis and Daniel Champney, in several enterprises and affairs committed to them, both for the release of Brookfield, and to speak with the Nipmucks, before they broke out into hostility, all which Indians acquitted themselves faithfully according to their several employments and betrustments.34 But, notwithstanding those signal and faithful services done by those Christian Indians, and divers others not here related, yet the animosity and rage of the common people increased against them, that the very name of a praying Indian was spoken against, in so much, that some wise and principal men did advise some that were concerned with them, to forbear giving that epithet of praying. This rage of the people, as I contend, was occasioned from hence. Because much mischief being done and English blood shed by the brutish enemy, and because some neighbour Indians to the English at Quabage, Hadley, and Springfield (though none of those were praying Indians) had proved perfidious and were become enemies, hence it was that all the Indians are reckoned to be false and perfidious. Things growing to this height among the English, the Governor and Council, against their own reason and inclination, were put upon a kind of necessity, for gratifying the people, to disband all the praying Indians, and to make and publish an order to confine them to five of their own villages, and not to stir above one mile from the centre of such place, upon peril of their lives. The copy of which order here follows. “At a Council held in Boston, August 30th, 1675. “The Council judging it of absolute necessity for security of the English and Indians in amity with us, that they be restrained their usual commerce with the English and hunting in the woods, during the time of hostility with those that are our enemies; do order, that all those Indians, that are desirous to approve themselves faithful to the English, be confined to the several places

33 John Eliot petitioned against the enslavement of Indians as punishment for participation in the war. See document below, 140. 34 Major Simon Willard of Concord; Capt Thomas Lathrop/Lothrop of Essex County, a veteran of the Pequot War who died in September, 1675 at the Battle of Bloody Brook; and Lt. Ephraim Curtis of Quansigamond (Worcester), who had served as a guide for Hutchinson and Wheeler on their doomed mission.

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underwritten, until the Council shall take further order, and that they so order the setting of their wigwams that they may stand compact in one place of their plantations respectively, where it may be best for their own provision and defence, and that none of them do presume to travel above one mile from the centre of such of their dwellings unless in company of some English, or in their service, excepting for gathering in their corn with one Englishman in company, on peril of being taken as our enemies, or their abettors. And in case any of them be taken without the limits aforesaid except as above said, and do lose their lives, or be otherwise damnified by English or Indians; the Council do hereby declare that they shall account themselves wholly innocent, and their blood, or other damage by them sustained, will be upon their own heads. Also it shall not be lawful for any Indians, that are now in amity with us, to entertain any strange Indians, or to receive any of our enemies’ plunder, but shall from time to time make discovery thereof to some English that shall be appointed for that end to sojourn with them, on penalty of being accounted our enemies, and to be proceeded against, as such. “Also, whereas it is the manner of the heathen that are now in hostility with us, contrary to the practice of civil nations, to execute their bloody insolences by stealth, and skulking in small parties, declining all open decision of the controversy, either by treaty or by the sword; the Council do therefore order, that after the publication of the provision aforesaid, it shall be lawful for any person, whether English or Indian, that shall find any Indian travelling in any of our towns or woods, contrary to the limits abovenamed, to command them under their guard and examination, or to kill and destroy them as they best may or can. The Council hereby declaring, that it will be most acceptable to them, that none be killed or wounded, that are willing to surrender themselves into custody. “The places of the Indians’ residence are, Natick, Punquapog, Nashobah, Wamesit, and Hassanamesit. And if there be any that belong to other places, they are to repair to some one of these. “By the Council. Edward Rawson, Secretary By this order (which the Council was in a manner necessitated to put forth to quiet the people) the poor Christian Indians were reduced to great sufferings, being hindered from their hunting and looking after their cattle, swine, and getting in their corn, or laboring among the English to get clothes, and many other ways incommoded; also, were daily exposed to be slain or imprisoned, if at any time they were found without their limits. And there wanted not some English (ill willing to them), that took occasion to seize upon them, and take away their guns, and detain them to this day, and to bring them to prison. And whereas it was ordered and intended by the Council, that two or three Englishmen should be kept at every one of the Indian

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plantations aforesaid, to inspect their carriage and conversation, (which thing the Indians earnestly desired,) but few were found willing to live among them, only at Natick two persons were persuaded to reside, viz. John Watson, senior, and Henry Prentiss, of Cambridge; and for a short space some others took turns to keep at Punkapog, but they were changed weekly, and so I have not an account of their names.35 But those two abovenamed sojourned with the Natick Indians (where were the greatest number) for many weeks, yea, until they were removed to Deer Island. And those two persons were men of good credit for piety and honesty, who did give a very good testimony of the honest and sober deportment of those Indians, which appears by the certificate following, subscribed by them. “Whereas we, John Watson, senior, and Henry Prentiss, were appointed by the Hon’ble Council of Massachusetts, in New-England, to reside among the praying Indians living at Natick, to observe and inspect their manners and conversation, which service we attended for about twelve weeks: during all this time, we carefully observed their carriage and demeanor, and do testify on their behalf, that they behaved themselves both religiously towards God, and respectively, obediently, and faithfully to the English; and in testimony of the truth hereof, we have hereunto set our hands, the____of____1677. John Watson, Senior, Henry Prentiss.” I have also spoken with some of the English that inspected the Indians at Punkapog, and in particular with Quarter-master Thomas Swift, who testified the same thing for substance, concerning the Christian Indians living there; and he also said that others who were there affirmed the same thing. By all these testimonies (and many others that might be produced if need required) it is most evident, that the jealousies and suspicions of some Englishmen concerning those poor Christians were groundless and causeless, which will more evidently appear hereafter; and one thing I shall here add, that Corporal John Watson before named (a discreet and sober man) hath more than once spoken in my hearing, that, before he sojourned among these Christian Indians, he had entertained much animosity, prejudice, and displeasure in his mind, against them, and judged them such as they were vulgarly represented to be. But after he had some time lived with them, he received such full satisfaction, and was so fully convinced of his former error, that he said he was ashamed of himself for his harsh aspersion of them only upon common fame; and this he testified, not only in my hearing, but before the Governor and Council, and General Court, and many others that inquired of him how the Indians carried it. So that he became an apologist for them, as occasion was offered, insomuch that some accounted him also an offender for so speaking.

35 In December, 1675, the Council ordered men who had seized guns from the Natick Indians to return them to their guardians, Watson and Prentice, “for the service of the country.” Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 179a.

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Notwithstanding the Council’s endeavours in the former orders, and the testimony of these English witnesses on behalf of the Christian Indians, yet the clamors and animosity among the common people increased daily, not only against those Indians, but also all such English as were judged to be charitable to them. And particularly, many harsh reflections and speeches were uttered against Major Daniel Gookin, and Mr. John Elliot, the former of whom had been appointed by the authority of the General Court of Massachusetts, and approbation of the Honorable Governor and Corporation for Gospelizing those Indians, to rule and govern those lndians about twenty years, and the latter had been their teacher and minister about thirty years, as if they did support and protect those Indians against the English; whereas (God knows) there was no ground for such an imputation, but was a device and contrivance of Satan and his instruments, to hinder and subvert the work of religion among the Indians; for neither had any of our Christian Indians been justly charged, either with unfaithfulness, or treachery towards the English, since the war begun (that I know of.) But on the contrary, some of them had discovered the treachery, particularly Walcut the ruler ____ of Philip, before he began any act of hostility, as is before mentioned, and since the war have served the English faithfully, but yet must be content to receive such retribution from too many, (at whose hands they have deserved other things,) but now both the Christian Indians, and all that favored them are enemies to the English, and ought to be proceeded against accordingly, if some men might have had their wills, so great was the rage and unreasonable prejudice of many at this time. It might rationally have been considered, that those two persons abovenamed, who had (one of them for above twenty years, and the other about thirty years,) been acquainted with, and conversant among those Christian Indians, should have more knowledge and experience of them than others had, and consequently should be able to speak more particularly concerning such of those Indians whom they knew (according to a judgment of charity) to be honest and pious persons. And if at such a time, they should have been wholly silent and remiss in giving a modest testimony concerning them when called thereunto, God might justly have charged it upon them, as a sin and neglect of their duty, had they for fear declined to witness the truth for Christ, and for these his poor distressed servants, some of the Christian Indians. And in this day of Massah and Meribah, some that have the repute and I hope truly godly men, were so far gone with the temptation, that they accounted it a crime in any man to say that they hoped some of those Indians were pious persons, or that they had grounds of persuasion that such and such would be saved.36 This cruel frame of spirit (for I can give it

36 Exodus 17:7 refers to a time of strife and resentment against Moses due to lack of water: “And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” Gookin referenced this passage because the people of Massachusetts were calling into doubt and “chiding” his and Eliot’s leadership during a time of affliction.

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no gentler denomination) arose I apprehend from a double ground, first, the malice of Satan against Christ’s work among those Indians and to hinder their progress in religion; for they finding Englishmen, professing Christian religion, so enraged against them, and injurious to them without cause, as they well knew in their own consciences, whatever others thought or spake to the contrary, this was a sore temptation to such weak ones and little children as it were in the ways of Christianity, and hereby to incline them to apostasy, and if the devil by this stratagem could have prevailed, then the whole work of Christ among them, so spoken of, blessed and owned by the Lord, would have been utterly overthrown; this would have gratified Satan and his instruments greatly. A second root of this trouble arose from the perfidious and unfaithful dealing of the wicked Indians, and their causeless rage and cruelty and fury against the English, and particularly the Springfield and Northampton Indians, who lived near the English and seemed to carry it fair for a time, but at last proved perfidious and treacherous. But there was not one of them that ever I heard of, that was a pretender to Christian religion.37 This defection of those Indians (though some near the mark have been ready to say that if they were prudently managed as others of their neighbours the Mohegans were, they might have continued in amity and been helpful to the English to this day,) but their defection at this time had a tendency to exasperate the English against all Indians, that they would admit no distinction between one Indian and another,38 forgetting that the Scriptures do record that sundry of the heathen in Israel’s time, being proselyted to the Church, proved very faithful and worthy men and women; as Uriah the Hittite, Zeleg the Ammonite, lthmah the Moabite, 1st Chron. xi. 39, 41, 46. And Rahab the harlot, and Ruth the Moabitess, and divers others, men and women. But this is no wonder that wicked men, yea, sometimes godly men, are angry and displeased with others that fear God, and too readily pass judgment on them that they are hypocrites and naught, especially if there be occasion given by the falls of any that profess religion. And because this is a matter of moment I shall now come in order to relate a true story of the sufferings of several of the Christian Indians about this

37 Wiliam Hubbard cited the defection of Indians living around Springfield – and their participation in subsequent raids on English towns (Deerfield, Squaqueg, Northampton, Hatfield and Springfield) – as evidence that all Indians partook in the “same inbred Malice and Antipathy against the English Manners and Religion.” Hubbard, History of the Indian Wars in New England, I: 119–120, 123. 38 The Pocumtucks were probably resentful that the Springfield authorities had demanded the surrender of their guns, as well as hostages, as a pledge of their loyalty, for fear that the Pocumtucks would join with the Nipmucs at Quabaug in an alliance with the Wampanoags. Hubbard explained that prior to the attack, they managed to rescue the “insecurely watched over” hostages from Hartford. Ibid., 120. On the hostility that Springfield magistrate John Pynchon encountered when trying to follow a more moderate policy, see Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King, 114– 115.

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time, which, with the circumstances about it, and consequences of it, proved matter of great offence to the English and Indians, and laid a foundation of very much trouble and affliction not only to the Indians but the English also, and a cause why some of them afterwards were put upon the temptations to be willing to go away with the enemy. Being surprised by the enemy at a remote place, where they were gathering their corn, and they being generally unarmed could not defend themselves, and so were necessitated to comply with the enemy. But of the particular account of the matter I shall have occasion to speak hereafter if God please, and therefore shall pass it now. On the 30th of August, one of the captains of the army (being instigated thereunto by some people of those parts, no lovers of the Christian Indians,)39 sent down to Boston with a guard of soldiers, pinioned and fastened with lines from neck to neck, fifteen of those Indians that lived with others of them upon their own lands, and in their own fort at Okonhomesitt near Marlborough, where they were orderly settled and were under the English conduct, and frequently improved to scout about the plantation, and that to the very great satisfaction and acceptance of many wise and prudent men of the place; and besides they were ready to be for guides and pilots to our soldiers that passed that way to the westward, and had been often improved upon that account; which things were done before. And though afterward these Indians, by the procurement of some of their back friends, were to be removed from this place to one of the other five allowed places, which order before mentioned was made but the same day they were seized, viz. the 30th of August, 1675, and so it took not yet place, and these Indians were orderly settled here at this time; and it had been well for the country and for Marlborough in particular if they had never been disobliged or removed from thence; I conceive it might have been instrumental to save many a man’s life and much loss otherwise; for this company of Indians in this place, had they been cherished, conducted, and assisted by the English, would according to an eye of reason been as a wall of defence to the western frontiers of Massachusetts Colony; where most of our danger lay, and where most mischief was afterwards done. But the counsel of the Lord must stand, and his purpose to chastise the poor English very sharp, and Indians also, must be accomplished; therefore good counsel was hid from us, and jealousies and animosities increased and fomented among us. I shall not here recite the reasons moving the instigators unto this action, though I have seen and could produce the copy of the petition of Senonatt unto the Council, about this time. But there are some ready to conjecture that the occult and

39 Captain Samuel Mosely commanded a “volunteer” company that incorporated pirates – freed so that they could serve in the war – within its ranks, and was known for his harsh treatment of the Indians, and plundering of their property. George Madison Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (Leominster, MA, 1896), 27, 59–78.

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main reason inducing some of them to desire to be rid of the neighbourhood of those Indians, was in respect of a fair tract of land, belonging to them (near Marlborough) not only by natural right but by a grant from the General Court in the Massachusetts Colony; and this is more latent now than heretofore, for some of the people of those parts have very lately, in the spring 1677, not only taken away the fencing stuff from about the Indians’ lands, but taken away some cart loads of their young apple trees and planted them in their own lands.40 And when some of those Indians made some attempts to plant (by order from authority) upon their own lands in the spring 1677, some person of that place expressly forbid them, and threatened them if they came there to oppose them, so that the poor Indians being put into fears returned, and dared not proceed; and yet those Indians that went to plant were such as had been with the English all the war, and were not at all obnoxious. But I have been longer than I intended in the preface to that matter, fain to relate; the pretence for seizing these fifteen Marlborough Indians and sending them down as prisoners was this, that eleven of them41 had committed a notorious murder upon seven English persons at Lancaster upon a Lord’s day, August 22d; the next and immediate accuser of these Indians was one David, an Indian, one of the fifteen, who being suspected for shooting at a lad belonging to the English of Marlborough that was sent out by his master to look up some sheep, this David being apprehended by the aforesaid captain upon the former suspicion, and fastened to a tree to be shot to death, and fearing to drink of the same cup as his brother Andrew had done a fortnight before, being shot to death by some soldiers at the same place.42 Indeed Andrew, having been several months

40 Gookin, Historical Collections, 220–221, explained that the Christian Indians at Okommakamesit had 150 acres of land granted to them lying essentially within the town of Marlborough. They had planted apple trees there and tried to farm, but ended up moving about a mile away because the wandering livestock of English neighbors disturbed the crops in their insufficiently fenced field. One year prior to the war, Gookin had dreamed of establishing a farm on this land and using the proceeds to support a school to educate the children of Okommakamesit/Marlborough, Indian and English alike. He said that the praying Indians approved of this scheme, but it is doubtful that the English townspeople would have felt the same. Here Gookin argues that hunger for that tract of land, which he estimated as being worth about 200 pounds, motivated the false accusations against Christian Indians. On Marlborough’s resentment of the praying Indians’ land grant see Richard W. Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 144–145. 41 The eleven taken into custody included Old Jethro and two of his sons; James Printer; James Acompanet; Daniel Munups; John Cquasquaconet; John Asquenet; George Nonsequesewit; Thomas Mamuxonqua; Joseph Watapacoson (alias John Spoonhaut). Drake, Book of the Indians, Book III, 81. 42 The incident in which David’s brother, Andrew, was killed by Moseley’s unit after admitting, under duress, to having participated in the ambush of Hutchinson near Brookfield, is described in Nathaniel Saltonstall, “The Present State of New England,” (1675), in Charles H. Lincoln, ed., Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675–1699 (New York, 1913), 39. Moseley had tied the father and son to trees and threatened them at gunpoint – at different times and out of sight of one another. He created a deception by shooting off his gun to make the son believe his father had

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before the war gone upon a hunting voyage towards the Lakes and French plantations, returning home a month before this time, fell into the enemies’ quarters about Quabage, and was charged to be present with the Indians at the swamp when they did that perfidious villany against Captain Wheeler and Captain Hutchinson, before touched;43 but, some time after, he and his son-in-law left the enemy and came into the woods near Marlborough, where they were taken by Indian scouts belonging to Marlborough, and particularly by some of them now accused; and Andrew, brought to the English, was accused of being with the enemy at Quabage, and so immediately shot to death without acquainting the Council before it was done; for which the actors incurred blame, because there might have been good use made of his examination before his death, to have understood the state and numbers of the enemy; indeed, had it not been a boisterous season at this time, the actors would have been more severely animadverted upon. But David, as aforesaid, being fastened to a tree, and guns bent at him, feared death, and being offered a reprieve if he would confess truth, he promised something, and so was unbound, and then accused eleven of the Indians then at the fort, and now prisoners, to be murderers of the English at Lancaster before mentioned; “but,” said he, “I did not see it done, neither was I there, but I heard some speak so.” David was hereupon released from present death, but yet was sent down prisoner with the rest, and being examined before the Council, he at first owned that he had said so to the Captain, at Marlborough; but afterward, upon the trial before the court and jury, he said he had accused those Indians falsely. Indeed some of the accused Indians, particularly one named James Akompanet, a very understanding fellow, pleaded in behalf of himself and the rest, that what David said against them, was, 1st, to save his own life when he was bound to the tree, 2dly, to revenge himself of them because they had seized upon his brother Andrew, and his son, and delivered them to the English, one whereof was put to death, and the other sent out of the country, a slave.44 There were several things alleged against the prisoners. The most material were, that they were tracked from Lancaster to Marlborough about the time the murder was committed. That one of them had a pair of bandoleers belonging to one of the persons slain. That another had on a bloody shirt. But when the poor Indians had answered for themselves, and by good evidence cleared matters, all those pleas

been killed. Assuming his father already dead when his own questioning began, the son implicated him. Moseley then brought the father back, tied the pair together, and “examined” them until both confessed. 43 The mortally wounded Edward Hutchinson had been brought to Marlborough, and was buried there after a lingering death. The inscription on his headstone explained that he had been “shot by treacherous Indians, August 2, 1675; died August 19, 1675.” Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Marlborough (Boston, MA, 1862). 44 The account in Saltonstall, Present State, 39, has both Andrew and his son being killed by Mosely, not one killed and one sent into slavery.

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were figments: for the Indians proved by many witnesses, that they were all at Marlborough the whole Sabbath day, at the worship of God in their fort, and at the very time the murder was committed at Lancaster, ten miles distant; that the bandoleers, that one of them had, he came honestly by; and that they were delivered at Mount Hope, by one of the commissioners, unto James Rumny Marsh,45 an Indian soldier there, and delivered to him to bring home for him. The commissioner, Mr. Morse, owned in court that he had delivered a pair of bandoleers to James, and he, being in court, witnessed that he sent them home by the Indian accused.46 That the shirt became bloody by venison newly killed by those Indians, whereof this man carried a part upon his back; for it was made evident that those eleven Indians, with others, were abroad hunting, the Saturday before, towards Lancaster, and had killed three deer which they divided among them, (as their manner is,) and returned to their fort in Marlborough same Saturday evening. And others of them had bloody shirts upon the same occasion, besides the person accused. So that upon the trial were acquitted, except one man, who was found guilty of being accessary to the murder; but this man, named Joseph Spoonant, was tried by another jury, not the same that tried the others. Upon what ground the jury went, I know not; but the man was sold for a slave, and sent out of the country.47 Also, the first adviser of them all, called David, was condemned to be sold, his crime alleged for suspicion of shooting an Irish boy at Marlborough, and for accusing the others falsely; but all the rest were discharged. Before the conclusion of the trial, God in his providence so ordered, that two prisoners of the enemy were taken at two distinct times, who both declared that the murder at Lancaster (for which those men were accused) was committed by some of Philip’s party, and particularly the conductor of the party, (which consisted of about twenty Indians,) was named John with one eye, a notable fellow, that did very much mischief to the English afterward; and this man did live near Lancaster before the war began, and was well acquainted with the place, and was a principal captain that conducted the Indians that burnt the town of Lancaster afterward; and the prisoners before mentioned heard this one-eyed John boast of

45 James Quannapohit. 46 A bandoleer was a “leathern belt passing over the right shoulder and under the left arm and containing a dozen or more round boxes each holding one charge of powder; a bag of bullets and a horn of priming-powder was also attached to this belt.” Bodge, Soldiers, 46. John Morse was a Commissary for the Massachusetts troops, responsible for equipping soldiers. 47 In Joseph Spoonhaut’s case, the jury’s decision was based on the testimony of an English soldier who said that Spoonhaut had admitted the murder. The jury explained that “if Samuel Scripture’s [soldier from Groton] testimony of the prisoner’s owning of the fact be one legal evidence they found him guilty of murder.” John Noble, ed. Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1630–1692 (3 vols., Boston, MA, 1901), I: 53. Scripture, in 1674, had married Elizabeth Knapp of Groton, the young woman whom clergyman Samuel Willard famously treated for possession by a devil. See John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, Updated Edition (New York: Oxford, 2004), 114.

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this exploit in slaying the people at Lancaster, for which our praying Indians were accused.48 But before this business was fully examined and issued, the clamors of the people were very great upon this occasion, and all things against those praying Indians accused (as one of the most intelligent of the magistrates said) were represented as very great, as things appear in mist or fog. Some men were so violent that they would have had these Indians put to death by martial law, and not tried by a jury, though they were subjects under the English protection, and not in hostility with us; others had received such impressions in their minds, that they could hardly extend charity to the jurors and magistrates that acquitted them. And indeed God hath since, by his immediate hand, given testimony against some persons that were violent in it, to have them put to death, as I could instance in particulars, but shall endeavour to avoid all personal reflections; but (recondam in corde meo) I will lay up these things in my heart. Although I mention the story of this matter in this place, yet it was towards the latter end of September, before these Indians were tried and acquitted, all which time they remained in prison, under great sufferings. In truth, as the proverb is, every stone was turned by their enemies to bring them to destruction. But some, that were more considerate, serious, and pious, had their hearts exercised with tremblings in prayer all this time, lest the wind of temptations might blow so hard as to drive the judges and jurors upon the rock of bringing blood upon the land, which, blessed be God, was prevented in this matter. But, as a further aggravation of the pretended faults of those Christian Indians at Marlborough, (which at this time lived there in a fort, and were a bulwark to the English inhabitants, and daily scouts ranged the woods adjacent to guard the English as well as themselves.) But God hid this benefit from the English, which should have been answered and requited with love and thankfulness; but, instead thereof, many of the English at that place were jealous of the Indians, their neighbours, and hated them, and took counsel to disoblige them. For the day before the Captain came to seize the prisoners above mentioned, the Lieutenant of the town, named Ruddock, demanded the delivery of their arms and ammunition, which they readily submitted to, and carried to his house twenty-three guns, and their powder-horns and bullets, that they used to carry with them, all which they laid at his feet.49 But their common stock of powder and ball, which was about ten pounds of powder, and sixty pounds of bullets, that was given to them by order of the commissioners of the United Colonies, paid for by the Indian stock in the disposal of the honorable Corporation at London; which common stock Lieutenant Ruddock very well knew of, for the principal Indians who kept the same had made him privy to it, when they first fetched it from Boston in the beginning of the war, as all the other praying Indians had

48 One Eyed John, or Monoco, was a Nashaway sachem and military leader in King Philip’s War who led attacks on Lancaster, Medfield, Northfield and Groton. 49 Captain John Ruddock was in command of the garrison at Marlborough. Bodge, Soldiers, 208.

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their proportion, for their defence against the common enemy.50 But all this notwithstanding, it was alleged and pleaded in the court at the trial of the eleven Indians, as an artifice to render them all perfidious and treacherous to the English, that they had concealed a great quantity of powder and ball, and hid it in the ground in the fort, yet pretended to deliver all to the Lieutenant; for the Captain and soldiers, when they seized the prisoners, or not long after, ransacked the fort, and finding this common stock of ammunition, and three or four guns more (which some men, that were abroad when the former were delivered, had brought into the fort) afterward were seized. This matter was much talked of, and great clamors made against those poor Christians about it. But when the chiefest of the praying Indians of Marlborough had liberty to make answer for themselves, things were so fully cleared, that neither dishonesty, perfidiousness, or lying could be imputed to them touching those things. But yet notwithstanding, all their arms and ammunition, surrendered and seized (which to them was a very considerable matter) at such a time, and was their own property, yet was taken away and squandered by the soldiers and others, and never restored to the Indians to this day that I know of, nor any satisfaction for them, though some time afterward the Council ordered some persons to take account of those arms and ammunition, but nothing could be gotten. And though at the trial it was multiplied to a great quantity, now it was alleged that it was a small matter, and the soldiers had shared it as plunder among them, and nothing could be recovered. But now I have done with the story of those poor Christian Indians at Marlborough; for it was not long after, they were all forced to retire from thence. I am sorry I have been so long upon this story, which I had not done, but it was a foundation and beginning of much trouble, that befell both the English and Indians afterwards. I had need apologize for this long story concerning the Indians. But the true reason of being so particular is, that I might, in the words of truth and soberness, clear the innocency of those Indians unto all pious and impartial men, that shall peruse this script; and so far as in me lies, to vindicate the hand of God and religion, that these Christians profess and practise; and to declare I cannot join with the multitude, that would cast them all into the same lump with the profane and brutish heathen, who are as great enemies to our Christian Indians as they are to the English. For though some of them were captivated by the enemy, and escaped with their lives, (so, many of the English that were taken captive also did,) yet this I observed all along in this war, that the wicked Indians (our enemies) did very industriously endeavour to bring the

50 Ruddock told the Massachusetts Council that he had essentially lost control of the Marlborough inhabitants, who argued with him over soldiers’ subsistence fees, the placement of garrisons, and Ruddock’s personal guard: “sum have manedged theire maters soe,” he complained, “that I have Leetle or noe command of the Inhabitants of the town.” Quoted in Bodge, Soldiers, 212.

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Christian Indians into disaffection with the English, and to this end raised several false reports concerning them, as if they held a correspondency with them, and on the other side sent their secret messages to the Christian Indians that the English designed, in the conclusion, to destroy them all, or send them out of the country for bond slaves; and indeed, if the conscientious and pious rulers of the country had not acted contrary to the minds of sundry men, this last might have proved too true. 1675, Sept. 7th. The Council gave orders to Lieutenant Thomas Henchman, of Chelmsford, to send out an Indian messenger or two, with a safe conduct, to Wannalanset, Sachem of Naamhok, who with some few others (related to him) had withdrawn into the woods for fear, and quartered about Penagoog;51 this Sachem being a wise man, and true to the English, and a great lover of our nation, presuming the English were highly provoked against all Indians, he thought it best prudence to withdraw far into the country until the wars were abated, and accordingly did so, about six weeks before. The messengers sent could not meet him, but they sent their message to him; but he could not be prevailed with to return, but travelled up into the woods further afterward, and kept about the head of Connecticut river all winter, where was a place of good hunting for moose, deer, bear, and other such wild beasts; and came not near either to the English, or his own countrymen, our enemies. And now I am speaking of this Sachem, Wannalanset, I shall mention a few things concerning him, that are of remark, declaring his honesty, love, and fidelity to the English. This man is the eldest son living of the ancient and great Sachem living upon Merrimack river, called Passaconaway; who lived to a very great age, for I saw him alive at Pawtucket, when he was about 120 years old. This old Sachem, who was reputed a powow, or wizzard, was accounted a wise man;52 and possibly might have such a kind of spirit upon him as was upon Balaam, who in xxiii. Numbers 23, said, “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel;” and so this man in effect said concerning the English in New England; therefore this old Sachem thought it his best prudence for himself and posterity to make a firm peace with the English in his time, and submitted to them his lands and people, as the records of Massachusetts in New England declare; which peace and good

51 The Massachusetts Council on September 30, 1675 named Gookin and Eliot as go-betweens who would talk to Wannalanset if he could be persuaded to travel to the home of Lieutenant Thomas Henchman under a “safe conduct” to discuss “termes of amity and peace betweene them [the Pennacooks] and the English.” Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 178. 52 A powwow was a shaman, or practitioner of indigenous spiritual ceremonies. Passaconaway had been reputed by the Englishman William Wood to be the “most celebrated powwow in the country.” See Frank Shuffleton, “Indian Devils and Pilgrim Fathers: Squanto, Hobomok, and the English Conception of Indian Religion,” New England Quarterly 49 (1976), 113.

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correspondency he held and maintained all his life, and gave express commands to his sons, especially to this Wannalanset, that he should inviolably keep and maintain amity and friendship with the English, and never engage with any other Indians in a war against them.53 This Sachem, his successor, was very careful always to observe and keep his father’s engagements and commands, and hath often spoken of it to the English, declaring his purpose and resolution to continue so. The old Sachem, as I noted before, was reputed a very wise and knowing man, and a powow. He would sometimes speak his apprehensions to his sons and people of the growing greatness of the English in his land, and that if at any time the Indians did war with them, it would but be in order to the destruction of the Indians. This present Sachem follows his father’s steps in his love and fidelity to the English; but moreover, through the grace of Christ about four or five years since, he did embrace the Christian religion, after some time of very serious consideration and hearing God’s word preached; and I have charity and faith to believe him to be an honest Christian man, being one that in his conversation walks answerably to his knowledge. He prays in his family, and is careful of keeping the Sabbath, loves to hear God’s word, sober in conversation.54 After he was withdrawn for fear, as is before touched, there was a company of English soldiers, about one hundred, sent under Capt. Mosely, to Pennagog, where it was reported there was a body of Indians; but it was a mistake, for there was above one hundred in all of the Pennagog and Namkig Indians, whereof Wannalanset was chief. When the English drew nigh, whereof he had intelligence by scouts, they left their fort and withdrew into the woods and swamps, where they had advantage and opportunity enough in ambushment, to have slain many of the English soldiers, without any great hazard to themselves; and several of the young Indians inclined to it, but the Sachem Wannalanset, by his authority and wisdom, restrained his men, and suffered not an Indian to appear or shoot a gun. They were very near the English, and yet though they were provoked by the English, who burnt their wigwams and destroyed some dried fish, yet not one gun was shot at any Englishman. This act speaks much for him, which himself and some of his men have related to some of his English friends since his return. Besides, he had messengers

53 Gookin here references stories that Passaconaway had attempted, with a group of powwows, to destroy the settlement of Plymouth through supernatural means, but, like the biblical Balaam who tried to use divination against Israel, the powwows had failed. Passaconoway, so the story goes, then became resigned to the English presence, and in the final speech he made before his death, cautioned his people to maintain peace with the newcomers. For a version of the speech see Jay Atkinson, Massacre on the Merrimack: Hannah Duston’s Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America (Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot, 2015), 24–25. 54 According to Gookin, Wannalancet converted during his and Eliot’s visit to Wamesit in May, 1674: “now I yield up myself to your advice, and enter into a new canoe,” Gookin reported him as saying, “and do engage to pray to God hereafter.” Gookin, Historical Collections, 187.

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sent to him more than once from the enemy, soliciting him to join with them, but he always refused; and after he understood by messengers sent to him by Major Richard Waldron, that he might come in to the English with safety, he complied with it, and came in with his relations to Cochecho,55 where Major Waldron lived, and was instrumental to bring in others;56 and now he is returned again under the English protection to his own place near Chelmsford, though but there a few people with him of his near friends, the rest being dead and fled from him either among their friends or enemies, and now he lives quietly and peaceably as heretofore, upon his own land. About this time the Pankapog Indians brought into Boston and before the Council some prisoners of the enemy, that they had taken in the woods, particularly a noted Indian that lived near Taunton, called Drummer; and two more also they brought in, one of their own company named Caleb, whom they had accused for complotting to run away to Narragansett with another man’s wife, and a young man that he had enticed to go with him, all which persons were secured. These actions of the praying Indians of Penkapog, as well as many others, are demonstrations of their fidelity to the English. September 9th, 1675, there came to Boston Oneko, eldest son to Unkas, Sachem of Mohegan, with about twenty eight Indians with him; their business was with the Commissioners of the United Colonies, then sitting in Boston; their petition consisted of three heads. 1st. They complained that a party of the Narragansets had by force taken from a small company of theirs about one hundred prisoners of Philip’s people. 2dly. They desired the confirmation and assurance of their ancient inheritance of land at Mohegan and Wabaquisit.57 3dly. They made intercession on behalf of the eleven Marlborough Indians, that were now on their trial, and of whom I have before spoken, alleging they were not guilty of the fact charged upon them. The Commissioners were not long before they issued matters with them, and sent them away. About this time, two of those fifteen Indians brought down prisoners with the rest from Marlborough, viz. Abraham Spene and John Choo, persons that were not accused of any crime, but belonged to Natick, and were accidentally at Marlborough when the rest were seized, and so brought down for company, and held in prison some weeks, but are now released at the intercession of some of their friends, and sent out of Boston in the evening, and conducted,

55 Dover, New Hampshire. 56 This is a reference to an incident in September, 1676, in which Major Richard Waldron of Dover, New Hampshire, lured Indians seeking to surrender peacefully to his fort under promises of clemency, only to capture them and sell many into slavery. 57 Gookin and Eliot, when visiting the “new” praying town of Wabquissit in 1674, had met with an agent sent by Uncas to contest their right “to call his Indians to pray to God.” With the coming of war, the Mohegans, as valuable allies, now had more leverage to protect their lands and influence.

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by Deacon Parke of Roxbury, to Mr. Elliot’s house, by order of the Council, that so they might go home to Natick. But when some of the disorderly rout in Boston heard of their release, about thirty boys and young fellows got together, and repaired to the house of one of the captains in Boston, (whom they apprehended to be no well-willer to the praying Indians,) earnestly soliciting him to head them, and go to the prison, and break it open, and take out the Indian prisoners of Marlborough and kill them, least they should be released, as two of them were this evening, as they understood. But the captain was so prudent as to deny their request, and to check them for their motion, and presently dismissed them informing authority thereof, so there was no further stir in it.58 Those two Indians that were released were honest and sober Christians and had committed no offence, nor were at all accused, yet were brought to prison and tied by the neck to the rest, and put to great sufferings by many days’ imprisonment in a nasty place. About this time, [September 14, 1675,] a person named Shattock of Watertown, that was a sergeant under Captain Beers, when the said Beers was slain near Squakeage, had escaped very narrowly but a few days before; and being newly returned home, this man being at Charlestown in Mr. Long’s porch at the sign of the Three Cranes, divers persons of quality being present, particularly Capt. Lawrence Hammond, the Captain of the town, and others, this Shattock was heard to say words to this effect.59 I hear the Marlborough Indians in prison in Boston, and upon trial for their lives, are like to be cleared by the court; for my part, said he, I have been lately abroad in the country’s service, and have ventured my life for them, and escaped very narrowly; but if they clear those Indians, they shall hang me up by the neck before I ever serve them again. Within a quarter of an hour after these words were spoken, this man was drowned passing the ferry between Charlestown and Boston; the ferry-boat being loaded with horses, and the wind high, the boat sunk; and though there

58 The protesters thought that Captain James Oliver would be a good champion of their cause because he had spoken contemptuously against Gookin’s support of Praying Indians. Saltonstall, Present State, 40. 59 Captain Richard Beers and his unit were ambushed on September 4, 1675, while trying to evacuate Northfield, after that community had been attacked by Nipmucs, led by Monoco, and Pocumtucks. Twenty men were killed, according to Hubbard, and “the barbarous Villains showed their insolent Rage and Cruelty, more than ever before, cutting off the Heads of some of the Slain, and fixing them upon Poles near the Highway.” Officers were unable to persuade soldiers, frightened by this sight, to pursue the Indians further, “so that they were all forced to return with what they could carry away, leaving the Rest for a Booty to the Enemy.” Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, I: 111–112; and Eric B. Schulz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: the History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (New York: Norton, 1999).

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were several other men in the boat and several horses, yet all escaped with life, but this man only. I might here mention several other things of remark, that happened to other persons that were filled with displeasure and animosity against the poor Christian Indians, but shall forbear lest any be offended. About ten days before this, a party of men, about one hundred, under command of one Capt. Gorham, of Plymouth Colony, and Lieut. Upham of Massachusetts,60 being sent into the Nipmuck country, to destroy the enemies’ cornfields that they had deserted, and to hinder their relief thereby in winter; these soldiers being cautioned by their instructions not to spoil any thing belonging to the poor Christian Indians, that lived among us, and had deserted their plantations of Hassanamset, Manchauge, and Chobonakonkon, three villages that lay next the English, in the Nipmuck country. But this prohibition notwithstanding, at their return, which was about the 4th of October, and as I was certainly informed that all they did in this enterprise, was to destroy much of the corn, and burn the wigwams, and mats, and other things that they found in those three villages, that belonged to our praying Indians; but the other places of Pakachooge, Wabaage, and others where there was abundance of corn, they left untouched, which after, in the winter, afforded relief to the enemy. But the praying Indians had theirs destroyed, and were the sufferers in this affair. About the middle of October, 1675, the General Court then sitting at Boston, there were vigorous endeavours set a foot in the Deputies’ house, occasioned by petitions and complaints presented to them, from and of the people, for removing the praying Indians from their plantations; but where to dispose them was not so duly considered. Hereupon a bill was offered to the house of magistrates about this matter; but after some debate upon the bill, not knowing well how or where to dispose these Indians, the bill was laid aside. But this demur upon the bill rather heightened an earnest pressing of it, whereupon a committee of both houses were chosen to consider of the matter. The committee met, and they were presented with a paper containing seven heads, showing the difficulty and inconvenience in that affair, and how it deserved a very serious and deliberate consideration; the first taken from our covenant with our King, in our charter, to use our best endeavours to communicate the Christian religion to the Indians; in pursuance whereof, there were some ministers encouraged to gain their language, and labor amongst them to that end, and had now for above thirty years’ space preached the Gospel to them.61 2dly. The Bible and divers other pious books were

60 Gorham and Upham later served in the Great Swamp Fight against the Narragansetts. On Gorham’s involvement in kidnapping Indians in order to sell them as slaves, see Newell, Brethren by Nature, 184–185. 61 Gookin was likely the magistrate that presented the arguments against removing the praying Indians from their towns.

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translated into their language, which divers of them could well read and understand. 3dly. A school or college built of brick, at Cambridge, at the charge of the Right Honorable Corporation in London. 4thly. Churches and Church officers are settled among them. 5thly. Divers are baptized, both men, women, and children. 6thly. In judgment of charity, several of them are believers. A second head, taken from a covenant made with those Indians and their predecessors, about thirty years since recorded, the General Court records of the Massachusetts, wherein the Indians’ subjection and the English protection is mutually agreed. Now a covenant, though made with the Gibeonites, is a very binding thing, and the breach of it sorely punished by the Lord, as may appear in 2 Sam. xxi. 1, 2, 3.62 A third consideration, taken from our laws, which carefully provides for the encouragement and security of the praying Indians; see the law, title Indians, page 74. A fourth reason, taken from the many public letters and printed papers sent from New England under a stamp of authority, both from the Commissioners of the United Colonies to the Honorable Corporation at London, and from the General Court, declaring the good success of the Gospel among them, particularly to mention only that passage in the address and petition of the General Court, sitting at Boston, in New England, to the high and mighty Prince, Charles the Second, and presented to his most gracious notice, Feb. 11th, 1660, in page 7, line 25th. “Royal Sir; If, acording to our humble petition and good hope in the God of the spirits of all flesh, the Father of mercies (who comforteth the abject) shall make the permission of that all for which we have and do suffer the loss of all, precious, yea, so precious in his sight, as that your royal heart shall be inclined to show unto us that kindness of the Lord in your Majesty’s protection of us in those liberties for which we hither came, and which hitherto we have enjoyed, upon Hezekiah speaking comfortably to us as to sons, this orphan shall not continue fatherless, but grow up as a received infant under its nursing father. These Churches shall be comforted in a door of hope opened by so signal a pledge of the lengthening of their tranquillity. These poor naked Gentiles, not a few of whom through Grace are come and coming in, shall still see their wonted teachers with encouragement of a more plentiful increase of the kingdom of Christ among them. And the blessing of your poor afflicted (and yet we hope, trusting in God) shall come upon the head and heart of that great King who was sometimes in exile, as we are. With a religious restipulation of our prayers we (prostrate at your royal feet) beg pardon for this our boldness, craving finally that our names may be enrolled amongst your Majesty’s most humble subjects and supplicants.

62 The Biblical passage tells how God punished the Israelites with famine for breaking a promise they had made not to kill the “heathen” Gibeonites.

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Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, 1629. Art Collection 3 / Alamy Stock Photo

Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal Gookin attempted to remind colonists that their founding ideals included the responsibility to uplift native peoples, not abuse them, in keeping with the imagery on the Great Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company.

John Endicot, Governor. In the name and with the consent of the General Court.” In this passage we see what sense the General Court had in those times of this work among the Christian Indians. A fifth consideration taken from an act of Parliament to encourage this work, which is confirmed by our gracious King since his happy restoration, wherein he hath by royal charter made to the Right Honorable Corporation residing in London; whereby considerable sums of money were raised, and revenues purchased, and moneys transmitted annually to encourage teachers, schoolmasters, and divers other occasions for promoting the Gospelizing and civilizing these poor natives.63 6thly. The General Court hath granted those Indians lands and townships, and thereby confirmed and settled

63 Gookin emphasizes the obligation that New Englanders had to fulfill the missionary project, given that monies had already been spent on it. This was a venue through which New Englanders could prove themselves while under scrutiny by suspicious royal officials.

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them therein as the English; so that, besides their own natural right, they have this legal title, and stand possessed of them as the English are. A seventh and last reason, taken from the constant faithfulness of the generality of these Indians to the English, and their interest in all changes for above thirty years’ experience and serviceableness in the war, when they were employed and trusted, wherein some lost their lives and others their limbs. Now against all these reasons (in an hour of temptation) to do any precipitate action, referring to these Christian Indians, that hath a tendency to frustrate and overthrow this great and good work of Gospelizing and encouraging these Indians, would (in all probability) reflect greatly upon the piety and prudence of the government of New England. This paper, containing those arguments, being offered to the committee of the General Court for consideration, they could not deny but the matter was weighty, and said that they intended not to present unto the General Court any thing crossing these things; but only for present, to satisfy the clamors of the people, to remove these Indians from their plantations to some other places, for the security of English and Indians also. The result was, that the committee presented to the Court for consideration, that those Indians of Natick be removed to Cambridge neck of land; Wamesitt Indians to Noddle’s Island; Nashobah Indians to Concord; Hassanamesit, Magunkog, and Marlborough Indians to Mendon; Punkapog Indians to Dorchester neck of land. But all this signified nothing, for the English inhabitants of those places utterly refused to admit them to live so near them; and therefore the Court declined to consent to the committee’s proposals. And therefrom the Court steered another course; as will appear afterward. Some persons were much offended at the paper presented to the committee concerning the Indians, and said the author of it was more a friend to the Indians than the English; but ‘t is no strange thing for men’s reason to be darkened, if not almost lost, when the mists of passion and temptation do prevail. About the 18th of this instant October, John Watson, of Cambridge (before mentioned,) Guardian to the Indians at Natick, presented a petition to the General Court in the name, and on behalf of those Indians; wherein they do, with great modesty and humility, prostrate themselves at the feet of the honored General Court, desiring they would not harbour any jealous or harsh thoughts of them, or hearken to any false informations against them; humbly desiring the Court to send some more English to reside with them to inspect their conversation, and secure them; and not to fetch them off from their dwellings, which would expose them, especially the aged and weak, to very much sorrow and misery, both for want of food and apparel, especially considering that the winter was approaching. But rather, if the Court pleased, they would deliver some of their principal men for hostages for their fidelity, professing their innocency and integrity both to the interest of God and the English. But this petition obtained no favorable aspect, but rather he that presented it was frowned upon by some. Upon the 19th day of October, the Court past

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an order to send troopers to fetch down all the Wammesitt and Pakemitt Indians; this was suddenly done, and, to be feared, in a hurry of temptation. The reason of this sudden motion, as I was informed, was a report brought to the Court that a haystack, belonging to Lieut. James Richardson of Chelmsford, was set on fire and burnt the day before. This fact was charged upon some of the Indians of Wamesit; but they were innocent, as was afterwards cleared; for some skulking Indians of the enemy, that formerly lived about Groton, the principal whereof was named Nathaniel, he and his party did this and other mischief afterward, in burning several houses at Chelmsford. And one principal design of the enemy was to begin a difference between the English and praying Indians living at Wamesit, that so they might either be secured by the English or necessitated to fly to the enemy. This Nathaniel was afterward taken at Cochecho, and executed at Boston, who confessed the same. Moreover, Lieutenant Richardson, whose hay was burnt, was a person well beloved of those Indians at Wamesit and their great friend, who did not apprehend (as he told me) that any of the Wamesit men had burnt his hay. But others were of a contrary mind, willing to give credit to any report against the praying Indians, and accordingly, by their solicitations to the General Court, obtained an order for a troop of horse (as I said before) to march up to Wamesit, and bring down those Indians of Wamesit, to Boston. This matter might have been accomplished as well by two men as forty troopers; for the Indians, upon the least message by the Court, would readily have obeyed. Upon the 20th of October, Mr. Joseph Cook of Cambridge was sent down (by Cornet Oakes, that commanded the troops,) unto the Court to inform them the Wamesitt Indians were upon the way coming down to order, and that they might be there on the morrow; withall he acquainted the Court that they were in number about one hundred and forty-five men, women, and children, whereof about thirty-three were men that were all unarmed; that many of them were naked, and several of them decrepid with age, sundry infants, and all wanted supplies of food, for they were fain to leave most they had behind them, except some small matters they carried upon their backs. Upon this information, the Court took the matter into more deliberate consideration, and sent back Mr. Cook, with order to return all the women, and children, and old men back to their place, and to bring down only the able men; which order was put into execution accordingly. And for the praying Indians belonging to Punkapog, which were by order brought down to Dorchester from their fort town, by Capt. Brattle and his troops, the Court (after they had spoken with William Ahaton64 and others of

64 William Ahaton/Ahawton/Nahauton, teacher at Pakemit, or Punkapoag, had reported the death of John Sassamon to English authorities. Yasuhide Kawashima, Igniting King Philip’s War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 88.

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their principal men) received such satisfaction from them, that they were all returned back to their habitations; except three or four men that were suspected. But the Wamesit men, about thirty-three, were brought down to Charlestown, and secured in the townhouse several days, until the Court had leisure to examine them, and afterward the most of them were returned home again, some persons suspected being garbled from the rest. Upon the 26th of October, new clamors and reports were raised and fomented against the Christian Indians of Natick, upon pretence that some of them had fired a house or old barn at Dedham, (a poor old house not worth ten shillings, that stood alone far distant from the dwelling-houses.) This house, in all probability, was set on fire a purpose by some that were back friends to those poor Indians; thereby to take an occasion to procure the removal of all those Indians from Natick; the contrivers whereof well knew that the magistrates generally were very slow to distrust those poor Christians, this artifice was therefore used to provoke them. God (who knows all) will I hope one day awaken and convince the consciences of those persons that have been industriously active to traduce and afflict those poor innocent Christians, without cause; for, as to the body of them, they were always true and faithful to the English; and I never saw or heard any substantial evidence to the contrary. Besides this of burning the house, there were other false informations presented at the same time to the General Court, to stir them up to a sharp procedure against those Indians; but the authors of those things being slain, I shall omit to mention them. This contrivance against the Natick Indians obtained that which it was designed for, viz. the passing an order in the General Court, forthwith to remove them from their place unto Deer Island; having first obtained the consent of Mr. Samuel Shrimpton, of Boston, (in whose possession that Island was,) to place them there at present, with this prohibition, that they should not cut down any growing wood, nor do any damage to his sheep kept there. In pursuance of this order, Capt. Thomas Prentiss, (who was a person civil and friendly to those Indians,) with a party of horse, was commanded to bring them down speedily to a place called the Pines, upon Charles River, about two miles above Cambridge, where boats were appointed to be in readiness to take them on board, and take them to the aforesaid Island. Captain Prentiss accordingly went up to Natick, with a few men and five or six carts, to carry such things as were of greatest necessity; and he declared to them the Court’s pleasure for their removal, unto which they quietly and readily submitted, and came down with him at an hour or two warning, about two hundred souls of all sorts. There was one family of them, about twelve in number, the principal man named old Jethro, with his sons and relations, who secretly ran away in the night; but this man and his relations were not praying Indians, nor did they live at Natick, only since the wars, but dwelt at a place near Sudbury, Nobscot hill, and never submitted to the Christian profession, but separated

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from them, being sons of ill fame, and especially the old man, who had the repute to be a powow; those ran away for fear at this time, and were with the enemy, but were taken afterwards at Cocheco, and hanged at Boston. Good Mr. Elliot, that faithful instructor and teacher of the praying Indians, met them at the place before mentioned, where they were to be embarked, who comforted and encouraged and instructed and prayed with them, and for them; exhorting them to patience in their sufferings, and confirming the hearts of those disciples of Christ; and exhorting them to continue in the faith, for through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven. There were some other Englishmen at the place called the Pines with Mr. Elliot, who were much affected in seeing and observing how submissively and Christianly and affectionately those poor souls carried it, seeking encouragement, and encouraging and exhorting one another with prayers and tears at the time of the embarkment, being, as they told some, in fear that they should never return more to their habitations, but be transported out of the country; of this I was informed by eye and ear witnesses of the English nation that were upon the place at the time. In the night, about midnight, the tide serving, being the 30th of October, 1675, those poor creatures were shipped in three vessels and carried away to Deer Island above mentioned, which was distant from that place about four leagues, where I shall leave them at present. Upon the same day that the order past to remove those native Indians to Deer Island, the Wamesit Indians before mentioned being in prison at Charlestown, thirty-three men were sent for before the General Court at Boston, and charged with burning a stack of hay at Chelmsford, belonging to James Richardson. The Indians were first examined singly and apart, and then more of them together, but they all vehemently denied the fact or privity with any that did it; but, notwithstanding, they were sorely taunted at with bitter words by some that accused them; but no proof appeared, and it was afterward discovered that they were all innocent, and that the enemy did it as I have before related; the issue of this examination and charge was, that three of the company, viz. one named Will Hawkins, a Narragansett Indian, that used constantly to work about Salem, and was now, since the war, retired to Wamesit, and two others that were not praying Indians, nor properly belonging to Wamesit, but retired thither since the war; these three were condemned to be sold for slaves, and sent out of the country, and accordingly committed to prison in order to their disposal out of the country; and afterward were sent away.65 But all the rest, being

65 The other two Indians condemned to be “sent away,” meaning sold as slaves, were a father and son, Mannapaugh and Mannanesit, who the Court determined were “pretending themselves to belong to Uncas, being found at Chelmsford, where the haystack was fired, giving no reason of their coming and staying here,” and so “judged to be spyes.” Massachusetts Bay Records, V: 58. But a month later, the Court reversed the sentence, saying the men had in fact been sent as emissaries from Wannalancet under a safe conduct authorized by the Council. Ibid., V: 68.

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thirty, were ordered to return back to Charlestown to continue under restraint still. A vote passed in the House of Deputies, as I heard, finding all the Wamesitt Indians guilty of burning the hay; but it was not consented unto by the magistrates, and so, after the adjournment of the Court, the Council ordered the taking out of some of the most suspicious Indians from the Wamesits, who did not properly belong to them, but were come in to them since the war; these being garbled out and secured in prison. The rest of the Wamesit Indians, being about twenty, were sent back to their wives and children at Wamesit. But as they passed home, being under the guard of Lieutenant James Richardson, and a file of soldiers, they were to march through a village called Woburn, at which time the trained band of that place were exercising. Lieutenant Richardson and his Indians, with their guard, before they drew near the English soldiers, made halt, and he held out his handkerchief as a flag of truce, whereupon the Captain and officers of the band sent to Richardson, who showing them his commission from the Council to conduct those Indians safely to their homes; whereupon the Captain and officers gave very strict charge to all the soldiers not to shoot a gun until all the Indians were past and clear, nor yet to give any opprobrious words. But notwithstanding this strict prohibition, when the Indians were passing by, a young fellow, a soldier named Knight, discharged his musket and killed one of the Indians stone dead, being very near him. The person slain was a stout young man, very nearly allied to the principal praying Indians of Natick and Wamesit, whose grandfather and uncle were pious men, his father long since slain in the war with the Magues. The murderer was presently apprehended and committed to prison, and not long after tried for his life, but was acquitted by the jury, much contrary to the mind of the bench; the jury alleged they wanted evidence, and the prisoner plead that his gun went off by accident, indeed witnesses were mealy-mouthed in giving evidence. The jury was sent out again and again by the judges, who were much unsatisfied with the jury’s proceedings; but yet the jury did not see cause to alter their mind, and so the fellow was cleared. About the beginning of November, intelligence came from Mendon, by two of the principal Christian Indians that escaped, viz. James Speen and Job Kattenanit, how the enemy had seized upon, and carried away captive, the Christian Indians that were at Hassanamesit, who were gathering, threshing, and putting up in Indian barns (as the manner is) a considerable crop of Indian corn that grew in that place and parts adjacent; these two men, and some squaws and children, being at a little distance from the rest, made a shift to get away, but could not certainly relate what number of the enemy there were, or whither they had carried their friends.66 The people captivated were for the most part unarmed, about

66 James Speen was teacher at Pakachoog, and Job Kattenanit had been the teacher at Magunkaquog, but moved to Hassanamesitt when Pomham, the leader at Magunkaquog, sided with those fighting against the English. Gookin, Historical Collections, 193; Dennis A. Connole, The Indians of

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fifty men, and one hundred and fifty women and children; the enemy’s Indians, as we afterwards particularly understood, were about three hundred, all well armed, who declared to our Christian Indians, (among whom they had some kindred,) and wanted them to go with them quietly, then they would spare their lives; otherwise they would take away all their corn, and then they would be famished. And further they argued with them, if we do not kill you, and that you go to the English again, they will either force you all to some Island as the Natick Indians are, where you will be in danger to be starved with cold and hunger, and most probably in the end be all sent out of the country for slaves. These kind of arguments used by the enemy, and our friends’ inability to defend themselves, together with their fear of hard measure from the English, whereof some of them had late experience; for among these were the eleven Indians that were so long imprisoned at Boston, and tried for their lives upon a pretended murder done by them at Lancaster above mentioned, whereof they knew themselves innocent, and were acquitted; but they smarted so much, in and about the matter, they were in fear of further sufferings; upon these considerations, many of them at last were inclined, in this strait, of two evils to choose the least, as it to them appeared, and to accompany the enemy to their quarters, under their promise of good usage and protection; and perhaps if Englishmen, and good Christians too, had been in their case and under like temptations, possibly they might have done as they did. The chief man among these praying Indians, who also was their ruler, named Capt. Tom, alias Wuttasacomponom, a prudent, and I believe, a pious man, and had given good demonstration of it many years.67 I had particular acquaintance with him, and cannot in charity think otherwise concerning him in his life, or at his death, though possibly in this action he was tempted beyond his strength; for, had he done as he ought, he should rather have suffered death, than have gone among the wicked enemies of the people of God. This man yielded to the enemies’ arguments, and by his example drew most of the rest, for which he afterwards suffered death, being executed at Boston, the June after; yet there were some of those Christian Indians went away with the enemy with heavy hearts and weeping eyes, particularly Joseph Tuckappawill, the pastor of the church at Hassanamesitt, and his aged father, Naoas, and some others, of which I had particular information from some that were eye and ear witnesses thereof.68

the Nipmuck Country in Southern New England, 1630–1750 (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2001), 175; and J.H. Temple, The History of Framingham (Framingham, MA, 1877), 65–66. 67 Gookin had earlier described Wattasacompanum as being “of the chief sachem’s blood of the Nipmuck country,” when he had assisted Gookin in holding a court at Pakachoog in 1674. Historical Collections, 193. Massachusetts authorities, at the end of the war, executed Captain Tom because witnesses said he had fought against the English at Sudbury. 68 Joseph Tuckapawill/Tackuppa-willin/Tuckapawillin/Tuckawillipin was teacher at Hassanamesit – the first Indian to be officially ordained as a Puritan minister – and was the brother of James Printer, Job Kattananit, and Anaweakin. Printer and Anaweakin had both been involved in acts hostile to the English during the war.

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This providence, concerning those Christian Indians being carried thus away by the enemy, was a very deep wound to the work of Gospelizing the Indians, for this people were considerable for number as before is hinted. Being the greatest part of three Indian villages, viz. Hassanamesit, Magunkog, and Chobone-Konhonom. It was also a weakening to the English in removing these frontier Indian plantations and forts, which would have been as walls under God to us, as the sequel proved. Besides, many of these poor Christians lost their lives by war, sickness, and famine; and some were executed that came in to us: it was a great scandal to the Christian religion they professed, yet through God’s favor some of them were preserved alive and are reconciled again to the English, and now live among the rest of the Christian Indians, and in especial those of them that lamented and mourned when they were carried away; the Lord spared their lives and brought them back to the enjoyment of sanctuary mercies. Upon this intelligence of the enemies’ appearance about Hassanamesit, two companies of English soldiers were despatched away into these parts, one commanded by Captain Daniel Henchman, the other by Captain Joseph Sill. This last took with him for guides five Natick Indians. When they came to Hassanamesit, they found signs of the enemy, but could see no considerable company of them. But Captain Syll, being at Hassanamesit the 6th of November, hearing a noise early in the morning, sent forth two files of men, with two Indians, viz. James Quanapohit, and Eliazor Pegin; they had not gone far, but they discovered seven of the enemy and one of them leading an Englishman; the enemy discovering our men fled, but the two Indians James and Eliazor pursued them so close, and firing upon the man that led the English youth, he was forced to leave his prisoner, and they rescued him and brought him to their captain; also James the Indian recovered a musket from the enemy at the same time; this English youth, whose name was Christopher Muchin, was thus delivered from the barbarous enemy by the courage and activity of our Indians. This English so taken informed the Captain that those seven Indians with whom he was taken had seized him at Peter Bent’s mill in Marlborough the day before, and had also seized and scalped a youth of about nine years old, that was his master Peter Bent’s son, and left the lad at the mill as dead. Another good service that one of those Christian Indians did in this expedition, namely Thomas Quannapohit, (brother to James above mentioned,) this man had the use of his left hand only, for he lost the use of his other hand by a gun-shot in the beginning of the war at Mount Hope, as is before related. This fellow was witty and courageous, as may appear in the story following. After the former service done at Hassanemesit, the two English companies joined with Captain Daniel Henchman and Captain Joseph Syll. And after their conjunction they marched to a place called Packachooge, about ten miles distant from Hassanamesit towards the northwest, where was great plenty of good Indian corn, and in this place hoped to meet some of the enemy: coming to this place, they saw signs of Indians that had been lately there, but

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it seems were withdrawn upon the approach of the English. At this place our forces took up their quarters one night, there being two wigwams which was good shelter for our soldiers, the weather being wet and stormy. The next morn our forces searched about the cornfields to find the enemy, but could not discover them, though in all probability the enemy saw them in all their motions and concealed themselves; for this is their ordinary way, to lie hid in thick swamps and other secret places, and to move as our men do scatter themselves in small parties, and lie close observing all our men’s motions. The English in their search found above one hundred bushels of Indian corn newly gathered, and a great quantity of corn standing. About ten o’clock in the forenoon, the English captains and their soldiers marched back to Hassanamesit; being gone about two miles on their way, Captain Henchman missing, as he apprehended, his letter-case, wherein his writings and orders were, he sent back two Englishmen and the Indian Thomas on horseback, to see at the wigwams where he lodged to find his papers. These messengers accordingly going back, the Indian led them away and ascending up a steep hill, at the top whereof stood the wigwam; as soon as ever he discovered it, being not above six rods distance, he saw two Indian enemies standing at the wigwam door, newly come out, and four more sitting at the fire in the house; at which sight he bestirred himself, and looking back called earnestly (as if many men were behind corning up the hill) to hasten away and encompass the enemy; one of the enemy thereupon presented his gun at our Indian, but the gun missing fire, (probably the moist rainy weather had put it out of case,) whereupon the rest of them that were in the wigwam came all out and ran away as fast as they could, suspecting that the English forces were at hand; and then Thomas with his two comrades, having thus prudently scared away the enemy, they thought it seasonable also to ride back again to their company as fast as they could. And indeed there was good reason for it, because Thomas the Indian had only a pistol, one of the Englishmen, who was their chirurgeon,69 a young man, had no gun; the third had a gun, but the flint was lost: so that they were in ill case to defend themselves or offend the enemy; but God preserved them by the prudence and courage of this Indian, which deliverance one of the Englishmen directly acknowledged to me, attributing their preservation under God to this fellow. So they got safe to their Captain, who in the interim searching diligently had found his letter-case, and staid for these messengers; so that God ordered this affair to magnify his own grace in delivering those men, and to give to the English a demonstration of the fidelity and prudence of our Christian Indians. Notwithstanding these signal services performed by these our Indian friends, yet there were some of Capt. Syll’s inferior officers and soldiers, who (being

69 Surgeon.

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infected with the spirit of enmity against all Indians) murmured greatly against these Indians, their guides and keepers, in so much that their Captain (to satisfy them) sent home three of the five, though, as he told me, he found no fault with them, but did it merely to quiet his soldiers that were of malevolent spirits against them; he retained with him James and Thomas Quannapohit till his return. After this, nothing was done against the enemy by these two companies; only Capt. Henchman, after Syll and he were parted, having no Indian guide with him, sustained a great loss; for his lieutenant, one Philip Curtis, of Roxbury, a stout man, was slain, and another private soldier with him; and the Captain in great danger, in a charge that Capt. Henchman and a small party of his men made in the night upon some Indians, judged to be about forty, that were in a wigwam at Hassanamesit, which enterprise was a few days after the parting of their forces. Capt. Henchman told me he judged several of the enemy were slain in the wigwam by him attacked, but the certainty is not known. But ‘t was certain he lost two of his men as before said, whereof his Lieutenant was one; whose heads the enemy cut off, and placed upon a crotched pole at the wigwam door, faced against each other, which were seen a few days after by the English. About the 13th of November, one of our Christian Indians, (a trusty and faithful man,) named Job Kattenanit, who had been preacher at Magunkog, this man having three children carried away by the enemy from Hassanamesit, (the story whereof is formerly mentioned,) himself at that time escaping to the English at Mendon; he applied himself to Major Gookin, desiring of him a pass to go into the woods to seek for his children, and endeavour to get them out of the enemies’ hand; alleging that his affections were so great to his children, (their mother being dead,) and he in a widowed estate, was willing to venture his life among the enemy, in order to the recovery of his children (and possibly, said he, if God spare my life, I may bring you some intelligence of the residence and state of the enemy, which may be very useful to the English). These arguments prevailed with the Major (who had also special order from the Council to endeavour to gain intelligence of the enemy) to grant a pass or certificate to the said Job, in the words following. “These may certify that the bearer hereof, Job, of Magunkog, is a trusty Indian, and therefore, if any Englishman meet him, it is desired they will not misuse him, but secure him, and convey him to the Governor or myself, and they shall be satisfied for their pains. “Dated the 13th day of the 9th month, 1675. (Signed) “Daniel Gookin, Sen.” The design of this certificate was innocent, and more respected the Indian’s safe conduct at his return, than to secure him at his forth going. But it met with hard construction, and the person that had it, with much sufferings; and, consequently, the projection to gain intelligence of the state of the enemy was frustrated, which was a matter the English greatly needed at this time, being

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inland with a great expedition against the enemy. The providence of God so ordered this matter, that this Job, at his going forth, met with some of Capt. Henchman’s scouts, not far from Hassanamesit, whom the Indian saw before they discovered him, and he could easily have concealed himself, (as he told me,) but he, not fearing to speak with the English, from whom he was sent with a pass, stood in open view; and when the English saw him, they rode up to him, and some of them said, “Let us kill him”; but others said, “He is a lone man, let us not kill him, but carry him to our captain to be examined.” This latter counsel prevailed; and then they seized him, and disarmed him, and took away his clothes, so that his gun and some clothes were then plundered, and he never had them again to this day. So they carried him to Capt. Henchman, who examined him, for the Indian spoke good English; the Indian told him all the truth of matters, and showed him his certificate; but the Captain, being ignorant of the design, sent both him and his pass to the Governor, at Boston, who more to satisfy the clamors of the people than for any offence committed by this man, he was committed to the common jail, and there remained under very great sufferings for three weeks’ time; for there were many Indians there, in a small prison, which was very noisome. After three weeks’ time, when the clamor was over, he was discharged from prison, and sent to Deer Island, unto the rest of his suffering countrymen. He had committed no offence (that ever I heard of), but was imprisoned merely to still the clamors of the people, who railed much against this poor fellow, and fain would have had him put to death, (though they knew not wherefore.) But those murmurings were not only against the Indian, but as much against Major Gookin, who granted him the certificate; some not sparing to say, that he was sent forth to give intelligence to the enemy, and such like false and reproachful reflections upon their friends, that had many ways approved their fidelity to the country. But this was an hour of temptation and murmuring, as sometime God’s own people are inclinable unto, as at Massah and Meribah.70 Thus it pleased God to exercise this poor Job, yet reserved him for greater service afterward, as in the sequel will appear. The 15th of November, there befell another great trial to the poor praying Indians at Wamesit; they lived very near to Lieutenant Thomas Henchman, about two miles from Chelmsford, and were under the guard and care of Lieutenant Richardson, appointed thereunto by the Council. The antecedents to this affliction of the Indians was this. A barn belonging to Richardson, being full of hay and corn, was set on fire and consumed. This was done by some skulking rogues of the enemy, that formerly lived about Groton, as we afterward understood; but the English at Chelmsford imputed the fact to the Wamesitt Indians, as they had formerly done by the same man’s hay, and

70 A biblical reference to an incident in which Moses’ leadership was questioned.

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thereby brought much trouble upon these poor Christians. Upon this occasion, about fourteen armed men from Chelmsford, pretending to scout and look out for the enemy, but as I was informed, it was moved among them and concluded, that they would go to the wigwams of the Wamesit Indians, their neighbours, and kill them all; in pursuance whereof they came to the wigwams, and called to the poor Indians to come out of doors, which most of them readily did, both men, women, and children, not in the least suspecting the English would hurt them. But two of the English being loaded with pistol-shot, being not far off, fired upon them and wounded five women and children, and slew outright a lad of about twelve years old, which child’s mother was also one of the wounded; she was a widow, her name Sarah, a woman of good report for religion. She was daughter to a Sagamor, named Sagamor John, who was a great friend to the English, who lived and died at the same place. Her two husbands, both deceased, were principal Sagamores, the one named John Tohatooner, and the other Oonamog, both pious men, and rulers of the praying Indians, one at Marlborough, the other at Nashobah; her last husband died before the war, the first long before.71 This youth slain was only son to the first husband; his grandfather, old Tahattawarre, was a Sachem, and a pious man. God was pleased to restrain the other twelve Englishmen, that they did not fire their guns upon the poor Indians; that which was done was too much, and was an action very much decried by all wise and prudent men, especially by the magistracy and ministry. As soon as this intelligence came to Authority, warrants were sent forth to apprehend the murderers; their names were Lorgin and Robins; they were seized and committed to prison, and afterward tried for their lives, but were cleared by the jury, to the great grief and trouble generally of magistracy and ministry and other wise and godly men. The jury pretended want of clear evidence; but some feared it was rather a mist of temptation and prejudice against these poor Indians that darkened their way. This cruel murder and fight occasioned most of those poor Christian Indians to fly away from their wigwams not long after, but carried little or nothing with them; but for fear, rather exposed themselves and families to the hardships and sufferings of hunger and cold, than to be under the harsh dealings of cruel men. But as soon as the Council were informed that the Indians were fled, they sent out orders to Lieutenant Henchman to send after them, and endeavour to persuade them to return; but their fears so prevailed that they refused to return, but sent back a letter directed “To Mr. Thomas Henchman, of Chelmsford.

71 Gookin refers to Sagamore John or Wonohaquaham, who died in 1633 during a smallpox epidemic that took a dreadful toll on the Pawtuckets. But Stewart-Smith, “The Pennacook Indians,” 82–83, believes that Sarah was the sister, named Yawata, rather than the daughter of Wonohaquaham, the oldest son of the Squaw Sachem of Pawtucket. Ibid., 86. This would have made James Quannapohit/Quanophkownatt/Rumney Marsh/Minminquash Sarah’s nephew.

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“I, Numphow, and John a Line, we send the messenger to you again (Wecoposit) with this answer, we cannot come home again, we go towards the French, we go where Wannalansit 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 Chelmsford, 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. 3dly. As for the Island, we say there is no safety 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 driven 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. Henchman and James Richardson.” “The mark of £ JoHN LYNE, The mark of 7 Numphow,72 their Rulers.” This is a true copy of their letter, word for word, wherein may be seen, that they had reason as well as fear, that put them upon that motion. This letter was brought back by the messenger sent after them, an Indian, named Wepocositt, that was servant to William Fletcher, of Chelmsford, whom Lieutenant Henchman procured to go after them. About twenty-three days after this, the greatest part of the Wamesit Indians (being put to great straits for want of food) returned back to their wigwams, whereof Lieutenant Henchman forthwith informed the Council at Boston; and they gave him order to encourage and cherish them, and also appointed a committee, viz. Major Gookin, Major Willard, and Mr. John Elliot, to ride up to Chelmsford to encourage and settle them, and to persuade the English at Chelmsford to be more friendly to them, also to take care for necessary provision for them; moreover, the same committee were appointed to visit the Nashobah Christian Indians that now lived at Concord, and to endeavour to quiet and compose the minds of the English there, touching those Indians. In pursuance whereof, the said committee, (in a cold and very sharp season,) upon Dec. 13th, went up to those places to put the Council’s order in execution, which was done accordingly, and matters were so well settled, (as they conceived,) that those poor Indians were in hopes to live quietly.73 The said committee also sent forth some of the Indians to fetch back eighteen of the Wamesit Indians that were left behind, being afraid to return with the rest,

72 According to Stewart-Smith, “Pennacook Indians,” Numphow was the son of George Rumney Marsh/Wenepaweekin/George No-Nose, a relative of James Quannapohit. 73 The selectmen of Chelmsford voiced their hostility to Gookin’s committee on December 13, 1675, over “the returne of the Wamasak Indians amongst us.” Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 186.

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but staid about Pennagog;74 among whom was that poor widow who was wounded and her son slain by the Chelmsford men, before mentioned; those came to the rest a few days after. The committee also appointed Englishmen to be as guardians to those Indians by night and day, to prevent any inconvenience either to the English or Indians; and for the Christian Indians that were at Concord, the committee placed them under the inspection and government of Mr. John Hoare; the said Indians having pitched their wigwams in his ground, near his house, this man was very loving to them, and very diligent and careful to promote their good, and to secure the English from any fear or damage by them. But notwithstanding the care of the Council, and the travel of this committee for the settling this affair, yet new troubles arose not long after this, through the inordinate fears and corruptions of men; which in the sequel may be further declared. One thing more I shall here add, which was told me by Mr. Thomas Clark, preacher at Chelmsford, concerning those Wamesit Indians; he, speaking with the teacher of those Indians, named Symon Beckom, had this account from him.75 At their return, being questioned by Mr. Clark what they did in their absence, said Symon, “We kept three Sabbaths in the woods; the first Sabbath,” said he, “l read and taught the people out of Psalm 35, the second Sabbath from Psalm 46, the third Sabbath out of Psalm 118,” which Scriptures, being considered, were very suitable to encourage and support them in their sad condition;76 this shows, that those poor people have some little knowledge of, and affection to the word of God, and have some little ability (through grace) to apply such meet portions thereof, as are pertinent to their necessities. 1675. About the latter end of Dec., I had (among others) sometimes opportunity to accompany Mr. Elliot to visit and comfort the poor Christian Indians confined to Deer Island, who were (a little before) increased to be about five hundred souls, by addition of the Punkapog Indians, sent thither upon as little cause as the Naticks were.77 The enmity, jealousy, and clamors of some people against them put the magistracy upon a kind of necessity to send them all to

74 Pennacook, now Concord, New Hampshire. 75 Simon Beckom had shared preaching duties at Wamesit with Samuel Numphow and Peter Jethro. He is likely the same Simon Betoghom, or Simon Boshokum, who scribed for Sagamore Sam when the latter subscribed letters along with other Nipmuc sachems in July, 1676, wanting to make peace with the English, and avoid punishment, in exchange for finding and returning English captives. Connole, 204–205, Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 307. 76 These well-chosen psalms expressed the Wamesit Indians’ sense of despair, as they faced abuse at the hands of Englishmen. Psalm 35, for example, spoke to the theme of betrayal: “False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not … They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul … For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.” 77 Two months earlier, in October, 1675, the Christian Indians from Punkapoag had been ordered to live near Joseph Belcher. Massachusetts Bay Records, V: 57–58.

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the Island; and although it was a great suffering to the Indians to live there, yet God brought forth this good by it; first, their preservation from the fury of the people, secondly, the humbling and bettering the Indians by this sore affliction. I observed in all my visits to them, that they carried themselves patiently, humbly, and piously, without murmuring or complaining against the English for their sufferings, (which were not few,) for they lived chiefly upon clams and shell-fish, that they digged out of the sand, at low water; the Island was bleak and cold, their wigwams poor and mean, their clothes few and thin; some little corn they had of their own, which the Council ordered to be fetched from their plantations, and conveyed to them by little and little; also a boat and man was appointed to look after them.78 I may say in the words of truth (according to my apprehension), there appeared among them much practical Christianity in this time of their trials.79 After the fight, which was between the English and the Indians at Narraganset, the 11th day of December, 1675,80 the Council of Massachusetts were very desirous to use means to gain intelligence of the state of the enemy; and, in pursuance thereof, passed an order empowering Major Gookin to use his best endeavour to procure two meet persons of the praying Indians, from Deer Island, to undertake that service, and to promise them a reward for their encouragement. Accordingly, upon the 28th of December, he went down to Deer Island, and advising with two or three of the principal men, they approved the design and of the persons he had pitched upon for that employ, if they could be procured, namely, Job Kattenanit and James Quannapohit (of whom I have formerly spoken).81 These, being spoken to by the Major about this matter, answered, that they were very sensible of the great hazard and

78 The General Court had ordered that the County Treasurer should “take care for the provision of those Indians” at Deer Island in order “to prevent their perishing … for want of absolute necessaries.” This charge was fulfilled, at least in part, by having the Indians’ own foodstuffs transported to them. They were also expected to farm once the weather was warm enough, and some were moved to Long Island and Brewster Island for subsistence reasons. Christine M. Delucia, Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 48–53. 79 The magistrates either refused or neglected to respond to a petition from Ahawton, the father of William Ahaton, who asked that he might be relocated from Deer Island because of the lack of food, and because he and other Christian Indians had been “shot at … and have nothing to defend our selves with.” Ahawton reminded readers of his faithfulness to the English; he had “gone forth with them at all tymes that he hath been called.” Massachusetts Archives Collection, 30:200a. 80 The correct date was 19 December. 81 James and Thomas Quannapohit had a distinguished heritage as kinsmen and heirs of Sagamore George, the son of Nanepashemet, sachem of the Pawtucket Confederacy, and the “Squaw Sachem,” who had controlled vast territory in Massachusetts at the time of first contact. Sagamore George, or George Rumney Marsh, was sold into slavery in Barbados after King Philip’s war, but was redeemed and died in the home of James Rumney Marsh/Quannapohit, around 1681. Deloraine Pendre Corey, The History of Maldon, Massachusetts (Malden, MA, 1899), 48.

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Monument at Swamp Narragansett. Photo taken by Louise Breen

The Great Swamp Fight Monument The Great Swamp Fight Monument, installed in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1906, commemorates the preemptive strike against the Narragansett Indians in December, 1675. The heretofore neutral Narragansetts were not “crushed” after the fight, as the monument suggests, however, but entered the war against the English, leaving Massachusetts authorities desperate for information about their plans. Because hundreds of non-combatants were killed in the burning of the Narragansett Fort, historians regard the attack as a massacre.

danger in this undertaking; yet their love to the English, and that they might give more demonstrations of their fidelity, they being also encouraged by their chief men, they said, by God’s assistance, they would willingly adventure their lives in this service. They had no more but five pounds apiece promised for their encouragement. The same day, the Major brought them up with him, and conveyed them privately, in the night, to his house at Cambridge, and there kept them in secret until all things were fitted for their journey, and instruction and orders given them. And then, upon the 30th of December, before day, they were sent away, being conducted by an Englishman unto the falls of Charles River, and so they passed on their journey undiscovered. These two spies acquitted themselves in this service prudently, and faithfully brought the intelligence which might have conduced much to the advantage of the English had their advice been wisely improved. They first fell among

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the enemy’s quarters about Menumesse, where the Nipmuck, Quabage, and Wesakam Indians kept their rendezvous, among whom were most of the praying Indians that were captivated from Hassanamesit, as was formerly declared. These spies were instructed to tell a fair, yet true story to the enemy; that they were some of the poor Natick Indians, confined to Deer Island, where they had lived all this winter under great sufferings; and now these being gotten off, they were willing to come among their countrymen and find out their friends that had lived at Hassanamesit, and to understand the numbers, strength, unity, and estate of their countrymen, that were in hostility with the English, that so they might be the better able to advise their friends at Deer Island and elsewhere, what course to steer, for the future; and that one of them (namely, Job) had all his children among them, and other kindred, which induced him to run this adventure. These, and such like fair pretences, took off much suspicion, and gave them opportunity to inform themselves particularly of all the affairs and designs of the enemy. 1675. Upon the 24th day of January, James Quannapohit (one of the spies) returned, and was conducted to Major Gookin’s house, from the falls of Charles River, by one Isaac Williams, an Englishman, that lived near that place. This man was friendly to the Christian Indians, and had courteously entertained, lodged, and refreshed this our spy the night before; for he was very weary, faint, and spent in travelling near eighty miles. The snow being deep in the woods, he was necessitated to go upon rackets or snow-shoes, upon the top of the snow, which is very tiresome travelling. His examination and intelligence being written by Major Gookin, he went down with him to the Governor and Council the next day. The particulars of his examination are too long here to be mentioned, and not so pertinent to our design, though most things he related proved true, which argued for his fidelity. The main matters were, that the enemy quartered in several places this winter. Philip and his soldiers not far from Fort Albany. The Nipmuck and divers others, about Menumesse. That they intended a general rendezvous in the spring of the year, and then they would prosecute the war vigorously against the English, burn and destroy the towns. They heard of the fight between the English and the Narragansetts, and rejoiced much at that breach, hoping now to be strong enough to deal with the English, when the Narragansetts and they were joined. That there were messengers sent (while our spies were there) from the Narragansetts to the Nipmucks, that quartered about Menumesse, declaring their desire to join with them and Philip. That the enemy gloried much in their number and strength, and that all this war their loss of men was inconsiderable. They seemed to be very high and resolute, and expect to carry all before them. He said, they lived this winter upon venison chiefly, and upon some corn they had got together before winter from several deserted plantations. The enemy boasted of their expectation to be supplied with arms and ammunition and men from the French, by the hunting Indians.

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He declared the enemy purposed, within three weeks, to fall upon Lancaster, and cut off the bridge in the first place, to obstruct any assistance (which thing the enemy exactly fulfilled, as to time and mode of their proceeding, as this man declared). Also, successively to burn and destroy the other frontier town, which they did accordingly. The reason why this spy returned so soon, and left his comrade, was this; because Mautampe,82 a chief sachem among the Quabage Indians, declared to James, that he should accompany him to visit Philip, and to acquaint and inform him of affairs at Boston, and of the breach between the English and Narragansetts. James, being a witty fellow, seemed to consent to Mautampe’s desire, but withal insinuated this excuse; saith he, Philip knows me, and that I fought against him last summer on the English part at Mount Hope, and he will not believe me, that I am really turned to his side, unless I do some notable exploit first, and kill some Englishmen and carry their heads to him. Let me, therefore, have some opportunity and time to do some signal service, before I go to Philip. This excuse seemed to satisfy Mautampe. But James, doubting that he would take him with him in the journey, (he being intended to take this journey within a few days after), and James could not prevent it, if the sachem should change his mind and command him to accompany him; therefore James resolved to endeavour an escape before the sachem took his journey, especially being informed secretly by Joseph Tuhapawillin, the minister of Hassenasit (there with the enemy against his mind), that Philip had given strict order to all his soldiers to surprise, as they could, certain of the praying Indians, of their most valiant men, whereof this James was one; and that they should bring them unto him alive, that he might put them to some tormenting and cruel death; which hitherto had been prevented by the care and kindness of a great captain among them, named John, with one eye,83 belonging to Nashaway, who had civilly treated and protected James, and entertained him at his wigwam all the time of his being there. The cause of this his special love to James was because he had been a fellow-soldier with him in the Manhake war,84 and about ten years past. James acquainted his comrade Job with his purpose to escape home, desiring his company with him. Job concealed his

82 Mautump, or Muttawmp had participated in the attack at Quabaug against Edward Hutchinson and Thomas Wheeler. He played important roles in attacks at Bloody Brook and Sudbury. 83 One Eyed John, or Monoco, a Nipmuc sachem who had fought against the Mohawks beside a number of Christian Indians, was a key actor in raids on Lancaster, Medfield, and Northfield, and was “chief Captain” of the attack on Groton. Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, I: 200. 84 Quannapohit was related to John Thomas, whose father was killed by Mohawk raiders, and therefore it was natural for him to be part of a war party that attacked the Mohawk settlement of Caughnawaga. Cogley, Eliot’s Mission, 148–152; and Stewart-Smith, “Pennacook Indians,” 86.

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purpose, and secretly contrived with him for his escape; “But,” said he, “I am not yet in a posture fit to go, for I cannot carry my children with me, and I have not yet considered of a way to bring them off; moreover,” said he, “I am willing to venture a little longer, and go down with the Indians that are to meet with the Narragansetts; and, if I live, I may get more intelligence. And,” said he, “if God spare my life, I intend to come away about three weeks hence.” But James earnestly persuaded him to go with him now; “for,” said he, “after I am gone, I fear the enemy will suspect us to be spies, and then kill you.” But Job was resolved to stay and venture a little longer, in order to his children’s release, and to contrive a way for the escape of some other Christian Indians that were among the enemy, that longed for deliverance. So James came away, and got safe home as is above declared; but Job staid behind, and returned not until the 9th of February; and then, about ten o’clock in the night, came to Major Gookin’s house at Cambridge, conducted thither by one Joseph Miller, that lived near the falls of Charles River. He brought tidings, that before he came from the enemy at Menemesse, a party of the Indians, about four hundred, were marched forth to attack and burn Lancaster; and, on the morrow, which was February 10th, they would attempt it.85 This time exactly suited with James his information before hinted, which was not then credited as it should have been; and, consequently, not so good means used to prevent it, or at least to have lain in ambushments for the enemy. As soon as Major Gookin understood this tidings by Job, he rose out of his bed, and, advising with Mr. Danforth, one of the Council, that lived near him, they despatched away post, in the night, to Marlborough, Concord, and Lancaster, ordering forces to surround Lancaster with all speed. The posts were at Marlborough by break of day, and Captain Wadsworth,86 with about forty soldiers, marched away, as speedily as he could possibly, to Lancaster (which was ten miles distant). But, before he got there, the enemy had set fire on the bridge; but Captain Wadsworth got over, and beat off the enemy, recovered a garrison-house that stood near another bridge, belonging to Cyprian Stevens, and so, through God’s favor, prevented the enemy from cutting off the garrison; God strangely preserving that handful with Captain Wadsworth, for the enemy were numerous, about four hundred, and lay in ambushment for him on the common road. But his guides conducted him a private way; and so they got safe to Cyprian Stevens his garrison as abovementioned. But the enemy had taken and burnt another garrison-house very near the other, only a bridge and a little ground parting them. This house burnt was the minister’s house, named Mr. Rolandson,87 wherein were slain and taken captive about forty

85 The attack on Lancaster occurred on February 10, 1676. 86 Captain Samuel Wadsworth. 87 Joseph Rowlandson.

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persons, the minister’s wife and children amongst them. But I must recollect myself; it being not my design to write of the doings and sufferings of the English in this tract, but of the Indians, our friends.88 Besides this seasonable information concerning Lancaster, by Job, he also informed of the conjunction of the Narragansett Indians with the other enemies, and of their further purposes shortly to attack Medfield, Groton, and Marlborough, and other places. Sundry other material things Job informed us of, touching the Narragansetts and their designs. Moreover, he and others (our friends among the Indians) had contrived a way and appointed a time for the escape of his children and some honest Indians with them; and agreed upon a place and time to meet them in the woods, that he might conduct them safe to the English; and, in special, Joseph Tuckappawillin, pastor of the church (late at Hassanesit), and his aged father, Naoas, the deacon of the church, with their wives and children, which were of that number. And for this purpose, Job made a petition to the Council to have liberty and opportunity to go at the time appointed to fetch them in, and it was granted him.89 But notwithstanding there were vicissitudes of intervening providence, that befell those poor Indians and Job also, before it was effected; as in that which follows will appear. After the coming back of those two spies, they were sent again to Deer Island. And although they had run such hazards, and done so good service (in the judgment of the authority of the country and other wise and prudent men), yet the vulgar spared not to load them with reproaches, and to impute the burning of Mendon (a deserted village) unto them,90 and to say that all they informed were lies, and that they held correspondence with the enemy, or else they had not come back safe; and divers other things were muttered, both against the spies and authority that sent them, tending to calumniate the poor men that had undertaken and effected this great affair, which none else (but they) were willing to engage in; which declares the rude temper of those times. About the 5th of February, a petition from the Wamesit Indians (living near Chelmsford) was presented to the Council by the hands of Jerathmel Bowers (one of their guardians), the purport whereof was, to desire earnestly that they might be removed from the place where they were; declaring they feared to stay, because (in all probability) other Indians would come and do mischief shortly, and it would be imputed to them, and they should suffer for

88 Mary Rowlandson, captured in this attack, wrote a narrative about her eleven-weeks captivity that was published in 1682. 89 See document below, 145. 90 The raid on Mendon in July, 1675, had been led by Matoonas, a Nipmuc sachem and Christian Indian who had formerly served as constable in the praying town of Pakachoog. In November, 1675, the General court announced that those who had abandoned Mendon and not returned would “forfeite their interest in that place to the country for the defraying of the charges of the garrison souldiers.” Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, I: 86; Massachusetts Bay Records 5: 65.

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it. The Council answered their petition, that they would endeavour to remove them speedily. But there was greater delay about it than was intended, by reason of divers other momentous occasions intervening. So that, within a few days after, these poor Indians of Wamesit (finding themselves in great danger, being threatened by some of their English neighbours,) they all ran away into the woods towards Pennahoog; only they left behind them six or seven aged persons, blind and lame, which, not long after, were destroyed by some cruel and wicked men, in a secret manner, who set fire to the wigwam where they kept, and burnt them all. The authors of this fact were not openly known, nor so clearly witnessed thereof, as to proceed against them by authority; but two persons were suspected strongly to be the actors, one of whom shortly after was slain at Sudbury; the other is yet alive, who, if guilty, which his own conscience knows, the Lord give him repentance for this so inhuman and barbarous fact, or else undoubtedly the just God will in due time avenge this innocent blood. This fact, when heard of, was deservedly abhorred by all sober persons. Those poor Christian Indians of Wamesit escaped clear away, and joined themselves with Wannalencet, who had withdrawn himself in the beginning of the war. They suffered much in their peregrination (as we afterward understood), and sundry of them died by sickness, whereof two were principal (and I hope pious) men; the one named Numphow, their chief ruler, and the other Mystic George, a teacher of them; besides divers other men, women, and children, through famine and sickness lost their lives. The rest of them, in August following, came in with Wannalancet to Major Walderne, and the rest of the committee at Cocheco, who were appointed to treat and make peace with such as came in and surrendered;91 these Wamesitt Indians, as well as Wannalancet and his people, had not been in hostility against the English, nor had done them any wrong, only fled away for fear, and for wrongs suffered from some English; so that there lay no just block in the way unto their reconciliation, so they were accepted; and yet, afterward, when they were sent to Boston, accusations came against some of them by English

91 Waldron and Nicholas Shapleigh at Cocheco, or Dover, New Hampshire, had been instructed by the Massachusetts Council to “secure termes, to procure a peace” with Indians to the east who had “withdrawn” themselves, “and in that case shew such favour as may be a rationall furtherance to such a desireable end.” Wannalancet’s people took advantage of this offer and encouraged other Indians to do the same, such as the Indians from Wamesit and many others who by the summer of 1676 wanted to surrender. Waldron then tricked them, disarmed them, and took them prisoner. Regardless of their former actions toward the English, they were shipped to Boston where many ended up sold into slavery. While Waldron’s commission emphasized peacemaking to prevent the war from spreading to the east, he took advantage of wording that gave him the discretion to “dispose” of Indians that he deemed intractable “by shipping them off or otherwise, whereby damage from them may be prevented.” Massachusetts Bay Records, V: 72; Belknap, The History of New Hampshire (Dover, NH, 1831), I: 75–6; Newell, Brethren by Nature, 185–186.

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captives escaped, that some of them were in arms against the English, (how true those charges were God only knows, for ‘tis very difficult, unless upon long knowledge, to distinguish Indians from one another,) however, the testimony of the witnesses against them were admitted, and some of them condemned to death and executed, and others sent to Islands out of the country; but some few were pardoned and reconciled, whereof Wannalancet and six or seven of his men were a part, and the Wamesit Indians, Sam Numphow (hardly escaped), Symon Betokam, Jonathan, George, a brother to Sam Numphow, and very few other men, but several women and children, who now lived among the rest. 1675.92 Upon the 21st day of February, the General Court of Massachusetts convened, according to a former adjournment. As soon as they were met, tidings were brought them, that a body of the enemy, about four hundred, had attacked that morning a town called Medfield, about eighteen miles from Boston west southerly, (and although it be a digression yet I shall take liberty to give a particular account of it, because occasion was taken hereby to bring more trouble and affliction upon the Christian Indians; and also it may serve, once for all, for an example of the manner and methods of the enemies’ proceeding against the English in this war; and give you a taste of their pride and insolence, and the craft and subtlety used by them in their enterprises, especially at this time when they were in their highest raffe.) Upon the 21st day of February, 1675, very early in the morning, a considerable body of Indians, between three and four hundred, in the preceding night (or rather a little before day), conveyed themselves secretly into every part of the town, especially in the south-east end, next Dedham, having fitted themselves with combustible matter, and therewith set several houses on fire, as it were in one instant of time, planting men in ambushment near the houses, that as soon as the people came forth they might shoot them down, as they did. There was at this time in the town a foot company of soldiers, under command of Capt. Jacob,93 of about eighty men, and a ply of horse under command of Cornet Oakes,94 about twenty, and of the trained band of the town about one hundred men, the whole about two hundred well armed; but they being quartered scatteringly in the town, (excepting about thirty men that were upon the watch at the corps du garde, near the meeting-house,) in which

92 In the calendar system used in seventeenth-century New England, the year began in the month of March. Gookin therefore is referring to February, 1676, not 1675. 93 John Jacob from Hingham replaced Isaac Johnson as company captain after the Great Swamp Fight; Johnson and his lieutenant had both been killed. Bodge, Soldiers, 163. 94 Edward Oakes, from the Middlesex Troop of horse, had warned the people of Medfield of an impending threat, and the minister of the town, John Wilson, had written to the General Court about a week before the attack asking for help to secure the town. William S. Tilden, History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts (Boston, MA, 1887), 81–82.

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respect they could not get together into a body to repel the enemy, until they were withdrawn and retreated out of the town; for, as soon as the alarm was taken, those at the main guard firing a great gun three or four times over, gave the alarm effectually; insomuch that the Indians saw cause to withdraw on a bridge towards Sherburne, and firing the bridge impeded the pursuit of the English soldiers. The enemy drew up in a body on the other side of the river, and, being secure, vapored and talked high. But the English soldiers could not get to them, because the bridge was cut off; as is before mentioned. Before the enemy retreated they burnt about forty dwelling-houses, which was near half the town, and slew and wounded about twenty persons, whereof the lieutenant of the town, named Adams, (a person somewhat severe against the praying Indians)95 was one; and the same night the lieutenant’s widow, being at Mr. Wilson’s, the minister’s house, that stood near the main guard, being upon a bed in a chamber, divers soldiers and commanders being in the room underneath, Capt. Jacob having a gun in his hand half bent, with the muzzle upward towards the chamber, he being taking his leave to be gone to his quarters, by some accident the gun fired through, and shot floor, mat, and through and through the body of the lieutenant’s widow, that lay upon the bed, and slew her also; this was a very strange accident, but God is awful in such tremendous dispensations. This intelligence of burning Medfield coming to the General Court, and so soon after the burning of Lancaster, occasioned many thoughts of hearty and hurrying motions, and gave opportunity to the vulgar to cry out, “Oh, come, let us go down to Deer Island, and kill all the praying Indians.” They could not come at the enemy Indians, for they were too crafty and subtle for the English; therefore they would have wreaked their rage upon the poor unarmed Indians our friends, (had not the authority of the country restrained them;) for about this time the Council was informed by good testimony, that about thirty or forty men were entering into a combination, to convey themselves out to the Island, at Pulling Point, the narrowest place between it and the main, and to have cut off all the poor Christian Indians. But the Council sent for two or three of the persons, and warned them, at their peril, to desist from such a wicked action; and so the project was frustrated. There was a paper written by the enemy Indians, and stuck up in a cleft of one of the bridge posts at Medfield, which being found by an English trooper belonging to Captain Gibbs,96 who brought it to his Captain, the contents whereof were;

95 Lieutenant Henry Adams. 96 Captain Benjamin Gibbs was from Watertown.

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Know by this paper, that the Indians that thou hast provoked to wrath and anger, will war this twenty one years if you will; there are many Indians yet, we come three hundred at this time. You must consider the Indians lost nothing but their life; you must lose your fair houses and cattle.97 This paper was brought to the General Court, wherein may be seen the pride and insolence of these barbarians at this time. But the great God and our only Saviour hath for his name’s sake rebuked their rage, and broken them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. To God be all the glory. About this time, there befell another great trouble and exercise to the Christian Indians of Nashobah, who sojourned in Concord by order; the matter was this. The Council had, by several orders, empowered a committee, who, with the consent of the selectmen of Concord, settled those Indians at that town, under the government and tuition of Mr. John Hoare; the number of those Indians were about fifty-eight of all sorts, whereof were not above twelve able men, the rest were women and children. These Indians lived very soberly, and quietly, and industriously, and were all unarmed; neither could any of them be charged with any unfaithfulness to the English interest. In pursuance of this settlement, Mr. Hoare had begun to build a large and convenient work-house for the Indians, near his own dwelling; which stood about the midst of the town, and very nigh the town watch-house. This house was made, not only to secure those Indians under lock and key by night, but to employ them and set them to work by day, whereby they earned their own bread, and in an ordinary way (with God’s blessing) would have lived well in a short time. But some of the inhabitants of the town, being influenced with a spirit of animosity and distaste against all Indians, disrelished this settlement; and therefore privately sent to a Captain of the army,98 that quartered his company not far off at that time, of whom they had experience, that he would not be backward to put in execution any thing that tended to distress the praying Indians; for this was the same man that had formerly, without order, seized upon divers of the praying Indians at Marlborough, which brought much trouble and disquiet to the country of the Indians, and was a great occasion of their defection; as hath been above declared. This Captain accordingly came to Concord with a party of his men, upon the Sabbath day, into the meeting-house, where the people were convened in the worship of God. And after the exercise was ended, be spake openly to the congregation to this effect: “That he understood there were some heathen in the town, committed to one Hoare, which he

97 This message has been attributed to James Printer, the Christian Indian and brother of Tuckapawillin and Kattenanit, who had been kidnapped by the enemy but then joined them. Tilden, History of Medfield, 86; Siobhan Senier, ed., Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 374–375. 98 Samuel Moseley.

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was informed were a trouble and disquiet to them; therefore if they desired it, he would remove them to Boston;” to which speech of his, most of the people being silent, except two or three that encouraged him, he took, as it seems, the silence of the rest for consent; and immediately after the assembly were dismissed, he went with three or four files of men, and a hundred or two of the people, men, women, and children, at his heels, and marched away to Mr. Hoare’s house, and there demanded of him to see the Indians under his care. Hoare opened the door and showed them to him, and they were all numbered and found there; the Captain then said to Mr. Hoare, that he would leave a corporal and soldiers to secure them; but Mr. Hoare answered, there was no need of that, for they were already secured, and were committed to him by order of the Council, and he would keep and secure them. But yet the Captain left his corporal and soldiers there, who were abusive enough to the poor Indians by ill language. The next morning the Captain came again, to take the Indians and send them to Boston. But Mr. Hoare refused to deliver them unless he showed him an order of the Council; but the Captain could show him no other but his commission to kill and destroy the enemy; but Mr. Hoare said, these were friends and under order. But the Captain would not be satisfied with his answer, but commanded his corporal forthwith to break open the door and take the Indians all away, which was done accordingly; and some of the soldiers plundered the poor creatures of their shirts, shoes, dishes, and such other things as they could lay their hands upon, though the Captain commanded the contrary. They were all brought to Charlestown with a guard of twenty men. And the Captain wrote a letter to the General Court, then sitting, giving them an account of his action. This thing was very offensive to the Council, that a private captain should (without commission or some express order) do an act so contradictory to their former orders; and the Governor and several others spake of it at a conference with the Deputies at the General Court, manifesting their dissatisfaction at this great irregularity, in setting up a military power in opposition to the chief authority of the country; declaring of what evil consequence such a precedent was; instancing the ill effects of the like practices in England in latter times; urging that due testimony might be borne against the same, by the whole Court. The Deputies seemed generally to agree to the reason of the magistrates in this matter; yet, notwithstanding, the Captain (who appeared in the Court shortly after, upon another occasion,) met with no rebuke for this high irregularity and arbitrary action.99 To conclude this matter, those poor Indians

99 Samuel Moseley may have been a privateer at Jamaica, and just before King Philip’s War, he had been commissioned by merchants in Boston to catch some Dutch privateers. Mosely captured the pirates, and later incorporated some of them into a volunteer company, filled primarily with servants and apprentices, to fight the Indians. Mosely was well known to have no sympathy for Indians, Christian or otherwise, and he requested from the General Court as much independence – and plunder – as possible for his volunteers. Once the war began to turn in favor of the English, he officially requested that his company would never be assigned garrison duty or placed directly

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about fifty-eight of them of all sorts, were sent down to Deer Island, there to pass into the furnace of affliction with their brethren and countrymen. But all their corn and other provision, sufficient to maintain them for six months, was lost at Concord; and all their other necessaries, except what the soldiers had plundered. And the poor Indians got very little or nothing of what they lost, but it was squandered away, lost by the removal of Mr. Hoare and other means, so that they were necessitated to live upon clams as the others did, with some little corn provided at the charge of the Honorable Corporation for the Indians, residing in Loudon. Besides, Mr. Hoare lost all his building, and other cost, which he had provided for the entertainment and employment of those Indians; which was considerable. 1675, Feb’y 23d. About this time (the General Court then sitting), there were several motions and applications made to them touching the poor Christian Indians at Deer Island.100 Some would have them all destroyed; others, sent out of the country; but some there were of more moderation, alleging that those Indians and their ancestors had a covenant with the English about thirty years since, wherein mutual protection and subjection was agreed; and that it was expedient to search the records to see and consider that agreement, and whether those Indians had broken the same, or had deserved to be proceeded against in so harsh and severe a manner as some proposed; upon which motion the records were searched, and it was found upon record, as follows. “At a General Court held at Boston in New England, the 7th of the first month, 1643/4 Magistrates Present. John Winthrop, Esq’r, Gov’r, John Endicot, Dept. Gov’r., Thomas Dudley, Esq’r., Richard Bellingham John Winthrop, Jun’r., Esq’r.,

Simon Bradstreet, Esq’r., William Hibins, Esq’r., Thomas Flint, Esq’r. Samuel Symonds, Esq’r., Increase Nowell, Esq’r., Sec.

Deputies Present. Mr. William Hilton, Mr. Howard, Mr. Samuel Dudley,

Mr. Lowell, Mr. Henry Short, Mr. Matthew Boyse,

under the command of any regular officer except during emergencies, so that he and his men could be left “to their best discretions for destroying the enemy.” Massachusetts Bay Records, V, 94–95; Bodge, Soldiers, 59–78. 100 One petition asked the magistrates and deputies to take “some speedy course … for the removal of those Indians that dwell in and amongst our Plantations to some place further … from us.” Massachusetts Archives Collection, 68: 140.

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Mr. Winsley, Mr. Edward Carleton, Mr. Daniel Denison, Mr. Willard, Mr. John Tuttle, Mr. Hayne, Mr. Joseph Bachelor, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Nicholas Norton, Mr. Tyng, Mr. Emmanuel Downing, Mr. Weld, Mr. William Hathorne, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. Glover, Mr. Edward Tomlins, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Robert Sedgwick, Mr. Casse, Mr. Edward Sprague, Mr. Peter Bracket, Mr. George Cook, Mr. Torrey, Mr. Samuel Shepard, Mr. Hollister, Mr. Mahue, Mr. Ames, Mr. Mason, Mr. Joshua Hubard, Mr. Lusher, Mr. Stephen Winthrop Mr. Chickering, “Wassamequin, Nashoonon, Kutchamaquin, Massaconomet, and Squaw Sachem, did voluntarily submit themselves to us; as appears by their covenant subscribed with their own hands here following, and other articles to which they consented. “We have, and by these presents, do, voluntarily and without any constraint or persuasion, but of our own free motion, put ourselves, our subjects, our lands and estates, under the government and jurisdiction of Massachusetts; to be governed and protected by them, according to their just laws and orders, so far as we shall be made capable of understanding them; and we do promise, for ourselves and all our subjects and all our posterity, to be true and faithful to the said government, and aiding to the maintenance thereof, to our best ability. And from time to time to give speedy notice of any conspiracy, attempt, or cruel intention of any that we shall know or hear of against the same. And we do promise to be willing from time to time to be instructed in the knowledge of God. In witness whereof, we have hereunto put our hands, the eighth day of the first month, 1643/4. “Massanomit, Kutshamaquin, Squaw Sachem, Nashoonon, Wassamequin.101 “Certain Questions propounded to the lndians, and their Answers.

101 The signers were leaders of the Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Nipmuc peoples who ruled the land in the early decades of the seventeenth century.

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“Q. 1. To worship the only true God, who made heaven and earth. “Ans. We do desire to reverence the God of the English, because we see he doth better to the English than other gods do to others. “Q. 2. Not to swear falsely. “Ans. They say they know not what swearing is among them. “Q. 3. Not to do any unnecessary work on the Sabbath day, especially within the gates of Christian towns. “Ans. It is easy to them; they have not much to do on any day, and they can well take their rest on that day. “Q. 4. To honor their parents and superiors. “Ans. “T is their custom to do so, for the inferiors to honor their superiors. “Q. 5 To kill no man without just cause and just authority. “Ans. This is good, and they desire to do so. “Q. 6 To commit no unclean lust, as for instance, adultery, incest, rape, sodomy, bigamy, or beastility. “Ans. Though sometimes some of them do it, yet they account it naught. “Q. 7 Not to steal. “Ans. They said to this as to the 6th quere. “Q. 8 To suffer their children to learn to read God’s word, that they may learn to know God aright, and to worship him in his own way. “Ans. They say, as opportunity will serve, and the English live among them, they desire so to do. “Q. 9 That they should not be idle. “Ans. To which and all the rest, they consented, acknowledging them to be good. “Being received by us, they presented twenty six fathom of wampum. And the Court directed the treasurer to give them four coats, two yards in a coat, of red cloth, and a potful of wine. “This above is a true copy taken out of the record of the General Court, Book 2, page 64; as attests Edward Rawson, Secretary.” The praying Indians, confined to Deer Island, are the people with whom the above written agreements were made, wherein subjection and mutual protection are engaged; and these Indians, as is before declared, made discovery of what they knew of the plottings and conspiracy of the enemy, before the war began; also most readily and cheerfully joined with, and assisted the English in the war; as is before in part touched, and will more clearly appear in the sequel of this discourse; also they submitted themselves to the laws of God and the English government, and desiring themselves and children to be taught and instructed in the Christian religion; and have in all other points, so far as I know, (for the body of them,) kept and performed the articles of their covenant above expressed. When the General Court had read and considered this

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agreement, it had this effect (through God’s grace) in some degree to abate the clamors of many men against these Indians. 1675. Before the General Court adjourned, which was not until the 28th of February, they had voted and concluded to raise an army of six hundred men, to be put under the conduct of Major Thomas Savage, as Commander-in-chief; but the Major was not willing to undertake the charge, unless he might have some of the Christian Indians upon Deer Island to go with him for guides, etc.; for the Major, being an experienced soldier, well considered the great necessity of such helps in such an undertaking. The General Court consented to this reasonable motion of Major Savage, and accordingly ordered that one John Curtis, of Roxbury, (who was well acquainted with those Indians,) should go down to Deer Island and choose out six of the fittest men for that service, which he did, and chose and brought up with him six men, whose names were James Quannapohit, Job Kattenanit, (those were the two spies before mentioned,) James Speen, Andrew Pitimee, John Magus, and William Nahaton.102 These were all principal men, faithful and courageous; they were all willing, and cheerful, and joyful, that they had this call and opportunity to serve the English under Major Savage, whom some of them had served under, in the beginning of the war at Mount Hope. These six men, being fitted and furnished with arms and other necessaries, they were conducted to Marlborough, from whence the army was to march the first day of March, 1675/6. But before the army set forth from Marlborough, there fell out a matter of trouble and disquiet to them, occasioned by the motion of one of the captains of the army, of whom it hath been once and again declared that he was no lover of the praying Indians; and because the matter referreth to one of the six Indians before named, now with the army, it seems pertinent to my purpose to declare it. Job Kattenanit, when he returned from the service he had done as one of the spies, obtained leave from the Council to endeavour to fulfil an agreement he had made with some of the Christian Indians, among the enemy, particularly with Joseph Tuckapawilin, minister of the Indian Church, late at Hassanamesit, and others, to meet them in the woods about those parts, and bring with them Job’s three children again to the English. In pursuance of this order of the Council, Major Savage did (with the advice and consent of Major-General Dennison, who was then at Marlborough in order to despatch away the army) give liberty to Job to go alone from Marlborough to the place appointed, about Hassanamesit, not above twelve miles distant, to meet his

102 James Speen, teacher at Pakachoog, had managed to evade capture along with Job Kattenanit when the Hassanamesits were taken by the enemy; Andrew Pitimee later joined with other Christian Indians in pleading for the life of Hassanamesit’s Captain Tom, who stood accused at the close of the war of having participated in attacks on the English; John Magus was perhaps kinsman of Magus, one of the original Natick converts; and William Nahaton, or Ahaton, was teacher at Punkapoag, and had once carried messages from the Natick church to Philip.

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Major Thomas Savage, 1679. Attributed to: Thomas Smith, American, about 1650–1651. Oil on canvas mounted on Masonite. 106.68 x 93.98 (42 x 37 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Henry Lee Shattuck in memory of the late Morris Gray. 1983.35. Photograph © December 1, 2019. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Major Thomas Savage Major Thomas Savage commanded several expeditions that included praying Indians during the war. In 1677, he provided Gookin with a signed “certificate” attesting “on their behalf, that they carried themselves well, and approved themselves courageous soldiers, and faithful to the English interest.”

friends and children, and to bring them in to the army at the rendezvous at Quabage. Not long after Job was gone from Marlboro’, the captain aforesaid, hearing of it, made a very great stir at the head-quarters at William Ward’s, in Marlborough, where the army was drawn up in a body in order to their march; and spake words reflecting greatly upon that action of sending away Job, alleging that he would inform the enemy of the army’s motion, and so frustrate the whole design. This fair pretence was managed in a mutinous manner by others of like temper and spirit, insomuch that the army was under great disquiet; hereby the wisdom and prudence not only of Major Savage, but of Major-General Denson, was much reflected upon. But they were fain to calm this storm by gentle means and soft words, and forthwith ordered to send away Capt. Wadsworth and Capt. Syll, who offered themselves, with James Quannapohit, to follow Job on horseback, hoping to overtake him and prevent that which was feared. Accordingly they were

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speedily despatched to pursue Job; which had a tendency to compose and qualify the heats that were begotten upon this occasion. But Wadsworth and Syll did not overtake Job nor meet him till he was returned to the army; nor yet did Job meet with his friends, but found signs where they had lately been; for those poor creatures had shifted their quarters for fear, because the time was expired that Job promised to meet them, if he were admitted. But Job, missing his friends, faithfully fulfilled his promise in returning to the army, whom he met upon the road about twenty miles westward of Marlborough; and so proved himself an honest man, and that those suspicions of him were groundless. I conceive, had this mutinous practice (that so much reflected upon the chief commander of the army and authority of the Council) been committed in some other parts of the world, it would have cost the author of it a cashiering at least, if not a more severe animadversion; for it was an action against the order and good discipline of an army, for any private captain to animadvert (in such a manner) upon the general’s actions, done with consideration and prudence. Those poor Christian Indians before mentioned, (with Job’s children,) although Job could not meet them, yet were met by Capt. Benjamin Gibbs and a small party of horse under his command, who, scouting in the woods as the army were upon their march to Quabage, took those poor creatures (supposing they had got a prize); they were but two men (one very aged), three women, and six children. The soldiers that seized them took from them all those few necessaries they had preserved; as two rugs, two brass kettles, some dishes, and a pewter cup, that the minister had saved, which he was wont to use at the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, being given him by Mr. Elliot for their use; in a word, the soldiers took all the little they had, and told many stories concerning them, that so they might not return their things again. But yet God so ordered it, that they hurt not their bodies, but brought them in to the General Savage, at the rendezvous, who understanding they were Job’s friends and his children, he treated them civilly, and forthwith sent them with a guard back to Marlborough, to be conveyed to Boston.103 But when the poor creatures came to Marlborough, they being quartered there one night or two by the constable’s order, until an opportunity served to send them on to Boston, there came some people of the town (especially women)104 to their quarter, some of whom did so abuse,

103 One of the soldiers, Jonathan Fairbanks, who described himself as a “volunteer” under Gibbs, asked and received permission to take into his possession a ten or twelve year old girl who was in the Tuckapawillin party. The “plunder” of this refugee group, then, extended to persons, not just material items, as Gookin here supposes. Fairbanks had left the girl at Quabaug, but she was later transported to Deer Island. In April, 1676 he described this incident in a petition to the Council in which he asked that he might be allowed to retrieve what he considered his property. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 200; Brooks, Beloved Kin, 289. 104 A similar incident in which women were cited as unleashing fury against Indians accused of wartime violence occurred in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1677. Mariner Robert Roules testified that he saw a mob of women literally tear apart and murder two Indian prisoners – rather than see

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threaten, and taunt at these poor Christians, and they being thereby put into great fears, that in the night the minister’s wife, and his eldest son, a lad of twelve years old, and another woman, a widow that had carefully kept and nourished Job’s children, with her daughter, being four of them in all, escaped away into the woods; the minister’s wife left a nursing infant behind her, with her husband, of about three months old, which affliction was a very sore trial to the poor man, his wife and eldest son gone, and the poor infant no breast to nourish it. I heard a prudent gentleman, one Capt. Brattle of Boston, who was then at Marlborough, (for he heard the people’s taunts and threats to them,) say, that he was ashamed to see and hear what he did of that kind, and, if he had been an Indian and so abused, he should have run away as they did. Not long after, this poor minister, Joseph Tuckappawillin, and his aged father, Naaos, a man of about eighty years old, both good Christians, with three or four children of the minister’s, and Job’s three children, were all sent to Boston, where they were kept a night or two, and then sent to Deer Island, where God provided a nurse (among the Indians) to preserve the life of the sucking infant; and about two months after, his wife was recovered and brought in by Tom Dublet, one of our messengers to the enemy; but his eldest son before mentioned died, after he went away from Marlborough with his mother, conceived to lose his life by famine. The other widow, who went away at that time, and her daughter, were also recovered. This widow Job married afterward, not knowing how better to requite her love showed in nourishing and preferring his three children when they were among the enemies, and they now lived comfortably together; so that after all the troubles, sorrows, and calamities this man Job underwent, (as we have before touched,) God gave him all his children in safety, and a suitable wife; and vindicated him from all the calumnies and aspersions cast on him, and by good demonstrations cleared his integrity and faithfulness to God’s cause and the English interest, and hath made him very serviceable and victorious since, in the war against the enemy. One thing I shall further mention, that is of remark, before I pass the history of the matter. Joseph Tuckapawillin, minister and pastor of the church at Hassanamesit before spoken of, while he was at Boston, and before he was sent to Deer Island, some persons had compassion on his distressed condition, particularly Capt. Nicholas Page and his wife,105 who took him, and his children, and his aged father, to their house in Boston, and refreshed their bowels with food and other comforts, and milk to preserve the poor infant’s life. This poor man was

them go to trial – because the Indians had been preying on fishing boats and killing fishermen (the women’s fathers, husbands and brothers). James Axtell, “‘The Vengeful Women of Marblehead:’ Robert Roules’s Deposition of 1677,” William and Mary Quarterly 31 (1974), 647–652. 105 Paige had served in the Mount Hope Campaign and at the Narragansett Fort Fight. Bodge, Soldiers, 85.

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much affected with, and thankful for their love. While he was at Capt. Page’s, Mr. John Elliot (his spiritual father in Christ) came to visit him, with some others formerly acquainted with him, and spake divers words of comfort to him, suitable to his condition; divers things were spoken to him and wisely answered by him, which I shall not mention, but one passage I noted, being present. Said Joseph to Mr. Elliot, “Oh, Sir,” said he, “I am greatly distressed this day on every side; the English have taken away some of my estate, my corn, cattle, my plough, cart, chain, and other goods. The enemy Indians have also taken a part of what I had; and the wicked Indians mock and scoff at me, saying, ‘Now what is become of your praying to God?’ The English also censure me, and say I am a hypocrite. In this distress I have no where to look, but up to God in heaven to help me; now my dear wife and eldest son are (through the English threatenings) run away, and I fear will perish in the woods for want of food; also my aged mother is lost; and all this doth greatly aggravate my grief. But yet I desire to look up to God in Christ Jesus, in whom alone is my help. Being asked by Capt. Page, whether he had not assisted the enemy in the wars when he was among them; he answered, “I never did join with them against the English. Indeed, they often solicited me, but I utterly denied and refused it. I thought within myself, it is better to die than to fight against the church of Christ.” I questioned him many things of the condition and number of the enemy; he answered, that he judged they were about a thousand men; “but,” said he, “the greatest part, as I conceive, are for peace, and not to hold on the war; and,” said he, “shortly they will be in great straits for food, when the ground-nuts are gone.” Now we come in order to declare something concerning the six Indians that went with Major Savage, to find out the enemy at Menumesse. There wanted not some who, in their letters from the army, accused Job of false dealing, and that he had informed the enemy of our army’s coming against them. But neither the general (Major Savage), nor Mr. Nowel,106 the minister of the army, intimated any such matter in their letters to the Council, but rather the contrary; and, because I was not present with them to observe the actings of

106 Samuel Nowell of Charlestown served as chaplain at the Great Swamp Fight and was known for participating in combat along with the soldiers. Although Nowell vouched for the useful contributions of the praying Indians, he did not foresee a future in which Indians and English would share the land. In his 1678 Artillery Election Sermon, Nowell expressed his belief that the Indians were nothing more than a scourge to keep God’s people alert and prepared at all times for war, not potential townspeople and fellow Christians. Samuel Nowell, Abraham in Arms (Boston, 1678), 13–14.

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those Indians, I shall content myself with writing the extract of Mr. Nowell’s letter, concerning the carriage and deportment of those six Indians. This gentleman was the principal minister of the army, a pious and prudent person, and is minister of God’s word at Boston, in New England. His letter was dated March 26th, 1676; wherein, after salutations and giving a particular account of the motions of the army, from the time they went forth until that day, saith he, I look at it as a great rebuke of God, that we should miss our enemy as we did, when we were at Menumesse. If we had hearkened to those six Indians whom we took from Deer Island, we might have prevented that error. They have behaved themselves like sober, honest men, since their abode with us, which hath made me look after them more carefully. At their first coming to Hadley, the man with whom they quartered allowed them pork and peas enough, but not bread; he perceiving they had some money, made them buy their bread. When they had laid out about 4. 6d., one of them told me of it; upon which I spake to the gentlemen, who ordered the constable to allow them bread, and I did them give 4. 6d. out of my own purse, to reimburse what they had expended. And, whereas some have accused Job for discovering to the Indians our coming forth with the army, I could easily demonstrate that it was not possible for him to go to Menumesse to make any such discovery, while he was absent from Marlborough. But the circumstances of that story are so many, it would be too long to commit them to writing at present. I question not Job’s uprightness towards the English, and shall make it out, if the Lord bring me back. He further adds, in the same letter, that the Natick Indians took two of the enemy, which being sullen were slain, and of their advice for pursuing the enemy, which was not attended, and so the opportunity was frustrated; and several other passages he relates of them, declaring their prudence, and fidelity, and courage. Again, in another letter from the same person, dated April 9th, which was about the time of the army’s return home as far as Marlborough, saith he, Our pilots (i. e. the Indians) were labored with to represent the way to watch [Watchuset?] (where the body of the enemy quartered) very difficult, before they came to speak before the Council; and had ill words given them, that so they might be afraid to speak any thing that should afford encouragement. The poor Indians, our pilots, as soon as they arrived at Marlborough, were much abused by the townsmen, insomuch that they were unwilling to go into any house.

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Thus much of Mr. Nowell’s letters, touching those six Indians, of whom the general also gave a good character. 1675/6. In the months of February, March, and April, the enemy Indians were very violent in their attempts and assaults upon all the frontier English plantations, burning several villages or part of them, and murdering many people in the highways; so that weekly, yea almost daily, messengers with sad tidings were brought into the Council, insomuch that the Lord seemed to threaten great calamity to ensue upon the English nation; for none of our enterprises against the enemy were blessed with success, and it was groundedly feared and judged that seed-time and harvest would be greatly obstructed, and thereby occasion famine to follow the war.107 These things occasion great thoughts of heart unto the godly wise, especially such as were at the helm of government; and the rather because God seemed to put us to shame, and not to go forth with our arms, but to render our endeavours to quell the rage and fury of the enemy fruitless. In this conjunction of our affairs, some made application to the Council, to arm and send forth a company of the Christian Indians that were at Deer Island, who had manifested themselves very desirous and willing to engage against the enemy in this distressing time; particularly Capt. Daniel Henchman, who was appointed by the Council to look to the Indians at Deer Island, and to put them upon employ. This gentleman made motions to the Council, once and again, of his readiness to conduct these Indians against the enemy; declaring that he had great confidence in God, that if they were employed they might, with God’s blessing, be instrumental to give check to the enemy and turn the alarm; testifying that he found them very willing and desirous to serve the country, and leave their parents, wives, and children under the English power, which would be rational security to the English for their fidelity. But those motions were not accepted at first; for God’s time was not yet come for our deliverance, and the Indian rod had not yet smarted sufficiently. The people generally distrusted those praying Indians, and were not willing to have any of them employed to serve the country; which was the principal reason why the Council complied not with those and former motions of this nature, for many of the Council were otherwise opposed enough to it. Indeed afterwards the motion to arm and employ the Christian Indians, was embraced and put in practice; of which we shall speak in its proper place. But some other matters previous to it were first done, which I shall now relate.

107 A large number of militiamen from several towns petitioned the Council in April to be relieved of duty so that they could plant; otherwise, they would not be able to provide for their families. Massachusetts Archives Collection 68:246. In the May 3 session of the General Court, the magistrates and deputies provided relief, ordering the selectmen of the towns to hire workers to do farm work for the men out on service, but still the militiamen would have to pay a daily rate to the laborers. Massachusetts Bay Records 5:78.

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Mr. Rowlandson, minister of Lancaster, (a pious and good man,) having his wife, children, and several friends in captivity among the enemy, being surprised at Lancaster as is before touched; himself, and several other ministers in his behalf, had some time since petitioned the Council to use what means they could for the redemption of his wife, etc.; which the Council consented to, and, in pursuance thereof, ordered Major Gookin to endeavour to procure at Deer Island one or two Indians, that for a reward might adventure to go with a message to the enemy, to offer for the redemption of our captives, particularly Mrs. Rowlandson. But, although the Major went to the Island, and did his utmost endeavours to procure an Indian to adventure upon this service at that time, yet could not prevail with any; so the matter lay dormant a good space of time. But, on the 23d of March, some friends advised Mr. Rowlandson to make another petition to revive the former motion; which he did that day.108 The Council declared themselves ready to promote it, and send a messenger, if any could be procured. Major Gookin, who stirred up Mr. Rowlandson hereunto, was informed that one of the Indians lately brought down from Concord, named Tom Dublot, alias Nepponit,109 had some inclination to run that adventure; of which the Major informing the Council, they ordered Capt. Henchman to treat and agree with him, which be accordingly did, and brought him up from Deer Island some few days after; and he was sent to Major Gookin’s, at Cambridge, where he was, according to the order of the Council, fitted and furnished for this enterprise; and had a letter from the Council to the enemy, concerning the redemption of the captives; and upon Monday, April 3d, he was sent away from Cambridge upon his journey;110 and he did effect it with care and prudence, and returned again upon the 12th of April, with this answer in writing, from the enemy: To Governor and Council in Boston, and people that are in war with us. We now give answer by this one man; but if you like my answer, send one more man besides this Tom Neppanit, and send with all true heart, and with all your mind, by two men. Because you know, and we know, you have great sorrowful with crying; for you lost many, many

108 John Hoar of Concord played a major role in the negotiations. 109 Tom Dublet was from the Christian town of Nashobah and was likely one of the Indians overseen in the workhouse of John Hoar prior to being sent to Deer Island. He participated in other captive exchanges as well, and may have been involved in arranging a meeting between Englishmen and Nipmuc sachems that did not bear fruit. In 1684, he petitioned successfully for payment for his work in arranging the release of captives. Henry Nourse, ed., The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1643–1725 (Lancaster, 1884), 113–114; Herbert Joseph Harwood, “The Indians of Nashobah,” Proceedings of the Littleton Historical Society I (1894–95), 102–103. 110 The letter Dublet carried, signed by Governor John Leverett, asked for a written response from the captors. Nourse, Early Records, 110.

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hundred men: and all your house, all your land, and woman, child, and cattle, and all your things that you have lost. Moreover they add, that Mrs. Rowlandson and other captives are alive. This was signed by Sam and Kutquen Quanohit, sagamores, and Peter Jethro, scribe.111 To this letter the Council gave answer, tending to abate their pride and insolence; and sent again Tom Neppanit, and another Indian named Peter Conway,112 to move further about the redemption of Mrs. Rowlandson and her friends, which the enemy inclined unto. Those two Indians were sent a second, third, and fourth time, and some English with them; and at last prevailed so far, that Mrs. Rowlandson and some others were redeemed, and brought home about the Election time following.113 This treaty about the captives, and the consequences thereof, had no small influence into the abatement of the enemy’s violence and our troubles, and had a tendency to dividing them and break their union, and consequently their strength; for Philip, and some others of the enemy’s chief men, were utterly against treating with the English or surrendering the captives. But some other of their principal sachems, that were more inclinable to a reconciliation with the English, thought that their compliance with the English about surrendering the captives (especially being well paid for their redemption) would mollify the Englishmen’s minds in order to a peace. This contest about the treaty, caused them to fall out and divide. Philip and most of the Narraganset Indians separated from the inland Indians, and went down into their own country, and the inland Indians staid about Wachuset mountain; which was a means under God to weaken and destroy them, as might be showed, and is in part declared already, in the history of the war published. This was another piece of service done by our praying Indians; at least they broke the ice and made way for it, by their first adventuring to treat with the enemy. Whilst this matter of the redemption of the captives was in agitation, the assaults of the enemy were frequent and violent, for the body of them quartered within twenty miles of the English frontiers of Lancaster, Groton, and Marlborough, and made daily incursions upon us; and notwithstanding the Council had used many endeavours, and raised forces and sent them forth, to beat up their head quarters at Watchusett,

111 Peter Jethro, the scribe, was a Christian Indian. Signatories in the response from the Nipmuc sachems included Shoshanim, or Sagamore Sam, and Kutquen Quanohit, who was probably Sagamore John, sachem of Pakachoog. A second letter was scribed by James Printer. Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 200–201. 112 Peter Conway, or Tatatiquinea, was a Nashobah praying Indian. The letter of April 28, 1676 to which Gookin refers berated the sachems for not giving a “plaine and direct answer,” and complained that James Printer had not followed the proper format in dating the letter and getting signatures. Nourse, Early Records, 112. 113 Early May, 1676.

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all those means proved ineffectual; and the enemy still kept that station, the place being near a very high mountain, and very difficult to have access to, by reason of thick woods and rocks and other fastnesses, that our English army thought it not advisable to hazard themselves in that enterprise. In this juncture of affairs, the Council at last resolved to arm and send forth a company of the praying Indians from Deer Island, under the conduct of Samuel Hunting and James Richardson, the one made a captain, the other his lieutenant, for this service; these two Englishmen were well acquainted with those Indians, and persons whom they told. In pursuance whereof Capt. Hunting had orders and a commission, and did his best endeavour; but could not (at that time) procure arms for more than forty Indians. Indeed, those praying Indians had generally arms of their own before the war began; but they were taken away from them by the English, and squandered away many of them, as at Marlborough twenty-seven good arms at one time, before touched; and some taken by Sudbury men at the falls on Charles River, and detained to this day, and others from particular persons; those were all taken from them without order, and upward of twenty arms were taken from them after they were confined to the Island; those last were part of the arms wherewith they were now furnished. Upon the 21st of April, Capt. Hunting had drawn up and ready furnished his company of forty Indians, at Charlestown. They were ordered by the Council at first to march up to Merrimack river near Chelmsford, and there to settle a garrison near the great fishing-places, where it was expected the enemy would come at this season to get fish for their necessary food; and from this fort to keep their scouts abroad daily, to seize the enemy; and if they should be overpowered by greater numbers, their garrison and fort was for their retreat, until assistance might be sent them. This was the projection of this undertaking at first; and accordingly matters were prepared, and carriages with provisions and tools sent away to Merrimack river. But behold God’s thoughts are not as ours, nor his ways as ours; for just as those Indian soldiers were ready to march, upon the 21st of April, about mid-day tidings came by many messengers, that a great body of the enemy, not less as was judged than fifteen hundred; (for the enemy, to make their force seem to be very great, there were many women among them, whom they had fitted with pieces of wood cut in the form of guns, which those carried, and were placed in the centre;) they had assaulted a town called Sudbury, that morning, and set fire of sundry houses and barns of that town, (this town is about eighteen miles from Charlestown, westerly;) giving an account that the people of the place were greatly distressed and earnestly desired succor; indeed (thro’ God’s favor) some small assistance was already sent from Watertown, by Capt. Hugh Mason, which was the next town to Sudbury. These with some of the inhabitants joined, and with some others that came in to their help, there was vigorous resistance made, and a check given to the enemy, so that those that were gotten over the river, to the east side of the town, were forced to retreat; and the body of

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the enemy were repulsed that they could not pass the bridge, which pass the English kept. But those particulars were not known when the tidings came to Charlestown, where the Indian companies before mentioned were ready. Just at the beginning of the Lecture there, as soon as these tidings came, Major Gookin and Mr. Thomas Danforth, (two of the magistrates,) who were then hearing the Lecture Sermon, being acquainted herewith, withdrew out of the meeting-house, and immediately gave orders for a ply of horse, belonging to Capt. Prentiss’ troops, under conduct of Corporal Phipps,114 and the Indian company under Capt. Hunting, forthwith to march away for the relief of Sudbury; which accordingly was put in execution. Capt. Hunting with his Indian company, being on foot, got not to Sudbury until a little within night. The enemy, as is before touched, were all retreated unto the west side of the river of Sudbury, where also several English inhabited. Upon the 22d of April, early in the morning, our forty Indians, having stripped themselves, and painted their faces like to the enemy, they passed over the bridge to the west side of the river, without any Englishmen in their company, to make discovery of the enemy, (which was generally conceived quartered thereabout.) But this did not at all discourage our Christian Indians from marching out for discovery, and if they had met with them, to beat up their quarters. But God had so ordered it, that the enemy were all withdrawn and were retreated in the night. Our Indian soldiers, having made a thorough discovery, and to their great grief, (for some of them wept when they saw so many English lie dead on the place among the slain;) some they knew, viz. those two worthy and pious captains, Capt. Brocklebank of Rowley, and Capt. Wadsworth115 of Milton, who, with about thirty-two private soldiers, were slain the day before. For Capt. Wadsworth, lying with his company at Marlborough, being left there to strengthen that frontier, upon the return of the army; he, understanding that the enemy had attacked Sudbury, took a ply of his men, about six files, and marched for their relief, with whom Capt. Brocklebank (who kept quarters at Marlborough) went, taking this opportunity, as a good convoy, to go to Boston to speak with the Council. Capt. Wadsworth, being a valiant and active man, and being very desirous to rescue his friends at Sudbury, marched in the night with all the speed he could; and his soldiers, being spent and weary with travel and want of rest, fell into the enemy’s ambushment in the morning; and the enemy, being numerous, encompassed him round, so that they were generally cut off, except a few that escaped to a mill which was fortified, but the people were fled out of it; but the enemy knew not of their

114 Corporal Solomon Phips, or Phipps. Bodge, Soldiers, 229. 115 Captains Samuel Brocklebank of Rowley, who had been in charge of the Marlborough garrison after returning from Narragansett; and Samuel Wadsworth of Milton. Bodge, Soldiers, 206, 218– 219.

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flight, and so, supposing the mill to be strong, they ventured not to attack it. At the same time, Capt. Cutler116 of Charlestown, with a small company, having the convoy of some carts from Marlborough, that were coming to Sudbury, having secured his carriage at a garrison-house, escaped narrowly from being cut off by the enemy. The enemy also, at that time, cut off some English soldiers that were coming down under the conduct of one Cowell,117 of Boston, that had been a convoy to some provisions at Quabage fort. But I have too far digressed. Therefore, to return to the company of our Christian Indians, who, as soon as they had made a full discovery, returned to their captain and the rest of the English, and gave them an account of their motions. Then it was concluded to march over to the place and bury the dead, and they did so shortly after, that day, our Indians marching in two files upon the wings, to secure those that went to bury the dead. God so ordered it, that they met with no interruption in that work. Our Indians found only four dead Indians of the enemy, covered up with logs and rubbish. This service, so faithfully performed by our Christian Indians, had the effect to abate much, with many, their former hatred of them, especially at Sudbury, some of the people who had formerly done much injury to these our Christian friends, whilst they dwelt at Natick, for some of them know they have taken several things from them, and never restored them; as guns, utensils for carts and ploughs, corn and swine, and materials of ironwork belonging to a sawmill, and other things; their consciences can best witness what they are; and if they do not make restitution, I fear they will have little comfort at death, though they please themselves with this notion, that the enemy Indians robbed and plundered them of such like things; but this will not be (I contend) a sufficient warrant to wrong the innocent, or rob honest men, because thieves of the same nation have robbed them. But I name no persons, but leave the matter to God and their own consciences, desiring they may repent and make restitution. From this time forward, our Christian Indian soldiers were constantly employed in all expeditions against the enemy, while the war lasted; and after the arrival of the ships from England, which was in May, arms were bought to furnish the rest of the able men; and then Capt. Hunting’s company was made up to the number of eighty men; those did many signal services in the summer, 1676. At Weshakum, and at or near Mendon, at Mount Hope, at Watchusett, and several other places, they were often made use of as scouts before the army, and at such time when the army lay still and staid at their quarters; in which scoutings they took several captives, and slew many of the enemy, and brought their scalps to their commanders. The particulars of their

116 Captain John Cutler of Charlestown. Bodge, Soldiers, 275. 117 Edward Cowell, three of whose men died, later testified that he had seen Hassanamesit’s “Captain Tom” fighting against the English at Sudbury.

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actions are too many to mention in this script. I contend that the small company of our Indian friends have taken and slain of the enemy, in the summer of 1676, not less than four hundred; and their fidelity and courage is testified by the certificates of their captains, that are inserted in the close of this discourse. It may be said in truth, that God made use of these poor, despised, and hated Christians, to do great service for the churches of Christ in New England, in this day of their trial; and I think it was observed by impartial men, that, after our Indians went out, the balance turned of the English side; for, after the attack of Sudbury (at which time our Indians first went forth), the enemy went down the wind amain;118 and, about July, one hundred and fifty surrendered themselves to mercy to the Massachusetts government, besides several that surrendered at Plymouth and Connecticut. Among those that came in to Massachusetts with the sachem of Packachooge, there were several of those that had been praying Indians, and went or were carried away from Hassanamesit; of which I have before spoken.119 About the 9th of August, there happened a very sad accident, relating to the poor Christian Indians, viz. a horrid murder committed by some Englishmen upon two squaws, wives to two of our Indian soldiers, the one named Andrew Pittimee, the captain of the Indians; and the other his sister (wife to one Thomas Speene); and one young woman, and three children, whereof one was a nursing infant; and all the children of Thomas Speen aforesaid. These two squaws and their company aforementioned, being allowed (in this time of their straits for food) by the English authority, went forth to gather hurtleberries, at a place called Hurtleberry Hill, about four miles from Waterton mill, within the bounds of that town; where the English, who were about eleven or twelve in number, and were on horseback, first met those Indians. There was one Indian man with them, called John Stoolemester, one that had been bred with the English; they disarmed him of a carbine belonging to the county, for he was newly come in from the army, and had not delivered his arms. After they had disarmed this fellow, they threatened to kill him; but he, speaking English, interceded strongly for his life, and so they dismissed him, and he came home; but the squaws being among the bushes not far off, he lost them there; the English came to them and sat down, and smok’d it where they were, and exchanged with them bread and cheese for some hurtleberries; and then the English left the squaws and children, but being not gone a mile, four of the English left their company and went back to the squaws, and drove

118 With great haste. 119 On July 27, Sagamore John/Horowannit, sachem of Pakachooge, surrendered with about 160 Indians who had been at the Mount Watchusett encampment. He turned Matoonas and his son, bound, over to the English. Sagamore John later ran away with some of his people when the English did not let him go free but decreed he must live under the close supervision of a militia officer. Connole, Indians of Nipmuck Country, 208–210.

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them before them unto the north end of the hill, into a secret place, and there murdered them all, and stript such as had coats on. Having committed the murder, these men went to their habitations. The next day after the squaws were missing, and came not home to their wigwams, Capt. Pitimee, being then at home, came to Major Gookin at Cambridge and acquainted him with his fears, that some evil had befallen his wife, sister, and their company, and desired an order and some help of Englishmen, two or three at least, to go and search for them; which being so reasonable a request, it was granted. So he went forth and searched a day or two, but could not find them; at last, having procured about fifteen or sixteen Indians and two English, they made a more strict search, and at last found the dead bodies, not far from one another, cruelly murdered, some shot through, others their brains beat out with hatchets; to be short, this murder was afterward discovered, and the four murderers seized, tried, and condemned, and two of the four executed, and the other two pardoned by the General Court.120 This murder was very much decried by all good men, and it was some satisfaction that some of them were made examples. I know the murderers pretended a law to warrant the act, but the juries and judge were not of their mind in the matter.121 I know, also, there are some among the English, that have a very ill conceit of all the Indians, and will not admit them so much charity, as to think that any of them are sober or honest; such I shall leave to the Lord, desiring he will give them more charity, and root out of their hearts the spirit of enmity and animosity. And it is probable that some persons will not be wanting to calumniate our Christian Indians, and object that, notwithstanding all that hath been said on their behalf, yet they are hypocrites and wicked men, and will frequently drink and commit other lewdness. To this I shall answer in few words. I have good ground to believe, that several of them are sincere; but l do not say they are all such. And I dare not affirm for my own countrymen, that there are no hypocrites or evil-doers among them. I wish and pray, that both English and Indians were all better than I fear they are; ‘t is not my work to judge men’s hearts; that belongs to God. Secondly, I cannot deny but that many of them, especially the younger sort, that have been and are soldiers, but they are too apt to be overtaken with drink. I could wish they had not so much example and temptation thereunto by some English, especially such as have been their fellow-soldiers in the wars, who are very ready, when they meet the Indians, to give or procure strong drink for them; and others, for

120 One of the men convicted – but later pardoned – was the son of John Hoar, who had protected Christian Indians in his workhouse and been instrumental in negotiating the release of Mary Rowlandson. See Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “Massacre at Hurtleberry Hill: Christian Indians and English Authority in Metacom’s War,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (July, 1996), 459–486. 121 The law forbade Indians from leaving their places of confinement. Massachusetts Bay Records, V: 64.

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filthy lucre’s sake, sell them strong drink, expressly prohibited by law; indeed, a very little matter will intoxicate their brains; for, being used to drink water, they cannot bear a fourth part of what an Englishman will bear. I have known one drunk with as little as one eighth part of a pint of strong water, and others with little more than a pint of cider. I do not plead to justify them in such actions, but endeavour to declare things as they are in truth. Thirdly, I cannot deny but sundry of the Christian Indians are not of so good conversation, as Christian religion requires; which thing is matter of lamentation to all that fear God, not only in respect of those Indians, but of the English also, among whom they live; yet, notwithstanding, we may not presently exclude them out of visible Christianity, but rather endeavour to convince and reform them, if God please to be instrumental to correct them, and turn them to God effectually. Whilst men do externally attend the means of grace, keep the Sabbath, pray in their families morning and evening, and endeavour and desire to be instructed in Christian religion, both themselves and children, as the praying Indians do, there is charitable encouragement and good hope, through grace, that, as God hath wrought effectually upon some, so he will upon others, in his own time and according to his good pleasure, that he hath purposed in himself. I account it my duty not to censure and judge, but to pray for them and others. About the latter end of August, 1676, an army was sent against the eastern enemies,122 with whom Capt. Hunting123 and his company of Indians went, but this army did little against the enemy; but that which was done, was done by our Indians, who slew two or three of the enemy, but lost none of their lives, through God’s favor. Again on February 5th, 1676124, in another expedition to the eastern part, commanded by Major Waldron, wherein our praying Indians under Capt. Hunting bore a part, and some few of the enemy were killed by them; but their counsel was not attended in that expedition, which if it bad been, as I heard some English in the service say, in probability the enemy bad been greatly worsted at that time.125 In June, 1677, another expedition into the eastern parts, among whom were about thirty-six of our Christian Indians, who in a fight near Black Point, the English lost about forty men, whereof

122 123 124 125

The Wabanakis of Maine. Captain Samuel Hunting. Bodge, Soldiers, 289–291. 1677. Hubbard reported that 60 Indians of Natick were included in the mission to the “east,” or present day Maine, where war with the Wabanakis continued to rage. The expedition engaged in both plunder and attempts at negotiation, but did not accomplish much other than finding and carrying home the remains of merchant Thomas Lake, killed the previous August by a raid on his trading post at Arrowsick Island. (See John Lake document below, 176.). Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 207–224.

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were eight of our friendly Indians, and their Lieutenant, James Richardson, was then slain; this was the greatest loss that our Indians sustained all the war; for in all the former expeditions our Indians lost but two men.126 But I shall pass from this matter, and also from any further discourse of the military actions of our praying Indians, who to this day, upon all occasions of scouting in the woods, or any other hazardous services, are frequently employed as occasion doth present. Now I shall draw towards a close, only mention some few things concerning those of our Christian Indians, that have not been employed in the war, being not capable thereof; some by reason of age, and far the greatest part being women and children. But yet for religion, these, far the greater part of the religious, staid at home. When their able men were for the generality drawn forth to the wars, the rest, being nearly four hundred old men, women, and children, were left upon Long Island, in a suffering state. It was intended they should plant corn upon the Islands, and in order thereunto they made some preparations, expending their labor upon clearing and breaking up ground; but some English, that lived on those Islands, and had interest there, were unfriendly to them, and discouraged them.127 But the authority of the country did interpose for their quiet; yet the poor Indians were discouraged, and in want of all things almost, except clams, which food (as some conceived) did occasion fluxes and other diseases among them; besides: they were very mean for clothing, and the Islands were bleak and cold with the sea winds in spring time, and the place afforded little fuel, and their wigwams were mean. In this condition of want and sickness they were, after their men were sent for to the wars, until mid May; then God was pleased to mollify the hearts and minds of men towards them, by little and little; partly by the true reports brought to the General Court, of their distressed estate, and the great unlikelihood they were to plant or reap any corn at the Islands; and partly from the success God was pleased to give their brethren, abroad in the country’s service; insomuch that the hearts of many were in a degree changed to those Christian Indians; and the General Court then sitting passed an order, giving liberty to remove them from the Islands,

126 Black Point and the town of Scarborough had recently been re-occupied, after its abandonment in Fall, 1676, but had again been attacked. Abraham Speen of Natick, from one of the leading Christian Indian families, was wounded, along with John Nuckwich and Nathaniel Penumpum, in the attempt to defend the town. Sumner Hunnewell, “‘A Doleful Slaughter Near Black Point’: The Battle at Moore’s Brook, Scarborough, Maine, June 29, 1677,” Maine Genealogist 25 (August, 2003), 112. 127 Henry Mayer, for example, who leased land at Long Island, lodged a complaint against the magistrates’ order that Indians be allowed to live there, due to his wife and mother’s “exceeding feare and dread” of Indians. But he backed down when the magistrates stood firm, apologizing for “any words” that may have “past from him when he was last before you.” He wanted his family to still be able to use the island for their livelihood because they had “lost their all by the Barbarous Heathen.” Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 198a, 199.

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cautioning their order, that it should be done without charge to the country. This liberty being given, Major Gookin, their old friend and ruler, by the authority and encouragement of the Right Honorable the Corporation for Gospelizing the Indians, residing in London, and by authority of the General Court of Massachusetts in New England, forthwith hired boats to bring them from the Islands to Cambridge, not far from the house of Mr. Thomas Oliver, a pious man, and of a very loving, compassionate spirit to those poor Indians; who, when others were shy, he freely offered a place for their present settlement upon his land, which was very commodious for situation, being near Charles river, convenient for fishing, and where was plenty of fuel; and Mr. Oliver had a good fortification at his house, near the place where the wigwams stood, where (if need were) they might retreat for their security. This deliverance from the Island was a jubilee to those poor creatures; and though many of them were sick at this time of their removal, especially some of the chief men, as Waban, John Thomas, and Josiah Harding, with divers other men, women, and children, were sick of a dysentery and fever, at their first coming up from the Island; but by the care of the Major, and his wife, and Mr. Elliot, making provision for them, of food and medicines, several of them recovered, particularly Waban and John Thomas; the one the principal ruler, and the other a principal teacher of them, who were both extreme low,· but God had in mercy raised them up; had they died it would have been a great weakening to the work of God among them. The most of the Indians continued at this place all the summer, some few excepted, that scattered to places adjacent, to work for the English in harvest time. But toward October they removed; some to the falls of Charles river, and some settled about Hoanantum Hill, not far from Mr. Oliver’s, near the very place where they first began to pray to God, and Mr. Elliot first taught them, which was about thirty years since. Here Anthony, one of the teachers, built a large wigwam, at which place the lecture and the school were kept, in the winter 1676; where Major Gookin and Mr. Elliot ordinarily met every fortnight; and the other week among the Packemitt Indians, who were also brought from the Island at the same time, and placed near Brush Hill, in Milton, under the care of Quarter-master Thomas Swift. This last summer, though they came up late from the Island, yet they planted some ground, procured for them by the Major among the English; and so they got some little corn, and more for work; and their soldiers, that were abroad, had corn provided by the country for their relations; so that through God’s favor they were pretty well supplied. And in the winter time, about December, there was abundance of a sort of fish called frost-fish, which they took with scoop nets and dried great plenty of them. The widows and the aged had supply of clothing and corn at the charge of the Honorable Corporation in London, who tenderly and compassionately ordered relief for such as were in need; and many of the men, who were about home, got plenty of venison in the winter 1676, for supply of their families, so that God

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provided for their outward subsistence. And for religion, I hope it begins to revive among them. There were seven places where they met to worship God and keep the Sabbath, viz. at Nonatum, at Packemit or Punkapog, at Cowate alias the fall of Charles river, at Natick, at Medfield, at Concord, and at Namkeake, near Chelmsford; in which places there was at each place a teacher and schools for the youth at most of them. Mr. Elliot kept his lecture weekly, at Nonantum and Pakomit, where also Major Gookin kept his courts among them. When the winter was over, 1676128, and the spring drew on, the praying Indians most of them repaired to their plantations at Natick, Magunkog, and some planted at Hassanamesit; but not long after, they withdrew from thence and gave over tending their corn, for fear of the Maquas, who had been among Unkas’ men, and done some mischief and carried away one of Unkas’ sons prisoners, but he was again released by them.129 Some of the praying Indians planted among the English plantations, as at Medfield, Concord, Cambridge, and Chelmsford, and got supplies by their labor. Before they removed from Cowate, there was a poor widow woman of the praying Indians, that went to gather some flags to make mats, about two or three miles. She being alone, and her company gone before her, home, was met by an Englishman of Sudbury, named Curtis, who required her to go with him; she being unwilling, made way to escape from him homeward to the wigwams, but he outran her, and with his hatchet helve he wounded her very sore in several places about the head, leaving her all in her blood; but she being, not mortally wounded (as it proved), made a shift to get to the wigwams, where she lay by a long time, before she recovered. She knew not who it was that had offered her this injury; but the man spake of it himself, and pretended the woman beat him, and what he did was in his own defence. It is probable she struggled what she could when he was beating her. In the summer, 1677, several of our Indian soldiers were employed; some to scout with Lieut. Richardson upon the borders of Merrimack, to watch the motions of the eastern enemy; others were sent to keep garrison in the east parts, as Cocheco, York, Wells, and Black Point; others were sent with a small army to Black Point, where eight of them were slain, as is before hinted. In September, the Mahawks or Maquas (contrary to their promises and agreement) came down in small parties among our praying Indians, and put them into great trouble. A party of the Maquas took two widow women captives, being at Hassanamesit (one of their plantations) to make or fetch cider. The same party of Mahawks, or another party, came down within half a mile of an

128 1677. 129 Massachusetts leaders were unable to prevent the Mohawks of the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York from attacking their “friend” Indians, such as the Mohegans in Connecticut or the praying Indians in Massachusetts.

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English house belonging to Sudbury, and murdered a very honest Indian, named Josiah Nowell, who was going to his _________. This man had a wife and four small children. His brother-in-law, James Speen, (a very pious man,) parted from him not half an hour before he was slain, appointing to meet him at a place designated; but the other came not, and his brother hallooed for him; yet, notwithstanding, the Maquas met not this man, but God preserved him. The English sent forth to pursue this Maquas, with some other Indians, but they could not overtake them. But the Maquas carried the captives through Hadley, some few days after, and showed the scalp of the man slain to the English at Hadley; who would willingly have redeemed the squaws, but could not prevail with the Maquas to let them go. About this time, viz. in September, 1677, our praying Indians, that lived at Natick, built up their forts and the like, which they did at Pakemit. In this month of September, about the 19th day, a party of lndians fell upon a village called Hatfield, near Hadley; they burnt some dwelling-houses and barns, that stood without the line, and wounded and killed about twelve persons, and carried away captive twenty English persons, most of them women and children.130 It was conceived, at first, that this mischief was done by a party of Mawhakes, because it was done the next day after the Maquas, with the two Indian captives before spoken of, were carried through the town of Hadley. But it appeared afterward, by an English prisoner that escaped from the enemy, that this party of Indians were about twenty-seven in all, whereof four were women; who were of the old enemy, and formerly neighbours; who had fled to the French about Quebec, and were lately come from thence with the company of another ply of Indians, who were gone toward Merrimack; for, on the very same day, another ply of Indians, that came from the French, came to Naamkeke, near Chelmsford; and there, either by force or persuasion, carried away with them Wannalancet,131 the sachem, and all his company, excepting two men, whereof one was the minister, and their wives and children, and one widow that escaped to the English.132

130 One of the English captives, Quentin Stockwell, was redeemed and published a captivity narrative in 1684. He explained that the raid was led by a Pocumtuc leader named Ashpelon. The Pocumtucs had taken refuge with the French in Canada, and would certainly have remembered the May 19 slaughter of hundreds of Indians fishing at Peskeompscut, or Turner’s Falls, during the war. Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, eds., Captive Histories: English, French and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, 2006), 2, 35–48. 131 This may have been a rescue party. Quentin Stockwell had encountered this group during his captivity and described the women as being highly agitated about a rumor they had heard “that the English had taken Uncas, and all his men and sent them beyond seas.” Stockwell quoted in Haefeli and Sweeney, eds., Captive Histories, 42. 132 Wannalancet and many of the Wamesit praying Indians had been moved to Wickasaucke Island, one of his villages, in the Merrimack River, where they were supervised by Jonathan Tyng of Tyngsborough, an avid acquirer of Indian lands who petitioned for and received title

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Those that went away were about fifty, whereof there were not above eight men, the rest women and children; and we never heard more of them since. It was a matter of scandal and offence, (to such as are ready to take up any thing to reproach the profession of religion among the Indians,) that this man, Wannalancet, who made a profession of religion, should thus go away, when he was reconciled to the English and well esteemed generally by them, and had no cause given him for it. But forasmuch as there may be some reasons given for this man’s acting thus at this time, that may tend to excuse him, of which I have certain knowledge, I shall here briefly mention them. First, this man had but a weak company, not above eight men; and those, except two or three, unarmed. Secondly, he lived at a dangerous frontier place, both for the Maquas, that were now in small parties watching opportunities to slay and captivate these Indians, and had lately done mischief a few miles off, as is before mentioned; on the other side, the eastern Indians, that were in hostility with the English, might easily have access to this place. Thirdly, he had but little corn to live on for the ensuing winter, for his land was improved by the English before he came in. Fourthly, the Indians that came from the French were his kindred and relations, for one of them was his wife’s brother; and his eldest son also lived with the French. Fifthly, those Indians informed him, that the war was not yet at an end, and that he would live better and with more safety among the French; who, in truth, do much indulge the Indians, and furnish them whatever they desire, because they employ those Indians to kill them beaver, and moose, and other peltry, whereby they gain much. These and other reasons did, in probability, so far prevail to persuade him, which, together with the force they had to compel him, in case he refused, so that he went away with them. But they went off quietly, and did no mischief in the least to the English, which I rationally impute to Wannalancet’s being with them; for he was a person not of a mischievous or bloody disposition, but of a prudent and peaceable spirit, and, it is like, was unwilling (so far as he could prevent it) that the English should receive any injury, or have any just cause of offence, at this time of his leaving them; because it is not impossible he may, in convenient time, return again to live with the English in his own country, and upon his own land; which (as I have observed) the Indians do much incline unto.133

to “Weikeset” Island from the General Court in 1683. D. Hamilton Hurd, History of Middlesex County (Philadelphia, PA, 1890), 365; Charles Cowley, “Sachems of Merrimack Valley Indians,” Contributions to the Old Residents’ Historical Association, Lowell, Massachusetts, VI (January, 1904), 393–399; Massachusetts Bay Records V, 430. 133 Wannalancet did return, and died in the home of Jonathan Tyng who, at the request of Governor William Phips, had taken care of the aged sachem during the last four years of his life. After Wannalancett’s death in 1696, Tyng requested compensation for the expenses he had

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At a Court held among the praying Indians, where was a full meeting of them, it being also Mr. Elliot’s lecture, who was present with Major Gookin and some other English, Waban, the chief ruler among the Indians, in the name of all the rest, made an affectionate speech to this effect: We do, with all thankfulness, acknowledge God’s great goodness to us, in preserving us alive to this day. Formerly, in our beginning to pray unto God, we received much encouragement from many godly English, both here and in England. Since the war begun between the English and wicked Indians, we expected to be all cut off, not only by the enemy Indians, whom we know hated us, but also by many English, who were much exasperated and very angry with us. In this case, we cried to God, in prayer, for help. Then God stirred up the governor and magistrates to send us to the Island, which was grievous to us; for we were forced to leave all our substance behind us, and we expected nothing else at the Island, but famine and nakedness. But behold God’s goodness to us and our poor families, in stirring up the hearts of many godly persons in England, who never saw us, yet showed us kindness and much love, and gave us some corn and clothing, together with other provision of clams, that God provided for us. Also, in due time, God stirred up the hearts of the governor and magistrates, to call forth some of our brethren to go forth to fight against the enemy both to us and the English, and was pleased to give them courage and success in that service, unto the acceptance of the English; for it was always in our hearts to endeavour to do all we could, to demonstrate our fidelity to God and to the English, and against their and our enemy; and for all these things, we desire God only may be glorified. Piambow, the other ruler next to Waban, spake to the same, giving all glory to the Lord. After this, upon occasion of an inquiry concerning the messengers sent, in winter last, to Mohegan, to stir the Mohegans up to pray to God, some English reported, that those messengers enticed some of the Indian servants, at Norwich, to run away with those messengers, from their masters; but the messengers utterly denied any such thing.134 Waban took this occasion, further to speak to this effect: That God knew, that they had done their utmost endeavours to carry themselves so that they might approve their fidelity and love to the

incurred. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 426. On Tyng’s involvement in the larger “million acre purchase” of Pennacook lands see Stewart-Smith, “Pennacook Indians,” 215. 134 In other words, enticing Indians placed as servants in English homes to run away with them.

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English. But yet, some English were still ready to speak the contrary of them, as in this matter instanced; and in that business at Cocheco, lately, when the Indians were carried away by the Maquas; yet the English say, they ran away to the Maquas and were not carried away; yet, said he, “I know the governor and magistrates and many good men had other thoughts of them and more charity toward them.” To this speech of his, Major Gookin made this answer: That Christ in the Gospel teacheth all his disciples to take up the cross daily. And he himself, though most innocent, and always did good, yet some said of him, he had a devil; others, that he was an enemy to Cesar; others, that he was a friend to publicans and sinners, and raised many other reproaches against him; yet he bore all patiently, and referred the case to God; and herein we should follow his example. Waban, you know all Indians are not good; some carry it rudely, some are drunkards, others steal, others lie and break their promises, and otherwise wicked. So ‘t is with Englishmen; all are not good, but some are bad, and will carry it rudely; and this we must expect, while we are in this world; therefore, let us be patient and quiet, and leave this case to God, and wait upon him in a way of well doing, patience, meekness, and humility; and God will bring a good issue in the end, as you have seen and experienced. There are many other things, that I might have recorded, concerning these poor, despised sheep of Christ. But I fear that which I have already written will be thought (by some) impertinent and tedious. But when I call to mind, that great and worthy men have taken much pains to record, and others to read, the seeming small and little concerns of the children of God; as well in the historical books of Scripture, as other histories of the primitive times of Christianity, and of the doings and sufferings of the poor saints of God; I do encourage my heart in God, that He will accept, in Christ, this mean labor of mine, touching these poor despised men; yet such as are, through the grace of Christ, the first professors, confessors, if I may not say martyrs, of the Christian religion among the poor Indians in America Finis.135

135 Gookin supplemented his narrative with three “Certificates” – not reproduced here – which he collected in late 1677 from Major Thomas Savage, Captain Daniel Henchman, and Captain Samuel Hunting, all of whom had commanded or supervised praying Indians. The certificates testified to the praying Indians’ loyalty and efficacy.

PART III

Ancillary Primary Source Documents

A SUPERINTENDENT OF THE PRAYING INDIANS

The Irish Connection: Vincent Gookin Condemns Plan to “Transplant” Irish to Connaught, 1655* Daniel Gookin’s ideas for turning Indians into productive, assimilated Protestants bore the stamp of his transatlantic connections. In 1655, Gookin’s cousin Vincent, representing Ireland in Parliament, engaged in a pamphlet war over how to treat the “Irish Papists” (Catholics) who had been defeated in the 1641 Irish Rebellion. While one faction wanted to forcibly remove, or “transplant,” the defeated Irish into a single district, Vincent Gookin argued that the English should instead work harder to convert and integrate Irish Catholics.1 This stance on assimilating a potentially rebellious and culturally inferior group into the dominant culture foreshadowed the position that Gookin later took in the very different context of Puritan Massachusetts during King Philip’s War. It is uncertain whether Daniel Gookin read his cousin’s tracts, but he was in England during the time that the transplantation issue was being debated, and, upon returning to Massachusetts, he took up the post of Superintendent of the Praying Indians. In his Historical Collections of the Indians in New England,

* Vincent Gookin, The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed (London, 1655). Excerpted by editor. 1 John Cunningham, Conquest and Land in Ireland: The Transplantation to Connacht, 1649–1680 (Suffolk and Rochester: Boydell Press, 2011), shows the many different perspectives on this issue, and the political wrangling, that occurred in England and Ireland. It was primarily the property owners and soldiers who would have been transported, though more draconian plans were being floated. See also Patricia Coughlan, “Counter-Currents in Colonial Discourse: The Political Thought of Vincent and Daniel Gookin,” in Political Thought in Seventeenth Century Ireland: Kingdom or Colony, ed., Jane Ohlmeyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 56–82.

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completed one year prior to the outbreak of King Philip’s War, Gookin specifically drew attention to the Irish example: It hath been the observation of some prudent historians, that the changing of the language of a barbarous people, into the speech of a more civil and potent nation that have conquered them, hath been an approved experiment, to reduce such a people into the civility and religion of the prevailing nation. And I incline to believe, that if that course had been effectually taken with the Irish, their enmity and rebellion against the English had been long since cured or prevented, and they better instructed in the protestant religion.2 An additional connection between Gookin and Ireland existed in the form of the scientist Robert Boyle, who became governor of the London-based Company for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England at the time John Eliot and Daniel Gookin were active. Robert Boyle’s father, Richard Boyle, had been a patron of the Gookin family in Ireland, and this relationship might have informed the elaborate dedications to Boyle that Gookin included in his writings.3 Gookin’s most voluble critic, Richard Scott, pointedly called Daniel Gookin an “Irish dog” disloyal to his country. Scott probably did not know about the complicated situation in Ireland and Vincent Gookin’s role in it decades earlier, but Gookin’s unpopular ideas on assimilating the Indians into the English economy certainly bore a great resemblance to those expressed by his cousin. Vincent, for example, not only opposed transplantation but emphasized that it was important to differentiate between Irish Catholics who had supported the rebellion and those who had not, and to show mercy toward those who had participated only reluctantly. These, he argued, might have been intimidated by rebel leaders, deluded by priests, or alienated by the hostility of the English. We can see echoes of these views in Daniel Gookin’s opposition to the removal of Christian Indians to Deer Island, and his recommendation of mercy toward those who had been in enemy camps if there appeared to be extenuating circumstances.

2 Daniel Gookin, Historical Collections, 221–222. 3 T.C. Barnard, “Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin, and the Cork Elections of 1659,” English Historical Review 88 (1973), 352–365, shows that Vincent Gookin resisted being controlled by the Boyle family, but this was not related to the issue of “transplantation,” in which their sentiments were similar. As historian Nicholas Canny has shown, families like the Gookins and Boyles, who had established themselves prior to the rebellion, relied on the Irish population for labor and did not want to be displaced by the victorious soldiers, who demanded land grants for themselves and the “transplantation” of the native population. For Richard Boyle, it was the effort to try and uplift the native population that conferred the right to dominion – something that the Cromwellian forces seeking transplantation had not done. See Nicholas Canny, “Identity Formation in Ireland,” in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagdon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 159–212.

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The Document (EXCERPTED) The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed &c. The planting of Ireland is the subject of many mens Desires, most mens Discourse, of few mens Endeavours; some of these few, deeming themselves lead by Principles of Religion, in order to the purity of the Gospell, some by principles of publique good, in order to the preservation of the English Nation and Interest entire; Some by Principles of Advantage, in order to the fixing English Estates, where the hazard may be least, and profit greatest, urge earnestly the transplanting of the Irish (pardon’d for Life, and to continue in the Dominion) into Connaught, as the first expedient in order to the well planting of that Land; to which purpose divers Orders have at sundry times issued; but others, who embrace the same Principles, and are also desirous to be lead by them, conceive this conclusion, at least inconsequent (if not contradictory) to those premises; and for this perswasion, humbly offer these Considerations.

Concerning Religion … the unitive principles of Christianity teach us, that separations of persons, are then onely Lawfull when necessary … Here two things then ought to be weighed. First, whether it be more probable as things now stand, that the Irish Papists should pervert the English Protestants, or that the English Protestants should convert the Irish Papists. Secondly, whether the English Protestants be more obliged by any special duty to continue many of the Irish Papists (though the probability of infection were greater) than by that general fear and probable hazard to remove them. … First, Natural Conscience makes all persons, who stand in awe of a Deity, preferre some Religious External Observations before none; When therefore no toleration is given to the exercise of Popery, and the Reformed Religion publiquely professed throughout the Nation, it is very conceivable that Natural Conscience may perswade many Papists (at least) externaly to frequent the Protestant Assemblies; and many have been won in the Ordinances, who by external Motives were first induc’d to them; But what Temptations in such an Instance may invite Protestants to turn Papists, is not conceivable. Secondly, By the Cruelty of the Papists in the late Rebellion, the Protestants are more confirmed against Popery (as the Original of those Cruelties) and by those heavy Judgments wherewith God hath avenged the blood of his Servants; The Papists themselves made less in love with that Profession which lead them on to those cruelties, and thereby provoked these judgments; in this instance therefore it is much more probable, Papists should be converted than Protestants perverted.

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… Objection, Against this some may perhaps pretend, That the Papists in Ireland are hardened in their Idolatry, and few of them converted of late.4 Answer, First, that it is not strange if onely few of them be converted, yea it is even wonderfull that any of them should of late be converted considering … the heavy pressures under which they have groaned to the very grinding of them, by which means more families have been destroyed under the protection of Protestants, then in opposition against them. … Secondly, who art thou who complaines of their hardness? didst thou ever pray for their softening? if no, mourn for thy own hardness, if yea, labour for what thou hast prayed, and presume not to cast the dust off thy feet till thou hast thus laboured. Many fearing God, and studying the spiritual advantage of those poor natives, are confident that the Lord’s harvest in Ireland is farr more then the Labourers. … Many of them desire now, earnestly, to put their Children into the Care of the English of qualitie adjoyning to them; offer largely to their maintenance in the Education of the Religion and manners of England; I shall not search mens hearts to censure, the doing this for sinister ends; who knows but God may have softned and convinc’d them by his rod; But this is certain, The means is good (though their ends are bad) and God may bring a good end out of that too; The son may be sincere, though the father be a hypocrite, and what his earthly father intended onely for the saving his estate, his heavenly father may advance to the saving of his soul. … If then these Papists be suffered to continue in the English plantations, they may enjoy the labours of Godly able Ministers, the encouragments of Protestant professors, and the Catechizings of private Christians, all which are powerfull morall instruments to conversion; but if they be transplanted, as their consociation may probably settle them on their old lees, so their separation certainly deprives them of these advantages; And by a persistance in their former Principles, continue them Papists still, or … make them turn Atheists. Secondly, Let us consider whether there be not some speciall obligations which in conscience and religious duty more binds us to continue these poor Natives (though Papists) with us, then that general fear and possible hazard of infection binds to transplant them (especially since these have been shewn to be but Panick.)

4 Gookin’s style throughout is to pose questions or objections that could be made by those who disagreed with him, and then to answer all the objections.

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… Consider then, That … many are such as not only did not act against the English in the Irish Rebellion, but did eminently act with them, and for them; and were instrumental, not only in the serving of some privat persons (which might be the result of particular affection) but also of securing some, and reducing other publique places of strength to the power not onely of the English Nation, but of the Parliament; and shall these Innocents be punished with the Guilty?5… Is it an equal Crime to act with and against the English Nation? Why then is there an equal punishment? … Objection. The avenging of blood is of strictest obligation, and the Irish in the late Rebellion having contracted a national bloud-guilt, no eye must pittie them. Answer. First, if by Nation be meant the greatest part, the assertion is true; but if it be every individuall, then it was shewn before, that there was a difference in acting, and therefore should be so in punishing. Secondly, Nationall guilt is expiated by nationall judgements; the wickedness and bloud-guiltiness of Benjamin did not necessitate an universall destruction, but 25,000 being slain, wayes are studied to preserve the remainder. Thirdly, particular bloud-guilt of private persons, is expressly excepted from pardon by that act which vouchsafes pardon to others; and as it is unjust that those who are pardoned, should suffer for the guilt of those who are not: so it is unnecessary that punishment should be inflicted in common, when triall of the guilt and execution of the guilty may be single. Fourthly, if all murther be unpardonable, and this whole nation be in that degree, guilty of murther, as renders them unpardonable, then no punishment inferiour to death is proportionate unto their guilt; to which it is consequent, that the transplanting them into Connaught is unjust, as in the defect being less then that guilt or obligation to punishment … and therefore tends more to their pardon then punishment. Fifthly, that even murther is in some cases pardonable, appears by the practise of all States & Armies … for every unlawfull breach upon man’s life is murther, and every Abettor of that breach is guilty of the same murther … either the war must continue whilest one man therein ingaged survives, or the guilt of murther is in some cases pardonable. And if in any cases, then certainly in these two. First, when the guilt was for most part contracted, either through ignorance or infirmitie. Secondly, when the pardon directly leads to publick good, and the sparing of a few to the preservation of many …

5 Vincent Gookin asks for a consideration of the Irish Catholics as individuals, not as an undifferentiated group, much as Daniel Gookin did in relation to the native peoples of New England.

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First, the Irish nation were generally ingaged in the Rebellion, either through ignorance of the design … or through infirmitie, partly fearing their Priests threats, partly their Land-Lords frownes, partly the violences of others, of the English who at the beginning reckoned an Irish man and a Rebell tantamount, and on that score forced many into war, (who desired peace) with the Irish in armes, who accounted and declared all Enemies, that joyned not (at least seemingly) with them, and proceeded with more severity against dissenting natives than English. On the cleering of this objection from justice, hangs indeed the whole weight of the controversie; And therefore the doing it solidly, can be of no mean concernment; the way will be, by Considering of the Resolution, that the law gives to two or three questions, and the application of them to this present affaire. 1 What punishment is, what are the ends thereof, and whether and in what Cases it may be annulled or Abridg’d. 2 In what kind of punishments the Rulers or generality of a Nation may involve the Commons or each particular. 3 How long punishment against a Nation is to be continued. To the first, Punishment is the evill of suffering enjoyned for the evil of doing. The ends thereof are commonly mistaken, men making punishment the end of punishment, and the gratyifing either the Law it self (which is without sence of the satisfaction) or God (who delights not in suffering, as such) or the party injured (the scratching of whose itch, in the way of revenge, barely, is utterly unlawfull) the truth is, an injury done is unrepealable, and neither God, nor the law of Reason delights in accumulation of suffering, or are pleased with pain (barely as it is paine) Reason dictates, man must do nothing to hurt another man, unless it have some good end, and in the paine of the Enemy alone so nakedly considered, there is no good but false and imaginary … to devise how one may bite him that bites us, is the part of a beast; … Now the ends of punishment are these three. 1. That the Offender may be rescued from lapsing into the same fault for the future. 2. The Offended from future injuries; and 3. Example to all by the penance of few … To apply this first particular to the case of the Irish, it will thus state it, as was declared before, that though their crimes have been heinous … a great part of them acted through ignorance … The second question is Answered thus; Magistrates may contract guilt from the Commons … and in sharing in the publick crime, must in the punishment; But it is to be noted … there are publick punishments and private … that particular men for the offence of a Community without their consent, should

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lose the things that are proper to themselves is unjust; publick offences brings publick punishments; particular guilt, particular suffering.6 Apply this second to the Irish, and let the active ruling part be distinguished from the passive subjective, and publick punishments from particular, and justice is done. The last question is thus satisfied; How long a Commonalty shall be prosecuted with justice; shall punishment be alwayes exacted while the community last? No: … You may account it a sufficient punishment that none of the offenders are now alive (sayes the Civil Law) It is a mistake in mans dealings (though with God just) that because Children receive honours and rewards for their fathers good deeds, that they should be punished for their evill; Because a benefit may without injury be conferd on any, but so cannot a punishment. This decides the last part of the Scruple, touching the Irish, for the bloody persons (known) are all dead by Sword, Famine, Pestilence, the hand of civill justice, or remain still lyable to it, or are fled beyond sea from it … and briefly, in a probable computation five parts of six of the whole Nation are destroyed, and after so sharp an execution, is it not time at length to sound a retreat? Must we still cry justice, justice? … The fair vertue of justice (overdon) degenerates into the stinking weed of Tyranny … … … Concerning the Security of the English, and their Interess. … The Irish numbers (now so abated by Famin, Pestilence, the Sword, and Forein Transportations) are not like to overgrow the English as formerly, and so no fear of their being obnoxious to them hereafter: but being mixed with, they are likelyer to be swallowed up by the English, and incorporated into them; … the remaining part of the whole Nation are scarce the sixth part of what were at the beginning of the War, so great a devastation has God and Man brought upon that Land, and so far are they from those formidable numbers they are (by those that are Strangers to Ireland) conceived to be; and that handfull of Natives left, are poor laborious usefull simple Creatures, whose design is onely to live, and their Families, the manner of which is so low, that it is a design rather to be pitied, than by any body feared, envyed, or hindred. … Thus we see no necessity of this transplanting in regard of the three great ends alledged, Religion, Profit, Safety, but rather so great a necessity of them, that there’s no reason at all for it. …

6 This section on the culpability for killings that occurred during the rebellion bears striking similarity to the issues brought up in the petition of William Wannuckhow, printed below.

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It had been better Ireland had been thrown into the Sea before the first engagement on it, if it will never turn to account, but still to expence: but the time is come when the Venture will defray the expence of the Voyage, if all be not shipwrack’d in the Harbours mouth; all there contrive quietness, pray for peace … And how glorious a Victory will that be, when both the Bodies and Minds of a Nation are overcome! the first by power, the second by love? How will the Souls of the Irish blush hereafter, that they should have been once cruel against those, whom they find still so mercifull towards them: when Love shall hold a stricter rein upon them than fear, and make them wash away that Blood they have drawn from others, by Tears drawn from themselves … And what a pleasing sight will it be to England, instead of meagre naked Anatomies, which she received driven from Ireland in the beginning of a War, to empty her self of her young Swarms thither in the beginning of a Peace? … It is better to save one innocent, than destroy many guilty persons: but to make guilty persons become innocent (by saving) how excellent will that be? How much more comfort will the heart receive hereafter, to hear the once poor erring Irish live good Protestants, honest Subjects, than to have heard they dyed blinded Papists, bloody Rebels? And there can come no glory from that ruine which may be avoyded.

Daniel Gookin Questions Praying Indian Sarah Ahaton on Her Adultery*7 In 1668, Daniel Gookin took the deposition of a praying Indian woman, Sarah Ahaton – the wife of the prominent praying Indian teacher William Ahaton of Packemit, or Punkapoag8– who had confessed to adultery, a capital crime in Puritan Massachusetts. Sarah had run away to King Philip’s Mount Hope with her lover, but then decided to return home. Soon after her arrival, the Natick leader Waban sent Sarah Ahaton to Gookin, who oversaw judicial affairs in the praying towns as one of his duties as Superintendent. Because the crime she had committed was punishable by death, she would have to be tried by colonial authorities, not an Indian court. After Gookin had Sarah put in prison, he took down her testimony about the crime. Not surprisingly, Sarah begged the magistrates to spare her life. She explained that her marriage had begun to disintegrate some two years earlier, when her husband, with whom she had lived happily for ten *7 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 152. 8 Gookin, in Historical Collections, 84, described Packemit, or Punquapauge, as the second praying Indian town, containing about twelve families, or “sixty souls.” In addition to agriculture, livestock raising, and fishing, they took advantage of a nearby cedar swamp and made cedar shingles and clapboards that sold well among their English neighbors.

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years, wrongfully accused her of loving “other men” and beat her for it. Allegations of her infidelity then came before an Indian court in Packemit, and Sarah ran away from the town with the help of Joseph’s mother for fear that Squamoag, the ruler, would order her to be whipped. But her parents in Wamesit,9 to whom she fled, convinced Sarah to reconcile with her husband. According to her testimony, she did not actually sleep with Joseph until seven or eight weeks after this reconciliation, at which point she gave in to Joseph’s “intisement” while her husband was away fishing, and then ran away with Joseph to Mount Hope. The Ahaton examination reveals the doubts and difficulties that native peoples had in following the norms of Puritan matrimony. Sarah expected that there would be reciprocity within her marriage. When that broke down with an undeserved beating, she left William. As Ann Marie Plane has argued, this was fully in accord with native marriage ways, where elder women held much sway over who should be partnered to whom, and couples could separate and move on to new arrangements when a relationship failed.10 Although Sarah ran to King Philip’s Mount Hope, where Christian marital rules did not apply, her Christian principles, and perhaps her desire to be with her children again, overwhelmed her, prompting her return. Her promise to submit to her husband if the magistrates spared her life gives us a sense as to how oppressive Sarah understood Christian marriage bonds to be. The inner conflict that took place within Sarah Ahaton, and her instinct to run away to a leader who had rejected Christianity, was precisely the sort of thing that made English Puritans suspicious as to whether the Christianity of Indian converts was sincere, and these doubts expanded greatly once the war began in 1675. Gookin, in this case, acted as an enforcer of law, but in so carefully recording the words of Sarah Ahaton, he might also have appeared as an advocate, helping her to showcase her relationship with God, her deep sense of guilt, and her good character in returning even though she was putting herself in legal jeopardy. Magistrates decided that for punishment Sarah would have to stand on the gallows with a rope around her neck for one hour in Boston, and then, at a later date, be publicly whipped in the praying town of Natick.11 But this might have been too much.

9 Gookin believed that Wamesit, the fifth praying town, could profit from its access to fishing if the residents were more industrious. Ibid, 186. 10 Ann Marie Plane, “The Examination of Sarah Ahaton: The Politics of ‘Adultery’ in an Indian Town of Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts,” in The Algonkians of New England: Past and Present, ed. Peter Benes, Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, Annual Proceedings (Boston, MA: Boston University Press, 1993), 14–25. 11 Massachusetts Bay Records, IV.2: 407–408. Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution in Early America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 2004), explains how rarely the death penalty was used for adulterers.

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An 1893 history of the town of Canton (the name the English gave Packemit when they took over the town) indicates that Sarah may have hurled herself off of a large rock, known as “Squaw Rock,” for fear of corporal punishment.12 Sarah did voice a terrified aversion to whipping in her deposition, and a public whipping in a praying town would have meant humiliation not only before an English audience but also her own neighbors. More broadly, this incident calls our attention to the lived consequences of missionaries’ efforts to impose gender roles that were out of step with indigenous cultures.

The Document The Examination of Sarah Ahhaton, Indian squaw wife unto William Ahhaton of Packemit: alias Punquapauge taken the 24th of October 1668 before Daniel Gookin Shee being examined saith, that shee and her husband lived together in great love for about tenn yeares and that there was no breach or Jelousy on either part during that time. Shee saith shee hath fower children by her husband that art al living and that shee is now with child by her husband about six months gonne. But about two yeares since there hath beene some differences and jelousies between them, the occasion whereof was thus: The mother of Joseph (an Indian whom since shee comited folly withall) and the Aunt of the said Joseph, and the wife of one Wachennakin three women that all dwel at Packemitt, possessed13 her that her husband did love and keepe company with other women. But shee saith shee did not believe it, but loved her husband still. But afterward about the time Capt Gookin kept a court among the Packemit Indians last February: shee saith her husband spake to her and at severall times after chardged her that shee loved other men and kept them company: Whereas knowing herself innocent denied it: whereupon her husband did beat her severall times, as some other Indians of the place do know. This suspicion of her husband without cause, and beating of her, did weaken and alienate her former affection to him. From this occasion did spring her sinne and misery, which shee doth acknowledge to her great shame greefe and sorrow of heart, imputing it, to come from the abundant evel that is in her heart, and shee saith that if the governor and magistrates will spare her life, and that her husband will receive her againe and forgive her that shee will love her husband and continue faithfull to him during her life yea although he should beat her againe and suspect her of falseness to him without cause, yet shee doth acknowledge it to bee her duty to suffer it and to pray for her

12 Daniel T. V. Huntoon, History of the Town of Canton (Cambridge, 1893), 23. 13 Tried to persuade.

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husband, and to love him still. After the time that her husband did suspect her and beat her as before mentioned, and thereby her love unto him was lesned shee was brought before Waban the ruler about planting time last: who told her that hee was informed that shee did sometimes speak alone with Joseph a married man of Packemit, and that her husband William Ahhatan was offended thereat, and withal Waban did then chardge her that shee should not at any time after bee alone in company of the said Joseph, and so Waban dismissed her. After this about weeding time there beeing an Indian court kept at Pakemitt at the house of Squamock the ruler shee was examined being there and her husband also. Joseph called her out of the house privately and told her that shee would be whipt … for the matter for which shee was before Waban and that his unkil William told him so and thereupon he advised her to hide her selfe in some secret place; upon this speech of his and intisements Shee inclined to it and that evening was by his advise and appointment directed to goe to his mothers wigwam, whom he said would hide her and so shee did hide her in a corner of her wigwam in the night time and in the day time guided her to a swampe neare the wigwam where Shee hid herself, Josephs mother giving her victual14 and in the night shee was hid in the house. This course shee held about 3 dais: and shee saith that Joseph went once with his mother to visit her when shee was hid in the swampe. After these three days were expired shee saith shee went from hence alone and traveled to Wamesitt near Pawtuckett, where her father and mother lived: when they understood her case and the difference between her and her husband; her father and mother with some other friends came downe with her to Packemit, and by their endeavour a reconciliation was made between her and her husband; shee then continued with her husband about seaven or 8 weekes until about hilling time; But about that time her husband beeing from home at the sea side Joseph came to her wigwam and by his intisement obtained her consent and lay with her once then and shortly after hee and his mother intiseing her advised her to withdraw herselfe and go to Philips15 wigwam sachem of Mount Hope near Secunck where shee would be entertained, Joseph promising shortly to come to her this evel counsel of theirs shee attended and so went away to the place aforesaid where shee was entertained and two or 3 daies after shee was there Joseph came to her and there kept her company and lay with her several times. After some time of stay here Joseph and shee with divers other Indians went to Warwicke, and when shee came there it pleased God to smite her heart with the sense of her sinne and shee could not be at quiet in her mind, until shee resolved to come away from the said Joseph and the other Indians there: and to returne home shee secretly carried herselfe

14 Food. 15 King Philip, or Metacom.

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away and came to Packemit and from thence was carried to Natick before Waban and by him sent per the constable unto Capt Gookin who comitted her to prison. Shee further saith that shee wel knew and considered before shee returned her danger and that shee had broken the law of God and man and deserved death: but yet shee resolved to returne againe and to cast her selfe at the feet of the governor and magistrates, desiring mercy and to lie at the feet of God praying for mercy for her soule and pardon of her great sinne for Christs sake, beeing exceeding sorry for her sinne and desireth from her heart to repent of it and to looke unto and cast her selfe upon the Lord Jesus Christ whome shee believeth hath died for sinnes, and satisfied Gods justice for all those that truly repent and believe in him. Being questioned whether her husband had layne with her since her return shee answered yea once in the prison about a month since his coming there to visit her: and shee also saith that her husband hath manifested himselfe to her as willing again to receive her if the court pleased to pardon her. This examination taken before me the day and year above written having a sufficient Indian interpreter called Andrew Boughow … Daniel Gookin magistrate

Gookin Expresses Outrage over a Rumor That He Was Inciting Indians to Violence: Correspondence between Daniel Gookin and Thomas Prence/Prince, 1671*16 In 1671, Daniel Gookin dashed off an angry letter to Governor Thomas Prence (or Prince) of Plymouth, accusing the governor and other Plymouth authorities of allowing a rumor to spread that called his loyalty and good judgment into question. A crisis had arisen in 1671 when Indians killed livestock belonging to the English, and officials in Plymouth became worried that hostilities might escalate.17 Gookin helped to smooth over the conflict, but soon “testimony” arose alleging that he had spoken words to inflame King Philip’s anger in a conversation with a praying Indian of Natick.18 Gookin wrote to Prence as soon as he learned of this rumor, strenuously denying that any such conversation had ever taken place with a Natick Indian, and lambasting his fellow magistrate for entertaining idle talk. The mysterious

*16 “Daniel Gookin’s Letter to Governor Prince,” April 12, 1671, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 1st Series, VI (1799; rep. 1846), 198–199; and “Letter from Governor Prince to Daniel Gookin,” April 26, 1671, Ibid., 200–201. 17 Virginia Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” William and Mary Quarterly 51 (October, 1994), 601–624. 18 Virginia Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 232.

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Indian testimony, he said, was probably concocted by people who wished to sabotage his missionary work. Prence replied that Plymouth authorities only wanted to learn more about the report, and assured Gookin that no one claimed that he was encouraging Indians to fight the colonists, but rather that he seemed dismissive of English concerns during the process of settling the controversy. The letters reveal that as early as 1671 people were uneasy with Gookin. The incident was emotionally charged because it occurred at a time when Plymouth was having a protracted conflict with King Philip, attempting to force the Wampanoag leader to acknowledge his subject status in relation to the local governor, not just the English king.19

The Documents Daniel Gookin to Governor Thomas Prince, April 12, 167120 Honoured Sir, I understand, by a paper brought hither by Mr. Southworth, (being a copy of some Indian testimony left upon record there), wherein I am accused for speaking words to a Natick Indian, tending to animate Philip and his Indians against you. Sir, I look upon it f[s?]avoring of as little charity as justice, to receive, record and publish Indian reports, tending to the infamy of any Christian man, much more a person in public place, without any demonstration than such figment and falsehood as usually accompany the Indians’ tales. I charge no person with doing this thing; neither do I desire to know who it is; the Lord forgive him or them as I do, that have been the inventors or fomentors of such a false and reproachful scandal. Sir, let me say to you in the words of truth and soberness, and upon the fidelity of a Christian, and in the presence of God, before whom all things are naked and open, that such a thing never entered into my heart, much less into my lips; neither did I, to my remembrance, either see or speak with any Natick Indian for several months before I heard of this report; nor ever did I speak or lisp to any Indian of Natick, or other, the least word about the business, since I first heard of those differences between your colony and the Indians. At the court of assistants, March sitting last, at the time when your letter came, and the court considered of it, my own conscience, and others present then, can witness, how forward I was to strengthen your hands in that matter; but first to try all ways of prudence to issue your controversy: but in case the Indians be not reduced to order, then to

19 Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King, 70–100. 20 “Daniel Gookin’s Letter to Governor Prince,” April 12, 1671, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 1st Series, VI (1799; rep. 1846), 198–199; and “Letter from Governor Prince to Daniel Gookin,” April 26, 1671, Ibid., 200–201.

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give forth our utmost assistance, as the case should require. And of this, both yourself and all others may rest assured, that this report is a devised thing, (vid. Nehemiah vi.8.)21 that there is no such thing, but the authors of it have feigned it out of their own heart, to this end that my hands might be weakened in the work that God hath committed to me: but I trust in God, he will disappoint satan and his instruments, and give me courage to defy satan, and do my duty. Sir, this much I thought expedient to write unto you about this matter, not that I stand in need of an apology, for my innocency is to me a sufficient shield in that respect; but if I should be altogether silent, it might be interpreted I am guilty. Sir, I trust yourself and other your magistrates will put on such christian charity as not to credit such reports; but I am not unwilling this should be searched to the bottom, and see my accusers face to face, and not to shun any scrutiny therein. Thus desiring to present my due respects to yourself, and the rest of the magistrates, I remain your assured loving friend, Daniel Gookin Cambridge, the 12th of April, 1671 Governor Thomas Prince to Daniel Gookin, April 26, 1671 Honoured Sir, Yours of 14th instant I received yesterday, by which I perceive you are much troubled about a copy of an Indian testimony by Mr. Southworth to Boston; not because we received it for truth, but that we might know whether there were truth in it or not, (reports being indeed very false, not only among Indians but many English also), which for aught I yet see, might lawfully be done, without the least impeachment or diminution to charity or justice to any christian man, though in place. But whereas you please to charge us with receiving, recording, and publishing such falsehoods to your infamy; Sir, I do assure you, in a word of truth, there is nor was not any such thing; and therefore I might say the charge is wanting in charity, justice and truth also. And whereas it is said you should speak words to animate Philip and his Indians against us; it is some mistake or misrepresentation, for that paper spoke it not. That spake of not fighting with Indians about horses and hogs, as matters too low to shed blood, and verily, Sir, we think so too; and therefore advised them to keep on the north side of the line, and not go to Philip to fight; but if any did go, and were killed, they should keep an account of them, for what end I know not. The last words, about keeping an account, are to me enigmatical; but in the whole, not one

21 This biblical reference, Nehemiah VI: 8, points to Nehemiah addressing enemies who were trying to halt his building of the wall around Jerusalem by spreading lies about his intentions and character: “Then I sent unto him, saying, there are no such things done as thou sayest, but thy feignest them out of thine own heart.” Gookin was saying that like Nehemiah, he had to defend his integrity and directly address those who spread rumors about him, or else his godly work would be ruined.

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word of animating Philip and his Indians to fight against us; and therefore that report cannot be rationally fathered upon that paper. For your readiness, with the rest of the honoured magistrates, to strengthen our weakness in case of need, we do and shall acknowledge it as a signal token of your brotherly love and care for us: and your sending messengers to see the ground or cause of all their hostile preparations, a high experiment of Christian prudence, most acceptable to us, and owned of the Lord also, by the good success he was pleased to give to their endeavours and travel; who have, I hope, so fully informed not only the honourable court that send them, but all others, that any scruples or jealousies on our part needlessly to interrupt the peace of the country, is, by that prudent act of yours, removed. And truly, Sir, what was mentioned in that note, was never so received by us; but upon your disowning it, we should readily reject it as a false report, without any of those several kinds of asseverations you please to express. Sir, I hope you will still retain a charitable opinion of us, and your good affection towards us, notwithstanding what weakness you may apprehend in us. That must be owned on all hands to be a real truth, in many things we offend all, and need another manner of covering for our best actions from the pure eyes of the eternal Judge than our own righteousness, even the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whose grace I unfeignedly commend you, and rest, Sir, your friend and servant, Thomas Prince Plymouth, this 26th day of April, 1671 These for his very good friend, captain Daniel Gookin, at Cambridge, to be presented.

B WAR AND INTERNAL CONFLICT

The Reverend John Eliot Petitions against the Selling of Indian Captives as Slaves* In August, 1675, missionary John Eliot petitioned unsuccessfully against the practice of “transporting,” or selling Indian war captives outside the region as slaves. He criticized those who, for the sake of convenience or – worse – profit, condoned a form of human trafficking that would shrink rather than expand the kingdom of God, and pointed out that enemy Indians would fight all the harder to avoid this punishment, while disgruntled allies (or praying Indians) would consider joining the enemy. His assertion that there was plenty of land for all, both English and Indians, contrasted sharply with the opinion of most colonists. Eliot’s suggestion that execution was less ghastly a fate for prisoners of war than a life far away, where they would have no access to religious instruction, may seem callous.1 But Eliot showed great sympathy toward individual Indians as human beings during the war. He traveled to Long Island to comfort praying Indians imprisoned there, suffering a possible attempt on his life from angry colonists while in transit.2 He also exerted himself in at least one case to

* “Petition of John Eliot (1675),” in Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, eds., Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, 12 vols. in 10 (Boston, MA: W. White, 1855–61), 10: 451–453. 1 For Eliot’s laborious considerations as to whether Indians were “gentiles” or remnants of the Bible’s ten lost tribes of Israel see Richard W. Cogley, “John Eliot and the Origins of the American Indians,” Early American Literature 21 (Winter 1986–87), 210–225. 2 Paige, History of Cambridge, 395. Magistrates had ordered that some of the interned Indians be moved from Deer Island to Long Island so that they would have land on which to plant.

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redeem a Christian who had been enslaved in Barbados, and attempted to help a group that had ended up in Tangier.3 In addition, he tried hard to save Captain Tom from the gallows.

The Document To the Honourable Gov and Council sitting at Boston, this 13th of the 6th, ’75, the humble petition of John Eliot. Sheweth That the terror of selling away such Indians, unto the Ilands for perpetual slaves, who shall yield up themselves to your mercy, is like to be an effectual prolongation of the warre and such an exaspation of them as may produce we know not what evil consequences, upon all the land. Christ hath saide, blessed are the mercyfull, for they shall obteine mercy. This useage of them is worse than death. To put to death men that have deserved to dy, is an ordinance of God, and a blessing is promised to it. It may be done in Faith. The designe of Christ in these last dayes, is not to exstirpate nations, but to gospelize them. He will spread the gospel round the world about. Re. 11. 15. The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. His Sovraigne hand and grace hath brought the gospel into these dark places of the earth. When we came, we declared to the world, and it is recorded, yea we are ingaged by our letters Patent to the kings Majesty, that the indeavour of the Indians conversion, not their exstirpation, was one great end of our enterprize, in coming to these ends of the earth. The Lord hath so succeeded that work, as that (by his grace) they have the holy Scriptures and sundry of themselves able to teach theire countrymen, the good knowledge of God. The light of the gospel is risen among those that sat in darknesse, and in the region of the shadow of death. And however some of them have refused to receive the gospel, and now are incensed in theire spirits unto a warre against the English: yet by that good promise ps. 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. etc. I doubt not but the meaning of Christ is, to open a dore for the free passage of the gospel among them, and that the Lord will fulfill that word; v. 6 yet have I set my king, my annoynted, on my holy hill of Syon though some rage at it. My humble request is, that you would follow Christ his designe in this matter, to promote the free passage of Religion among them, and not to destroy them. To send them away from the light of the gospel, which Christ hath graciously given them, unto a place, a state, a way of perpetual darknesse, to the eternal ruine of theire soules, is (as I apprehend) to act contrary to the mind of Christ. Gods command is, that we should inlarge the kingdom of Jesus Christ, Esay 54.2.

3 Newell, Brethren by Nature, 177–180; and Linford Fisher, “‘Why Shall We Have Peace to be Made Slaves’: Indian Surrenderers During and After King Philip’s War,” Ethnohistory 64 (2017), 91–114.

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enlarge the place of thy tent. It seemeth to me, that to sell them away for slaves, is to hinder the inlargement of his kingdom. How can a Christian soule yield to act, in casting away theire soules, for whom, Christ hath, with an eminent hand provided an offer of the gospel? To sell soules for money seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize. If they deserve to dy, it is far better to be put to death, under godly governors, who will take religious care, that meanes may be used, that they may dy penitently. To sell them away from all meanes of grace, when Christ hath provided meanes of grace for them, is the way for us to be active in destroying theire Soules, when we are highly obliged to seeke their conversion and salvation, and have opportunity in our hands so to do. deut. 23: 15–16. A fugitive servant from a Pagan Master, might not be delivered to his master, but be kept in Israel for the good of his soule. How much less lawfull is it to sell away soules, from under the light of the gospel, into a condition, where theire soules will be utterly lost, so far as appeareth unto man. All men (of reading) condemne the Spaniard for cruelty, upon this poynt in destroying men and depopulating the land, the Country is large enough, here is land enough for them and us too.4 P. 14, 28. In the multitude of people is the kings honour. It will be much to the glory of Christ, to have many brought in to worship his great name. I beseech the honoured Council to pardon my boldnesse, and let the case of Conscience be discussed orderly, before the thing be acted: cover my weaknesse, and weigh the reason and religion that laboreth in this great case of conscience.

The View from Providence: Excerpts from the Letter of Mary Pray to Captain James Oliver, October 20, 1675*5 Mary Pray of Providence wrote to Captain James Oliver of Boston in October, 1675, describing the depredations of enemy Indians. She insisted that the Narragansett Indians (as yet not involved in hostilities) were secretly working on Philip’s behalf, inquired as to why the English did not launch an expedition against the Narragansetts (which indeed happened two months later), and decried colonial magistrates who “betrayed” fellow colonists by placing too much trust in their Indian trading partners.

4 The so called “black legend” of Spanish atrocities in the New World had begun with the writings of Bartholome de las Casas. Eliot here warns that the enslavements ordered by Bay Colony magistrates might one day be compared to the depredations perpetrated by the Spanish in the new world. *5 Excerpts from Mary Pray to James Oliver, October 20, 1675, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 5th ser., vol. 1 (1871), 105–108. The elisions are the editor’s.

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Pray claimed that the enemy boasted that praying Indians were secret allies who helped them by shooting over their heads in combat, and selling them the gunpowder donated by the New England Company in London. James Oliver, the recipient of Pray’s letter, was a Boston magistrate known for having harshly criticized Daniel Gookin’s advocacy of the praying Indians from Marlborough who had been falsely accused of murder. An Indian-hating mob had attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince him to lead them in breaking into the jail and hanging the accused. Mary Pray’s letter attests to the gnawing fear that gripped English colonists, and the widespread conviction that their traditional leaders were either unable or unwilling to protect them. Particularly evocative is her inclusion of a threat that she attributed to Philip: “He would make us Englishmen eat one another.”

The Document (Excerpted) Cap. Oliver, Sir, After dew respects, these lines. I canot forbear to writ, I am so ful of grife for our frinds and conterymen … It is to much to writ to troubl you to read our sad condition; our poer nation are neerely ensnaered, and betrayed by mens privat intrest and trusting Indians. The Indians boast and say those Indians that are caled praying Indians never shut at the other Indians, but up into the tops of the trees or into the ground; and when they make shew of going first into the swamp they comonly give the Indians noatis how to escape the English. Sir, we have experienc of them that they are as bad as any other; and it is report by the Indians them selves that Cap. Gucking6 helps them to powder, and they sel it to those that are imployed by Philip to bye for him. This we have ground to belive. It grives us al to here of the downfal of our contremen by these savage beasts. The Naragasets say that our English soulders canot kil Indians, for they put a bandalere of powder in at once and that mounteth there shoot ouer the Indians heads. Divers great men, for ther trade and gain-sake, delude the counsel and say peac; but God I hope wil reward there deceit, who if they have but there gain they caer not what becoms of the contery. I did not here him say it, but I herd a report that Rich. Smith7 said, about 2 months sinc, that he hoped to have one hundred barels of pork of the Indians for al what was past. Som here conclud he staved of war with them for his porkes sake; but if he did, be it upon him after his deserts. It is deemed by al here that now is the time to try what the Lord God of power

6 Gookin. 7 Richard Smith operated a trading post at Wickford, Rhode Island, where various public meetings and negotiations with Narragansett leaders were held.

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an mercy wil do for us against them. Shortly the wether wil be cold that men canot bear it; one fortnight is past of brave wether sine the leaves are fallen. Sir, if a spedy dispach be not, provision will be so scers that men wil not be able to goe out and fight, and then the contery wil be lost. Were I not made sencablely able to see Gods hand in al this, it would amase any one to think what is now com to pas, and how things might have been prevented at first. Ohe what caus hath Cap. Huchesons8 family and hundreds moer to rue the treatings with Indians. Had the contery as one man broke out like a fier upon them, in an ordanary way we might have known the worst and best by this time. These fals imps at Naraganset, we here, take the swine out of the pens of our English, and, to provok them, tel them that they kil there cattel and take there other fruits from them at there plesuer. We every day expect to be asalted by them, and look for nothing but trechoury from them. They very latly refrain there great resort to Warwick and Pawtucset. What mischif they are in hand with now we know not, but many here do think they wil draw down to them al or moast of the rout of rougs that Cap. Moesley9 is gon after, or run to them or have them very neer them, if any armey come up against them. Now they know ther is a considerable force out, we think they wil run al down upon us and upon what forces you send against thes vilans of Naraganset. The Lord in much mercy petie us and arise for his great name … The Lord I hop wil look upon us and rebuke these wreches, not for our sakes but for his great names sake. Moast certain it is God exactes les of us then our pride and our manyfold goings astray from him deserveth; but I hope though Asirya be the rod of his wrath, and the stafe in his hand Gods indignation, yet he doth purpos uterly to destroy these wreches. Let us al intreat his guidance and counsel, and he is able to over throw there contrivances what ever they be … Rich. Wilams very privatly told us your governor doth intend to send up an army to Naraganset. The Lord grant they may not be deluded to spaer them by flatery; a vollum might be writ of there vilany. I pray Sir, let me here from you what tidings are there, and whether these rouges must live or not. We here this rouges brother Narganset Sachim burnt Springfeeild. This day we had newes from Warwick, that som of the praying Indians are lately come to a plantation 14 mil from us, who do perswad the Naragansets forthwith to fall upon the English, teling them that they are suer that if they doe not the English wil fall upon them sudenley. Sir, the whol contery hath caus to abhor

8 Captain Edward Hutchinson, who received mortal wounds in an ambush that occurred while his party was on a mission negotiate with Nipmuc Indians near Quabaug. Pray suggests that the English should have simply attacked rather than negotiating. 9 Captain Samuel Moseley treated Christian Indians and enemy combatants alike with brutality, and on numerous occasions sided with local inhabitants who wanted them taken into custody and punished.

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al sorts of Indians but the Mohegings10; there fidelity to the English wil be evidenced by 30 of Providenc, if need be, who were with them at Nipsachuck fight11; and we here they are discouraged by the English making peac with the Naragansets. Sir, hath not the Lord made a winter for us, as wel as a sumer for the Indians?12 They tooke there opertunity, why doe we thus neglect ours? … Our condition is sad: we are every way at a lose, and know not what to do; but our eyes are upward. Sir, can you think we can subsist another sumer? No, we canot, if these live. We are forced now ten men to goe about tow mens work. We have lost our crop, many of us our hay time. We are forced to desroy al or most of our cattel and hoges, becaus we have not corne and hay for to keep them alive, and if som few remain what hope can we have of enjoyin them the next sumer or our own lives? These wreches are so fleshed with the last sumers enjoyments, we conclud the next sumer wil be far wors then this hath been; and the suckses these have had wil encourage al the rest to joyn with them, and then it wil son com to Philipes threat, that he would make us English eat one another. It would grive you, I know, to see our ruins. Are our frind of Boston satesfied that Naragansets are not true by detaining those murderus wreches? We have been certainly informe that som of Naraganset Indians came home wounded by our men at Nipsachuck, who, if they had not been with Philip, had not been hurt then …

Job Kattenanit Humbly Petitions for Permission to Rescue His Children*13 The ordeal of Job Kattenanit stands out starkly in Daniel Gookin’s narrative of “sufferings.” Kattenanit saw his three children forcibly taken to Menemesit in November, 1675 along with a large group from the praying town of Hassanamesit. From that time forward, he tried desperately to find a way to get them home while contending with hostile colonists who thwarted his efforts – even when he had a pass from Gookin – because they thought he intended to leak valuable information. Once Massachusetts authorized a spy mission in late

10 The Mohegans of Connecticut, under Uncas, allied with the English. They had a long history of enmity with the Narragansetts. 11 This was an August 1, 1675 ambush of Philip, from which he escaped. Pray writes as if the only Indian allies at the engagement were the Mohegans, but in Doings and Sufferings, Gookin describes this occasion as one in which praying Indian participants did exemplary service and gave good counsel. Whereas Pray has nothing bad to say about the Mohegans, Gookin claims in Doings and Sufferings that they took so much plunder from the fleeing Wampanoags that they could not continue the chase, whereas the praying Indians, less overburdened, were eager to continue. 12 The enemy combatants had been successful during the summer and fall of 1675. Pray is arguing that the English must attack them in the winter. *13 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 190 A.

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December, however, Kattenanit experienced a glimmer of hope when Gookin chose him to go with James Quannapohit to Menemesit to find out what they could of the enemy’s plans. This was an opportunity to find his family. The spy mission brought Kattenanit heartbreakingly close to his children and friends. He was allowed to stay in the wigwam of Pomhaman, who in happier times had been the leader of the praying town of Magunkaquog while Job had been the religious teacher there. Quannapohit, who returned on January 24, 1676 in fear for his life, reported that Kattenanit had stayed behind in hopes that he could help his children and Christian friends escape. Unable to get his children out at that time, he made plans to try and rendezvous several weeks later with a party of Christian Indians, led by his brother, the pastor Joseph Tuckapawillin, who would sneak away from the enemy camp and try to make it to Hassanamesit, bringing Kattenanit’s children with him. Upon his return, Kattenanit successfully petitioned Massachusetts authorities for permission to put the plan into effect and was asked to join an expeditionary force under Major Thomas Savage, but again he faced opposition. Savage allowed him to leave the army and find his family at the agreed-upon spot but was forced to recall him when soldiers protested – although Kattenanit had already missed meeting the party and was returning. The children and others were instead found by a militia detachment under Captain Benjamin Gibbs, whose men mistreated the refugees.14 They were further traumatized during a night of taunting and threats at Marlborough, and then sent to Deer Island. Kattenanit devised a way, against all odds, to rescue his children, and yet was forced to ask for permission from a government whose interest in helping the Christian Indians seemed half-hearted at best.

The Document To the Honorable Governor and Counsel The Humble petition of Job Kattenanit Whereas your poor suplyant hath been abroad in your honors service among the Indian enimies and have given a true and faithfull account of what I could learne among them according to my Instructions15; And in my jorney I found my 3 children with the enemy together with some of my friends; that continue their fidelity to God and to the English and do greatly mourn for their condition and long and desire to returne to the English if you please to let them live where or how you will please to appoint16; and to this end some few of them have agreed with mee to meet them at Hassanamesit about the

14 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 200. 15 A reference to the spy mission. 16 In other words, he was saying they would accept being relegated to Deer Island.

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full of the moon and to endeavour to bring my children with them. My humble request and suplication is that you will please to admitt your poore servant: (and if you please to send an English man or two with mee I shall be glad, but if that cannot bee done then to admit mee and James Speen to goe forth to see and meet and bring in my poor children and some few Godly Christians among them, and if they do escape we shall meet them and returne within 3 or 4 dayes if God please but if we cannot meet them then I shall conclude they cannot escape and so shall immediately returne and if your honours please shall goe forth with the Army to the enimies quarters or to doe any other service I can doe for your honours and the contry tho to the Hazard of my life and shall be very thankfull to your honours for this favour.

The Spy Mission: James Quannapohit’s “Relation”*17 In late December, 1676, with English fear of a Nipmuc-Narragansett alliance running rampant, Daniel Gookin got permission to send out two spies – James Quannapohit and Job Kattenanit – to gather intelligence about the intentions of enemy Indians at Menemesit. When Quannapohit returned in January, magistrates took down his “relation” of what had transpired. Quannapohit’s words give poignant witness to the painful sundering of relationships among friends that had occurred when war broke out, the sheer desperation that many Indians felt as they tried simply to survive the war unscathed, and the mixed feelings that Indians broadly affiliated with Philip had about the war. The “relation” offered Massachusetts authorities concrete facts as to the intentions of the Indians in and around Menemesit. They learned that Philip was attempting to get armaments from Albany or the Mohawks (who ultimately aligned with the English); that the French might be preparing to intervene in the conflict on Philip’s side; that the Narragansetts were entering the war; and that attacks were being planned against English settlements. And yet, as Gookin reported, most English were unwilling to give credence to the contents of Quannapohit’s report. Most surprising for the English might have been Quannapohit’s news that the Nipmucs had shot at some messengers who came from the Narragansetts, believing them to be in league with the English. Whereas many English had assumed that the Narragansetts were secretly supporting Philip all through the war, Quannapohit relates that the Nipmucs regarded with suspicion the Narragansetts’ initial overtures toward making an alliance because they “lookt on them as friends to the English all along til now.” Only when the Narragansetts told them of the Great Swamp Massacre did the Nipmucs begin to believe them.

*17 J.H. Temple, History of North Brookfield (Boston, MA, 1887), 112–118.

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Quannapohit and Kattenanit were willing to risk their lives because they hoped to find out what had happened to the Christian Indians who had been taken away from Hassanamesit, and to explore whether there might be any prospect for peace, which would alleviate the difficult position in which Christian Indians found themselves, being trusted by neither side. With peace, the “poore chtian Indians at the Deere Island” Quannapohit hoped, might “possibly … bee restored to their places againe.” The English were unable to appreciate the narrative’s evidence of divided councils and mixed motives among the Indians. While the Relation demonstrates divergence of opinion among Indians who were fighting against the English, including anger at Philip for having initiated hostilities, English colonists continued to believe that all Indians thought alike.

The Document The examination and relation of James Quannapaquait, allias James RumnyMarsh beeing one of the chtian Indians belonging to Natick; taken the 24th day of January 1675/6, on which day hee returned from his jorny, [for this man and another called Job of Magungoog, a chtian man also] were sent forth by order of the councill of Massachusetts upon the last of December, [as spyes], to discover the enemyes quarters and motions and his state and condition, and to gaine what intelegence they could; for which end they had particuler instruction. Though when first they were moved to goe this jorny, they saw it would be a hazardous undertaking, and that they should runne the hazard of their lives in it, yet they were willing to venture upon these and like considerations, (1, that they might declare their readines to serve the English. 21y, on of them namly Job had 3 children [even all hee had] that were carried away with the Hassanameshe Indians and, as hee conceived were with the enemy, and he was willing to know their state as wel as the condition of the praying Indians of Hassameske and & Magunkoog that were hee thought in the power of the enemy. 3d They hoped to sugest somthing in order to the enimies submision to the English and making peace if they found the enimy in a temper fit for it and if that could bee effected then they hoped the poore chtian Indians at the Deere Island and in other places possibly might bee restored to their places againe, and bee freed from much suffering they are now in by this warre, and therby the jelosyes that the English have now of them might bee removed, these and other reasons induced them to runne this adventure for which also if they returned in safty they had a promise of a reward. They doubted the indian enimy would mistrust them for spies,18 and that they would move them fight for them against the English, unto which doubts

18 In other words, they EXPECTED that the enemy Indians would take them for spies.

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they were advised to tell the Indian enimy a lamentable story [and yet agreable to truth] of their deepe sufferings by the English; that Job was imprisoned severall daies [as hee was]19 where hee suffered much, though hee had served the English faithfully as an interpereter and in actull armes being with the Mohegins at the fight neare Secunke with Philip, the begining of August last, but imprisonment and suspitions the English had of him as part of his reward for that service to the English and as for the other James he and his brother went out with Capt Prentis with their horses and armes at the first going out against Philipp in June and had done faithfull service for the English as his captains had testified by their certificate and contined in their service many weeks and was in severall fights and that his brother Thomas had kild on of Philip cheefe men and brought in his head to the Governor of Boston, and had also in the service by acedent lost the use of his left hand and that both James and his brother Thomas had since in November last [beeing called to it] was out with Capt Syll in the Nipmuck contry and [as his captaine had certified] had performed faithfull service; and was instrumentall to recover an English captive Peter Bentts servant from the enimey, and his brother saved the lives of two English men at a wigwam at Pakachooge vizt Mr Mackarty, servant, a sirgion to Capt Henchman and one Goodwin a soldier of Charlestowne, as they both could and would testify yet after all these services both they and their wives and children and all their country men that lived at Naticke were mistrusted by the English and thereupon [at a few houres warning] brought away from their place and fort and houses at Naticke and carried downe in boats to Deare Iland, leaving and loosing much of their substance, catle, swine, horse and corne, and at the lland were exposed to great sufferings haveing litle wood for fuell, a bleak place and poore wigwams such as they could make a shift to make themselves with a few matts, and here at the iland had very little provision, many of them, and divers other sorrowes and troubles they were exposed too, and were about 350 soules men women and children; and that now haveing an oppertuny to get of the lland they came to see how things were with the Indians in the woods; and if they preferred them to fight with and for them they were advised to manifest al readines and forwardness and not shew any aversnes. Things being thus prepared these 2 spyes were sent away without armes excepting hatchetts and with a litle parcht meale for provision, and they tooke their jorny from Cambridge the 30th of December, and from Naticke they set forth the 31th of December being Friday early in the morning. That day they past through the woods directly to Hassomesed where they lodged that night, on Saterday morn, being the first of Janury they past over Nipmuck river and lodged at Manchage that night. On the 2 Janury they

19 Job, even though he carried a pass from Gookin, had been thrown into prison after a military unit caught him searching for his children after they were taken from Hassanamesit.

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went forward to Maanexit which is about 10 miles and there they met with seaven Indians of the enimy: some of them had armes; haveing confered with these Indians they were conducted by those Indians next day to Quabaage old fort where they met severall other Indians of their company’s; and by them the next day were conducted to the enimies quarters which is about twenty miles norward of Quabauge old fort at a place called Menemesseg, which is about 8 miles north where Capt Hutchison and Capt Wheeler was woonded and sevel men with them slayn (in the begining of August last) as these indians informed them; At this place among these Indians they found all the chtian Indians belonging to Hassannmiske and Magunhooge which are about forty men and about 8o women and children; these praying indians were carried away by the enemy some went willingly, others of them unwillingly as they told him for befor they went away they were in a great strait, for if they came to the English they knew they shold bee sent to Deere lland, as others were, and their corne beeing at such a distance about 40 miles from Boston it could not bee caried to susteyne their lives and so they should bee in danger to famish and others feard they should bee sent away to Barbados, or other places and to stay at Hassanamesho these indians our enimles would not permit them, but said they must have the corne, but promised them if they would goe with them they should not die but bee preserved; these beeing in this condition most of them thought it best to goe with them though they feared death every way: only Tukuppawillin [the minster, hee lamented much and his aged father the decon and some others and would faine have come back to the English after they were gon as farr as Manchage but the enimy mockt him, for crying and drew him … the rest that were unwilling along with them: These things our spyes understood from the p[raying] Indians here. The enimys that hee was among and live at the afforsaid places are in … small townes about 20 wigwams at a place and they are all within 3 miles com[pass], and do consist of about 300 fighting men besides duble as many women and children … they have no fort, but wigwams only, some covred with barks and som with matts. The Indians that are heare are the Nipmuk indians, the Quabaag indians, the Pacachoog indians, the Weshakum and Nashaway indians. The cheefe sagomeres and captains are Mawtaamp, John with one eye and Sam [of Weshukum or Nashaway] Sagamore John (having on legg biger than the other] of Pakachooge. Here also is Matoonus and his sonns.20 Of the Hassanamesho and chtian indians, hee saw here Capt Tom allias Wattasakomponin and his son Nehimiah (they say that the enimy have solicited them to take armes and fight against the English but they told James they would not fight against the

20 These were the principle Nipmuc sachems that had been fighting against the English. They were based at Menemesit, which was a series of small villages providing a point of refuge for fighters and their families. Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 176–178.

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English, they will rather die. Here hee also saw Tukuppawillin their pastor and his aged father their decon, whome he saith mourne greatly and daily read the bible which is their greatest comfort. Also he ther saw James Printer brother to the minister, and Joseph and Sa … two brethern (sons to Robin of Haasameshe decesed)21 hee also saw Pumhamun and Jacob of Magunkoog with divers others that hee could have mentioned but those are the principal. Some of the Indians [or enimies] mistrusted that these two men were spies especially Matoonus and his sonnes and some others: these solicited James to borrow his hatchet and his knife [when he saw they needed none] which made him cautious of himselfe and suspitious of their evill intention to him, but James [at the second towne] he came too met with John with one eye, of Weshakum [a stout captaine among them) this man knew James and said thou hast been with mee in the warr with the Mauhaks and I know thou art a valiant man and therfore none shall wrong thee nor kill thee here, but they shall first kill me.22 Therefore abide at my wigwam and I will protect thee, So this man entertained him kindly, and protected him. Job his companion stayd at Pumhams wigwame wher his 3 children were kept:23 hee and Job aboad with these Indians severall daies and sometimes went forth to hunt deere not farr of and returnd againe. hee laubored to gaine what information hee could of their affayres, and was informed by Capt John [with one eye] his host and others said things, vizt. that Philip was quarterd this winter within halfe a dayes jorny … fort Albany [The same thing is certifyed by a letter from Major Andros Governor of New York sent Mr Leet deputy Governor of Connecticut dated 5th of Jannury (75) which letter beeing sent to Governor Winthrop by Mr Leet was read in our Councill on Thursday last 23 instant. This also may tend to confirme the truth of James his intelegence, as wel as divers other passages both before and aftermentioned] morover they informed or spy that the Hadly Northampton and Spinkfeld Indians had their winter quarters between them and Philip and som quartered at Squakeake. They told him also that a cheefe captaine named – of Hadley and Norhampton Indians who was a valiant man had been a cheefe captaine in the Mawhak warre had attempted to kill Philip and intended to do it; aleaging that Philip had begun a warr with the English that had brought great trouble upon them. Hee saith that these Indians told him that it was som of their number that were in the Nipmuck country, to get the corn and that the English came upon them in the wigwam

21 Joseph and Sampson Petavit were praying Indians who had aided Edward Hutchinson at Quabaug, but now were with the enemy. 22 James Quannapohit had fought alongside “One-Eyed John” against the Mohawks during the 1660s. The bond they had established in that conflict made One-Eyed John protective of Quannapohit. 23 Pomham, or Pumham, had been the civil leader of the Magunkaquog praying village while Job was teacher.

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at Hassunnamesuke and there they kllld two Englishmen, and that they had got and caried away all the corne at Pakuahooge and in the Nipmuck country, unto their quarters, upon which they had lived this winter and upon beefe and porke they had kild about Quaboage, and venison [of which there is great store in those parts and by reason of the deep snow there beeing mid thigh deep] it is easy to kill deare without gunns, hee saith that ere long, when their beefe and porke and deere is spent and gon, that they wilbe in want of corne, but they intend then to com downe upon the English townes, of Lancaster Marlborow Groaton, and particulely they intend first to cut of Lancaster bridge and then say they there can no releef com to them from Boston nor the people cannot escape and their they hope to have corne enough. Hee saith they have store of armes, and have a gunsmith among them a lame man that is a good workman and keeps their gunns wel fixt They have some armes among them that they tooke in the 2 fights when Capt Beeares and Capt Lothrop was slayne.24 As for amunition they have some but not great store that hee saw: Capt John with one eye shewed him a small kettle full of powder about halfe a peck and 2 hornes full besides. hee asked them where they got their amunition, hee answered som wee had from the English were klld, and som from fort Albany, but (said hee) the Dutch will not sell us powder but wee give our bever and wompon to the Mawhakes and they buy it and let us have it of them, they told him that they had sent to the Wompeagues and Mawquas to ayd them in the spring, that the Wampeages promised them help, but the Maquaws said they were not willing to fight with English, but they would fight with the Mohegins and Pequets that were bretheren to the English. Further hee saith that they told him that the Frenchman that was at Boston this sumer [vizt. Monsieur Normanvile] was with Phillip and his company as hee went back at their quarter about Pokomtuck, after hee returnd from Boston. And that in their sight hee burned certene papers that hee said were letters from Boston to the French saying what shall I doe with these papers any longer, Hee said to the Indians I would not have you burne the English mill, nor the meeting houses, nor the best houses for wee [ie the French] intend to bee with you in the spring before planting time and I will bring three hundred of your countrymen that are hunters and have bene three yeares at the French. And wee will bring armes and amunition enough, for wee intend to helpe you against the English and posses our selves of Keneckticut river and other English plantations, and our King [ie the French King] will send shipps to stopp supplyes from coming by sea [from their King] to Boston.

24 Captain Richard Beers had been killed on September 4 in a Nipmuc-Pocumtuck ambush while trying to evacuate Skuakeag, or Northfield, and Captain Thomas Lathrop was killed on September 18 at “Bloody Brook” when his party was attacked while transporting corn after an attack on Deerfield. Daniel R. Mandell, King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 72–75.

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Hee saith that they told him that the Pennakooge indians were quartered about the head of Keneticut river, and had not at all ingageed in any fight with the English, and would not, their sagamors Wannalancet and others restrayned the young men (who had an opptunity to have destroyd many of Capt Moselys men when hee was at Pennakooge last sumer but their sagamores would not suffer them to shoot a gunne). Further hee saith that hee understood by the cheefe men and old men that they were inclinable to have peace againe with the English, but the young men [who are their principal soldiers] say we wil have no peace wee are all or most of us alive yet and the English have kild very few of us last summer why shall wee have peace to bee made slaves, and either be kild or sent away to sea to Barbados etc. Let us live as long as wee can and die like men, and not live to bee enslaved. Hee saith there is an English man a young man amongst them alive named Robert Pepper, who being woonded in the legg in the fight when Capt Beares was kild hid himselfe in the crotch of a great tree that lay on the ground; where an Indian called Sam Sagamore of Nashaway, found him alive and tooke him prisoner and hee became his master hee lay lame severll weekes but beeing well used by his master and means used hee is now wel recovered, hee saith that once since hee was wel his master [carring him abroad with him] left him at Squakeake neare where hee was taken prisoner his Master wishing him to goe to the English [whether there was a cart way led] but Robert Pepper told James hee was afrayd his master did it but to try his fidelity to him to intrap him, and that if hee should have gon away towards the English they would have intercepted him and so his life had beene in danger, so hee went after his master and enquired after him and at last found him out, hee saith Rob Peper would bee glad to escape home and hopes hee shall meet with an oppertunity, when the Indians march nearer the English.25 James said his master told him hee would send him home when hee had convenient opptunety. Also hee was informed that there are two more English men prisoners with Philip and Hadly Indians, one is of Boston servant to a ship carpenter Grenhough, the other hee remembers not his name. Hee saith, that before hee and Job came among those indians they told them the Narragants had sent in on or 2 English scalpes, but these indians would not receive them, but shot at their messenger and said they were English mens friends all last summer and would not creditt their first messengers, after there came other messengers from Narragansetts and brought more heads [hee saw twelve scalpes of English hanged upon trees] that then these Indians beeleved the Narragansset and receved the scalps and paid

25 Robert Pepper’s “master,” Sagamore Sam, tried to collect captives as a path toward making peace during the early summer of 1676, but his offers were not acceptable to Bay Colony magistrates, and he was executed after his capture.

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them [as their maner is], and now they beeleved that the Narragansitts and English are at warre, of which they are glad. The Narragansets told these indians that the English had had fight with them, and killed about forty fighting men and on Sachem and about 300 old men women and children were kild and burnt in the wigwams most of which were destroyd, they told him that as the Narragansetts said that the Mohegins and Pequitts Indians killed and woonded of them, as many as the English had kild. Being questioned by Mr Danforth whether hee could learne whether the Narragansetts had ayded and assisted Philip and his companey in the sumer against the English, hee answered that hee understood by those indians that they had not, but lookt on them as freinds to the English all along til now and their enemies. Hee saith that hee was informed that the Naragansets said that an English man one Joshua Tift was among them when they had their fight at the English and that hee did them good service and kild and woonded 5 or 6 English in the fight and that before they wold trust him hee had kild a miller an English man at Narragansit, and brought his scalpe to them.26 Also hee said that the Naragansits told these indians that one William that lives in those parts brought them some powder and offered them all his catle for provisions desiring only that his life might bee spared and his children and grandchildren. These Narragansits solicited these indians to send them som helpe [… they knew them to be stout soldiers], they promised to send with them 20 men to goe with them to see how things were, and they determined to begin their jorny last Saturday [ie 22th January] and they also resolved to take Job with them to Narraganset indians; and upon the same day Mawtaamp the sagomor said hee would goe with another company up to Phillip, to informe him and those Indians of the breach betwene the English and Narragansitts and hee said that James [our spy] should goe along with him to Phillipp to aquaint him of the state of affayres among the English and praying indians. James said to Mataamp I am willlng to goe to Philip but not at this present because Philip knowes that I fought against him on the English side at Mount Hope and other places, and hee will not beeleve that I am realy turned to his party, unles I first do some exployt and kill some English men and carry their heads to him. Let me have oprtuty to doe somthing of this nature before I goe to Philip, this answer of James seemed to satisfy the sagamore Mawtaump. But James doubting notwithstanding, that hee might change his mind and take him with him when hee went, hee was resolved to endevor an escape before the time they intended the jorny, especially

26 This was Joshua Tefft, who was gruesomely put to death for having fought on the side of the Narragansetts. Colin Calloway, “Rhode Island Renegade: The Enigma of Joshua Tefft,” Rhode Island History 43 (1984), 137–145.

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considering what Tachupawillin told him in secret that Philip had given order to his men that if they mett with these John Hunter, James Speen, this James and Thomas Quannupaquit [brethern and Andrew Pitamee and Peter Ephraim they bring them to him or put them to death]. Accordingly James moved Job [his companion] to contrive a way for an escape. Job conceled his purpose, and upon Wensday the 19th of this instant they 2 early in the morne went out as if they would goe a hunting for deare, as they had don at other times and returnd againe [James having goten about a pint of nokake of Symon Squa on of the praying indians] they beeing in the woods hunted for deere and killd 4 deare and as they traveld to and fro they percevd that by som footing of indians that some did watch their motions, so towards night they being neare a pond they drew the deare at the pond and tooke up their quarters in thicke swampe and their made a fire and dresd some of the venison, but no other indians came to them; so about 3 oclock before day, James said to Job now let us escape away if wee can. But Job said I am not willing to goe now, because my children are here I will stay longer if God please hee can preserve my life if not I am willing to die I will therfore goe backe againe to the indians and goe along with the company to the Naragansitt and if I returne I will use what policy I can to get away my children, if I live about … weekes hence I will com back and I will come to Naticke and therfore if you can take 4 or 5 indians to meet me there, I shall if I live by that time get more intelligence of affayres. Then James said to him I must now goe away for I am not like to have a better opptunity, and if they should carry mee to Philip I shall die, but I am sorry for you Job, least when I am gon they kill you for my sake, but you may tel them I runne away from you and was affrayd to goe to Philip before I had don som exployt. So they parted – and James our spy came homeward travilling through the woods night and day untill he came to Naticke to James Spene wigwam who lives their to looke to som aged and sick folkes that were not in capacity to be brought downe to Deare Iland and on Lord’s day came to Serjant Williams at the village and by him was conducted to and so to Boston before the Councel the same day which was the 24th day of this instnt Janury 167527 where his examination and relation was written by 2 scribes: and though this may a litle differ from others in some pticulers yet for substance it is the same. Morover hee said that hee heard that the Narragansit were marched upp into the woods toward Quantesit and they were in company and the first company of above 200 ammong them were several woonded werre come before the Narragansit come up to these Indians: – beeing omitted before it is put in heare.

27 1676 by Gregorian calendar.

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Death Threat against Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth*28 In February 1676, as raiding parties of enemy Indians pummeled a series of English towns, certain vengeful colonists plotted against the praying Indians and their friend Daniel Gookin. Magistrates managed, with the help of an informant, to thwart a plan that would have had a group of men row out to Deer Island and kill praying Indians confined there.29 But feelings ran high. One man, the fifty-year-old Edward Page, testified “upon … oath” that the praying Indians wanted revenge for their internment: I have inteligence that the Indians have sayd that when the spring comes they shalbe fetched of the Island by the other Indians and that they will make Boston especially the magistrates pay deare for every houre they have been kept there.30 Given this public outrage, Daniel Gookin and his fellow magistrate Thomas Danforth also became targets, and pieces of paper threatening their lives began to circulate. The anonymous writers described the magistrates as traitors, and in imitation of the way official accusations were carried out, they emphasized their “wish” to give the “traytors” time to think about their deeds and prepare spiritually for death.

The Document Reader thou art desired not to suppresse this paper, but to promote its designe, which is to certify (those traytors to their king and Countrey) Guggins and Danford that some generous spiritts have vowed their destruction, as Christians wee warne them to prepare for death, for though they will deservedly dye yet wee wish the health of their soules.

Richard Scott Assails Gookin’s Character at the Blue Anchor Tavern*31 In late February 1676, Elizabeth Belcher and her daughter Martha Remington, proprietors of the Blue Anchor Tavern in Cambridge, complained that Richard Scott, a private, strode into their establishment and began shouting insults against the “worshipful” Daniel Gookin. Belcher was the sister of Thomas

*28 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 193; and 193A. 29 Lepore, “When Deer Island Was Turned Into Devil’s Island.” 30 Massachusetts Archives Collection 68: 136. And Corey, History of Malden, 47. *31 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 192, excerpted.

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Danforth, a magistrate threatened with death along with Gookin on handbills that circulated that same day. Scott, who may have been one of the authors, chose to unleash his fury in a place closely associated with the friends and family of Gookin and Danforth, revealing in the process that he had been involved in the recent plot to massacre Christian Indians on Deer Island.32 The points that Scott chose to emphasize in his rant against Gookin are telling. He called Gookin the “devil’s interpreter” probably a reference to Gookin’s speaking out on behalf of Indians. He also showed that he understood something of Gookin’s origins by calling him an “Irish dog,” though it is unclear what meaning he ascribed to that. In addition, he charged that Gookin was inept in his dealings with Indians. Scott was imprisoned and fined.33 He then pleaded before the Council to have his staggeringly high fine abated, claiming that his outburst was caused by drink, not “premeditated malice,” especially because he could not “remember that ever he did, or had cause to abuse” any magistrate. Having served the “country” at the “perrill of my life” he promised never again to “offend … with my tongue,” and “for a demonstration of my thankfullness and fidelity shall be ready to serve the country to the utmost of my capacity.”34 Richard Scott’s most recent service at this point had been under Samuel Moseley.35

The Document (EXCERPTED) Elizabeth Belcher, aged 57, Martha Remington aged 31, and Mary Mitchell aged 20, being sworne doe say that on the 28th day of February last, about 10 of the clocke at night, Richard Scott came into the house of the said Belcher, and suddenly after he came in, broak out into many hideous raileing expressions against the worshipful Captain Daniel Gookin, calling him an Irish dog that was never faithfull to his country, the sonne of a whoare, a bitch, a rogue, God confound him, and God rot his soul, saying if I could meet him alone, I would pistoll him.36 I wish my knife and sizers [scissors] were in his heart. He is the devils interpreter. I and two or three more had

32 For evidence of Belcher being favorable to the Gookin family in a claim of bastardy filed against Daniel Gookin’s son Samuel, who frequented the tavern, see M. Michelle Jarrett Morris, Under Household Government: Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 27–40. 33 John Noble, ed., Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 3 vols. (Boston, MA, 1901), I: 60–61. 34 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 196. Scott also submitted another plea, in a different hand, where he thanked the court for not imposing corporal punishment and says there was no way he could pay the large fine without “begging.” Ibid., 30: 197a. 35 Bodge, Soldiers, 71.

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designed to cut of all Gookins brethren at the Island, but some English dog discovered it, the devill will plague him, and when some words were spoaken to abate his clamor, he would shake his head, put out his lips, and make a noyse, saying if the party that spoak to him hold not her tongue he should [illegible] and to every of these words he would swear an oath, saying by God, church, faith, salvation, and his soul, and God rott Gookins soul, and wished … the party that spake in favour of the captain plagued with the Indians, very often reiterating the abovesaid cursed expressions, and when he was going away (as he said towards Sudbury) he said he hoped he should meet the Devil before he got thither. He also said that the mayd that was returned home from the Indians said that the Indians called Gookin rogue and threatened to kill him … Also when he was reproved for this carriage of his he sayd he durst say all this to Gookins face. He also said that Gookin was a base coward that durst not look an Indian in the face. How farr this Scott might be in drinke the deponents say they dare not judge … but seemed to be in a great rage.

William Harris, Refugee in Newport, Writes to English Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson*37 As King Philip’s War came to an end, William Harris of Providence, a land speculator and one of the first proprietors, wrote a long letter to a powerful correspondent in England. Harris wanted to ensure his claim on what was known as the Pawtuxet Purchase, and perhaps thought it would be beneficial to keep himself visible to authorities in the royal government by providing much-coveted news.38 His letter reflects the transatlantic environment in which dealings with native peoples were undertaken, with warfare, missionary work, and trade all having political meanings that could be exploited in various ways depending on one’s interests and constituency. Harris set out first and foremost to justify the colonists’ war with the Indians. The royal government, in the wake of the Restoration, had been highly critical of the colonies’ policies toward Indians, and might at any moment move to vacate charters. Although Harris was a heretical Baptist as far as the Massachusetts colony was concerned, his land claims too might be in jeopardy if the royal government thought that King Philip’s War was anything

36 Martha Remington said she could not remember if Scott had threatened to “pistoll” Gookin, but she remembered him using the word “pistolling.” *37 William Harris to Sir Joseph Williamson, August 12, 1676, in Rhode Island Historical Society Collections, X: 162–179. 38 On Harris’s land disputes and motives see Douglas Edward Leach, A Rhode Islander Reports on King Philip’s War (Providence, RI: The Rhode Island Historical Society, 1963), 1–2.

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less than just. While the deputy governor of Rhode Island, John Easton, had met with Philip to learn of his grievances, and wrote a treatise in which he showed sympathy for the sachem’s plight, Harris sought to undercut that way of thinking, and argued instead that the Wampanoags had long planned to rise up against the English, having deliberately stored up and hid provisions so that they would be ready for the uprising when it came.39 Like Mary Pray, he also insisted that the Narragansetts were not to be trusted. Their attempts to prove their loyalty by sending the scalps of enemy combatants to the English, Harris contended, was just a ruse. Harris went so far as to suggest that Philip was in touch with and conspiring with the Indians who assailed English colonists in Virginia just prior to the outbreak of Bacon’s Rebellion. Although Harris in some places insists that the English should be fair to the Indians, he was for the most part contemptuous of their culture. He argues, for example, that the Indians were much worse off prior to the arrival of the English, because the colonists had introduced them to the trade goods and technological innovations that allowed them to enjoy a better standard of living, and ultimately made it possible for them to amass the goods needed to wage war. He acknowledges that Indians like Uncas and the praying Indians were invaluable to the war effort, yet he calls into question how honorable they could be if they would betray their own people, another indication that the English colonists at this time regarded Indians as a people distinct and apart. Although Harris’s thoughts on Indians were of a piece with those of many of his contemporaries, like Mary Pray, his letter also shows evidence of disputes between the English. In his discussion of the fate of Potuck, for example, he emphasizes how the Narragansett leader was misled by Rhode Island leaders into thinking that he might be able to negotiate a peace with the English colonies in Rhode Island, even though Rhode Island was not a part of the United Colonies and could not negotiate on their behalf. The trip to Newport that Potuck made proved his undoing, because the safe passage that those same leaders had promised him was not honored, and they acquiesced in his capture by Connecticut forces. Daniel Gookin, in contrast, while describing the death of Potuck in Doings and Sufferings, ascribes his dismal end to the fact that he had demanded at the outset of the war that colonists cease trying to proselytize Narragansetts. In telling the story of Potuck, Harris took the opportunity to critique his political rivals in Rhode Island who had made the offer of safe passage to Potuck, most notably Providence founder Roger Williams, for whom

39 John Easton, “A Relacion of the Indyan Warre” (1676), in Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675–1699, ed. Charles H. Lincoln (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 1–17.

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Harris had contempt.40 Harris explains that he himself had counselled the magistrates against trusting the promises of Indians, yet he did not approve of the events that led to Potuck’s execution in Boston, because failing to honor a safe conduct once granted made the English seem as perfidious as Indians – an interpretation calculated to make him look better than any of the colonial authorities who played a role in the situation. While it is easy to emphasize the primary divide between English colonists and Indians, there were many divisions between the English colonies and their leading personalities as well.41 Harris’s Rhode Island perspective, like that of Mary Pray, evinced a sense of personal loss and a deep fear of Indians who mocked Christianity and threatened to drive the colonists “to Islands for our safety.” While Harris survived King Philip’s War, he made one final transatlantic trip in 1679 and was captured by Algerian pirates. His family ransomed him, but he died soon after making his way to England.42

The Document (Excerpted) William Harris to Sir Joseph Williamson, August 12, 1676 Truely Noble Sr your humble servant whome your spetiall favor hath oblieged to a continewall rememberance thereof: and thankfullnes for the same, and constant servis to your Honnor, acording to my best dillegence and abillety (though but slow and weak) and the reason I have noe oftener exspresed my servis: and thanks to your Honnor, is, by reason the way of sending is soe enterrupted by the war: that there is noe safe sending, nor pasing to and fro (without danger of life) And allso desireing (when I did writ) to give as certayne acounte: and perticuler (as I could) to your Honnor, (as I could get) and therefore delayed: hopeing to have had certayne information: out of each Collony of theyr afayres (as to the war) by some espetiall intellegable friend, but wanting opertunety to send to such, and allsoe haveing bin ever since in the moste dangerous place (by the Indeans) in the country: wher I have lost a deer son: a dillegent engenious Just man: temperate in all things, whom the Indeans lay in waite for by the waysyd and killd him, and a negro man, and burnt our houses, and drove away aboute fifty head of Cowkind cattell, and fourscore horskinde of ours and carryed away some goods, and burnt above fifty loade of hay, and have put us out of our way of liveing, and from all opertunityes (for a long time) to doe this small servis to your Honnor, (soe much and long) bound to: by your great favor; And at this time am a sojurnor

40 Leach, Rhode Islander Reports, 9. 41 Ibid.; and Martin, Profits in the Wilderness, 58, 82–83 42 Mark G. Hanna, Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 208.

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at Rhode Island, hopeing from thence to have an opertunity to send these by water to the bay (vizt) to Boesten.43 And as to the state of the Country in generall, but first: what it hath bin since the war began (vizt) In very sad and lamentable condition: and the wisest men in the Country even at theyr wits end, to think what might become of themselves and famelyes and the whole country, the Indeans then doeing soe many mischiefs: in a secret sly: sculking way: that noe man knew well how to finde them, and the truth is, had it not pleased god to draw forth some other Indeans (such as were) former enemyes to our now enemyes: to ayd the English to finde theyr enemyes: and overtake them (when the English cannot) we might have bin driven to great strayts, And had the Indeans bin all our enemyes44: and could have gotten powder: they might have forced us to Islands for safety, and there to have planted some litle Corne, and have fished for our liveings, takeing some winter seasons (only) to fight the Indeans (if we could) much hurt the Indeans did, and the mesengers therof (for some time) came quicly one after another, like the news to Jobe: of his sorrowes, and our enemyes boasting: that god was departed from us, and was with them. But least our bad succes: should seeme to exspres: our bad cause: making an unjust war: therfore, to speak some thing to that (vizt) That the war was (on the English parte) Just, for, That Phillip an Indean great man: liveing in plimoth patent: did refuse to submit to the kings writ, to make answer concerning the death of one of the Indeans45: the kings subjects and insted of apearing therto, he apeared in armes against the kings Authourity, and robed some of his subjects, and slew others, before the English fought: or killd any of the Indeans; and the reason the said phillip shewed (which he had resolved) to one Mr. John Easton46. The then Deputy Governor of Rhode Island, (but five dayes before the war began) (to whom he said it as to a friend) (being soe spake to) That ther had bin former difference between the Governor of plimoth and him (the said phillip) and that they had layd fines upon him, but for the future he resolved neither to goe, nor pay … And yet, the said former fact: the said phillip supposed was guilty of: and fined for: was a war ploted by him to destroy the English at unawares; which was a compasing: and contriveing: to fight against the kings authourity in his dominions:

43 Harris lived in Providence, but was staying, essentially as a refugee, in Newport, after enemy Indians despoiled Providence, including his own farm, where they killed his son. 44 The Pequots and Mohegans were English allies from the start, and Mohawks aided them later in the war. 45 John Sassamon. 46 John Easton, who had political and religious disagreements with the Bay Colony and the United Colonies, had written a sympathetic account of Philip’s reasons for being angry at Plymouth colony.

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and to take the authourety and dominion and rule to himself; which is high treason against the king; … and therfore the war made in defence: agaynst him: is Just; he first levying war against the kings Authourity in his dominions, and killd many of his subjects. Allsoe, the said war was by phillip intended against the English long before, as apears by the said phillips (and not his only) (but others alsoe the Indeans of other places) providing for the said war, the year before, laying up corne in such secret maner as they were not wonte to doe (in time of peace) for, in time of peace: any that pased by theyr barnes which are made in the ground: the English (as well as the Indeans) knew them; but those made in preparation for the war, are not seen: nor knowne by the English: nor Indeans nether, (but by such as made them) gras being made to grow over them, and layd levell; therfore, the war by the said Indeans intended, and began; therfore, not an unjust war, (by the English) … therfore, the said war (on the Englishes parte: Just) And of my certain knowledg, I know them soe barbarous, thoughe theyr predeseacors: did acknowledg themselues, the kings subjects, and subscribed therto: that they might have preveledg therby: and safety against theyr enemyes: these theyr succesors would acknowledg it to such ends, yet, when theyr obedyence to good law: is to theyr los, they matter not subjection: nor aleigance: noe more then brute beast; allsoe formerly I have told phillip (after he plotted against the English) that he above all other Indeans should love the English and be true to them, for, had it not bin for the plimoth old plantors (now dead) the narragansets had then cutt of his fathers head (then called Mas-sasoyt,47 since was called Osa-mea-quen, whom I knew forty years since, Allso to my certayne knowledg: they did reason for the mayntenance of theyr customes against the kings law, and yet, have soe many monsterous customes contrary to all humanyty: some wherof I shall mention (vizt) to kill theyr children: yea any litle ones of any ayge: at theyr pleasure, without fear of punishment, And to kill theyr aiged parents, and for a mans murdering another: to kill his brother, or kinsman, with many such like; And without doubt (were now) resolved to fight for the same and to destroy all English men noe doubt (if they could) And wher as some: stick not to say, that the English have ocationed the war: by divers opretions used to the lndeans, as defrauding them of theyr land (as they say) trespasing in theyr corne by theyr cattell, with divers other things objected, acording to theyr severall interest, makeing (they say) the Indeans pore. The temptations of men to the said acuseations, may be these? some intending if they could to re buy theyr neighbours lands, as some did, and soe it hath sometimes bin: that land hath bin bought: and solde three or foure times over. others out of envy to theyr countrymen: for some sinister end: others flattering the Indeans (sometimes) to buy theyr land. and sometimes to draw the lndeans trade, of buying and selling cloath and furs and such like.

47 Massasoit.

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to which it may be answered, the lndeans are or wear when they began the war far more supplyed and better then when the English first came for then they wear in great wants but since in great plenty, they when the English first came had only axes of stone, but since of Iron and steele, then Hoese of wood: and tortes48 and other fish shells, but since of Iron and steele, allsoe they had then but a litle corne, perhapes five or six bushells a year one famely, but since sometimes forty, fifty, or sixty bushells; then made drills of flints to make theyr mony, but since have drills of steele and can make forty to one; And doubtles those drills of flint would try the patience of the most industrious artist: and theyr skill (in theyr way) to make those drills; they then had spent theyr corne early in the spring, but since have corne enoughe and spare and sell, then ate fresh fish to keep them alive, but by such foode dyed: of fluxes, but since had wholesome foode: and phizick store, in a word they then wanted allmoste all things, but since had allmoste all things that they might think needfull, and prosperity hath slayne them, yea and many of us to; The Indeans since have had soe much corne as to lay up for a war a year before: agaynst this present war, and lately Conecticot men found seven hundered bushells of corne: and many beans of this country like the beans that are in England which are eaten shells an all; it is like the people that layd the said up were dead, or killd, or taken, or driven where they could not come at them; then the Indeans before the English came, wear allwayes in war and still in fear of theyr lives, but sine the English have slayn theyr enemyes, and now the Indeans make war with the English, rather by the prosperity they injoyed (by the English) then by any advercity by them tempted to the war. And that the war was not only Just with Phillip but the narragansets allsoe, for that many of them wear with phillip in the first fight (aboute mounte hope) And when phillip fled from thence the said narragansets fled to narraganset, and the narragansets sachems or rulers confesed them theyr men and were conducted with a great woman of phillips party and her men to narraganset,49 whereupon the English demanded of the narragansets why they received and shelltered theyr enemyes, and demanded them, but the narragansets did not deliver them, but entered into articles to deliver phillips men, and theyr enemyes that came among them, but did not, yet then makeing large pretences of peace, intending noe thing les, but they thought that if they should by a suden war lose theyr harvest: that then it would soone disable them to continew the war, Allsoe they received of the English rewards: as if they had taken of some of phillips mens heads, but the said heads (some of

48 Tortoise. 49 When Weetamoo of Pocasset, a “squaw sachem,” or strong female leader, took refuge with the Narragansetts, the English insisted that the Narragansetts surrender her as an enemy combatant, and the Narragansetts refused. On the English and Narragansett perspectives on this, see Pulsipher, Subjects Unto the Same King, 149; and Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 236-38.

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them) doubtles wear heads of Indeans that the English and theyr confederates had killd, or els: some heads of others that they slew that wear run from them: to phillip formerly: for fear of being put to death by the narragansets for supposed ofences commited against the narragansets, or others of phillips men that in time of peace contraverted for phillip against the narragansets, aboute former defferences of rightes due: or wronges done, by, or to either the narragansets: or phillip, against whome they had spetiall spleen; and soe tooke that time to reveng themselves on them (when fallen into disstres and into theyr hands: for supposed deliverance: willing to shellter themselves under them) and as to the last sort against whome they had such spleen: some of them I knew: and heard them debate, the said defferences in open courte at Rhode Island, the defference arose about a man (to say) an Indean that lived at Rhode Island: that kild his wife and a man that (he sayd) lay with her, the said man was tryd and condemnd for the said murder, but because he killd two, the sachems said they would have two to put to death for the said two killd, and out of phillips men, for that the murdered wear related to the narragansets: and the murderor to phillip, The narragansets allsoe would have had the murderor to have cast him bound into a fire, but the court would not admit it, but said he was the kings subject: and soe should have the kings law, with much such discource, And that the law would not admit to put one man to death for anothers ofences, wherat: the narragansets shewed great indignation and said, that before the English came: they could doe what they list with phillips party, and phillips partty pleaded theyr exemption from them, and theyr owne absolute power, and soe stood theyr defference; and one (a chiefe interpreter among them then) his head was brought to the English by the narragansets and tooke a reward as for killing one of phillips men, but doubtles the said man (whome I had knowne neer forty year) was slayn by the English: and then the narragansets got his head: to get the reward, and to keep of (for that present) the war, or els: they kild him for the foresaid defference (in the debate wherof he was) and not simplely, as one of phillips men: and an enemy to the English, for, the narragansets had then among them many of phillips partty: whome they neither delivered up to the English, nor brought in theyr heads, which shews they did all in deceite; yea, and all this while up in the country about hadley and deerfield and there aboute ayd phillip: and others of theyr partty: against the English to the doeing of very great mischiefe; And further, that the said heads pretended to be taken of by the narragansets from liveing men of phillips; as enemyes to the English: seems not to be believed,50 for, If soe, that

50 Harris is saying that the Narragansetts had harbored Wampanoags from the very beginning of hostilities, and that any heads, or scalps, that they sent to the English to prove their loyalty, probably belonged to enemies that the English themselves had killed, or to individuals that the Narragansetts saw as enemies and would have killed regardless of the war. These, in other words, were not acts of loyalty to the English as far as Harris saw it.

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partty of phillips among the narragansets then (which wear many) might have supposed themselves to be determined to the same end, and then, would not (at liberty as they wear) there have stayd (to that end) but there did stay therfore, not in such danger, nor the heads such heads, as wear pretended, but in truth the heads either of them slayne by the English, or such other as aforesaid, not slayne by the narragansets as Englishes enemyes; much more playne demonstration: might be made proveing that the narragansets did Joyne with phillip in the war, but not to trouble your Honnor therwith, but some hold noe war just, and noe wonder they object the justnes of this war allsoe, and have some temptation to it allsoe, for, If the war just then their ayde may seeme to be engaged, therto, but, they not ayding nor willing to it, they say they ought not, had need to have some pretence (as the unlawfullnes of the war) to exscuse themselves; espetially (being) such as are soe far concerned: as defence etc, for the kings interest: and his subjects safety … Then war began abounte mount hope aboute the twentieth of June 1675 Phillip was encountered by Generall Savidg51 of the Massachusets, And plimoth forces under Captayne Cudworth or Major, And Major winthrap comeing to ayd them; but upon consideration he stoped at narraganset and sent his forces back to Conecticott but the rest differed: abute the land of phillip before they had overcome him, which they had better to have left for the widowes: and fatherles (when the enemy had bin overcome) for theyr relief and for the criples made by the enemy, whose husbands: and fathers lives: and criples limbes had purchased. They marched after phillip in a few files: some miles long, and shot at the greene shrubes (when they saw not the enemy) so the Indeans they hearing theyr guns: had roome enough to slyd by them. but at the last found phillip in a swamp theraboutes, and fought him, but did him litle hurt, and he them some allsoe, but when they had got allmoste to him: a retreat was sounded which drew them out of the swamp, and the Indeans followed them: and fought them: as they marched away, but then the Indeans would not agayne be founde; soe the English marched home to the bay (that wear of the bay) phillip then takeing his march up into the Country, and some of his men haveing wounded a man at providence, and burnt some houses, providence men … hearing he was to pas by ralied aboute thirty or thirty five, and went to ly in ambush for him, but he was gon by, and while they were lookeing him, ther came to them aboute thirty and five more of Rehoboth and tanton,52 two townes of plimoth patent, soone after them forty Indeans confederates with the English, in all about a hundered (the said Indeans were

51 Thomas Savage. 52 Taunton.

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unckcas53 his men (A sachem in Conecticot patent) soe they sent out scoutes some English and some Indeans: And neer night came neer to phillip, in the morning they followed agayne, untill they met with phillips scoute, whome they shott dead, but phillip heard the gun: and got redy, and instantly the English came up with them: and fought them, and killd about fifty of phillips, and phillip hardly escaped: he left his powder: and stafe for haste, and fled up into the Country (but a great woman with phillip then, but left him and went with some narragansets to narraganset) Phillip and his party did much hurte up in the country about Hadley, Deerfield and theraboute, but at narraganset a seeming peace, then the English went to the narragansets And demanded why they shelltered theyr enemyes, but they delivered them not, but entered into articles: to deliver up phillips partty, but did not, but the English wanting Amunition, and provition, and therfore wear forced to delay and to get in harvest, and the Indeans as willing to get in theyr harvest, but in the mean time: the Indeans to the Eastward rose and did much hurt, but since said they are come in: and the war there ended; but aboute the thirteenth of desember last, aboute a thousand of the English forces came to narraganset, and after some few dayes stay there: and some perlie with the Indeans, they fought them in a swamp to which they had aboute half a dayes march, The English shewed very much vallour: runing up to the mussells of the guns, and to theyr porte holes: fireing into theyr forte, leaping over theyr brestworkes, and into theyre fort, turning the but ends of theyr guns sometimes, And thoughe many of the English slayne and wounded, yet, the coldnes of the season ocationed the death of many of the wounded, they being far from theyr quarters, and it frose that night very hard; but many more of the lndeans wear slayne (then of the English;)54 there was litle more done there that winter, but in the spring they marched out with about thirteen hundered, up into the Country: and slew aboute sixty, but some of theyr nimblest enemyes: theyr horses could not come up with: only (some few) (not enough to encounter the enemy) which march being over: each Collonyes forces marched to theyr owne Collonyes. After which time many mischeifs wear done vpon many townes of the massachusets, to the los of many soules, Allso a great mulltitude of lndeans came downe out of the country: in one body, they met with one captayne pierce at a place neer Rehoboth called blackstones River, where he with aboute seventy lusty vallyent men were fallen into an Ambush of allmoste all the said thousand Indeans: and foute with them till they had spent theyr amminition: which when the Indeans perceived they ran upone them: and slew all save some few, whoe fought throughe them and fled, but they slew

53 Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans. In Doings and Sufferings, Gookin discusses the praying Indians of Massachusetts who participated in these first engagements. 54 The preemptive strike against the Narragansetts in December.

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many of the Indeans.55 The said thousand came to rehoboth and there they burnt such houses as were not fortifyde and killd on man that they found out of the garrison from thence they came to providence and there burnt many houses unfortifyd, and killd two persons that wear out of the garrisons And killd much cattell, And then went to patuxet and ther burnt some houses and an empty garrison, and fought against another, and shott fire upon arrowes forty or fifty, but the English put them out, And in the night time went ther way, it being supposed that they heard of Conecticot forces then not far from that place, And had taken then the greatest man of the narrogansets, called nau-nau-ta-nute,56 a man soe proude that when he was in his enemyes hands: sayd he would speak to none but sachems (to say) princes, but gods meer hand and not subtillty tooke him and gave him into the hand of an Indean sachem to be slayne (to say) Unckas his son, the said Unckas is a confederat with the English of a long time, he was Encountered above thirty years since by A sachem of narraganset (to say) me-an-te-no-meah57, whom god delivered into the hands of Unckas who slew him, and the foresaid nau-naun-ta-nute, was the son of me-an-te-no-meah, the father: slaynes by Unckas, and the son by Unckas his son, The said narraganset sachems both of them monsterous proud, and both treacherous to the English and had not god formerly soe cut of the father he had then done as did since his son a moste cruell man, o god soe defeate all thyn enemyes and deliver all that are inocent, now it pleaseth god that newes from every quarter is that the English prevayle and the Indeans our enemyes fall there hath bin within a few monthes seven hundered Indeans slayne tooke and come in and they have but litle provition, nor Amunition, And they are lean: and dismayed, and come into divers townes and places: and pray they may live, Phillip is now come downe out of the Country, And is now supposed to be in that swamp wher the first fight was: neer mount hope, and supposed to have with him a thousand, And pursued with aboute eight hundered (English and lndeans) If our sins prevent not, it may be hoped that this sumer and the next winter may neer end the war … God hath wonderfully shewed his wisdome: and power, for wheras the English (to say) we by our sins: had opened the lndeans mouthes to say, that because we soe sined against god, God would: and did deliver us in to theyr

55 After the ambush of Captain Michael Pierce’s company on March 26, 1676, Indians attacked Rehoboth and Providence, and left these settlements in ruins. 56 The Narragansett sachem Canonchet. 57 Miantonomi, or Miantonomoh, who was at odds with the English during the post-Pequot War period, until his death at the hands of Uncas in 1643. While Uncas and the Mohegans had sided with the English, Miantonomi and the Narragansetts had countered them. Harris sees poetic justice in the fact that the son of Miantonomi, Canonchet, met his end at the hands of the son of Uncas.

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hands, And allsoe defeated the endevors and hopes of doeing great exsploytes the laste winter upon the Enemy, the enemy then insullting over poore soules whome they tormented and killd biding them call upon Jesus Christ aloude perhaps he would here them, whose blasphemous reproches God infinite in mercy hath heard, And lord of hosts has therfore, (to shew his owne Arme the power:) defeated the enemy this Sumer, and as fig leaves would not cover shame nor sin, soe neither the green leaves of this desolate wildernes hyde nor cover nor atend to defend the foresaid blasphemers against god: and our cruell and unjust enemyes from gods indignation, against thyr unjust war, theyr bloud thirsty cruellty and horible ingratitude to god, and the English great friends unto them. soe that as the English too much trusted in the winter to overcome, the Indeans, trusting allsoe in the sumer to overcome the English, but god hath made it the time of theyr defeate … At this instant came in a vesell from vergenia who brings newes of great destruction done there by the Indeans which shewes that the contrivance of a war against the English went far only gods providence prevented58 some yea Unckcas that olde friend to the English was for a time in the plot as he confesed and yet since hath done the greatest exsployts agaynst the enemy How straing are the providences of god and how good to trust in him who defeateth our foes by one another and maketh perfideous men faythfull friends at his plesure that in all strayts men may trust in him and stand in awe of his almighty power The enemy hath burnt all the houses in warwick, all in patuxet, And allmoste all in providence, And the rest of the houses in the Narraganset country allsoe And the inhabitance that wear ther are gon some to one place some to another, such sore desolation is come upon us and but few lay it to heart There hath bin litle force made by any to defend the said country from the Indeans the inhabytants have bin left to theyr owne ayd and soe overrun of late since the great mischiefs done Conecticot forces have bin thereaboute and slayne many Indeans otherwise they might there have dwelt without enteruption our mischiefs have hapened the rather in that Conecticott and Rhode Island Challeng the Jurisdiction of the Country thereaboute and soe between them both the places have not bin defended by either and the Inhabytants exspose (among the greatest throng of the Indeans that wear knowne neer) to the mischiefs they have done to theyr utter ruens, Conecticot have had litle or noe mischief done in such partes of theyr Jurisdiction wher Rhode Island Challengeth not59 And they have the moste ayde of Indeans to the greatest

58 This is a reference to Anglo-Indian hostilities in Virginia that sparked Bacon’s Rebellion. Harris is suggesting that Indians in both colonies were involved in a massive plot against all English. 59 In other words, areas where Rhode Island and Connecticut disputed with one another for jurisdiction were not as well defended as other places.

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succes they go out constantly with vollunteers English and lndeans and have great succes theyr boyes cry to goe out against the Indeans and they let them goe and all run up on the Indeans without fear, they have killd, tooke, and come into them five hundered Indeans this sumer. A great counciller of the narragansetts (and spetially of a great woman)60 yea the greatest that ther was the said woman (called) the old Queene, the foresaid counciller her greatest favoret he doth as much excel in depth of Judgment: common witts, as Saull was taller than others of Israell, he bore as much sway by his Councill at Narraganset (acording to his and theyr small proportions) as Great Mazerreen61 among the frensh, The said man called (Potuck) he came to providence lately inquireing how he might get to boesten safe, pretending to peace, but some unadvisedly not reaching his intent told him he had better goe to Rhode Island disafacting his goeing to the bay and they neither considering that Rhode Island could make noe peace with him that would be the Indeans peace with the United Collonyes for that Rhode Island was not in confederacy with them but that notwithstand they should pretend to make peace with them others the English would fight them and not safe for Rhode Island to trust the lndeans promeses they are soe perfideous allsoe, but three men there at providence consented to his goeing to the Island aforesaid and sent him by water and promised him safe returne to a place called warwick poynt at three days end, but when he came there onely two or three seemed willing to his safe returne after they had largly talked with him (to say two or three of the court) that wear willing to shew it theyr opinion but some of the Inbabytants girt on theyr swords and said he should not goe of from the Island alive saying he had kild more English soules then any Indean (by his councill) or then any had done with weapons others saying yet it was according to Armes to keep promes with perleys and it would teach them faythfullnes in such cases and the contrary would teach them trechory against the lives of inocent soules, but while he was detayned aboute foure score of lusty Indeans well armed waited at the place to which he was to returne whome he there apoynted to be and in the mean time came Conecticot forces whoe in theyr march met with Indeans and fought them and kild the said olde Queen and many more and came to warwick and there met with the said Indeans (who stayd for Potuck) and slew moste of them allsoe, but the said potuck is still at Rhode Island but in danger to be killd and it is further objected against him that he was one of them that slew captayne pierce and his men and that burnt houses at Rehoboth, providence, and patuxet and ther killd persons and tooke much cattell and allsoe said that they that promesed him safe returne had noe such power

60 Quaiapen, or the “Old Queen,” a sister of Ninigret, was a powerful Narragansett leader … 61 Cardinal Mazerin was the chief advisor of French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV. To the English, Mazerin’s name was synonymous with craftiness and duplicity.

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soe to doe, but true it is that he was promesed safe returne by three to say one Asistant, two called captaynes but I perceiveing his subtillty neither desired his goeing nor promesed him safe returne … but in court declared my desire of his safe returne for the foresaid promes which was by the makers without condition and had power not to have sent him, and if not sent him then had bin at liberty and not bin there violently nor Irregulerly killd with a tumullt … there came in and brought in yesterday fourteen Indeans to Rhode Island some of them poor and leane and one of them wounded before they being in distris for fear of the English and lndeans theyr friends, and haueing noe powder, and wanting victualls. we lately hear that the moowhagues have slayne one Cononicus one of the narragansetts chief sachems By reason of the present unhappy war The kings Majestyes letter and order to the foure govemors cannot be put in Execution, but know of noe other obstruction my ever thankes to God, And the kings majesty for the same, And your Honnors very Humble servant shall never forget your Honnors kindness William Harris … Ever since The takeing of the great man of Narraganset the war hath gon moste against the Indeans, And within two or three dayes after a great army of Indeans supposed a thousand bosted of theyr victoryes at Providence over the English in a pearley there the foresaid great man was taken by Conecticot forces, from which time march to this 12th of August 1676 two thousand Indeans have bin killd taken and come in And supposed fifteen hundered before, And some say a thousand English from the first slayne, but I doubt neerer fifteen hundered. The Indeans come in dayly, and fight presently against the Indeans they came from and betray one another into the hands of the English And because Conecticot forces are most constantly active and kill all save boyes and girls The Indeans haste into the Massachusets and plimoth to scape them that are moste like (by the help of Indeans that are with them) to kill them Another ocation of theyr comeing in is want of powder which is hard to be got they now haveing but litle to buy it And goe to buy it in great danger of theyr lives by reason of the Indeans called Moowhauges62 theyr enemyes that meet with them that use to kill and eat theyr enemyes but formerly they have said they had powder of the Duch aboute forte Alboney There have more Indeans dyed since the war began by sicknes and hunger then by the sword soe … It hath bin gods hevy hand on them as well as on the English for they now are not only in dandger of the English and divers sorts of lndeans but of theyr owne supposed friends haveing bin soe much

62 Mohawks.

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trapand by them that they are afrayed of all they see but least of those of rhode Island for ther they come in and are as well acommodated as ever they wear in theyr lives only they are called servants but soone after peace is concluded they will run all away againe as the captives formerly did after the pequot war forty years since … Just now newes is brought That this 12th of August early in the morneing phillip was Slayne in a swamp within a mile of mount hope and about a mile and half from Rhode Island he was with a few men there and set upon by one Captayne Benjamine Church of Plimoth and Captayne Pealeg Sanford of Rhode Island each of them with forty men and the said phillip shott through the heart by an lndean that lives on Rhode Island and his head and hands are now on the said Island, here being one Mr Moore now bounde for the north of England I will at the next convenyent opertunity make bolde to derect these by him to your Honnor your Honnors favour being my continewall remembrancer for ever of my moste humble and faithfull servis for your optayneing for me the kings Majestyes letters on my behalf … prayers for the kings Majestyes long life and your Honnors Very Humble Servant William Harris I know noe hinderance of the Execution of the Kings Majestys order but the present war Impeading the same August 12, 1676

C SCANT MERCY

William Wannuckhow and Sons Petition for Their Lives* On July 20, 1676, William Wannuckhow, alias Jackstraw, of Magunkook/ Magunkaquog and his two sons, Joseph Wannuckhow and John Appamatahqueen, accepted an English offer of “life and liberty” to those Indians who surrendered by a certain deadline. Although they had participated in a wartime event – an attack on February 1 on the home of colonist Thomas Eames outside of Sudbury (now Framingham, Mass.) – they took the magistrates at their word, believing that the Massachusetts offer of clemency would ensure their safety.1 But when the victim of the assault, Thomas Eames, insisted on their arrest and punishment, the magistrates put the Wannuckhow men on trial, convicted them of the murders, and executed them on September 21. Within weeks of surrendering at the home of Thomas Prentice, the Wannuckhows were arrested under a warrant issued by magistrate Thomas Danforth “to answer the complaint of Thomas Eames” for the attack on the Eames home. The raid was a particularly grisly one, in which Eames’ wife and several children were killed, the rest carried off to captivity, and the house and barn burned. Although they began by “denying all,” Joseph confessed after Danforth held out the possibility of leniency in exchange for the truth. Joseph’s confession yielded the full list of eleven participants in the raid, which

* SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30:216. 1 For the attack on the Eames home see Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 1999), 185.

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included six who had lived at Magunkaquog.2 William Wannuckhow meanwhile admitted that his sons “were present,” but he himself had “kept at a distance.” All were sentenced to death on August 18.3 The Wannuckhows, father and sons, then submitted a petition to the Council pleading for their lives, arguing that the judgment against them violated the promise Massachusetts had made to those who surrendered, and emphasizing the steps that they had taken to mitigate the damage of the attack, in which they claimed to be unwilling participants. The immediate goal on the day of the attack was to go to Magunkaquog and collect the corn that they had stored there, not to destroy an English dwelling and kill or capture its occupants. But when they found that someone had taken their corn, the leader, Netus, and others in the group decided to raid the nearest farm, especially because they assumed the family living there had stolen their food supply.4 Thomas Eames, the householder, was away in Boston at the time. In addition to insisting on their non-involvement in the actual violence, the petitioners pointed out that they should be treated as enemy combatants, not rebels or criminals, because atrocious acts committed during a war should not be blamed upon discrete individuals. What had happened to the Eames family was an act of war, regardless of who carried it out, and should not, in Wannuckow’s opinion, be considered as a crime that one would charge upon a malefactor – “killing, burning, etc.” – as related on the constable’s warrant.5 It is unclear how the Wannuckhows came to be in Netus’s party on the fateful day. Certainly the Magunkaquog community, from which they hailed, had begun to scatter early under the pressure of violence. The Magunkaquog leader Pomham, or Pomhaman, described as a “sober and active man, and pious,” according to Daniel Gookin as of 1674, turned against the English, while the town’s religious teacher, Job Kattenanit – like his brother Joseph Tuckapawillin – proved his “fidelity” many times over. At the beginning of the war, in July, 1675, the people of Magunkaquog had taken refuge in Marlborough, but soon saw wrongful accusations of murder being hurled against praying Indians there,

2 The list included Netus, Anaweakin/Anneweaken, Aponapawquin alias Old Jacob, Acompanatt alias James, Pakananumquis alias Joshua Assalt; William Wannuckhow alias Jackstraw; Joseph Wannuckhow; Apumatquin alias John; Pumapen; Awassaquah; and Aquitekash. J.H. Temple, History of Framingham (Framingham, MA, 1887), 75; Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 211. 3 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 211. 4 Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 216. 5 In discussing this episode, Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 315–320, suggests that the praying Indian community, including James Printer, who had a role in persuading the family to surrender, and leaders of the Indian scouts who were concerned for the safety of other praying Indians, including their own families, had a hand in writing this petition. On its calling attention to the discrepancy between the rules of war and the practices of the Massachusetts justice system see Ibid.; and Louise A. Breen, Transgressing the Bounds: Subversive Enterprises Among the Puritan Elite in Massachusetts, 1630–1692 (New York: Oxford, 2001), 190–191.

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including Kattenanit’s brother, James Printer. Anaweakin, another brother of Job, James, and Joseph, was present, like Wannuckhow, at the attack on the Eames family, and both had probably witnessed the outrageous brutality of Samuel Mosely when he arrested the men at Marlborough, including Anaweakin’s brother, James Printer. Wannuckhow, and possibly Anaweakin, were in the group that left in November, 1675 with the Nipmuc warriors who confronted the group harvesting corn at Hassanamesit, an event that Gookin saw as harming the image of Christian Indians in English eyes. Thomas Eames and his son John, however, aggressively sought the prosecution of those who had killed their family members and destroyed possessions valued at over L300.6 The colony granted them 200 acres in compensation for their losses, and they later sued the Indians for a tract of 200 acres near their original farm. Still, the Eames family long remained unsatisfied because Aponapawquin, or Old Jacob, and Pumapen, managed to elude prosecution.7 What was more, at the time of Wannuckhow’s arrest, they were angry that Thomas Danforth did not aggressively seek to apprehend two of the perpetrators. Pakananumquis, also known as Joshua Assalt, was serving with the English under Captain Hunting in Marlborough by the time of the trial, and Awassaquah was “at the Ponds sick.” Danforth delayed and asked for advice from Governor John Leverett on whether to pursue Assalt, but did not seem eager, even though “Goodman Eames is very earnest” that he try to capture all who had a part in the attack.8 Neither the Wannuckhow nor the Eames family could be the same again after the violent raid. But amid all this devastation, the Eames family could at least benefit from a sympathetic judicial system. Wannuckow and his two sons, on the other hand, lost their lives, and the younger children were parceled out as servants to Bay Colony residents, slated to serve until the age of 24. We know this because Gookin served on a committee in August, 1676 to bind out the children of Indians who had surrendered to authorities, including the Wannuckhows, and he carefully recorded the outcome of the committee’s work.9

The Document To the Honourable Court of Assistants sitting at Boston, September the 5th 1676 The Humble Petition of William Wannuckhow, Joseph Wannuckhow and John Appamatahqueen, all Prisoners at the Barr _ _ _

6 Temple, Framingham, 74–75. 7 A petition of two of the surviving Eames sons fulminated that “two of those murderers … had their lives granted them, and they lived many years at Natick after their return.” Ibid., 57. 8 Massachusetts Archives Collection, 212a. 9 Daniel Gookin, “Indian Children Put To Service, 1676,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, VIII (1854), 270–273.

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Humbly imploreth your favor, to hear and consider our supplication: wee know that your honours are men of truth fearing God and will faithfully performe your promises, especially when it concernes so great a matter as the lives of men. You were pleased (of your own benignity not for any deserts of ours) to give forth your declaration dated the 19th of June where in you were pleased to promise life and liberty unto such of yor enimies as did come in and submitt themselves to your mercy order and disposall within a time limited which afterward was enlarged to a longer time, and tidinges thereof sent by James Printer unto us, which offers of grace, as soone as we heard of it, we redily embraced it and came in accordingly, our sonnes, wifes, and children (as Capt Prentis and his son with others to whose house we were directed to come are redy to testifie) and those orders of yours are upon record the coppies whereof we are redy to present. If it should be said that we are known to be notorious in doeing mischief to the English, we answer none can so say in truth or prove any such thing against us. Indeed we doe acknowledge that we were in company of those that burnt Goodman Eames his house. But we did not act in it. It was done by others, who are slain in the warrs, and so have answerd Gods justice for their demerits, as for our parts we came along with that company upon a necessary and just occasion, to get our corn which we had planted gathered and put up at Magungoog. But findeing our corn taken away we intended to returne. But Noatus [Netus] and another man that were our leaders earnestly moved to goe to Goodman Eames farm for to get Corn, and they said they did believe he had taken our corn. But we were unwilling to goe. But they by their perswasion and threatening carried us with them. But as wee said before we neither kild nor burnt nor took away anything there, but were instrumental to save Goodman Eames his children alive, one of us carried one boy upon our backs rather than let him be killed. This is the truth of things. So that we cannot be reckoned among such as have been notorious in doeing Mischiefe. Indeed we were among the Enimies, being tempted to goe among them by the example of our chiefe men Capt. Tom and others. But we had no armes nor did not hurt the English as many others have done, that yea upon there submission to your Mercy are pardoned. Besides, it was a time of ware when this mischeife was done, and though it was our unhappy portion to be with enimies, yet we conceive that depredations and slaughtors in warr are not chargable upon particular persons, especially such as have submited themselves to yor honours upon promise of life as we have done, therefore we desire againe to insist upon that plea, that we may receive the benifit of your declaration before mentioned. Our lives will not be at all benificiall to Goodman Eames. Those that slew his wife and relations and burnt the house have already suffered death and the sattisfaction of Goodman Eames in our death will not countervail the Honor and Justice of the Authority of the Country that may be blemished thereby.

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Therefore let it pleas your honours to consider the promises and graunt us our lives as you have promised which will ever oblige us to be your most faithful Subjects and Servants. The markes of William Wannuckhow Joseph Wannuckhow John Appamatahqueen

John Lake Requests a Stay of Sagamore Sam’s Execution in Exchange for Help Finding His Brother*10 In September 1676, John Lake requested that Massachusetts postpone the execution of war prisoner Sagamore Sam in exchange for the latter’s help in finding Lake’s brother, Thomas, who remained unaccounted for after an Indian raid in Maine the previous month. Sagamore Sam (alias Shoshonim, Upchattuck, Uskattuhgun), the sachem of Nashaway, was a hated figure because he had led attacks earlier in the war. But Lake was probably aware that in the summer of 1676 Sagamore Sam had begun making overtures of peace and attempting to locate and restore English captives – a precondition, according to Massachusetts magistrates, to the cessation of hostilities.11 He therefore hoped that the Council would spare Sagamore Sam’s life if he could help free Thomas. Thomas Lake, on whose behalf John wrote the petition, was co-owner, with fellow Boston merchant Thomas Clarke, of a substantial trading post on Arrowsic Island, Maine. He had been killed when the post was attacked and destroyed on August 14, but Bostonians had no way of knowing this in September.12 Understandably, John Lake welcomed rumors that the Indians had captured rather than killed Thomas, who would certainly have brought a high price in any exchange. It made sense to suppose that Sagamore Sam might be able to help. In the spring of 1676, the Nipmuc leader had participated in negotiations for the release of Mary Rowlandson, and then tried to redeem English captives from the Narragansetts, only to learn that his own family and others had been taken

*10 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30: 221B. 11 On the letters that Sagamore Sam and other Nipmuc sachems addressed to Massachusetts leaders in July, 1676, see Dennis A. Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country in Southern New England, 1630–1750 (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 2001), 204–205. On John Lake’s correct assumption that Sagamore Sam would have far-ranging connections into the Wabanaki country, see Brooks, Our Beloved Kin. 335-36. 12 On the Arrowsic Island operation see Emerson W. Baker, The Clarke and Lake Company: The Historical Archaeology of a Seventeenth-Century Main Settlement (Augusta, GA: Maine Historic Preservation Commission, 1985). On the attack see Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 1999), 309–314.

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prisoner at Weshakim Pond in early June by English and Indian soldiers under Daniel Henchman.13 In July, he and other sachems were in despair over the captivity of their own family members, and included pleas on behalf of those who were now in English hands while also trying to arrange a peace with the English: Mr. John Leveret [governor of Massachusetts], my Lord, Mr. Waban [ruler of the praying town at Natick], and all the chief men our Brethren, Praying to god: We beseech you all to help us; my Wife she is but one, but there be more Prisoners, which we pray you keep well.14 Although the praying Indian teacher Simon Boshokum of Wamesit served as scribe for the sachems, Gookin did not include any account of the peacemaking attempts of the Nipmuc sachems in his narrative, and likely was unsympathetic to their efforts, even though he did try to intercede in the cases of condemned Indians, who, like Captain Tom, seemed as though they landed in enemy camps through unfortunate circumstances, such as mistreatment by the English or pressure from enemy warriors. The Massachusetts Council rebuffed the Nipmuc sachems’ efforts, and warned that “treacherous Persons who began the War, and those that have been barbarously bloody, must not expect to have their lives spared.”15 Sagamore Sam wisely fled north, realizing he would probably be executed if he tried to surrender, but was captured in early September.16 The Council denied John Lake’s petition without knowing whether his brother, Thomas, was dead or alive. Colonists were in no mood to allow an enemy who had been involved in violent acts to live, much less a highly visible leader like Sagamore Sam. In addition, there was little sympathy for wealthy individuals like Thomas Lake who engaged in trade with Indians and then asked for special favors. True to their promise to punish anyone who had taken a leading role in the war, the Council executed Sagamore Sam. The events leading up to the death of Thomas Lake illustrate the difficult position of men who operated between worlds. King Philip’s War in southern New England had spread to Maine when colonists, fearful that the numerous bands of Wabanaki Indians would join with Philip, insisted that Indians surrender their weapons to local authorities. This pre-emptive demand, in addition

13 This was the same incident in which William Ahaton’s five-year-old niece was captured. See document below, 182. 14 Quoted in Connole, Indians of Nipmuck Country, 204–205. On shock at the Englishmen’s violent attack on Indians peacefully pursuing subsistence activities at Washakim Pond, see Brooks, Beloved Kin., 305-6. 15 Quoted in Connole, Indians of Nipmuck Country, 205. 16 Ibid., 210.

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to incidents in which the English seized captives and corn from Indian fields, led to violence, and Lake had come under criticism as a supplier of goods to the Indians: “The Indians all this time were well provided for of victuals by Capt. Lake, with other supplies of Rhum and Tobacco,” wrote William Hubbard, who usually described Lake in glowing terms, “even to the disgusting of some English then present.”17 If some English saw Lake as too lax in his trade, local Wabanakis on the Kennebec River probably thought the opposite. The Clarke and Lake Company had offended the local Indian populace by suspending service to the Indian fort of Totonnock after the Penobscot sachem Madockawando and his people had moved there in the wake of violence between Indians and English. Not only did the company decide to “fetch down the Powder and Shot with other goods” from the satellite “trading house” they maintained near Totonnock, but they sent a messenger who spoke menacingly to the Indians about what would happen if they did not disperse from the fort. Company agent Sylvanus Davis had instructed the messenger to assure the Indians that the Company would continue to do business with them from the main trading post on Arrowsic Island: “he would have them come down and live below in that River [Kennebec] to take off Jealousies [to alleviate the suspicions of the English], and that he would then supply them with what was needful.” But the emissary instead delivered a very different message, not authorized by the Company, threatening that “in Case they would not come down and deliver up their Arms, the English would kill them.”18 The Indians did not forget the incident of the garbled message, and clearly had not believed that it was just a misunderstanding. When Davis participated in peace negotiations with Wabanaki sachems at Totonnock in the weeks leading up to the attack on Arrowsic Island, Assiminasqua, the adoptive father of Madockawando, made pointed reference to the threat and other instances in which the English had insulted and harmed Indians: And not only so, but a second Time you required our Guns, and demanded us to come down unto you, or else you would kill us, which was the Cause of our leaving both our Fort, and our Corn to our great Loss. Madackowando demanded to know what they should do for Powder and Shot, when they had eaten up their Indian Corn, what they should do for the Winter, for their hunting

17 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 99. 18 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 148.

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Voyages; asking withal, whether they would have them dye, or leave their Country, and go all over to the French.19 The talks broke down when the English could give no definite date at which trade in the desired items would be restored. Access to guns and powder was critical to Indians who relied on hunting in order to eat, particularly when colonists deprived them of their corn. Violence finally engulfed Arrowsic Island when the Saco sachem, Squando, who had not been present at the talks, attacked Falmouth on August 11, 1676. Three days later, the Arrowsic Island fort was destroyed. Between the Arrowsic post and neighboring targets that were also attacked, 53 were killed or taken hostage and 12 escaped, with Lake among the casualties. When survivors from attacks in the region received a letter from Thomas Clarke “desiring their Assistance for enquiring after Capt. Lake if alive,” the bearers informed them that it was “in vain to expect any help from Boston.”20 Soon after, the majority of English settlers departed the Kennebec area and left it depopulated. The coordinator of the raid was said to have been Simon, a Christian Indian who had, according to Hubbard, escaped from a jail at Dover after he learned that the English would prosecute him for what he had done in the war even though he had submitted and returned captives.21 The fate of Thomas Lake was not known until March 11, 1677, when Richard Waldron, who recovered Lake’s body during a military expedition to Maine in February, 1677, brought it home for proper burial. As Gookin reported in his narrative, Christian Indian soldiers supported Waldron during this expedition. Hubbard, in his history, claimed that Thomas Lake’s body was amazingly intact, “preserved entire and whole and free from Putrefaction by the Coldness of the long Winter,” and “easily discerned to be his, by such as had known him before.” Lake’s pastor, Increase Mather, was more circumspect, noting that the “bones of Capt. Lake and as much of his body as remained unconsumed” arrived home, having been “found in the place where the Indians killed him.”22

19 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II: 154; Kenneth M. Morrison, The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki-Euroamerican Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984), espp. 109–110; and J. Wingate Thornton, “Ancient Pemaquid: An Historical Review,” in Collections of the Maine Historical Society V (1857), 139–306, quoted at 252. 20 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 165. 21 George W. Ellis and John E. Morris, King Philip’s War: Based on the Archives and Records of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut (New York, 1906), 300, 304; Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 131, 202. 22 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles, II, 224; “Diary of Increase Mather,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, ser. 2, vol. 13 (Boston, MA, 1900), 405.

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The families of both John Lake and Sagamore Sam experienced tragedies. Sagamore Sam suffered death at the end of the executioner’s rope on September 22, 1676, knowing that his wife and children would be made servants or sold as slaves. John Lake waited months to learn the fate of his brother, and finally saw him “honorably interred” on March 13, 1677.

The Document Boston the 15th of September 1676 To the Honored Governor and Council sitting at Boston. The humble petition of John Lake. Whereas there hath been and is a common fame of my brother Thomas Lake being captive among the Indians, and hearing nothing to the contrary, gives some hopes that it may be soe and hearing that Sagamore Sam is to receive the sentence of death (as it is supposed) if so, the same [news] thereof may go to those Indians with whom my brother is, which may provoke them to proceed with him to the same sentence of death. Wherefore my humble request is that you would be pleased to suspend his sentence or at least the execution thereof for about twenty or thirty dayes; in which time if the said Sam can be instrumentall to procure the return of my brother that you then would be pleased to spare his life; for the effecting of this, that you would be pleased to let him have the choice of some Indians whom he knows may have most influence upon them, in whom he can best trust for their return in that it may concern his own life, so that upon their return we may certainly know how it is with my brother, which will oblige your humble petitioner … Denyed 15th of September 1676

Daniel Gookin Certifies the Courage of Two Praying Indian Men Wishing to Free Their Captured Niece from Prison, August 1676*23 Gookin, in Doings and Sufferings, noted that by the summer of 1676 English attitudes may have begun to soften toward Christian Indians. Still, no Indian could take the safety of family members for granted. In the document below, we see that two brothers who served under Captain Samuel Hunting of Charlestown – Samuel and Jeremy Hide, or Hyde – found it necessary to enlist Gookin’s help in getting their twenty-year-old niece released from custody in the Boston jail. The niece might have been a woman named Chechaubabeto, who had migrated from Providence and been taken into custody around the same time Gookin was writing out his certificate. It is unclear how or where

*23 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection, 30: 221.

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Chechaubabeto was captured, but she told a constable that she had come “to see Sam Hides wife and her cousin that lived with Sam Hide.” The constable questioned her closely as to her point of origin, how many people were there, and what provisions they had. Interestingly, she provided no answer to the query concerning “what place they killed Englishmen att last.”24 Chechaubabeto, probably a Wampanoag, was most likely a refugee searching for family. While it is uncertain whether she was the niece that the Hide men wanted released from prison, her plight illustrates the difficulties that all Indians, whether refugees from the “enemy” or loyal Christians, faced. The relatives and friends of Christian Indians who scouted for the English had no special protection from capture, unless they had powerful advocates.25 Gookin wrote out and signed a certificate on the Hide’s behalf, dated from his home in Cambridge, attesting to the good service Samuel and Jeremy had done in the war. He emphasized their having killed one enemy Indian and taken eight captives. The severed hand that Samuel Hide gave to Captain Hunting as proof of a kill shows how gruesome the work of scouting could be. Gookin finished up his certificate noting that the young men had asked him to state their intention to be “allwaies your servants and subjects.” Indians were reminded on daily basis of their social vulnerability, subordinate status, and need for patrons like Gookin. They were most certainly not treated as hardworking soldiers with a right to share in the English victory.

The Document These for the Honourable Governour and Councill of Massachusetts These may certify that the Bearers hereof Samuel and Jerimy Hide two Indians that have been souldiers under Capt Hunting, who with his Leiftenant26 have testified unto mee that the said souldiers have acquitted themselves well both for courage and fidelity especially Samuel Hide whom they have witnessed to bee on of the best and most active souldiers of them all. The request and petition of these two souldiers is that your honours wil

24 Ibid., 30: 202a. Chechaubabeto had probably traveled to Mount Watchusett, because when asked where the Indians “now were” she replied “a great hill called Watchuset.” From the activities and concerns being discussed, it would seem the interrogation took place in the late summer, even though it may have been submitted later, and this would make it synchronous with the certificate Gookin wrote. 25 Many Indians by the summer of 1676 were, as historian Lisa Brooks, Beloved Kin, argues, attempting to return to their lands to plant and fish, not to make war. Christian scouts were required to round them up, regardless of whether they had ever raised a weapon to the English, while worrying continually that their own relatives could be taken into custody. 26 James Richardson of Chelmsford, who had earlier professed the innocence of Wamesit Indians accused of burning his hay.

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release unto them a prisoner now at Boston a young woman aged about 20 yeares their brothers daughter (who died 7 yeares since.) These men being unkals to this young woman; And as an argument to induce your honors to grant this boone they plead that these two brothers have taken captives and delivered them to Capt Hunting (as hee can witness). Sam Hide tooke at Bridgwater 1 young man: and 5 more women and children at other places and hee slew one lusty man and brought his hand to Capt Hunting at Mount Hope. And Jerimy Hide tooke two young squas beyond Mendon. The whole number tooke captive was eight and on[e] slayne and of this your honors may bee fully informed by Captain Hunting and others his officers. This humbly desiring and hoping your honors will gratify those men in their desire and request in this matter which will oblige them as they say to bee allwaies your servants and subjects. Samuel and Jerimy Hide At whose request this is certified by Daniel Gookin Cambridge August 25th 1676

William Ahaton Pleads for the Freedom of a Five-Year Old Relative, July, 1676*27 The high-status Christian Indian William Ahaton used his influence to help free relatives who had been taken captive by the English. In the petition reprinted here, Ahaton’s plea is very personal, because he speaks on behalf of a five-year-old relative of his wife who was being held at Concord. The girl had been taken captive in early June by Ahaton’s son, who was serving with the Massachusetts militia under Daniel Henchman. Ahaton feared that she might be sold into slavery outside of New England because she had been found with followers of Sagamore Sam, whom colonists of Massachusetts thought of as a war criminal.28 It is unknown whether the younger Ahaton had recognized his relative, but he would not have had the ability to intercede for her while serving on this mission. The English expected Christian Indian scouts and guides to show their loyalty by killing or capturing anyone who could be construed as an enemy, including those simply found in enemy camps, regardless of age or gender.29 William Ahaton was particularly well placed to ask for favors. The scandal surrounding his wife’s adultery in the previous decade notwithstanding, Ahaton had long been held up as a model Christian. John Eliot had featured

*27 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection, 207A. 28 Connole, Indians of the Nipmuck Country, 204–205. 29 On the toll this punishing work must have taken, see especially Brooks, Our Beloved Kin.

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a character patterned on Ahaton, “William Abahton,” in his Indian Dialogues, which attempted to show what words might have been exchanged when Christian Indian religious teachers tried to spread the word of God. Ahaton had also been chosen to serve as an emissary from Natick to King Philip in 1671, at a time when tension between colonists and Mount Hope Wampanoags ran high. In addition, the well-known clergyman Increase Mather praised Ahaton, in his history of the war, for informing authorities about King Philip’s role in the murder of John Sassamon, the fallout from which had helped to spark the war.30

The Document For the Honourable The Governor and Councill The humble Petition of William Ahaton May it please your honours: to graunt your poore supplyant a small Beneficence, which is this. There is a little Indian girle of about five yeares old that is of kindred to my wife that was taken by my son (of your soldiers) a captive or prisoner at Weshakum the seaventh of June. This child is now at Concord. My humble request is that you will please to give us [the?] child and that shee not bee sold away out of the contry and your petitioner wilbe very Thankfull and allwaies pray for your Happyines.

Daniel Gookin Certifies That Mary Nemasit, Wife of a Praying Indian Soldier, Was Sold by Mistake*31 In the fall of 1676, John Nemasit, who had been serving in the company of Captain Joseph Sill, learned that Richard Waldron had wrongly shipped his wife, Mary, and their child, to Boston with a group of Indians who were

30 John Eliot’s Indian Dialogues: A Study in Cultural Interaction, ed. Henry W. Bowden and James P. Ronda (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980); “Instructions from the Church at Natick to William and Anthony,” August 1, 1671, MHSC, 1st ser., vol. 6 (Boston, MA, 1799), 201–203; and Increase Mather, “A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New England,” in So Dreadfull a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King Philip’s War, 1676–77, ed. Richard Slotkin and James K. Folsom (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1978), 87. In 1678–9, Ahaton petitioned the United Colonies on behalf of a sister of John Sassamon who had been assigned to serve a man in Plymouth, presumably as a result of being captured during the war. The commissioners decided that she was to be freed, but the man who owned her labor was to be compensated half of the five pounds he had paid for her from monies belonging to the “Indian Stocke,” which owed Sassamon for earlier services rendered, and half from her “friends,” after which she would be free to remain at Punkapoag. David Pulsifer, Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, 1643–1679, vols. 9–10, in Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 12 vols. In 9 (Boston, MA, 1855–61), X: 366. *31 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection 30:228.

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suspected of wrongdoing during the war. He had sold her to Boston merchants Thomas Deane and James Whitcomb. Waldron, as the dominant military authority in Dover, New Hampshire, was part of a committee authorized to take in those who wished to surrender, and to separate out alleged perpetrators of violent acts for additional punishment or scrutiny. But he rapidly became notorious for his duplicity in these matters, most notably in September 1676, when some who had come in under the auspices of the peaceful Pennacook sachem Wannalancet were unceremoniously shipped off to Boston as prisoners. Waldron was also known for participating in Indian slaving expeditions that skirted the bounds of legality, a fact which must have added considerably to Nemasit’s angst.32 Nemasit turned to Daniel Gookin for help in freeing his wife and child. Gookin got Waldron to admit that Mary was not supposed to have been sent to Boston, and to promise that he would reimburse the men who had purchased her. Waldron, however, attempted to blame Mary Nemasit for not having been vocal enough in protesting her own imprisonment: “how she came among that company I know not … twas her own fault in not Acquainting mee with it.”33 The document below is the certificate that Nemasit asked Gookin to provide so that he would have a document in hand to prove that his wife and child were rightfully free and should be released. The document attests to the difficulties that even the most loyal of Christian Indians faced.

The Document Cambridge November 20, 1676 These may certify that the bearer John Nemasett who hath been a souldier in the country service for ten weekes this summer who hath a wife and sucking child now in prison at Boston; who had her life and liberty promised and ingaged to her husband at Passcataway and was left at Cocheco34 while her husband and the rest of the army went to Casco and Black Point: But during theyr absence this woman and child was sent among others (through mistake) to Boston and there sold among the rest to Mr. Whetcombe and Mr. Deane, but upon motion to the Councel shee was stopt in prison and a piece of red cloth tyed about her arme and necke.35 Also I testify that Major Walderne36 in

32 On this incident and Waldron more generally see Newell, Brethren By Nature, 191–192; 181–187. 33 Waldron to Gookin, Cochecha, November 2, 1676, in George M. Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War, 309. 34 Dover, New Hampshire. 35 The cloth was to signify that she was to be freed and not lumped in with the other captives. 36 Richard Waldron.

Scant Mercy

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his letter to my selfe acknowledged that the woman ought to be freed and delivered to her husband and declared he is willing to repay what he received for her. This I was desired to certify: having strongly examined the matter and heard divers witnesses … witness my hand this day and yeare above written. Daniel Gookin, Sen.

Gookin Helps a Natick Woman Get Compensation for a Confiscated Gun*37 The issue of gun ownership was a constant source of conflict in King Philip’s War. Indians needed their weapons in order to accomplish basic subsistence tasks, but colonial officials were quick to confiscate their guns. When Indians were asked to surrender their weapons, they became disgruntled not just because of the economic hardship, but also because it was an expression of distrust that illustrated their unequal position in colonial society.38 In this document, we see Gookin interceding on behalf of a widow, Sarah, whose gun was “impressed” and then lost by the Sudbury constable in 1675, with no restitution offered. The petition shows how keenly Christian Indians like Sarah felt their losses, and how they looked to Gookin to obtain redress of grievances.

The Document For Mr. James Russell Esq. Treasurer of the Country Sir there is justly due to this woman a widow named Sarah living at Naticke from the country for a gun impressed from her at Sudbury by Mr. Noyes the Constable there in the beginning the warre Anno 1675, which gun Mr. Noyes doe acknowledge was impressed and lost and no satisfaction given for it to the owner. She has for many yeares solicited me about it. I am loath to trouble the Council for so small a matter, but have written this note to desire you to order this woman twenty shillings in corne or something else that may sute her as country pay; and charge it to the Country. Accordingly, whereas I doubt not but it will be Allowed; so I remaine your loving friend and servant. Cambridge May 16, 1681 The magistrates judgment that this order of Daniel Gookin … be performed by the Treasurer.

*37 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection: 30: 258A. 38 Pulsipher, Subjects to the Same King, emphasizes the seizure of Indian weapons as a major source of friction between the English and native peoples.

186

Ancillary Primary Source Documents

Wait Winthrop and Wamesit Land, 1679–80*39 In 1679, with the praying Indians of Wamesit having been scattered and abused during the war, the powerful Wait Winthrop tried to assert a land claim over their Merrimack Valley lands, fearful that others, such as Jonathan Tyng, would successfully petition for the land. Winthrop was the grandson of John Winthrop, a leading colonist of the first generation who had served numerous terms as governor until his death in 1649. Wait, in a 1679 petition, insisted that a portion of Wamesit land rightfully belonged to the Winthrop family, and spoke in a dismissive way about the missionary enterprise. In reality, John Eliot had obtained a grant from the General Court for the Wamesit praying town in 1653, and in 1664 had made an agreement with the Winthrop estate – whereby the Winthrops received compensatory land in Billerica – in order to gain approval for an expansion of the Wamesit land base.40 The issue, therefore, should have been settled, as Gookin pointed out in a petition rebutting Winthrop’s claims.41 Wait Winthrop’s petition, which appears below, describes his version of the history of the land grant, of which he and his uncles were beneficiaries. Interestingly, while Winthrop was worried that other English claimants would muscle in to lay claim to the land, he found it necessary to cast aspersions on the original Wamesit praying town, which had contained only a portion of his land grant to begin with – even though this had been compensated much earlier. Daniel Gookin’s rebuttal to Winthrop’s claims, which he signed “on behalf of the Wamesit Indians,” insisted that the Indians had occupied the place from “ancient” times, and that the land was “now actually in possession of the praying Indians … by order of the Generall Court … Therefore it cannot be just to grant the petitioners request to come to Concord River mouth and take away the Indians plantations.”42 The remaining Indians at Wamesit ultimately sold their land to Jonathan Tyng, who had become their postwar guardian, in the “Wamesit Purchase” of 1686, and Tyng crafted an amicable settlement with the Winthrop family.43 But as of 1680 Gookin, himself an avid pursuer of frontier lands, attempted to speak up for residents of Wamesit, who had

*39 SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives Collection, 45: 173. 40 Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War, 146–467. 41 Petition of Daniel Gookin, May 3, 1680, Photostats, Massachusetts Historical Society. 42 Massachusetts Archives Collection 45: 181a. 43 See Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford (Lowell, Mass., 1917), 511–514, for Tyng’s purchase and subsequent sale of the Wamesit lands to English buyers. The deed carefully excepted the “meadow in Wamesit belonging to the Honorable House of the Winthrops.” On Jonathan Tyng see John Frederick Martin, Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 98–101.

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been through so much during the war, having had to flee the region more than once and having lost key leaders to starvation. Winthrop’s rationale for harking back to a 1640 land grant that had already been satisfied was ominous: “God has pleaded our right by expelling the Indyan inhabitants and leaveing the land in status quo prius.” This way of thinking threatened Indian land holdings everywhere. Regardless of whether they had supported the English or not during King Philip’s world, Indians faced a postwar world in which they would gradually be compelled to give up most of their lands.44

The Document May it please the Honorable Court to Consider. That sometime about the year 1640 the General Court then sitting haveing a gratefull sense of the great Disadvantage my Grandfather (then Governor) had laid his family under by his publique Expenses and undertakeing in laying the foundation which god hath since wonderfully built and blessed was pleased to grant unto my Grand Mother 3000 Acres of Land between Merrimack and Concord River to be laid out as the rivers would allow which land my Grand Mother sensible of the poor provision that was otherwise made for her posterity by the Countrey and my Grandfathers consumption of that estate for publique benefitt that might by private improvement have purchased a competency for the whole family did dispose to my Unckles and my selfe the said land bounded by the originall grant as aforesaid.45 And that about the yeare 1661 or 1662 some persons zealous to settle the Indyans in some Civil and Eccelesiasticall state moved the General Court to grant part of said Land called as I suppose Wamesit for an Indyan plantation which the Generall Court granted ordering the Like quantity or Vallue of other Lands to be laid out to us in Lieue thereof. And then my father and my selfe being in England attending the concernes of a neighbor collony and others interested also absent or in minority none being present to oppose said motion butt my unckle Mr. Deane Winthrop who had but a single share neither consented for himselfe nor was impowred by the rest and that noe land hath been laid out … for our family and though God has pleaded our right by expelling the Indyan inhabitants and leaveing the land in status quo prius yet I have information that some English have by Addresses to this honourable court petitioned for the same or part thereof. My humble request therefore is that that which was

44 For a detailed study of this process at Natick see Jean M. O’Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1690 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). 45 In other words, the elder Winthrop had expended so much time and personal monies on the development of the colony that it placed his own family at an economic disadvantage.

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soe long agoe and upon such good and gratefull considerations granted to us may not bee disposed from us or if any grant to that purpose be already made the same may bee suspended till our claims and right may att the appointment of this Honorable Court further appear.46And that in the interim this may bee communicated to the grantees that remaine as a caveat in this Honourable Court which just favour will oblige all interested and my selfe especially to be Your most humble and faithfull servant Wait Winthrop Boston June 9th, 1679

46 Here Winthrop shows concern that other Englishmen would get title to the land. Due to the dispersal of the original Indian inhabitants of Wamesit during the war, he did not see them as the real competitors for title.

INDEX

Abram, Zeckary/Zackary 9, 47 Acompanatt (alias James) 173n2 Adams, Elizabeth Paine 20 Adams, Lieutenant Henry 20, 94 adultery 132–136 Ahaton, Sarah 132–136 Ahaton/Nahaton/Ahawton/Nahauton, William 74, 86n79, 100, 177n13; pleads for freedom of relative 182–183; wife’s adultery 132–136 Akompanet, James 11, 61n41, 62 alcohol/strong drink 113–114 Algonquians 22 Anaweakin/Anneweaken/Anneweakin 18, 78n68, 173n2, 174 Andros, Edmund 22, 151 Aponapawquin (alias Old Jacob) 173n2, 174 Appamatahqueen, John 172–176 Aquitekash 173n2 Arrowsic Island 114n125, 176, 178, 179 Ashpelon 118n130 Asquenet, John 61n41 Awassaquah 173n2, 174 Bacon’s Rebellion 159, 168n58 Balaam 66, 67n53 Battle of Bloody Brook 55n34, 89n82, 152n24 Bay Colony 9, 10, 26, 27, 29, 142n4, 153n25, 161n46, 174

Beckom/Betoghom/Betogkum/ Boshokum, Symon 15, 16, 85, 177 Beers, Captain Richard 20, 69, 152, 153 Belcher, Elizabeth 156–158 Belcher, Joseph 85n77 Bent, Peter 79, 149 Berkeley, William 7 Bible, Eliot’s Indian translation 8, 50, 70–71 Black Point 114–115, 117 Blue Anchor Tavern 156–158 Bourne, Richard 41n7 Bowers, Jerathmeel 15, 91 Boyle, Richard 8, 126 Boyle, Robert 8, 14, 26, 39, 126 Brattle, Captain Thomas 74, 103 Brocklebank, Captain Samuel 110 Brookfield 9–10, 11, 12, 53–54, 55, 61n42 Cambridge 49, 73, 87, 90, 107, 117, 156 Canonchet/nau-nau-ta-nute 22, 167 Canton see Packemit Cape Cod 8, 41n7 Cape Indians 41–42 Captain Tom (Wuttasacomponom) 5, 12, 13, 23–25, 78, 100n102, 111n117, 141, 150, 175, 177 Chabanakongkomun 9, 21, 43n10, 49, 53n28, 70 Champney, Daniel 55 Charles II, King 8, 71

190

Index

Charlestown 20, 69, 75, 76, 77, 96, 109, 110 Chechaubabeto 180–181 Chelmsford 14, 25, 68, 74, 76, 82–83, 84, 85, 91, 109, 117, 118 Chesapeake 7 Chobone-Kon-honom 79; see also Chabanakongkomun Choo, John 68 Church, Benjamin 171 clams 21, 86, 97, 115, 120 Clark, Thomas 85 Clarke, Thomas 176, 179 Cochecho see Dover, New Hampshire Company for the Propagation of the Gospel see New England Company Concord 17, 21, 25, 55, 73, 84, 85, 90, 95, 97, 117 Connaught 125, 127, 129 Connecticut 6, 8, 42, 44, 48, 112, 117n129, 145n10, 151, 159, 168n59 Cononicus (Canonicus) 170 Conway, Peter 22, 108 Cook, Joseph 74 corporal punishment 133, 134, 157nn34&35 Cotton, John 41n6, 42n7 Court of Assistants 28, 137, 174 Cowate 25, 117 Cowell, Edward 111 Cquasquaconet, John 61n41 Cromwell, Oliver 7 Cudworth, Captayne (James) 165 Curtis, John 100 Curtis, Lt. Ephraim 54n31, 55 Cutler, Captain John 111 Danforth, Thomas 90, 110, 154, 157, 172, 174; death threat against 156 Davis, Sylvanus 178 Deane, Thomas 184 death penalty: adultery and 133n11; Wannuckhow petition for lives 172–176 Dedham 75, 93 Deer Island 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 21, 23, 57, 75, 76, 82, 85, 88, 91, 94, 96, 97–100, 103, 105, 106, 107, 109, 126, 146, 148, 149, 156, 157; food for Indians 86, 97 Deerfield 10, 59n37, 152n24, 164, 166 Denson (Denison), Major-General Daniel 101 Dorchester 73, 74

Dover, New Hampshire 15, 68, 74, 76, 92, 117, 121, 179, 184 Dublet (Dublot), Tom 22, 103, 107 Dunstable 16, 49 Eames, Thomas 18, 172–175 “eastern enemies” see Wabanaki Indians Easton, John 159, 161 Eliot, the Reverend John 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 23, 25, 27, 29, 40, 43n10, 47n18, 55, 58, 67n54, 68n57, 69, 76, 84, 85, 102, 104, 116, 117, 120, 126, 186; Indian Bible 8, 50, 70–71; Indian Dialogues 182–183; petition against selling Indians as slaves 140–142 Endicot/Endicott/Endecott, John 72 Ephraim, Peter 27, 155 ethnicity 6, 7, 28 Fairbanks, Jonathan 102n103 Fitch, James 42, 50 Fletcher, William 84 frost-fish 116 gender roles 132–136 Gibbs, Captain Benjamin 94, 102, 146 Gibeonites 71 Gookin, Daniel 3–5; certifies courage of praying Indians 180–182; certifies Mary Nemasit sold by mistake 183–185; compensation for confiscated gun 185; correspondence with Thomas Prence/ Prince 136–139; death threat against 156; family background 7; Irish origins 125–132, 157; judicial duties as Superintendent 132–136; and praying Indians 7–8; Richard Scott rant against 156–158 Gookin, Vincent 125–132 Gorham, Captain John 21, 70 “Gospelizing” 13, 39, 41, 45, 58, 72–73, 79, 116 Great Swamp Fight 16, 87, 93n93, 104n106, 147, 167 Groton 15, 64n48, 74, 82, 89n83, 91, 108, 152 gun ownership 20–21, 56–57, 59n38, 67, 179, 185 Hammond, Capt. Lawrence 69 Harding, Josiah 116 Harris, William 46nn15&16, 158–171

Index

Hassanamesit/Hassameske/ Hassunnamesuke 5, 8, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 49, 54, 56, 70, 73, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 88, 100n102, 103, 112, 117, 145, 146, 148, 150, 152, 174; Disaster 12–13 Hatfield 59n37, 118 Hawkins, Will 76 Henchman, Captain Daniel 48, 52, 79, 80, 81, 82, 106, 107, 149, 177, 182 Henchman, Lieutenant Thomas 66, 82, 83, 84 Hide/Hyde, Samuel and Jeremy 180–182 Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England 3–5, 8–10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 39; Irish example contained within 125–126 Hoanantum Hill 116 Hoar, John 17, 22, 85, 95, 96, 97, 107nn108&109, 113n120 Hubbard, William 10 25, 41n5, 47, 52n24, 59nn37&38, 69n59, 89n83, 91n90, 114n125, 178, 179 Hunter, John 50, 155 Hunting, Samuel 23, 109, 110, 111, 114, 174, 180–182 Hurtleberry Hill 112–113 Hutchinson, Anne 54n32 Hutchinson, Captain Edward 9, 11, 19, 53, 54n32, 61n42, 62, 89n82, 144, 150, 151n21 ‘Indian Bible’ 8, 50, 70–71 Ireland 7, 8, 125–132 Irish Rebellion (1641) 125 Jacob, Captain John 93, 94 Jamaica 7, 55 Jethro, Peter 85n75, 108 Johnson, Captain Isaac 48, 93n93 Kattenanit, Job 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 16, 18, 23, 24, 77, 78n68, 81, 82, 85, 86, 89–90, 91, 95n97, 100–105, 173; James Quannapohit’s “Relation” 147–155; petition to rescue children 145–147 Kennebec River 178, 179 King Philip see Metacom King Philip’s War: background to Doings and Sufferings 3–5; Indian perspective 28; praying Indians’ involvement in 9–10; scope of 5–7

191

Knapp, Elizabeth 63n47 Kutquen 108 Lake, John 176–180 Lake, Thomas 114n125, 176–180 Lancaster 10–12, 19, 61, 62–64, 78, 89, 90, 91, 94, 107, 108, 152 land: compensation to Eames family 174; Eliot’s view compared to colonists 140; Wait Winthrop’s petition for Wamesit 186–188; William Harris letter to Sir Joseph Williamson 158–171 Lathrop/Lothrop, Capt Thomas 55, 152 Leverett, GovernorJohn 17, 23, 50–51, 54n31, 107n110, 174, 177 Leverich, William 41n7 Line/Lyne, John 15, 84 Long Island 49, 86n78, 115, 140 Maanexit 9, 43n10, 150 Madockawando 178–179 Magunkaquog/Magunhooge/Magunkog/ Magunkoog 8, 18, 43, 43n9, 73, 77n66, 79, 81, 117, 146, 148, 150, 151, 151n23, 172, 173, 175 Magus, John 23, 100 Maine 6, 23, 114, 115n126; murder of Thomas Lake 176–180 Mamuxonqua, Thomas 61n41 Manchage 9, 21, 43n10, 49, 70, 149, 150 Mannanesit 76n65 Mannapaugh 76n65 Marlborough 10–11, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 43, 49, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 73, 79, 83, 90, 91, 95, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 143, 146, 152, 173, 174 Martha’s Vineyard 8, 41 Mashpee Wampanoags 41n7 Mason, Captain Hugh 109 Massachusett Indians 7, 46, 98n101 Massachusetts Bay Company, Great Seal 72 Massachusetts militia 10, 182 Massah and Meribah 58, 82 Massasoit 162 Mather, Increase 41n5, 47, 179, 183 Matoonas 9, 91n90, 112n119, 150, 151 Mautampe/Mautump/Muttawmp 89, 150, 154 Mayer, Henry 115n127 Mazerin, Cardinal 169n61

192

Index

Medfield 18, 20, 25, 47n19, 64n48, 89n83, 91, 93, 94, 117; paper written by enemy Indians 94–95 Memecho, George 9, 53 Menemesit/Menemesseg/Menumesse 12, 16, 24, 88, 104, 105, 145, 146, 147, 150 Mendon 9, 73, 77, 81, 91, 111, 182 Merrimack River 14, 43, 49, 66, 109, 117, 118n132, 186, 187 Metacom 5–6, 9, 22, 42, 46–47, 50, 51, 52, 88, 89, 108, 142–143, 145n11, 147, 151, 154–155, 159, 183; death of 25, 27, 171; see also King Philip’s War Miantonomi/Miantonomoh/me-an-te-no -meah 167 Miller, Joseph 90 Mohawks/Maquas/Mawhakes 22, 25, 89nn83&84, 117–118, 199, 121, 147, 151n22, 152, 161n44, 170 Mohegans 6, 8, 44, 50–52, 59, 68n57, 117n129, 120, 145, 161n44, 166n53, 167n57 Monoco see One-Eyed John Moseley, Samuel 10–11, 17, 21, 52, 60n39, 61n42, 67, 95, 96n99, 144, 153, 157, 174 Moses 58n36, 82n70 Mount Hope 9, 11, 46, 48, 49, 50, 54n31, 63, 79, 89, 100, 103n105, 111, 154, 165, 167, 171, 182, 183; Christian marital rules not applying 133, 135 Muchin, Christopher 79 Munups, Daniel 61n41 Mystic George 15, 92 Naamkeke/Namkeke/Namkeake/Namkig 25, 67, 117, 118 Nahaton, William see Ahaton, William Nanepashemet 86n81 Nantucket 8, 41 Narragansett Indians 13, 49, 88–91, 153–154, 159, 163–165, 166n54, 167, 170; entered war 16; Gospelizing 145–146; Great Swamp Fight 87; letter of Mary Pray to James Oliver 142–145; ‘old Queen’ 46n15, 169; spy mission 147; strife with Mohegans 6; perceived attitude towards treating with English 22 Nashaway Indians 150 Nashobah Indians 8, 16, 17, 43, 56, 73, 83, 84, 95, 107n109, 108n112

Natick 8, 10, 25, 43, 47, 50–52, 56–57, 68–69, 73, 117; confiscation of guns 20–21, 111, 185; house fire 75; Sarah Ahaton adultery 132–136 Natick Indians 20, 79, 105, 114n125; removal to Deer Island 75, 88 Nemasit, John and Mary 183–185 Neppanit, Tom see Dublet (Dublot), Tom Nesutan, Job 9, 50 Netus 173, 175 New England Company (Right Honorable Corporation for Gospelizing the Indians in New England) 8, 11, 14, 22, 26, 39, 39n1, 72, 116, 126, 143; see also Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England Newman, Noah 52 Ninigret 46n15, 169n60 Nipmuc/Nipmuck Indians 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20, 22, 24, 43, 53, 54, 55, 59n38, 70, 88, 147, 149, 150, 151–152 Nobscot hill 75 Noddle’s Island 73 Nonatum 25, 117 Nonsequesewit, George 61n41 Northampton Indians 59, 151 Northfield 20, 64n48, 69n59, 89n83, 152n24 Norwich 8, 42, 50, 120 Nowell, Josiah 118 Nowell, Samuel 104, 105, 106 Nuckwich, John 115n126 Numphow, Sam 15–16, 84, 85n75, 92, 93 Oakes, Cornet Edward 74, 93 Okommakamesit 8, 10–12, 18, 19, 20, 24, 43n9, 60, 61n40 Old Jethro 61n41, 75 Oliver, James 11, 69n58, 142–143 Oliver, Thomas 116 One-Eyed John 12, 20, 63, 64n48, 69n59, 89, 89n83, 150, 151 Oneko 50, 68 Oonamog 83 Packemit/Pakemitt/Punkapoag/ Pankapog/Punkapoag/Punquapog 8, 25, 43, 56, 57, 68, 73, 74, 85, 116, 117, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 183n30 Page, Captain Nicholas 103, 104 Page, Edward 156 Pakachoog/Pakuahooge 9, 23, 43n10, 70, 77n66, 78n67, 91n90, 100n102,

Index

108n111, 112n119, 149, 150, 152 Pakananumquis alias Joshua Assalt 173n2, 174 “Papists” 125–132 Passaconaway 66, 67n53 Patuxet 167, 168, 169 Pawtucket Indians 7, 66, 83n71, 86n81, 98n101; see also Pennacook Pawtuxet Purchase 158 Pegin, Eliazor 79 Pennacook/Pennakooge Indians 5, 7, 13, 15, 66, 67, 85, 153, 184 Penumpum, Nathaniel 115n126 Pepper, Robert 153 Pequots 6, 8, 44, 55n34, 161n44 Peskeompscut 118n130 Petavit, Joseph and Sampson 9, 12, 19, 25, 53, 151 Phips, Corporal Solomon 110 Phips, William 119n133 Piambow 26, 120 Pierce, Captain Michael 166, 167n55, 169 Pines, the 75, 76 Pitimee, Andrew 23, 100, 112, 113, 155 Plymouth 5, 6, 25, 41–42, 46, 51, 67n53, 112, 136, 137; correspondence with Thomas Prence/Prince 136–139 Pocasset Swamp 9 Pocumtuck Indians 10, 20, 59n38, 69n59, 152n24 Pomham/Pomhaman/Pumham 77n66, 146, 151n23, 173 Potuche/Potuck 46, 159–160, 169–170 Pray, Mary 142–145, 159, 160 praying towns 7–8; ‘old’ and ‘new’ 8–9 Prence/Prince, Thomas 136–139 Prentice/Prentis, Captain Thomas 47, 48, 50, 75, 110, 149, 172, 175 Prentiss, Henry 57 Printer, James 12, 18, 24, 25, 61n41, 78n68, 95n97, 108nn111&112, 151, 173n5, 174, 175 Providence: letter of Mary Pray to James Oliver 142–145; letter of William Harris to Sir Joseph Williamson 158–171 Psalms 85 Pumapen 173n2, 174 Puritanism: matrimony and 133; providentialism and 4, 9–10, 19–20, 24 Pynchon, John 59n38

193

Quabage/Quabaug/Quaboag 9, 19, 43n10, 53, 55, 59n38, 62, 88, 89, 101, 102, 111, 144n8, 150, 151n21, 152 Quaiapen 46n15, 169n60 Quannapohit, James 9, 11, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 29, 47, 63, 81, 83n71, 84n72, 86, 88, 89–90, 100, 101, 146, 155; mission to rescue children of Job Kattenanit 145–147; spy mission “Relation” 147–155 Quannapohit, Thomas 9, 47, 50, 79, 80, 81, 86n81, 155 Quanohit 108 Quantisset 9, 43n10 Rawson, Edward 56, 99 Rehobah/Rehoboth 51, 52, 165, 166–167, 169 Remington, Martha 156–158 Rhode Island: letter of Mary Pray to James Oliver 142–145; Potuck and 169–170; William Harris letter to Sir Joseph Williamson 158–171 Richardson, Lieutenant James 14, 15, 23, 54, 74, 76, 77, 82, 84, 109, 115, 117, 181n26 Right Honorable Corporation for the Gospelizing the Indians in New England 21, 39, 40, 58, 64, 71, 72, 97, 116 Rowlandson, Joseph 90–91, 107 Rowlandson, Mary 19, 22, 25, 91n88, 107, 108, 113n120, 176 Ruddock, Lieutenant John 49, 64, 65n50 Rumney Marsh, George 29, 84n72; sold into slavery 86n81 Rumny (Rumney) Marsh, James see Quannapohit, James Sagamore John (Horowannit/ Quaqunquaset) 23, 25, 108n111, 112n119, 150 Sagamore Sam 85n75, 108n111, 153, 182; John Lake request for stay of execution 176–182 Saltonstall, Nathaniel 11, 54n32, 61n42, 62n44 Sanford, Pealeg (Peleg) 171 Sarah (witness of violence at Wamesit) 14, 83 Sassamon, John 6, 46–47, 47n18, 50n23, 74n64, 161n45, 183 Savage, Major Thomas 16, 48, 100–101, 102, 104, 146, 165

194

Index

Scarborough 115n126 Scott, Richard 126; rant against Daniel Gookin 156–158 Scripture, Samuel 12, 32n40, 63n47 Seekonk 51, 52 Sewall, Samuel 29, 36n110 Shapleigh, Nicholas 92n91 Shattock, Sergeant John 19–20, 69 Shoshonim see Sagamore Sam Shrimpton, Samuel 75 Sill/Syll, Captain Joseph 79, 80–81, 101, 149, 183 slaves: Eliot petition against selling Indians 140–142; Mary Nemasit sold by mistake 183–185 Smith, Richard 143 Spanish atrocities 142n4 Sparks, Jared 26 Speen, James 23, 77, 100, 118, 147, 155 Spene (Speen), Abraham 68, 115n126 spies 16, 86–91; James Quannapohit’s “Relation” 147–155 Spoonhaut, Joseph 12, 61n41, 63n47 Springfield 55, 59, 144 Squando 179 Stevens, Cyprian 90 Stockwell, Quentin 118nn130& 131 Stoolemester, John 112 Sudbury 23, 75, 78n67, 89n82, 109, 110, 111, 172, 185 Swansea 6 Swift, Thomas 51, 57, 116 Tahattawarre 83 Taunton 51, 52, 68, 165 Tefft/Tift Joshua 154 Thomas, John 89n84, 116 Tohatooner, John 83 Totonnock 178 transplantation issue 125–132 Tuckapawillin, Joseph 12–13, 18, 21, 78, 89, 91, 95n97, 100, 103, 146, 150, 155, 173 Tyng, Jonathan 16, 49, 118n132, 119n133, 186 Uncas 6, 42, 48, 50, 68n57, 76n65, 117, 118n131, 145n10, 159, 166, 167 Upchattuck see Sagamore Sam Upham, Lieutenant Phineas 21, 70 Uskattuhgun see Sagamore Sam

Veni, vidi, vici 45 Virginia 7, 159, 168n58 Wabaage 70 Waban 26, 47, 116, 120, 121, 132, 135, 136, 177 Wabanaki Indians 6, 23, 114, 119, 177, 178 Wabquisset 9, 43n10, 53n28, 68n57 Wadsworth, Captain Samuel 90, 101, 110 Waeuntug 9, 43n10 Waldron, Major Richard 15, 27, 68, 92n91, 114, 179, 183, 184–185 Wamesit 8, 13–16, 43, 56, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82–83, 84–85, 93, 118n132; petition to Council 91–92; Sarah Ahaton in 133; Wait Winthrop petition for land 186–188 Wampanoags 5, 6, 28, 59n38, 145n11, 159, 164n50, 183 Wannalancet 5, 13–14, 15–16, 66, 67, 76n65, 92–93, 118–119, 153, 184 Wannuckhow, Joseph 172–176 Wannuckhow, William (alias Jackstraw) 131n6, 172–176 Warwick 135, 144, 168, 169 Watapacoson, Joseph (alias John Spoonhaut) 61n41 Watchusett 108–109, 111, 112n119, 181n24 Watertown 19–20, 69, 109 Watson, John 57, 73 Wattasakomponin see Captain Tom Weetamoo of Pocasset 52n27, 163n49 Wells 117 Wenepaweekin see Rumney Marsh, George Wepocositt 84 Wesakam/Weshakim/Weshakum 9, 43n10, 88, 111, 150, 151, 177, 183 Western Design 7 Wheeler, Thomas 53, 54, 62, 89n82, 150 Whitcomb, James 184 Willard, Major Simon 55, 84 Willard, Samuel 63n47 Williams, Isaac 88 Williams, Roger 159–160 Williamson, Sir Joseph 158–171 Wilson, John 93n94, 94 Winthrop, Deane 187 Winthrop, John 151, 186 Winthrop, Wait 186–188 Woburn 77 York 117