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Posted on 05/18/2005 10:23:12 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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Three hundred thirty years ago, a great Indian chieftain known as King Philip led a strong native American confederation in a bloody war to obliterate the New England colonies, nearly succeeding in dramatically altering the course of American history.  Massasoit's treaty with the Pilgrams It is in the shadowy places like King Philip's Seat and other obscure landmarks that one may feel the ghostly presence of Philip, the Wampanoag warrior sachem who nearly succeeded in driving the English out of New England in a war that inflicted greater casualties in proportion to the population than any other war in American history. Down through the centuries, though, King Philip has not been well remembered. The Puritans scorned him in life and denigrated his memo- ry after his death. In the 18th century, Paul Revere, the famous Revolutionary and self-taught artist, engraved a portrait of Philip that made him look hideous, even comical. Historians of New England have written reams about King Philip's War, but in their descriptions of burning villages, booming muskets and brutal massacres, King Philip the man has been lost. Lost, too, is the meaning of Philip's unsuccessful attempt to win a lasting victory against his white enemies. What King Philip experienced in his defeat was a pattern that would repeat itself over and over, down through the subsequent centuries, as whites spread their settlements into Indian territory. The pattern itself was insidious. As a first step, whites would invade Indian lands and establish permanent settlements. Later, after a period of trade and friendly exchanges, the Indians came to realize that they were being swindled, usually out of their valuable lands, by the whites. When they resisted, the Indians almost always faced an enemy that outnumbered them and possessed superior weapons and technology. In the end, as the pattern repeated itself, the Indians ultimately faced two untenable choices: extermination or acculturation. In the case of King Philip, he chose to gamble on war--giving his life in the end--rather than acknowledge his white enemy as his master. Little in his background foretold Philip's later greatness. His life began around 1638 in the Indian village of Sowams, near modern Warren, R.I., and his fellow Wampanoags knew him as Metacom. He was the second son of Massasoit, the principal sachem of the Wampanoags and the same man who had befriended the Pilgrims when they settled at Plymouth in 1620. During the early years of English settlement, Massasoit had worked diligently to maintain the peace with both the Plymouth Separatists and the Massachusetts Bay Puritans.  Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians Keeping the peace between Indians and whites in 17th-century New England was no easy task. The white colonists were hungry for land, and their settlements began to spread quickly throughout the lands of the Wampanoags and other local tribes. Roger Williams, who founded the town of Providence in 1636 after being banished from Massachusetts for arguing, among other things, that Indians should be paid for their land, said that the English suffered from a disease called "God land"--something he likened to "God gold" among the Spanish. As the years went by, the Wampanoags felt more and more pressure to give up their tribal territory, and Massasoit, wanting to accommodate his white neighbors and reap the trade goods that the settlers often used to pay for lands, sold off increasing amounts of the Indian country. Undoubtedly he understood the awful consequences if he did not comply with English demands for Indian land. Philip's father, like so many other Indians of New England, took heed of the outcome of the war fought in 1636 by the Puritans against the Pequot Indians of Connecticut, a war that came close to exterminating the entire Pequot tribe. As a result, Massasoit placated the English by continuing to sell land. The Wampanoags, given their proximity to the largest white settlements, were particularly under pressure to accept English culture and laws. Despite the challenges facing his father and his tribe, Philip lived most of his life in peaceful obscurity. He took one of his cousins as his wife, a woman named Wootonekanuske. Together they lived not far from Sowams, in a village called Montaup (which the English settlers called Mount Hope). The historical records are vague about Philip's children; he and Wootonekanuske may have had several sons and daughters, but the extant sources mention only one son. Little is known about Philip's private and family life because the white colonists paid relatively little attention to him.  King Philip Until the 1660s, that is. In the winter of 1661, Massasoit died at the age of 81. Philip's older brother, Wamsutta, became the principal sachem of the tribe. In a gesture of friendship and fidelity, the two brothers appeared before the Plymouth Grand Court and took the English names of the two legendary princes of ancient Macedonia, Alexander and Philip--names appropriate to their high station among the Wampanoag people. Yet the friendly gestures soon melted away in the heat of suspicion and distrust. The English colonists quickly came to believe that Alexander and Philip were hatching plans for a war against the whites. In 1662, Plymouth authorities sent an armed guard to arrest Alexander and bring him to trial in an English court. When Alexander pledged his undying friendship to the white settlers, the court released him and allowed him to return home, but he had contracted a serious illness in the English settlement and died on the trail before reaching home. Many Wampanoags believed that Alexander had been poisoned by the settlers at Plymouth, and some of the Indians wanted to avenge his death by attacking the colonists. King Philip, probably in his mid-20s at the time, assumed the duties of principal sachem and managed to calm down the hotheads in the tribe. For the next nine years, he sustained peaceful relations with Plymouth and the other Puritan colonies, all of which had grouped together under a regional governmental body called the United Colonies of New England.  Col. Josiah Winslow, 1628-80, the first American-born governor of Massachusetts. As the Puritan colonies banded together for strength, the Indians of southern New England grew increasingly weak in numbers and influence. During these years of peace, Philip continued his father's practice of selling lands to the whites. But he soon found himself on a slippery slope. As he sold more and more land, the white settlers established towns closer to the Wampanoag villages, including the settlement of Swansea, not far from Montaup and Sowams. The colonial authorities also decided to regulate Philip's real estate transactions by requiring him to obtain permission from the Grand Court before selling any more land.
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Philip did not seem to take the agreement seriously. He held the colonial authorities in utter contempt and complained on one occasion that the Plymouth magistrates did not hold the highest station in their government. If they wanted him to obey them, they should send their king to negotiate with him, not their governors. "Your governor is but a subject," he said. "I shall treat only with my brother, King Charles [II] of England. When he comes, I am ready."
It is nearly impossible to know what Philip was planning in the mid-1670s as he and the English veered closer and closer to war. A reconsideration of the scarce available evidence suggests that Philip never did develop an overall policy toward the English, or a grand design for a conspiracy against them; however, he may have hoped on more than one occasion to rid himself of his white neighbors by attacking their settlements, or finding allies who could help him subvert the colonists' rising dominance. Styled "king" by the English, Philip actually lacked the sweeping political authority over his own people attributed to him by ethnocentric whites who assumed that the governmental structure of Indian tribes resembled the English monarchy. Rivalries with other Algonquian tribes--and the success of the English policy of divide and conquer--precluded any military coalition among the Wampanoags and their Indian neighbors.
Whether or not King Philip was conspiring with other Indians to wipe out the English, the white authorities certainly thought he was. So did some Indians. John Sassamon, an Indian who had served for a time as Philip's aide and translator, believed the Wampanoag sachem was indeed planning a pan-Indian conspiracy against the English. A convert to Christianity who had studied for a time at the Indian school at Harvard College, Sassamon lived for many years among the whites in Massachusetts, but in the 1660s he abandoned the English and joined Philip's band at Montaup. Later, Sassamon, who was described by another Indian as "a very cunning and plausible Indian, well skilled in the English Language," lived with a community of Christian Indians in Natick and eventually became an Indian preacher.
In late January 1675, Sassamon, saying he feared for his own life, told Governor Josiah Winslow of Plymouth that King Philip was hatching a plot against the English. Despite all their earlier suspicions about Philip, Winslow and the other Plymouth officials refused to take Sassamon seriously--until they found his body beneath the ice in a pond. An Indian witness claimed that he had seen three Wampanoags murder Sassamon and throw his body into the water. Quickly the Plymouth authorities rounded up the suspects--all of whom belonged to Philip's band--and took them into custody. With great speed, the three Indians were tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. On June 8, 1675, two of the Indians were executed. But when the rope around the neck of the third man broke, allowing him for the moment to escape death, he confessed to Sassamon's murder and declared that Philip had masterminded the crime. The condemned man's confession did him no good; within a month he was executed by a Plymouth firing squad.
When word of the executions reached King Philip, he ordered his tribe to prepare for war. The Wampanoags sent their women and children to safety across Narragansett Bay and gathered their men together for war dances. Deputy Governor John Easton of Rhode Island visited Philip and tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Plymouth and the Indians. Even Plymouth's Governor Winslow sent letters of peace and friendship to the Wampanoags. For about a week there was a possibility that the crisis would pass without bloodshed.
Then the storm broke. On June 18, several Wampanoags raided a few deserted houses in the English settlement of Swansea, just north of Montaup. Two days later, more Indians returned to the settlement, entered the abandoned houses and set fire to two of them. Meanwhile, the Swansea settlers took refuge in fortified garrison houses and sent a messenger to Plymouth asking for military assistance. On June 23, a young English boy shot and killed an Indian who was looting his house--the first bloodshed in what was to become New England's most devastating war.
No one seemed able to control events, least of all King Philip. If his plan was to fight the English rather than submit to their ways, his military strategy revealed an utter lack of careful thought or purposeful design. On June 24, the Indians attacked Swansea in force, killing a total of 11 white settlers (including the boy who had fired the war's first shot) and wounding many others. Yet the approach of militia troops from Plymouth made it apparent that Philip could not remain in Swansea or even in Montaup.
Fleeing Montaup, King Philip led his warriors east to the Pocasset country. A small group of white soldiers, commanded by militia Captains Benjamin Church and Matthew Fuller, tried to surprise Philip and his Wampanoags at Pocasset, but the Indians fled before the colonial troops could attack. Later, Church's company was ambushed in a fierce attack by Philip's Indians, who pushed the soldiers back to the Pocasset shore. Pinned down at the beach, Church and his men finally escaped when some Rhode Island patrol boats rescued them in the nick of time. Church later thanked "the glory of God and his protecting Providence" for helping to effect their narrow escape.
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While the Narragansetts took flight from the Great Swamp, Philip and his Wampanoags were traveling west on a long journey through the winter snows. Philip's hope was to stay the winter with the Mohawk Indians of New York and convince them to join the war against the English. In January 1676, he encamped on the east side of the Hudson River, about 20 miles north of Albany, where he negotiated with the Mohawks and successfully avoided the English patrols that searched in vain for him throughout the New England countryside. But Philip's plan for Indian assistance backfired when Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of New York, persuaded the Mohawks not only to remain loyal to the English but also to attack the Wampanoags in their winter camp.  So the war went on, and the casualties mounted with every engagement. Fleeing from the overpowering might of the Mohawks, King Philip took his followers to the upper Connecticut River valley. In March their attacks on white settlements grew even more merciless. On a single day, March 26, 1676, the Indians surprised several English towns and troops in separate assaults--at Longmeadow, Marlborough and at the Blackstone River, north of Pawtucket Falls. A few days later, the Indians attacked Rehoboth in Massachusetts and Providence in Rhode Island. Even so, the tide of war was beginning to turn. Because the Indians had not planned on war, their stores of food and other supplies were being rapidly depleted. As spring approached, the tribes could not return to their seasonal camps to plant crops or to hunt the scarce game in the New England woods. Indians began starving to death. Others became convinced they could not totally defeat the English, who greatly outnumbered them and whose supplies of food and ammunition seemed unlimited. During the spring, many Indians decided to abandon the war and surrender to the English forces.  King Philip, however, refused to surrender. In July 1676, he and his Wampanoags returned to the Pocasset country, back to the lands where the war had begun the year before. All around southern New England, small expeditions of white soldiers were rounding up Indians and selling them off into slavery for profit. For almost a month, Philip and his people avoided capture by hiding in the woods and swamps. But he could not remain hidden forever. On July 20, Benjamin Church led a small expedition of English and Indian allies and attacked Philip's camp near Bridgewater. More than 170 Wampanoags were captured or killed in the battle, but King Philip escaped into the forest. Among the prisoners, however, were his wife, Wootonekanuske, and their 9-year-old son. After much debate, the colonists decided to spare their lives by selling them into slavery in the West Indies for a pound apiece. When Philip heard of their fate, he is reported to have said: "My heart breaks. Now I am ready to die." Captain Church continued in hot pursuit of Philip. When an Indian deserter who blamed Philip for the death of a relative revealed that the sachem had returned to Montaup, Church led his men to the vicinity of the old Wampanoag village and down to the craggy shoreline below the impressive bluffs along the Sakonnet River. In the early morning hours of August 12, Church and his company found the small band of Indians sound asleep near the spot later known as King Philip's Seat. Philip had posted no sentries around his camp. Without warning, Church and his men attacked, but Philip, aroused by the noise of battle, saw an escape route and ran quickly toward a swamp. As he ran for his life, a shot rang out, and the sachem slumped to the ground. The great King Philip--the most feared Indian in New England--was dead. The shot had been fired by John Alderman, one of Church's trusted Indian friends. Like Crazy Horse 200 years later, King Philip was slain by a fellow Indian.  Church inspected the body of the fallen sachem and in disgust called him "a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast." The captain's men let out a loud cheer. Then Church ordered the body to be hacked to pieces, butchered in the manner of the standard English punishment for treason. As a reward, Alderman received Philip's head and one hand. The rest of the sachem's body was quartered and hoisted on four trees. Later Alderman sold the severed head to the Plymouth authorities for 30 shillings, the going rate for Indian heads during the war, and it was placed on a stake in Plymouth town, where the gruesome relic remained for the next 25 years. The death of King Philip signaled an end to the war. About 9,000 people had lost their lives in the conflict, including some 3,000 Indians. Nearly 50 English towns and countless Indian villages had been destroyed. Many Indian captives, like Philip's wife and son, were sold into slavery. Unlike the English settlers, the Indians of southern New England never entirely recovered from the devastation of the war. Some Indian tribes, including the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts, were almost entirely annihilated.  Displaced Indians during the conflict Indian survivors of the war huddled together in remote communities where they hoped to avoid scrutiny by the whites, but in subsequent years the local authorities made sure that these remnant bands of Indians came under close supervision of the colonial--and later state--legislatures. In the spirit of King Philip, these native peoples did their best to sustain their culture, traditions and identity despite their dwindling numbers, intermarriage with African Americans and uncharitable treatment by their white lords and masters. The Pequots and Mohegans--some of whom intermarried with the Wampanoag survivors in the centuries after King Philip's War--may have thought they had chosen the winning side by fighting against Philip's Indians during the war, but they ultimately suffered the same cruelties of harsh white policies and bigotry that all Indians in southern New England experienced well into the modern era. Among their greatest losses, besides the tragic loss of life that occurred on both sides during King Philip's War, were the lands that were gobbled up by hungry whites whose appetites could not be satiated until every last morsel had been consumed. As for King Philip and his loyal Wampanoags who chose to fight rather than submit to English demands, they paid the highest price of all. Today the memory of Philip remains strong among the Indians of New England. Standing in the long shadow of King Philip, his descendants and other New England Indians still work for justice and fair policies toward their people. Outside of New England, however, few Americans know Philip's story or the privations experienced by the Indians of New England after his death. Under the circumstances, it is intriguing to wonder just how different American history might have been if King Philip had won his terrible war. |
Thank you for the ping. I can see alot of work went into this evenings thread as usual! Bump for my morning's reading.
Good morning
Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Freeper Foxhole.
How about a nice inflight close up of a Mossie, eh?
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Good Morning there young lady, how's the job going?
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
When we ask God for help, we must be willing to do whatever we can, using whatever means He gives. When Hezekiah heard that he was going to die, he prayed for a miracle, and God promised to extend his life 15 years. Then Isaiah gave instructions to place a lump of figs on the troublesome boil (2 Kings 20:5-7). God did the healing, but He used human effort and natural means. A couple of children were walking to school one morning when it suddenly dawned on them that unless they really hurried they were going to be late. One of them suggested that they stop and pray that they wouldn't be tardy. "No," the other replied, "let's pray while we run as fast as we can." When we ask the Lord to do something, we must also be ready to do our part. —Richard De Haan
How does the truth of today's article apply to illness? To receiving a job promotion? To social evils? To final exams? To increasing faith? Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you.
Praying With Confidence How Can I Know What God Wants Me To Do? |
I'm in.
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on May 19:
1469 Giovanni della Robbia Italian sculptor
1611 Innocent XI [Benedetto Odescalchi] Italy, 240th Roman Catholic Pope (1676-89)
1795 Johns Hopkins philanthropist, founded Johns Hopkins University
1808 Samuel Jameson Gholson Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1883
1812 Felix Kirk Zollicoffer Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1862
1815 John Gross Barnard Brevet Major General (Union Army), died in 1882
1828 Adin Ballou Underwood Brevet Major General (Union volunteers)
1858 Roland Napoleon Bonaparte French officer/traveller (Surinam)
1859 Nellie Melba [Heal Mitchell] Australian soprano (Peach Melba)
1860 Victor E Orlando Italy's premier (1917-19)
1890 Ho Chi Minh leader of Vietnam// Communist Thug (1946, 1969)
1915 Pol Pot dictator/mass murderer
1925 Malcolm X [Little] Omaha NE, assassinated leader of black muslims
1928 Anthony C B Chapman England, sports car builder/autoracer (Formula 1)
1929 Harvey Cox US theologist (Secular City)
1934 James Charles Lehrer Wichita KS, news anchor (McNeil-Lehrer Report)
1935 David Hartman Pawtucket RI, TV personality (Good Morning America)
1939 Nancy Kwan Hong Kong, actress (Flower Drum Song, World of Suzie Wong)
1940 Frank Lorenzo airline executive (Continental, Texas Air, Eastern)
1941 Jimmy Hoffa Jr son of Jimmy Hoffa/Teamster union leader
1941 Nora Ephron New York NY, novelist/screenwriter/director (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Michael, Heartburn)
1945 Peter Townshend England, rock guitarist/vocalist/composer (The Who-Tommy)
1946 Phillip Rudd Melbourne Australia, rock drummer (AC/DC-Rock 'n Roll Damnation)
1947 Jerry Hyman Brooklyn NY, rock singer/trombonist (Blood Sweat & Tears)
1948 Grace Jones [Mendoza] Spanishtown Jamaica, singer/actress(?) (Vamp)
1948 Jean-Pierre Haignere France, cosmonaut (Soyuz TM-17)
1948 Tom Scott Los Angeles CA, saxophonist/bandleader (Pat Sajak Show)
1949 Dusty Hill rocker (ZZ Top)
1951 Joey Ramone [Jeffrey Hyman] Forest Hills NY, punk rocker (Ramones-Baby I Love You)
1955 Pierre J Thuot Groton CT, Lieutenant Commander USN/astronaut (STS 36, 49, 62)
1959 Nicole Brown Simpson Frankford Germany, Mrs OJ Simpson (murdered in 1994)
1968 Jeanne Basone Brubank CA, wrestler (Hollywood-GLOW)
1976 Kevin Garnett NBA forward/MVP (Minnesota Timberwolves)
I LOVE IT!
USS San Antonio (LPD 17) on Sea Trials in the Gulf of Mexico
Morning PE. Thanks for the fine Flag-o-gram.
((HUGS))Good morning, bentfeather. How's it going?
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A runner at a school track meet crossed the finish line just ahead of his nearest rival. A bystander, noticing that the winner's lips were moving during the last couple of laps, wondered what he was saying. So he asked him about it. "I was praying," the runner answered. Pointing to his feet, he said, "I was saying, 'You pick 'em up, Lord, and I'll put 'em down.'" That athlete prayed for God's help, but he also did what he could to answer his own prayer.