The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
* The Rev. Increase Mather’s History.
The nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often
distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part
of the whites it was conducted with superior skill and success, but with
a wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the natural rights of
their antagonists: on the part of the Indians it was waged with the
desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from
peace but humiliation, dependence, and decay.
The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the
time, who dwells with horror and indignation on every hostile act of the
Indians, however justifiable, whilst he mentions with applause the most
sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and
a traitor, without considering that he was a true-born prince gallantly
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the wrongs of his family,
to retrieve the tottering power of his line, and to deliver his native
land from the oppression of usurping strangers.
The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been
formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and had it not been prematurely
discovered might have been overwhelming in its consequences. The war
that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of
casual exploits and unconnected enterprises. Still, it sets forth the
military genius and daring prowess of Philip, and wherever, in the
prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we
can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a
fertility of expedients, a contempt of suffering and hardship, and an
unconquerable resolution that command our sympathy and applause.
Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself
into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the
settlements and were almost impervious to anything but a wild beast
or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm
accumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thundercloud,
and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying
havoc and dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications
of these impending ravages that filled the minds of the colonists with
awe and apprehension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard
from the solitary woodland, where there was known to be no white man;
the cattle which had been wandering in the woods would sometimes return
home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the
skirts of the forests and suddenly disappearing, as the lightning will
sometimes be seen playing silently about the edge of the cloud that is
brewing up the tempest.
Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yet Philip
as often escaped almost miraculously from their toils, and, plunging
into the wilderness, would be lost to all search or inquiry until he
again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the country desolate.
Among his strongholds were the great swamps or morasses which extend
in some parts of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep black
mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, the shattered and
mouldering trunks of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks.
The uncertain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds
rendered them almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian
could thread their labyrinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of
these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a
band of his followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing
to venture into these dark and frightful recesses, where they might
perish in fens and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They
therefore invested the entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort
with the thought of starving out the foe; but Philip and his warriors
wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea in the dead of night,
leaving the women and children behind, and escaped away to the westward,
kindling the flames of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the
Nipmuck country and threatening the colony of Connecticut.
In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. The mystery
in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil
that walked in darkness, whose coming none could foresee and against
which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with
rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiquity, for in
whatever part of the widely-extended frontier an irruption from the
forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious
notions also were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in
necromancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess,
whom he consulted and who assisted him by her charms and incantations.
This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chiefs, either through
their own credulity or to act upon that of their followers; and the
influence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has
been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare.
At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset his fortunes
were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated
fights and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time
of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet, chief Sachem of
all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great
sachem who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquittal of the
charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious
instigations of the settlers. “He was the heir,” says the old
chronicler, “of all his father’s pride and insolence, as well as of his
malice towards the English;” he certainly was the heir of his insults
and injuries and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had
forborne to take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received
Philip and his broken forces with open arms and gave them the most
generous countenance and support. This at once drew upon him the
hostility of the English, and it was determined to strike a signal blow
that should involve both the Sachems in one common ruin. A great force
was therefore gathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and
Connecticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of
winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed
with comparative facility and would no longer afford dark and
impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians.
Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part of his
stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his
tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn
up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians
impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island of five
or six acres in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a degree
of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in
Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of these two
chieftains.
Guided by a renegado Indian, the English penetrated, through December
snows, to this stronghold and came upon the garrison by surprise. The
fight was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their
first attack, and several of their bravest officers were shot down in
the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed
with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven
from one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by inch,
fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to
pieces, and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with
a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort and took refuge
in the thickets of the surrounding forest.
The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in
a blaze; many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in
the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage.
The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair
uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction
of their dwellings and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and
offspring. “The burning of the wigwams,” says a contemporary writer,
“the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of
the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it
greatly moved some of the soldiers.” The same writer cautiously adds,
“They were in much doubt then, and afterwards seriously inquired,
whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity,
and the benevolent principles of the gospel.” *
* MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles.
The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy of particular
mention: the last scene of his life is one of the noblest instances on
record of Indian magnanimity.
Broken down in his power and resources by this signal defeat, yet
faithful to his ally and to the hapless cause which he had espoused, he
rejected all overtures of peace offered on condition of betraying Philip
and his followers, and declared that “he would fight it out to the
last man, rather than become a servant to the English.” His home being
destroyed, his country harassed and laid waste by the incursions of
the conquerors, he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the
Connecticut, where he formed a rallying-point to the whole body of
western Indians and laid waste several of the English settlements.
Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only
thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount
Hope, and to procure seed corn to plant for the sustenance of his
troops. This little hand of adventurers had passed safely through the
Pequod country, and were in the centre of the Narragansett, resting
at some wigwams near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an
approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, Canonchet
despatched two of them to the top of a neighboring hill to bring
intelligence of the foe.
Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of English and Indians rapidly
advancing, they fled in breathless terror past their chieftain, without
stopping to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent another scout,
who did the same. He then sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back
in confusion and affright, told him that the whole British army was
at hand. Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate flight. He
attempted to escape round the hill, but was perceived and hotly pursued
by the hostile Indians and a few of the fleetest of the English. Finding
the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off, first his
blanket, then his silver-laced coat and belt of peag, by which his
enemies knew him to be Canonchet, and redoubled the eagerness of
pursuit.
At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon a stone,
and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This accident so struck him with
despair that, as he afterwards confessed, “his heart and his bowels
turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, void of strength.”
To such a degree was he unnerved that, being seized by a Pequod Indian
within a short distance of the river, he made no resistance, though
a man of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on being made
prisoner the whole pride of his spirit arose within him, and from that
moment we find, in the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but
repeated flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned
by one of the English who first came up with him, and who had not