|
Posted on 05/18/2005 10:23:12 PM PDT by SAMWolf
|
|
 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
| 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.
|
|
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.
|
Sounds to me as if Ward Churchill ought to change his story and say he's from King William's band of Indians. No one left alive to dispute the tale.
King Philip is to be commended for an exellent name, for spelling it correctly.
He failed to grasp the importance of alliances, something which is at the core of The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517-1521 by Bernal Diaz Del Castillo
In defense of whites vis a vis Indians [note the politically incorrect term in the American History Magazine article]: thirty years ago in the road house here The Line Camp where Lola [not her real name] and I danced to everybody from Tito Puente to Taj Mahal a busboy Tommy Vigil told me how his Indian [!] father and Spanish mother made him a coyote despised by both cultures. He wound up sitting outside freezing to death after one family fight. A tragedy as he was certainly not despised outside that family.
I enjoyed the tape my sister sent of a lecture to "health care professionals" by a self-described "New York cardiologist" [we get those here] who did his volunteer work on a New Mexico "reservation" where a "medicine man" lay dying in the clinic. The people came to get him for fiesta and the doc was so impressed by the elder's beating the lethal diagnosis to make it to fiesta he told the old man, "I'll see you tomorrow." "No, you won't," replied the medicine man. And of course he died in the morning, having lived just for his people and his fiesta.
So let us bring back the traditional English reward for treason, being the community coming together to hack the traitor to pieces.
Very informative read of our earliest settlers and the travails with the "Native Americans". It's almost as though we're reading about the British rather than Americans.
Meanwhile, the frontier exploded from Connecticut to Maine with one Indian attack after another.
This really puts in perspective how early this war was. As adept as King Philip was in his battles with the early settlers, it's strange that at the height of his career he would not think to post any sentries around his camp. Death wish?
That's a good thing . . . right? I mean you don't have chauffeur her around Oregon anymore! ;^)
Jog my memory . . . what was the ONLY reason that "Bandit" would remove his cowboy hat???
Sure it's a good thing, I still get to be the driver, it's a guy thing. ;-)
Nice Mossie pics!
Evening E.G.C.
Been raining on and off all day. Got a few good downpours.
Evening GailA.
LOL! Oh No! We're in the land of the little people.
They used the long term "Tobacco habit" to get their revenge. ;-)
Evening Phil Dragoo.
And we let them spew that garbage in the name of "diversity". GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
We're being invaded by Mexico and by Islam while our government sits back and worries about the "steriods" crisis in sports.
Evening PE. Looks like the "ship of the future" is getting real close.
I used to "bug" Roger with that song all the time. ;-)
Evening Victoria.
LOL! I heard the Cherokee disowned him :-)
Sadly it's probably a part of our history that is only taught in the New England States.
In the former instance the attribution may end with MacArthur or with Santayana. In the latter, with Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).
The MacArthur address is available in text and mp3 at General Douglas MacArthur: Thayer Award Acceptance Address.
Clausewitz said "war is a continuation of politics (politik) by other means".
WAR AND POLITICS: THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS AND THE CONTINUED RELEVANCE OF CLAUSEWITZ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
