The Death of Metacom and Legacy

Want to explore even more history Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world from the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland There is plenty to discover With your subscription, you'll unlock hundredundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exxploring everything from the ancient world to World War II Just visit historyhit d. com slash subscribe bring the past alive. This episode is brought to you by Best Western Hotels and Resorts Summer is upon us. And you know what that means Vacation Whether you've been planning it for months or you're ready to pack a bag and go on a whim Having a place you can rely on makes every trip feel that much easier. That's where Best Western comes in. From scenic road trips to spontaneous adventures abroad, you'll find welcoming stays wherever you land. So you can focus on making memories, not managing the details This summer get one thousand bonus points and a chance to win two hundred fifty thousand bonus points So wherever you're headed, make the stay part of the trip and make it count with this limited time offer. Life's a trip Make the most of it at bestwestern. com No additional purchase necessary for sweeps. See bonus points, terms and conditions, and sweeps rules for details. and visit bestwestern. com for complete terms and conditions Every winter The snow rolls in with an eerie, muffled silence It is sixteen seventy four. And we're journeying in from Plymouth Colony here in New England Our boots crunch in the crusted snow as the whistling wind swirls fresh powder ghostly spiral This time of year, the waters are frozen over Birds and small mammals gladly use them as shortcuts. But for us here at Assa Wampset Pond The ice is unpredictable In some places, thick enough to support several men in others cracks and pops, threatening to collapse And if it does here at this location pond it lies beneath in the water could shatter a tenuous peieace and forever echo through the colonial history of the North American continent Hello and welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Weildban, and today we're heading back to the sixteen seventies half a century after the arrival of the Mayflower and what is arguably per capita, the bloodiest war in American history known as King Philip's War Who was this ruler? this eponymous King Philip And howed events at Asa Wamps at Pond finally end what slim chance there might have been. peaceful coexistence between European colonists and native nations To learn about this, I'm speaking with Professor David Silveran of George Washington University Author of six books, the most recent of which is The Chosen and the Damned, Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States. Hi, David, how are you doing just fine. Thank you for having me. You know, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Anyone living in or spending time in New England, which I do every summer, hears about the subject from time to time and most do not understand it. So let's start with an overview What was King Philip's war King Philip's War is the great contest between native people and English colonist control of the balance of power in southern New England in the sixteen seventies. Right. We often style this as an Indian colonial war. The reality is a little bit more complicated than that. In fact, what you have is a coalition tribes in resistance to the expansion of the English colonies and the English colonies are also allied with other native tribes in this war Yeah, spoiler alert, history is written by the Victors here and and so are the titles of these things. Kings' Philips warar would be a European objective on this conflict, wouldn't it? Because there's a lot more behind that name We don't know what the native people would have called this war. Yeah, exactly. Right To situate this again, you've already mentioned, we're talking about the whole stretch of land, gigantic territory, of course, from basically Massachusetts, what we know today is Massachusetts down all the way to New York, right? That whole kind of what ends up being on Long Island sound The war is concentrated in what is now Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island Back in the sixteen seventies, that area was divided between the Massachusetts Bay Colony Plymouth cololony, which is now, you know, mostly the south shore of Massachusetts Bay through Cape Cod and then Rhode Island within its present boundaries. The war also extended northward into southern Maine Oh wow. Okaykay And like all wars or most of them anyway, it is all about territory. This is considered to be the deadliest war in colonial American history. possibly when you think about it, all of U. S. history if you do the math Considering the populations at the time. I mean, per capita, this was a devastating conflict, wasn't it It is a devastating conflict. you know, whether it's the bloodiest all American history or even just colonial American history is hard to say. I know historians have stressed that point repeatedly. You know, the fact of the matter is we have very poor statistics casualty rates, particularly on the native side of things notot only in this particular war For all colonial Indian wars. I think there are some other contenders The Yamassy War in South Carolina in seventeen fifteen sixteen might very well have been as or more bloody We just can't say with absolute certainty. what we can say is this was a terrible war. Right. And it needs some setup. So we'll get to the action of this war in a bit, but I want to know what was going on in the Northeast by sixteen seventy five. This is early days. I mean, we've barely got the Dutch leaving in New York. I mean The seeparatists have arrived in Massachusetts fifty years before Give me a context here of this war Sure, effectively, this is a war in which Native people recognize that if they don't strike colonies hard and fast and in a united fashion They're going to lose everything. And when I say everything, I mean not only their land, though they were certainly on the precipice of losing their land They were going to lose their sovereignty which is to say they're right to self rule They were even at risk of becoming servants and slaves of the English. So, you know, in other words, they're going to lose their livelihoods their self rule and their freedom, which is to say Absolutely everything And they had learned these lessons over the course of course, sixteen twenty to about sixty one, which was mostly a peaceful coexistence, I guess we put it on quotation marks By the time of this war, which again, is going to happen in the sixteen seventies, Native Americans have suffered enormous population loss from decimation from diseases arriving from Europeans. what has happened all over North and South America lost tribal land to colonists, They had as a result, less area to hunt and fish, which of course, increased competition between them as well. I mean, this is a very complicated problem, isn't it Have these nations been meeting together in a Confederate sort of way, figuring this out on their own? Is war, of course, going to be a last resort, right 've been having conversations decades Yeah about the threat that English expansion posed to all of them. The first Exple of those conversations actually occurs in the sixteen forties when a narganset Sachum or chief Named Man Tonomo starts appealing to tribes throughout the region, saying Hey, look, you know, I know we have our differences. we have our historic differences, we have our current differences These English pose a real threat to our collective way of life And unless we make common cause with one another We don't stand a chance against them. They're going to play divide and conquer against us until we're all defeated But the conversation at that point goes nowhere because the intertribal rivalries are too fresh and fierce And the existential threat of English expansion is too distant for Native people to take that leap But with every passing year, there's more and more native people who reach that conclusion. During the sixteen fifties and the sixteen sixties The leader who is making that rallying cry is a narraganset niantic satum named Ninigret But by the sixteen seventies, the leader of this cause is a whoming. named Pemeticom, who the English call King Philip. He is the son of none other than Massasoet the Wapinog leader who had greeted and welcomed the separatists or pilgrims in Plymouth and allowed their struggling colony to survive Right, exactly When we say a Confederacy, how many nations are we talking about? We're talking about roughly a half dozen.. So the war begins with the Wampanogs. Though let's be clear, you know, the Wampanogs themselves are divided in this war There are Christian Wampings on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket who side with the English in the war. They want nothing to do with this. But you know, roughly half to two thirds of the Wamponogs take up arms against the English They're very quickly joined in the war by the Nipmucks. of what's now central Massachusetts. So for your listeners in the area, around modern day Worcestermass Eventually they're joined too by various small tribes in the Middle Connecticut River Valley in what's now Western Massachusetts, Sakokies, Noratucks, beccum Tucks who the English call the river Indians, sometimes they also call them friend Indians, though they're not friends in this war. They joined very quickly. And then eventually the Naragansets joined. the Naragansts and the Wampin Os had been rivals for generations And they make common cause midway through this war. So you know, we're really talking about half a dozen people. Yeah This is setting the scene for what then transpires over the next two centuries really about how these different nations or tribes decide to alle or not allie with these white colonists in any kind of way. All these famous stories later on where' out West, there are guides who lead these incursions of American cavalry and so forth. All that is being set up early in this war. That's what's so interesting and important to understand about this time is that there's so much precedent being developed here You mentioned Masasoet, who is the chief of that Wampanoke Confederation The two sons we'll talk about a lot here are both Medacom, who the English call King Philip. And then Masasoet's elder son, Wam Sura. Let's talk about him. He is next in line after Mesasoic, but he dies, right He does You know, he dies in what the Wampenog suspect is a case of English poisoning. Oh, really? It might very well have been a burst appendix. We just don't know. But you know, the fact of the matter is that when he rises to become the Wampinog Sachum in the early sixteen sixties, no sooner has he assumed that position then the English start receiving intelligence or rumors, know, it's hard to know how accurate this information is, But they start receiving news from native sources that Wamsuta is holding conferences with the narraganss. And, that's a really alarming proposition for the English because they know about the longstanding hostilities between these groups. What's more, Wamsuta is constantly engaging in land transactions with the colony of Rhode Island Rhode Island is a bit of an outlier in Puritan, New England It's a colony that's made up of religious dissidents who have been drummed out of all of the Peritan colonies And Massachusetts would like nothing more than to annex Rhode Island and then drum those those dissidents out of the area. So Wamada's Land dealings with Rhode Island bind with his his dealings with the Narraganss alarms the New England colonies and eventually they force Wamsuta to come in for dressing down. by English magistrates. He gets sick while he's there and dies shortly thereafter again The Wampanogs think that the English have poisoned him to end his inter tribal organizing. I have three I want to make here, where do these different names come from? When we're talking about Wamsuda, he was also known as Alexander. We're talking about Medacom, who was also known as King Philip Who is bestowing these names and how do we decipher here So Shortly after Mumsada rises to the Satumhip following the death of Masusoet He and his brother, Pometicom go to Plymouth Colony and they say We're now in charge We would like you to give us new names And, you know, the English call W Sada Alexander and they call Pometicom Philip Why these Sichums made this request is open to speculation I suspect what they're doing is sending a warning to the English. It is not uncommon in native diplomacy to take on a new name when one is taking on a new life course. And I think what I think the new life course that these brothers were taking is they they had decided break with their fathers Lstanding policy of Alliance with the English And they were going to try to organize a multi tribal anti colonial resistance. I think their names were a very subtle way of sending that warning to the English, but we simply can't know for sure. Psychologically, you mean we're meeting you on your ground and watch out. We can do what you think you can do to us, but we can do better. Effectively, yeah. interestnteresting curious how the English perceive this because againgain, precedent here. They're coming in to acquire land. I mean, at the very basic. this is this is about real estate And the European understanding is that we will own this. we will have this land and we can do whatever we want with it. obbviously native tribes don't feel this way about the earth and the land. and this is probably the first time that we have that on a large scale that conflict Is that where this really derives from is a total change in the way that land is distributed? I think land is the primary issue, but it's hardly the only issue. It's associated with a number of other matters that feed into this work. So you know, let's start with the land itself. When native people sell land to Europeans, initially. It's with the understanding that the Europeans can build homes on that land, they can plant the land and they can graze their livestock on that land Native people don't assume that that use is to the exclusion of native uses in the land. In other words, native people And how do we know this Native people get their beliefs written into several land deeds, you know the documents that the English used to trace these transactions, in which Native people reserve these rights explicitly. I see. And I say, you know, we will continue to fish on this land. We'll continue to plant in our custom places. We have the right of travel back and forth through that we can gather here, so on and so forth. Now, you know, eventually the English stop honoring those understandings onnce they have enough of a population to throw their weight around But initially that's the native expectation. There are two other primary grievances that Native people have with the English. One is the English are not only expanding on the land, they're expanding their jurisdiction In other words, they are increasingly claiming the right to Try crriminal cases between native people occurred in native territory. W Not just in English territory, but in native territory That is really pushing the envelope. When Native people sold land to the English, it was not with the understanding English law, that English governance would take over. The understanding was that the old native rules of things would apply.. The English don't see things that way at all. And very often what I'll say to people to clarify this matter is, imagine a flotilla of Wampanog canoes crosses the Atlantic to England And then those whopin ogs buy land. in England. Has the jurisdiction of that land passed from the English to the Wapanags? You would say, no, the Wapanags are buying into England. Well, that's the assumption of native people when the English come to native territory. And then the third factor here is the expansion to Christianity English have been evangelizing Native people throughout the region and roughly half of the Wamponog tribe has taken up Christianity And especially on Cape Cod the Islands of Marless Vineard, Nant Tucket with adoption of Christianity, Native people stop following the rule of their satjums. And what they do is they stop paying tribute to those leaders, effectively taxes, and the English protect them from any retribution from those satems So there's a number of overlapping grievances which are driving this anti colonial resistance by Native people. Well, this is what I've always wondered about where you have these English who are not naive, They understand, you know, what's going to happen as a result of changing everything in this new land. They do this consciously, right? They understand the reaction they're going to get. orr do they actually think these people are docile and simply savages waiting to be civilized. When the colonial period begins, early English statements suggest that the English believe that native people will be so awed by the supposed superiority of English, civilization and religion They will clamor to join us I see voluntarily It takes very little time for the English to recognize that there are very few native people who want to adopt the English way of life in total And moreover, that there are almost no native people who want the English to exercise jurisdiction over them. So you know, in other words, even native people who adopt Christianity and many aspects of the English way of life expect to maintain their own sovereignty their own separateness from English governance The English don't see things that way at all The expectation is that by dint of their supposed civility and Christianity They have the right to lord it over people that they consider to be barbarians or savages. Okay, it is that ugly reality I'll be back with more American history after this short break This episode is brought to you by Best Western Hotels and Resorts Summer is upon us. And you know what that means Vacation. Whether you've been planning it for months or you're ready to pack a bag and go on a whim, Having a place you can rely on makes every trip feel that much easier. That's where Best Western comes in. From scenic road trips to spontaneous adventures abroad You'll find welcoming stays wherever you land So you can focus on making memories, not managing the details This summer get one thousand bonus points and a chance to win two hundred fifty thousand bonus points So wherever you're headed, make the stay part of the trip. and make it count with this limited time offer Life's a trip Make the most of it at Bwestern. com No additional purchase necessary for sweeps points terms and conditions and sweeps rules for details and visit bestwestern. com for complete terms and conditions everver wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Coliseseum Find out on the Ancients podcast from History Hit Twice a week, join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago Babylonians, to the Celts, to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were That's the ancients from History Hit. Let's get back to the course of events leading to war. The Metacom, you've mentioned The English call King Philip now took control of this Confederacy when his brother has died of mysterious circumstances This is all during the English continuing to violate the alliance, right? That was set up. Correct Right, you know, by the time Wam Suda dies in the early sixteen sixties The English have actually at attained a population majority. in in southern New England. Okay And conscious of that fact they start throwing their weight around. So you know what does that mean It means that whereas before They honored in the breach, those native expectations about mutual land use. now they're increasingly denying native people access to that territory. They're allowing their herds of cattle and see. pigs to wander beyond the boundaries that they've purchased and trespass on native territory then they prosecute native people for injuring the animals when they've trespassed in native territory increasingly They're attempting to punish murders between native people in native territory, which for most native people is just a step too far. They will not tolerate it. The English are encouraging Christian Indians not to pay tribute and not to defer politically to their regional leaders All of these tensions are mounting. And it is across the board, I mean and regionally all around, right? Everywhere this is happening These native nations are talking to each other and understanding that each other is having this kind of abuse done to them Indeed, there are conversations that are stretching all the way from Massachusetts Bay in the North southward to New York Harbor to the Hudson River. Native people are matching notes And they're trying to determine whether it is viable for them to rise up together and whether they trust one another enough to do so. Right. Have they had that conversation before? Has there been a temptation to have this kind of Confederated reaction Indeed, thereaspen And you know, in the Hudson River Valley, the lower Hudson River Valley in the sixteen forties, there was a multi tribal uprising that nearly drove the Dutch into the sea in the sixteen forties. And so, you know, again, and these conversations have been stretching over the course of decades asking a lot of native people to create a coalition on that scale. given their rivalries between their polities predate the arrival of the English And hostilities between those groups continue all the way into the sixteen seventies. So you know, many of them, all of them are out for themselves. They want their groups to be safe and secure and profitable. They really don't care about the fate of other trial groups. Right. And so much of this will be a divide and conquer mentality for hundreds of years. You know, let's make alliances with these guys so they'll work against those guys. It's a lot of chess playing going on. which brings us to sixteen seventy four and five. I mean, this is really when this war begins. And we do call it King Philip's warar. Is he the one that really triggers this thing Well He launches the first attacks. I would contend that the English have really pushed him into it And he's quite explicit about that point. So, you know, there have been rumors of Pometicom trying to rally the tribes of the region against the English for years for many years. Indeed, in sixteen seventy one, crisis built to a point that, you know, the English forcibly called him in to meet with authorities from Plymouth, Massachusetts. confiscated all of his people's guns and levied a massive fine on him that he could only pay the session of yet more land. Wow. So, you know, the Crisis had been brewing for quite some time When it finally breaks, you know, what happens is Christian Indian, and let's be clear Petacom reviles Christian Iidians. You know, he says there' no good double crossers You know, they're English lackkeys, you know, they're an enemy within Harvard Educated Christian Indian named John Sassamon goes to meet with the governor of Plymouth in December of sixteen seventy four. And he says to him, you know, Philip Pometicom is plotting again when Spring comes around and there's camouflage for native warriors They're going to strike. And then you know the governor of Plymouth, Josiah Winslow brushes off Sassamon and says, you know, yeah, ye, yeah, yeah, we've heard all this before. and you know, you can't believe native sources and this this too shall pass as he's walking out the door Sassaman says, I doubt you're ever going to see me again Hm And sure enough, he disappears. Wow. The English conduct an investigation And eventually two native people including a Christian comeome forward, one of them says I witnessed Several of Pometicom's men murder John Sassamon bury him under the ice of frozen asswamps at pond Another native source comes forward and gives hearsay evidence to the same effect. And lo and behold, you know, they find Sassaman's body. they conduct an autopsy on it. and what the autopsy suggests is that He was dead before he entered the water How do they know that? there's no water in his lungs? Okay And there's bruises all around his neck, which suggests that he had been strangled before he entered the ice. So what the English do is they arrest Try and execute three of Pemeticom's men for this murder That's it whatever forbearance Pameticom had shown up to this point. He can no longer show it. If the English can go and arrest, try and murder his own people for an affair between Native people and native territory, his sovereignty means nothing A amazing. It's like a An episode of Law and Order here Sometime later, David, that Metacom's warriors kill English cattle in Swansea. All of these things are stepping us towards open conflict, aren't we Oh, no question about it. and they start burning out buildings in Swani and Rohobith. They start showing up on the edge of English towns armed and painted for war They don't strike the first blow. They wait for it's actually an English boy to shoot one of their warriors dead and one source suggests that one of their shaman or powwows, as they wereall had a premonition that for the natives to win this war, the English had to shed first blood, but the the natives are doing everything they can to provoke that outcome to be sure This will all take about three years, sixteen seventy five to seventy eight And at first, it goes very well for this Confederacy, doesn't it? The Natives are very successful in pushing back colonists from the frontier For this first six months or so The natives are getting B of it Yeah the main reason they're getting the best of it is is two full. One is the English keep violating the neutral rights of native people and pushing them into war on the side of Pometicon. and against the English. So you know, initially, Pometicom has very few communities that rally to his cause. But eventually the English forced the Nipmucks, the so called river Indians in the Middle Connecticut River Valley and eventually the Narraagansets into this war whether those groups would have entered it on their own accord, We simply cannot say The other factor that's leading early native victories is that they're experts in forest warfare and the English are utterly incompetent at it So what they do is they ambush English troops on the march. and then plunder their arms and ammunition They strike outlying English towns throughout Plymouth and Massachusetts. You know, eventually by the time we get to early sixteen seventy six There's a real possibility it looks like. Natives in resistance can push English settlement Boston and its inner ring of towns. Yeah Tell me about the ambush that happens at Bloody Brook in South Derfield. This is a terrible bloodshed, isn't it It is. no question about it You know, the English when they're on the march. have a tendency to let down their guard. And that is certainly the case in this attack The men of the English force actually put down their guns and start picking grapes You know, which is something you should not do when you're in enemy territory. Yeah. You know, what's more, they march bunched up together And you know, whenever native people are with them, they say, you know on't do this. You're like one big red bullseye standing here in the woods, you know, space yourselves out Remain alert Use scouts and flankers And you know, be prepared for enemy fire at any point. Yeah The English don't take this advice. You know, meaneanwhile You have nipbucks and river Indians who are lying in camouflage all along this trail And when the, you know, when the English reach this bend in the trail where their their forces are separated from one another, the natives attack. They unleash a volley of gunfire and when the English are paralyzed both by the gunfire and the sound of it, the natives rush in with knives and tomahawks and put them into the knife seventy six colonists in this particular ambush are killed The English do drive them off Th they end up sending one hundred Native women and children into enslavement. There were all kinds of terrible things that happened as a result of these actions also results in hostages being taken and ransoms. It's really, really ugly what goes on here. And this is just part of it. And when we mentioned at the beginning, the bloodiest war supposedly Remember, this is in the context of not large populations. So seventy six is a huge number P The English gamble during this and they attacked the Narragansets in Rhode Island who are neutral up to this point, right? They drag these guys in. I guess they'd been part of this Confederacy, but they weren't actively fighting, is that right Yes and no. So The Nargansas haven't taken military action against the English as yet However, a large body of nargansets painted for war and armed do march to the edge of the English town of Warware which is clearly meant as a threat What's more, the Narraganss have been taking in Wampinog women and children and offering them protection while Wampanog men are out warrying against the English And the English demand the Nargansus to turn over these Wampanag noncombatants Nargants won't do it What's more a high ranking Naragganet woman has married a high ranking Wampanag war captain, suggesting that the diplomacy between these groups is getting quite close indeed and rumors spread by the Mohean Sachum Unccus who hates the Narraganets and is in alliance with the English says that the narragans are just waiting for the spring of sixteen seventy six to roll around and then they're going to join the Woppinogs in ar So, you know, the English are certain You know, whether their certainty is well placed or not is up for debate. But the English in their own minds are certain that the Narragansets are going to join this war against them And so they launch preemptive attack that makes the casualties at Bloody Brook look minor in comparison. Yeah, three hundred to six hundred killed These are large numbers, really a thousand militia from Massachusetts Bay Colony Plymouth, Rhode Island,togher Connecticut, even this colonist army is being organized over a large amount of territory, which brings to mind what they're What is their eventual strategy What are they acting on? A war of attrition kind of thing or just beating them up so badly that they won't be able to negotiate well The colonial strategy is really haphazard. until the spring of sixteen seventy six The problem that the colonists are having is that their usual strategy against Native people is to attack them before their harvest. So attack them in the summer. becausecause very rarely will native warriors meet English soldiers in an open field battle They want to launch guerrilla strikes against them. So the way that the English, not only in New England, but throughout the English colonies wage war against Native people is to a war of attrition You burn down their food supplies and their houses season after season after season until they capitulate Um, you know, because they're they're starving and desperate. The English also have a strategy of targeting native people in their winter quarters because that's just about the only time of year when the native people are all clustered together. So that's precisely what the English do against the Narragansas. They strike the Narragansas, greatreat swamp for it in the deead of winter When men, women and children are all gathered together and all their food supplies are stored up The problem is in this war that the natives in arms aren't living in sedentary villages anymore They're scattered and they're on the move The English have a very hard time locating. This is a problem Native people. They can't continue this kind of campaign indefinitely These are a horticultural people They get most of their calories from corn beans and squash.? Well, they're not growing corn beans and squash during this war if you were if you're a Wampin og or a Nar Ganset The other major portion of your sustenance comes from fishing. Fishing and clamming. Well, they don't they not in their fishing and claming grounds anymore. So yeah, they're living on the hunt They're living based on what they can plunder. from English villages and they're living based on whatever they can trade or receive as gifts from other native people But it is very clear that by the winter of sixteen, seventy five, seventy six and especially the spring The early spring of sixteen seventy six, Native people are suffering starvation disease And their numbers are wilting by living on the run And they realize they're outgunned. and so much of this is about the land that they're protecting, but they have lots of land elsewhere, I guess, and they can move around. And so it's not the ideal thing for them, but some of them can escape from this. And that's what the English want basically sort of table in their favor Medicom returns to his home grounds, which is Mount Hope, right? Is that Mount Hope, Massachusetts? Is that right? Yes, in Wamponag it's Montop Sorry. He is eventually tracked down by a guy named Benjamin Church using native guides and a man who portrayseticom, sameame old story many times church surrounds this camp The Medicom realizes he was discovered Tell me about this event. It's quite dramatic Sure, there's a long set upp to this, which I think will be of interest to your listeners. Yeah The story of Pemeticom and his men going back to Mount Hope or Montau effectively begins in February of sixteen seventy six when they're camp near the Hudson River The reason they're camp there is that they are purchasing guns from Dutch gun rununners in Albany, which is part of the English colony of New York, but is overwhelmingly a Dutch town. Yeah. The English goovernor of New York catches wind of this enemy camp And he sends word to the Mohawks of the Iroquois League or the Hden Nhones who live just to the west of Albany. And he says, look, If you drive these Indians who are warring against the New England colonists from their winter camp, I will make it worth your while with a very generous present of gunspowder and shot And the Mohawks have longstanding hostilities with some of these people. They hardly need the push, but they take the invitation and drive these Wampings, Nargansets and nipmugs from their gun Depot in effect back east into the teeth of the English and the colonists, native allies, the Moheans, the peequats, and Christian Wampans What's more, in the spring of sixteen seventy six limits militia capaptain Benjamin Church ails on English authorities to extend an offer of quarter or mercy to any native people who switched sides in the war. and who will agree to fight under his command So now all of a sudden Church has under his command Native people who know how to fight in forced warfare. And so it is at this moment Pometicom and his dwindling number of warriors go back to their home territory. And effectively the gig is up. They're being pursued from the West by the Mohawks. They're being pursued from every other direction by the English and their growing number of native allies. And eventually, Church and his forces catch up with Pometacom. And in, you know, in a scenario that Pometicom would have absolutely dreaded He's shot down by a Christian Indian, a Christian Wampang who the English called Alderman. And you know, after his death, Church orders Pometicon decapitated And then Plymouth Colony mounts his head outside of the walls of Plymouth Fork to rot for the next twenty years This is the very site where Permeticom's father conducted his peace treaty with the with the English and P colony and where you know, the so called first Thanksgiving took place. Oh my goodness. Well, ironic, isn't it I'll be back with more American history after this short break Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum Find out on the Ancients podcast from History Hit Twice a week, join me, Tristan Hughes as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians, to the Celts, to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were That's the ancients from History Hit. I have a quote here to read about this death about Picom's death They let him come fare within shot and the Englishman's gun missing fire. He bid the Indian to fire away, as you say. And he did so to purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart and another knot above two inches from it He fell upon his face in the mud and water with his gun under him. Is there an official ending to this war, David, a moment of surrender and negotiating a treaty and so forth There is not Mop up operations in southern New England continue throughout the summer and the fall of sixteen seventy six And what the English are doing is they're trying to kill every native warrior then get their hands on But then they're seizing the women and the children and they're selling them into slavery sometimes into slavery in the English colonies of New England, but as often as not, in places very far afield, including the sugar colonies of the Caribbean and other colonies on the Atlantic Seaaboard In Maine, the war is going to last into sixteen seventy eight. Right. The English have provoked the Abnakis there and the Abnakis get the best of it. They almost empty all of Southern Maine of what few English people had lived there Additionally, and this is this is an interesting way to think about the question of when the war ends Native survivors of this war, many of them lead to the Jesuit, the Catholic Jesuit missions. of the St. Lawrence River Valley in the colony of New France And from those bases, they and then their children, are going to continue to strike English settlements in Maine New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts Well into the eighteenth century And I think for them those strikes are more than just them serving as proxies for the French Those strikes are effectively a continuation of King Philip's war Interesting, w I'm always here with the grim numbers. fiveive thousand Native peoples died, approximate, of course. anotherother thousand are enslaved More than half of the English settlements attacked were attacked during the war And as you say, many of those shifting alliances happen as a result of this just by movements of people Your book, which I want to plug is the chosen and the Damned Native Americans and the making of race in the United States, which is such an interesting title Where does that come from in the context of this conversation the idea of race coming out of this Sure The native people are thinking of themselves as a race actually before the English h The English still call themselves ively Christians in the sixteen seventies evenven though Native people and for that matter African American slaves are increasingly becoming Christians too and troubling the English understanding of that term The native people are calling themselves Indians. They've adopted this term from the English and are using it to refer to their collective interest in rout and their their the collective threat that they face from colonialism So I would argue that this war is a wers a racial watershed, particularly in Native people. thinking of themselves as a single particular group of people Right. However, it is a step in colonists moving towards the adoption of the term white as a collective identity. By the time we get to around seventeen hundred The colonists of New England are using that term. and it's a term that first emerges in the context of