The colonists were not so fortunate in their dealings with his son and successor, Wamsutta or Alexander. Word was sent to the governor that he plotted mischief against the English and had asked the Narragansetts to aid him in his rebellion. Determining to put an end to such disloyalty at once, the governor, after Alexander’s refusal to attend court, had him arrested and taken to Plymouth. It was a most unfortunate business, thus to humiliate a proud chief on his own territory. Suddenly Alexander became violently ill and died almost immediately. The exact cause of his death is not known, but probably extreme heat and anger hastened the end. Bad feeling between the Indians and their white neighbors was the immediate result of this misfortune. Some of Alexander’s followers, including his wife, even spread the report that the sachem had been poisoned. This was untrue, but it furnished one of the causes of the hostilities that followed.
Metacomet or Philip, Alexander’s brother and the next chief of the Wampanoags, was not one to submit to wrongs tamely. Plymouth and Massachusetts soon had occasion to suspect him of secretly planning war. In their uneasiness, they appealed to Roger Williams and he succeeded, for the time being, in breaking up Philip’s designs. Largely through his influence, the war was put off for four years. Outwardly obedient, the Wampanoag chief gave up about seventy guns to the English as proof of his fidelity. There is no reason to think, however, that he abandoned the idea of a war when the time should be ripe. For several years he merely “marked time” until everything should be in readiness.
The struggle was finally begun in the summer of 1675, sooner than Philip had meant. One of his nearest advisers, a converted Indian, betrayed his chief’s plot to the English. It was therefore necessary to strike at once. To be just to King Philip, he doubtless thought he had good and sufficient reason for his action. He summed up the causes of the conflict thus:
“By various means they [the English] got possession of a great part of his [Massasoit’s] territory. But he still remained their friend till he died. My elder brother became sachem. They pretended to suspect him of evil designs against them. He was seized and confined, thereby thrown into sickness and died. Soon after I became sachem, they disarmed all my people. They tried my people by their own laws; assessed damages against them, which they could not pay. Their land was taken. At length a line of division was agreed upon between the English and my people, and I myself was to be answerable. Sometimes the cattle of the English would come into the cornfields of my people, as they did not make fences like the English. I must then be seized and confined, till I sold another tract of my country for satisfaction of all damages and costs. Thus, tract after tract is gone. But a small part of the dominions of my ancestors remains. I am determined not to live till I have no country.”
There was grave danger of a Narragansett alliance. Philip had been working for it for a long time. The chief sachems of the Rhode Island Indians at this time were Pessicus, Miantonomo’s brother, and Canonchet, Miantonomo’s son, and therefore nephew of Pessicus. They were joint rulers, much like Canonicus and Miantonomo in the earlier days. But, whereas Canonicus and Miantonomo had been in favor of peace at almost any price, their descendants were not so submissive. A far different spirit fired them. Pessicus, it is true, gave Roger Williams to understand that he was peaceable enough, but had difficulty restraining the younger men of his tribe. Canonchet, on the other hand (the “hopeful spark” of Miantonomo, as Roger Williams called him), was openly declared the war sachem of the Narragansetts. The cruel death of his father still rankled and he would have been less than human had he not longed to make the most of the opportunity for revenge that now came to him without his seeking.
The colony of Rhode Island strongly opposed the war. The inhabitants had no just quarrel with the Indians. Besides, they were under Quaker influence and people of this faith did not believe in taking up arms.
Five Rhode Island citizens, probably Friends, bent on a peaceful settlement of the dispute, arranged for a meeting with Philip. The story of their conference is quaintly told by Mr. John Easton, the deputy governor of the colony and the head of the party:
“We sat very friendly together. We told him [Philip] our business was to endeavor that they might not ... do wrong. They said that was well; they had done no wrong, the English wronged them. We said we knew the English said the Indians wronged them, and the Indians said the English wronged them, but our desire was the quarrel might rightly be decided, in the best way, and not as dogs decided their quarrels. The Indians owned that fighting was the worst way: then they propounded how right might take place.”
It was unfortunate for the warring colonists, and the Indians as well, that nothing came of this attempt at arbitration. There was one hope left—Roger Williams. The Boston authorities sent three men to Rhode Island with the earnest request that he try to bring the Narragansetts to terms. He answered the call with his usual prompt willingness. Within half an hour, he had left Providence and was on his way, with the three messengers, to the Narragansett country. He had no trouble in securing an audience with Canonchet, Pessicus and other leading Narragansetts. They greeted him with fair, smooth words—altogether too fair and smooth to be sincere. They agreed to hand over any of Philip’s men who fell into their hands, to remain hostile to the Wampanoag sachem, to deliver up all stolen goods to the English, to refrain from further theft, and to serve as a guard about the Narragansett country for the protection of the English.
Poor Roger Williams! Devotedly, unceasingly he worked until, as he said, his old bones and eyes were weary with travel and writing. So constantly was his pen in use that his stock of letter paper completely gave out. Writing to the governor of Massachusetts, he said, “Since I am oft occasioned to write upon the public business, I shall be thankful for a little paper upon the public account, being now near destitute.”