Great Events in the History of North and South America

by Charles A. Goodrich

To communities and nations, crises arrive, in which, through danger and sufferings, they are either overcome and extirpated, or spring forward to an improved condition after the first hurtful effect of the trial is passed away. The war with Philip constituted such a crisis to the New England colonies. Their danger was imminent—their sufferings were fearful, and the immediate consequences were lamentation, and weakness, and indebtedness. But their recuperative energies soon rëappeared, and a wide door thus became open to extended settlement and population.

The causes of the war lay partly in the condition of the colonies, and partly in the character of Philip. The English settlements were extending far into the wilderness, the home of the Indian, and were rapidly increasing in strength. The natives viewed them as intruders, and considered the probability that, at no distant day, they would be dispossessed of the heritage of their fathers. They were jealous of the designs of the English, and impatient under the encroachments already made. They viewed themselves as the proper lords of the forest, and they now saw that their hunting grounds were abridged, and the wild animals on which they depended for subsistence, were disappearing, as the white man felled the trees, and cultivated the soil, and reared his dwellings.

In view of this progress of the whites, nothing seemed to remain to the native savage but to be forced from his loved haunts, and to lose his cherished possessions, or to arouse, and by a desperate effort of strength and valor to regain all that he once owned.

The individual among the Indians whose foresight most clearly discerned the state of things, and whose spirit was equal to the emergency of attempting to resist it, was Pometacom. He was styled Philip by the English, a nickname given him on account of his ambitious and haughty temper, and by this name he is chiefly known in history. He was the sachem of the Wampanoags, residing at Mount Hope, a younger son of the famous Massasoit, the friend of the whites.

Philip had not spared any pains for a long time to effect a conspiracy, and to unite the Indians in a general war against the colonists; but it happened that before his plan was matured, his intentions, and those of the Indians generally, were revealed to the English. The Indian who betrayed him was Sausaman, one of Eliot's converts. For this he was murdered by Philip's men; three of whom were seized, tried, and executed. This was the signal for blood. The first attack of the Indians was upon Swansey, several of whose inhabitants were killed.

Flight of Philip from Mount Hope.

Philip soon after suddenly left his place of residence and his territory to the English. The occasion of his precipitate retreat, was the following: Additional assistance being needed, the authorities of Boston sent out Major General Savage from that place, with sixty horse and as many foot. They scoured the country on the march to Mount Hope, where Philip and his wife were supposed to be at that time. They came into his neighborhood unawares, so that he was forced to rise from dinner, and he and all with him fled farther up into the country. They pursued him as far as they could go for swamps; and killed fifteen or sixteen in that expedition.