The Puritan Congregationalists that immigrated from England—some via an exile in Holland—did so with a strong memory of King James and then King Charles keeping standing troops in garrison in the villages and towns of rural England. These troops could not be paid by the Crown and were left to roam the countryside robbing, raping and murdering—even killing local officials. Therefore, once settled in the New World, these people were reluctant to give power to soldier-types and were reluctant themselves to soldier. There answer was similar to that arrived at by the commercial planters in Virginia, to arrive at agreements with friendly Indians, that, in return for supplies of guns and ammunition—for the gun was much better than the bow and arrow in woodland combat and immediately superseded that technology—these friendly Indians would suppress those Indians that did not want to convert to Christianity and/or give up their easy, sinful way of life.
So, even though Metacomet and his warriors were doomed to annihilation once the Mohawks, Pequot, and other tribes came into the fray alongside those few professional fighting men such as Church, the early portions of the uprising were horrific in terms of terror, loss of life and loss of property. It was Increase Mather’s considered and oft repeated opinion that the New-Englander victory had no glory in it, for it was only the “Avenging Angell” of the Lord [disease] and the Mohawks and other allied Indians that had won the victory. An examination of the battles showed that the English were only successful when guided by Indian advisors or in combined English/Indian forces. There were, however, numerous brutal last stands on a small scale by brave officers and men fighting to the last man against enveloping forces of warriors who caught them lumbering along the roads.
In the view of the chronicler of this horrific little war, God had his way by using the Indians to punish the Christians and remind them of the cost of their sinful ways, and then by using his plague-spreading Angell and other even more savage Indians to overturn the Indian order. Metacomet’s uprising has, for its closest modern equivalent, the 1967-68 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, with the key difference being that the New-Englanders believed in their cause wholeheartedly and went for the kill once the uprising lost impetus.
Below are some quotes and notes from the text concerning the struggle:
“… A wretched English man that apostatized to the Heathen, and fought with them against his own Country-men, but was at last taken and executed and …”
“There were hundreds of Wigwams within the Fort, which our Souldiers set on fire, in which men, women and Children left ( no man knoweth how many hundreds of them ) were burnt to death.
“A Squaw that belonged to our fort.”
[There were more Indians slaves than black slaves in 17th century new-England, and more white slaves than the two other races combined.]
When seventeen of Major Treat’s men died in battle they were left unburied. In contrast, “How many Indians was killed, it being their manner to draw away their dead men as fast as they a killed, if possibly they can do it: yea, they will venture their own lives for the end, which they do out of policy.”
“… The Indians destroyed them all, root and branch, the Father, and Mother, and all the Children . So that eleven persons were murdered that day, under one roof … “
“… The English being surprised with fear, rode away to save their lives: in the mean while the Indians seized upon two women and Children and took them away alive… what shall be said eighteen Englishmen well armed, fly before seven Indians.”
“… A few Indians pursued our Souldiers for or five miles, who were in number near twice as many as the enemy.”
Once the English-Indian alliance got into full swing and the allied Indians were caught in their towns with women and children, the slaughter was horrific. Siege warfare never did favor the primitive. Once the point of the rebel spear was blunted the slow grind favored the government and their converging allies.
The war ended on a brutal note, with the mortally wounded chief Ponham, who had turned on his captors on the way to Boston and was thought to be dead, crawling into ambush position and, “…when an English-man drew near him, though he could not stand, he did (like a dying Beast) in rage and revenge, get hold on that Souldier’s head, and had like to have killed him, had not another come to his help, and rescued him out of the enraged dying hands of that bloody Barbarian…”
Both sides in this brutal little war suffered greatly and emerged to face the irony that the party that prevailed did so by contracting much of the war effort out and despite this lack of valor retained the virtue not to take credit for the victory, but to place it in God’s hands.
Afterward the wife and single son of Metacomet, were sold into slavery in the West Indies, where servant mortality was over 80%.
Hi James, enjoy your writing as always. A friend recently moved to Simsbury, CT, and in reading about the town on Wikipedia I came across this which I thought might interest you. Apologies if you already read/wrote about this fellow.
In 1707, Daniel Hayes, then aged twenty-two, was captured by the indigenous people and carried off to Canada. The capture was witnessed, and a rescue party raised, but the group did not catch up with the captors. He was tied up each night, and bound to saplings. It took thirty days to reach Canada, at which point Hayes was forced to run the gauntlet. Near the end of the gauntlet, he hid in a wigwam to avoid an attempted blow by a club. The woman in the wigwam declared that the house was sacred, and having lost a husband and son to a war, adopted Hayes as her son. He remained for several years, attending to the woman. Eventually, he was sold to a Frenchman, who learned that Hayes had skill as a weaver, so put him to work in that business. Hayes managed to earn enough to buy his freedom after two years. He then returned to Simsbury, settled down on a farm and married. He became prominent, both in civil affairs as well as the church at Salmon Brook (now Granby).[21]
Thank you, Ned,
I read about this in passing about 20 years ago and neglected to research it in this project, so I will include your comment in the print book.
Entries like this, when I read for pure joy about explorers and frontiersmen, is what piqued my interest concerning slavery as a universal condition, not one exclusive to blacks.