Mayflower (27 page)

Eventually Philip did as Eliot suggested and went to Boston. As the missionary had said might happen, the sachem received a much more sympathetic hearing than he had ever been given in Plymouth. Philip agreed to meet with Plymouth officials on September 24, 1671, as long as a delegation from Massachusetts was also in attendance.

But by the time Philip appeared in Plymouth, the officials from Massachusetts had changed their position. Plymouth was right, and the Pokanokets were wrong. The treaty he was subsequently forced to sign amounted to a total and mortifying capitulation. He must turn over all his weapons, and he must pay a fine of £100. Even worse, he was now a subject of Plymouth and must pay the colony an annual tribute of five wolves’ heads. Plymouth had given Philip no options: if he was to survive as sachem of the Pokanokets, he must now go to war.

Philip was disarmed but hardly defeated. He immediately began to make plans for obtaining more muskets—but to pay for the new weapons, he was going to need money—and lots of it.

In August of 1672, Philip took out a mortgage on some land along the Taunton River to pay off a debt of £83; soon after, he sold a four-mile-square piece of land in the same vicinity for £143 (approximately $32,000 today)—the largest price ever paid for a piece of Indian real estate in Plymouth. Of interest are the Indians whom Philip chose to sign this particular deed, two of whom, Annawon and Nimrod, were his principal “captains” or warriors. Philip, it appears, had launched into a calculated strategy of selling land for weapons. That he was about to sell almost every parcel of land he owned was, in the end, irrelevant, since it was all to fund a war to win those lands back. By 1673, with the sale of a neck of land to the west of Mount Hope, Philip had succeeded in selling every scrap of land surrounding his territory.

Playing into Philip’s stratagem was English greed. Rather than wonder how he and his people could possibly survive once they’d been confined to a reservation at Mount Hope, or speculate where all this money was going, the English went ahead and bought more land—even agreeing to pay for the rights to fish in the waters surrounding Mount Hope when it meant that the Pokanokets might no longer be able to feed themselves.

The Pokanokets represented just 5 percent of the total Indian population of New England. If Philip was to have any hope of surviving a conflict, he must convince a significant number of the other tribes to join him. He knew he could probably count on the Pocassets and the Nemaskets, which were both led by his near relations, but it was questionable whether the Indians on Cape Cod and the islands would follow him into war. The Indians in this region had looked increasingly to Christianity—a trend that had only accelerated since Philip’s voyage to Nantucket in 1665. Closer to home, the Massachusetts, who were so cozy with Winslow, would never join him. Uncas and the Mohegans, along with the remnants of the Pequots, also had strong ties to the English. The Nipmucks, on the other hand, were the Pokanokets’ ancient and trustworthy friends, a relationship strengthened by Massasoit’s final years with the Quabaugs.

There were two important unknowns. To the south of Pocasset, on a rolling plain that swept down to the sea at a rocky point, were the Sakonnets led by the female sachem Awashonks. The Sakonnets’ loyalties were difficult to determine. Even more inscrutable were the Narragansetts, the Pokanokets’ traditional foes. Significant inroads had been made in establishing a common ground between the two tribes, but the Narragansetts were too large and diverse to speak with a single voice. Their young warriors were anxious to enlist, but the tribe’s older, more cautious sachems were reluctant to go to war. If subsequent English claims are to be believed, a tentative agreement was reached between the two tribes that come the spring of 1676, the fighting would begin.

In cobbling together a pan-Indian force to oppose the English, Philip was attempting to accomplish what not even the great Narragansett sachem Miantonomi had been able to pull off in the 1640s. And while Miantonomi had been known for his bravery in battle, Philip had no such reputation. But if he lacked his predecessor’s physical courage, Philip appears to have had a different sort of charisma. His mounting desperation combined with a healthy dose of righteous indignation made him a lightning rod for Indians across the region, all of whom had experienced some version of the Pokanokets’ plight. If they did not band together now and stand up to the English, the opportunity might never come again.

For their part, the English remained confident that Philip had committed himself to peace. Instead of being concerned by the Pokanokets’ growing desire for guns and ammunition, they saw it as a financial opportunity. Incredibly, in the fall of 1674, Plymouth magistrates voted to annul a law prohibiting the sale of powder and shot to the Indians.

Then, in January of 1675, John Sassamon paid a visit to Josiah Winslow.

In 1675, Sassamon was approaching sixty years of age. Abhorred by Philip as conniving and dishonest, he was nonetheless the son-in-law of Philip’s sister Amie. In fact, he lived on land given him by Amie’s husband, Tuspaquin, known as the Black Sachem of Nemasket. Despite his intimate connection to Native royalty, Sassamon was working once again for the missionary John Eliot and was minister to a group of Praying Indians in Nemasket.

There is no way of knowing how long John Sassamon had known about Philip’s plans for war. There is also no way of knowing how long he wrestled with what he should do with that information. But in mid-January of 1675, he informed Josiah Winslow that Philip was on the verge of war. This was not what the governor of Plymouth wanted to hear. Even when Sassamon warned that his life would be in danger if anyone learned that he had spoken with the governor, Winslow’s reaction was to dismiss the claim as yet another Indian overstatement—even if the Indian had attended his alma mater, Harvard College.

At forty-three, Winslow was no longer the brazen young man who had shoved a pistol in Alexander’s chest. His health had become a concern (he may have been stricken by tuberculosis), and the prospect of a major Indian war was simply not part of the future he had envisioned for Plymouth.

Sassamon’s state of mind after his meeting with the governor can only be imagined. What we do know is that not long afterward, his dead body was discovered beneath the ice of Assawompsett Pond in modern Lakeville. Left lying on the ice were his hat, his musket, and a brace of ducks. It certainly appeared as if Sassamon had accidentally fallen through the ice and drowned. But when the Indian who found the body pulled it from the pond, no water issued from the mouth—an indication that Sassamon had been dead before he went through the ice. The body was also bruised and swollen around the neck and head. When word of Sassamon’s death reached Careswell, the governor of Plymouth finally began to believe that the Pokanokets might be up to something.

An investigation was launched, and in March Philip voluntarily appeared in court to answer any questions the officials might have. Strenuously denying his involvement in Sassamon’s death, the sachem insisted that this was an internal Indian matter and not the purview of the Plymouth government. The court, however, continued its investigation and soon found an Indian who claimed to have witnessed the murder. Conveniently hidden on a hill overlooking the pond, he had seen three Indians—Tobias, one of Philip’s senior counselors; Tobias’s son; and one other—seize Sassamon and violently twist his neck before shoving his lifeless body beneath the ice. On the strength of this testimony, a trial date was set for June 1.

As the date of the trial approached, Philip’s brother-in-law, the Black Sachem of Nemasket, posted a £100 bond, secured with real estate, as bail for Tobias. This enabled Tobias to speak with Philip, who was justifiably concerned that he would be the next one on trial. To no one’s surprise, Philip chose not to attend the hearing. Instead, he remained at Mount Hope, where he surrounded himself with warriors and marched menacingly to within sight of the Swansea border. Reports began to filter in to Plymouth that large numbers of “strange Indians” were making their way to the Pokanoket homeland.

The last thing Philip wanted was to go to war before all was ready. They did not have enough muskets, bullets, and especially gunpowder. But events were quickly acquiring a momentum that was beyond any single person’s control. If the English insisted on putting Tobias and the others on trial, he might have no choice.

A panel of eight judges, headed by Winslow, presided over the trial. There were twelve English jurors assisted by six Praying Indians. Winslow later claimed they were the “most indifferentest, gravest, and sage Indians,” but this did little to alter Philip’s belief that the verdict had already been determined.

According to English law in the seventeenth century, two witnesses were required to convict someone of murder. But the English had only a single witness, and as came out in the trial, he had had prior dealings with one of the accused. Before supposedly witnessing the murder, he had been forced to give up his coat to Tobias to pay off a gambling debt. Even though there was only one witness, and a dubious witness at that, all eighteen members of the jury found Tobias and his accomplices guilty. It was a shocking miscarriage of justice. But what began as an affront to legal process quickly degenerated into an unconscionable display of cruelty.

The executions were scheduled for June 8. Plymouth minister John Cotton, who had spent several years preaching to the Indians on Martha’s Vineyard, took the opportunity to deliver a sermon to the Indians gathered to witness the hangings. As the condemned were brought to the gallows, all three Indians continued to maintain their innocence. Tobias was hanged first, followed by his friend. But when it came time to execute Tobias’s son, the rope broke. Whether this was by accident or by design, it had what the English considered to be the desired effect. As the young Indian struggled to his feet, with the still-twitching bodies of his father and family friend suspended in the air above him, he was presented with the chance to save his life. So he changed his story, claiming that the other two had indeed killed Sassamon while he looked on helplessly. With the boy’s confession, the authorities now had the number of witnesses the law required.

Traditionally, a condemned man was granted a reprieve after a failed execution. But a month later, with war raging across the colony, Tobias’s son was taken from his cell and shot to death with a musket.

By the time Philip received word of the executions, Mount Hope stood at the vortex of a gathering storm of rage and indignation. The trial had been a travesty of justice—and an insulting challenge to the authority of the Pokanoket leader. Now, it seemed, was the time for Philip to take the opportunity given him by the English and lead his people triumphantly into battle.

His warriors were surely for it. Young, with little to lose and everything to gain, the fighting men of the Pokanokets now had the chance to win back what their fathers and grandfathers had so shortsightedly given away. It was a year ahead of Philip’s original schedule, but the timing was, for the most part, fortuitous. The trees and underbrush were thick with new leaves, providing the cover the warriors needed when attacking the English. The swamps, which the Indians traditionally used as sanctuaries in times of war, were still mucky with spring rain and were impenetrable to the English soldiers. If they waited until midsummer, when the mire of the swamps started to congeal, it would be too late. They might not have the stores of gunpowder they had hoped to have amassed in a year’s time, nor have the firm commitments they had planned to get from the other tribes, but there was nothing they could do about that now. They must strike soon and furiously. Philip, however, had never been one to rush into anything. Since his foray out to Nantucket a decade before, he had developed a talent for inviting conflict, then finding creative, if often humiliating, ways to avoid the final, potentially catastrophic confrontation. But by June 1675, his own warriors were about to call his bluff and demand that they go to war.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Governor Winslow remained hopeful that the present troubles would blow over. Except for writing a single letter to Philip in the weeks after the trial for Sassamon’s murder, he failed to take an active role in thwarting a possible outbreak of violence. By the end of the month, both Winslow and Philip had become victims of their own rhetoric and posturing. Paralyzed by worry and wishful thinking, they were powerless to restrain what years of reckless greed, arrogance, opportunism, and ineptitude had unleashed among the young warriors of the Pokanokets.

Puritan historians later insisted that Philip maliciously pushed his people into the conflict. The English residents of Swansea told a different story. According to an account recorded in the early part of the following century, Philip and his counselors “were utterly averse to the war” in June 1675. Swansea resident Hugh Cole later told how Philip sent him word that “he could not control his young warriors” and that Cole must abandon his home and seek refuge on Aquidneck Island. Another tradition claimed that when Philip first heard that one of his warriors had killed an Englishman, he “wept at the news.”

He had reason to weep. Even with recent recruits from neighboring tribes, his fighting force amounted to no more than a few hundred poorly equipped warriors. Even worse, they were situated on a peninsula. If they were unable to fight their way north into the underbelly of Plymouth Colony, their only means of escape from Mount Hope was by water.

The English had vulnerabilities of their own. Unlike the Indians, who traveled across the countryside on a seasonal basis, the English lived in houses that were fixed permanently to the ground. As a consequence, all their possessions—including clothing, furniture, food, and livestock—were there for the taking. As they were about to discover, an Indian war was the worst fate imaginable for the English of Plymouth Colony.

Philip had been forced to prepare for war out of political necessity. After the disastrous summer of 1671, his survival as sachem had depended on it. But Armageddon had always been in the distant future. Thanks to the murder trial of Tobias and the others, Armageddon had arrived.