The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World* (39 page)

The sakonnets also insisted that silence was essential when pursuing the enemy. The English constantly talked to one another, and it always alerted the Indians to their presence. Creaking leather shoes and even the swishing sound made by a pair of thick pants could be heard by the Indians. If some form of communication was required, they should use wildlife sounds, from birdcalls to the howling of a wolf.

They also had to learn how to track the enemy. The morning was the best time, since it was possible to trace a man's steps in the dew. But perhaps the most important lesson Church learned from the sakonnets was never to leave a swamp the same way he had entered it. To do otherwise was to walk into an ambush.

◆◆◆ After a few hours' sleep in Middleborough, Church and his men set out after the enemy. soon one of his Indian scouts reported that he'd found an Indian camp. Based on the sakonnets' description of, in Church's words, “their fires and postures,” he ordered his men to surround the camp. On his cue, they rushed at the enemy, “surprising them from every side so unexpectedly that they were all taken, not so much as one escaped.”

One of the captured Indians, named Jeffrey, told Church there were a large number of Indians near Monponsett Pond, where Philip's brother Alexander had been seized back in 1662. Church decided to make Jeffrey a part of their company, promising “that if he continued to be faithful to him, he should not be sold out of the country [as a slave] but should become his waiting man.” As it turned out, Jeffrey remained a part of the Church household for the rest of the Indian's life.

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Nineteenth-century engraving of Captain Benjamin Church and his company. Although once again the depiction of the soldiers' clothing and facial hair is dubious, this image gives a good sense of the tactics Church learned about Indian warfare.

After delivering his prisoners to Plymouth, Church and his men were on their way to Monponsett, where they captured several dozen more Indians. Over the course of the next few weeks, Church's string of successes continued, and he soon became the talk of the colony. On July 24, Governor Winslow officially gave Church the power to grant mercy to those Indians who agreed to help him find more of the enemy, as he had done with Jeffrey. Church's recruits were soon convincing other newly captured Indians to do as they had done and come over to what he described as “the better side of the hedge.”

It was a deal that was difficult to refuse, and much of its appeal depended on the company's captain. Church had the ability to bring even the most “treacherous dog” around to his way of thinking. “Come, come,” he would say, “you look wild and surly and mutter, but that signifies nothing. These my best soldiers were a little while ago as wild and surly as you are now. By the time you have been but one day ... with me, you'll love me too.”

By the end of July, Church's little band of volunteers was routinely bringing in more Indians than all of Plymouth's and Massachusett Bay's companies combined. In his history of the war, Cotton Mather wrote, “[s]ome of [Church's] achievements were truly so magnanimous and extraordinary that my reader will suspect me to be transcribing the silly old romances, where the knights do conquer so many giants.”

Church undoubtedly enjoyed the praise, and in his own account of the war, he does his best to portray himself as a swashbuckling knight of the woods. But as even he admitted, his successes would not have been possible without the presence of Bradford's more traditional army. Based in Taunton, Bradford's men chased Philip throughout the swamps and woods and several times came within minutes of taking the Pokanoket sachem. But, unlike Church's company, morale was a problem among Bradford's soldiers, and by the end of July, many of them had either deserted or found good excuses to return home.

On sunday, July 30, Church took a brief break from the war to pray at the meetinghouse in Plymouth. But before the end of the service, the Reverend John Cotton was interrupted by a messenger from Josiah Winslow, who had just ridden in from Marshfield. The governor needed to speak with Captain Church immediately.

A “great army of Indians” had been seen gathering on the eastern shore of the Taunton River. If they succeeded in crossing the river, the towns of Taunton and Bridgewater would be in danger. Winslow requested that Church “immediately ... rally what of his company he could.”

Church gathered his company of eighteen Englishmen and twenty-two Indians and set out for Bridgewater. Meanwhile, a handful of the town's militia were already out on a mission of their own. They were approaching the Taunton River when they heard some suspicious noises. They soon discovered that the Indians had laid a huge tree across the river and were at that very moment beginning to cross over toward Bridgewater.

There were two Indians on the tree, an old man with the traditional long hair of a Native American and a younger man with his hair cut short in the style of a Praying Indian. One of the militiamen shot and killed the older Indian, and the younger one, who was lugging a container of gunpowder, tossed the powder into the bushes and escaped back into the forest on the eastern shore of the river.

The dead Indian turned out to be Akkompoin, Philip's uncle and one of the sachem's most trusted advisers. They later learned that the other Indian had been Philip himself. In an effort to disguise himself, he had cut off his hair, and for the moment at least, the change in hairstyle had saved his life.

Many of Philip's subjects were not so lucky that day. After more than a year of extreme hardship, they were exhausted, starving, and unhappy. Conditions had become particularly difficult in the last month. With the appearance of Church's company in early July, the swamps were no longer safe. With no way to protect their children, the Indians had been reduced to the most terrible measures a people can ever know. William Hubbard reported that “it is certainly affirmed that several of their young children were killed by themselves, that they might not be betrayed by their crying or be hindered with them in their flight.”

The Bridgewater militiamen reported that the Indians they met on Monday, July 31, were so discouraged that many of them were helpless to defend themselves. According to one account, “some of the Indians acknowledged that their arms shook and trembled so that they could not so readily discharge their guns as they would have done.” Ten Indians were shot dead with loaded muskets in their hands, while fifteen others “threw down their guns and submitted themselves to the English.” For many of the Indians, there was no reason left to fight.

◆◆◆ Early the next morning, Church and his company set out from Bridgewater. They had recruited several men from the local militia, and one of these “brisk lads” guided them to where the Indians had laid the tree over the river. Looking across, they saw an Indian sitting on the tree's stump—an unusual thing for a hostile Indian to be doing the morning after a confrontation with the Bridgewater militia. Church took aim, but his Native companion told him to hold his fire; he believed it might be a friendly Indian. Then the Indian, apparently hearing them, glanced in their direction, and the sakonnet immediately realized it was Philip himself. He fired his musket, but it was too late. The sachem had rolled off the stump and escaped into the woods.

Church and his men ran across the tree and soon came upon a group of women and children that included Philip's wife and nine-year-old son. There was a fresh trail south, and the prisoners informed him that it had been left by sachem Quinnapin and his people, who had decided to return home to the western shore of Narragansett Bay. But where was Philip? The prisoners claimed that they did not know, “for he fled in a great fright when the first English gun was fired, and they had none of them seen or heard anything of him since.”

Leaving some of his men with the prisoners, Church and the rest of the company headed down the trail, hopeful that they might overtake the enemy. But after several miles, Church realized that, given the importance of the prisoners he now had, he should get them back to Bridgewater before dark. His sakonnets, however, were reluctant to give up the chase. They explained that Awashonks's brother had been killed by the Narragansetts, and they wanted revenge. Church named a sakonnet called Lightfoot as their captain and “bid them go and quit themselves like men. ... [A]way they scampered,” Church wrote, “like so many horses.”

The next morning, Lightfoot and his men returned with thirteen prisoners. They had caught up to the Narrangansetts and killed several of them and “rejoiced much at the opportunity of avenging themselves.” Church sent the prisoners on to Bridgewater and, with the sakonnets leading the way, resumed the search for Philip.

They came upon an abandoned camp that convinced them the Pokanokets were close at hand. Moving quickly through the woods, they discovered a large number of women and children who were too tired to keep up with the main body of Indians up ahead. The prisoners reported that “Philip with a great number of the enemy were a little before.” It was getting late in the day, but Church didn't want to stop. He told the sakonnets to inform their prisoners that “if they would submit to order and be still, no one should hurt them.”

As night fell, they could hear the sounds of Philip's men chopping wood and setting up camp. Church told his men and prisoners that they were going to spend the night sitting quietly in the swamp. If any prisoner attempted to escape, Church would “immediately kill them all.”

Just before daybreak, Church explained to the prisoners that he and his men were about to attack Philip. He had no one he could spare to guard them, but he told them that it was in their best interests not to escape. Once the fighting was over, they were to follow their trail and once again surrender themselves. Otherwise, they would all die.

He sent out two sakonnet scouts. At the same time, it turned out, Philip sent two scouts of his own. Philip's men spotted the sakonnets and were soon running back to camp, making “the most hideous noise they could invent.” By the time Church and his men arrived, the Pokanokets had fled into a nearby swamp, leaving their kettles boiling and meat roasting on the fire.

Church left some of his men at the place where the Indians had entered the swamp, then led a group of soldiers around one side while Isaac Howland took another group around the other side. Once they had positioned men around the entire edge of the swamp, Church and Howland met at the farthest point just as a large number of the enemy emerged from inside the swamp.

Hopelessly outnumbered, Church and his handful of soldiers could easily have been massacred by the Pokanokets. suddenly, a sakonnet named Mathias shouted out in the Indians' own language, “If you fire one shot, you are all dead men!” Mathias went on to claim that they had a large force and had the swamp completely surrounded.

Many of the Pokanokets did as the other Indians had done just a day before: Astonished, they stood motionless as Church's men took the loaded muskets from their hands. Not far from the swamp was a dip in the land that Church compared to a “punchbowl.” He directed the prisoners to jump down into the hollow, and with only a few men standing guard—all of them triple-armed with guns taken from the Indians—he ran back into the swamp to find Philip.

Almost immediately, Church found himself virtually face-to-face with the Pokanoket leader and several of his warriors. By this point, the sachem's behavior was entirely predictable. When cornered or confronted, Philip always ran. As Church and two sakonnets fought the Pokanoket warriors, Philip turned and fled back to the entrance of the swamp.

This might have been the end of the sachem. But one of the men Church had left waiting in ambush outside the swamp was a notorious drunkard named Thomas Lucas. Whether or not he had just had a drink, Lucas was, in Church's words, not “as careful as he might have been about his stand.” Instead of killing the enemy, Lucas was shot by the Pokanokets, and Philip escaped.