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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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)
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