Original subtitles

After many failed attempts at building a lasting colony in North America, the

English settlement of Jamestown was built.

On May 9, 1607, Captain Christopher Newport sailed into the Chesapeake Bay

with 117 English colonists and the supplies needed to start a new

They built a fort that was triangular in shape.

and within it, a storage building for supplies and weapons, small residential

structures, and even a small church.

The settlers would face their share of struggles, not unlike those who had come

before them.

The quick dwindling of supplies, harsh weather conditions, poor choice of

location, and the constant threat of attacks by local Indians being just a

of those hardships.

Newport would have to return to England for more supplies within a short amount

of time in order to help his colony survive.

The absence of their leader and the known but unexplained disappearance of

Roanoke colony gave the new settlers good reason to be fearful.

At the time of the settlers' arrival in Jamestown, the population of the

Palatine Indians who were already in the area near the settlement numbered

around 15 ,000.

They had conquered the neighboring Cacoftan tribe in 1597 and eliminated

the Chesapeakes.

The Powhatans were a powerful tribe with their hierarchical ruling structure

consisting of a head chief at the top, then district chiefs and priests, war

leaders at the next level, and then commoners at the bottom.

Those who held higher positions were in control of high -status items, such as

copper. And as with many other tribes, the women managed the crops.

By 1607, the Powhatans had more than 30 villages with plans to

continue expanding their empire.

The English came to Jamestown.

They had similar ideas of geographical expansion, and this, among other

clashings of interest, caused immediate unease between the settlers and the

Powhatans.

Like those who had come to the New World before them, the settlers had hopes of

finding a wealth of gold, that elusive route to Asia, and cultural and

dominance.

But because they were ill -prepared and ignorant of all they might face during

their relocation, the survival of the colonists greatly depended on trade with

the native tribes.

It didn't take long for the settlers to create additional friction in their

relation with the Palatans.

And the natives did not hide their displeasure with the colonists'

fend for themselves.

The settlers had chosen a swampy location in which to build their town,

they were not adept at farming and lacked the proper tools for such things,

took more corn from the Indians than they actually traded for.

Because these settlers, like many others, did not fence in their

of the wild game that the natives depended on for food was run out of the

The livestock also trampled and ate Indian crops, which brought about

unnecessary hardship for everyone.

In December of 1607, the Powhatans captured Jamestown's Captain John Smith,

keeping him for two months at the Powhatan capital of Werowocomoco, where

interrogated him.

When they finally released Smith, somewhat peaceful relations were re

-established. though it was more of a farce than a solid agreement.

Palatine chief, Wahun Sonakak, had adopted John Smith into his tribe as a

of absorbing Jamestown into existing Palatine lands.

When Captain Newport returned from England with more supplies and a fresh

consignment of settlers, he returned the mock honor to Chief Palatine by

declaring him a vassal to the Crown.

It was for no other reason but in the hope of expanding the English colony

Powhatan territory.

This conflict of interest would be the catalyst for a violent eruption of

hostility between the two people.

Chief Wahunsunukak Powhatan was born sometime around the mid -1500s.

In his lifetime, He became a powerful and respected leader of more than 30

tribes in the area of Jamestown, Virginia.

As a new chief, he ruled six tribes, the Powhatan, the Pamunkey,

the Arohatec, the Appomattoke, the Yonge -Tonund, and the Mattapani.

The territory ruled by Powhatan stretched over approximately 6 ,000

miles.

This included the Chesapeake Bay area, from north of the Mattaponi River to the

land south of the James River.

It is unknown at what age Powhatan became chief, but this power enabled him

have several wives and children, one of his daughters being the legendary

Pocahontas.

Captain John Smith, who claimed in his writings to have been rescued on more

than one occasion by Pocahontas, also wrote an account of her father.

He is of parsonage at all, well -proportioned man, his head somewhat

age near sixty, of a very able and hard body to endure any labour.

What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing.

It is strange to see with what great fear and adoration all of these people

obey this Powhatan.

For at his feet they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least frown of

his brow their greatest spirits will tremble with fear.

And no marvel, for he is very terrible and tyrannous in punishing such as

him.

While it was clear that Powhatan didn't care for the settlers coming close to

his land, he had been tolerant of them at first.

But as the settlers became more and more demanding of land and Powhatan

resources, amicable relations were quickly strained.

In late 1609, John Smith returned to England to recover from an injury

to a gunpowder explosion.

He would not return to America.

Around the same time, Chief Powhatan moved from Werowocomoco to his new

or a pox, and invited several of the English to discuss their trade

relationship.

But instead of a peaceful exchange, most of his English guests were killed.

Powhatan ordered that there be no more trade with the English settlers, and for

Jamestown to be attacked.

The first round of unstable peace was over, and a volley of small attacks

ensued.

In 1610, The Palatans trapped the colonists within their own settlement,

to force them out or keep them hostage there until they ran out of food.

This was known as the Starving Time, and though it nearly worked, another ship

soon arrived from England with roughly 150 more settlers and more supplies,

thereby pulling Jamestown from near starvation and reviving the community

to get it back on its feet.

Though the strength of Jamestown and its people was restored, this period of

unrest between them and the Powhatans did not end until 1613, when the English

kidnapped Chief Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, and brought a fourth

cooperation between the settlers and the natives.

Much in the way that Columbus had first encountered the Arawaks, The settlers

who followed him and other explorers to the New World referred to the natives as

naturals.

Here was a population of people who did everything as naturally as possible.

They worked with the land to create food.

They worked with timber to build housing.

And they used animal pelts and skins to clothe themselves against the elements,

and not out of a sense of shame.

They worked with each other to structure their tribes and communities.

There were no kings or gods to control them, but rather a group of chiefs, and

the women were also involved in making important tribal decisions.

Children were guided in natural development and learned about their

they grew, rather than being broken down and rebuilt according to religious

laws.

The lives of the natives were constructed according to the land and

simple natural needs, not greed, religion, or power.

Intertribal warfare existed, but it was nothing compared to the large -scale

conflict found amongst the Europeans.

In addition to wanting to own the land belonging to the natives, the English

also aspired to convert the Indians in every way possible.

They did not have an appreciation for this natural way of life, but rather

found it vulgar and ungodly.

This conversion of natives to Christian civility would be one of the greatest

causes of the destruction of many native cultures.

With Pocahontas taken captive by the English, Chief Powhatan had little

but to comply with the demands of the settlers.

He returned some of the imprisoned colonists, along with some of the guns

Powhatans had confiscated.

But this was not enough for the English, and Pocahontas remained in their

possession.

During the year that she was in Jamestown, Pocahontas converted to

and drew the interest of one of the settlers, a widower by the name of John

Roth.

Chief Powhatan agreed to the marriage between his daughter and Roth in 1614.

This interracial union put a temporary end to the years -long feuding between

the settlers and the Powhatan.

Following the marriage, John Roth developed a new tobacco strain.

which caused the crops to flourish.

After realizing what sort of fortune could be made from it, the town's

sponsors demanded that the settlers obtain more land for larger crops.

Because the tobacco made the soil unusable after harvest, the colonists

into greater territories in an effort to create more and bigger crops, and in

turn to bring a heftier profit.

This expansion meant taking more and more land from the Powhatans, and soon

divide between cultures was reopened, only this time it was worse than before.

Shortly after her marriage to Rolf, Pocahontas returned with him to England,

where she stayed until her death in 1617.

Chief Powhatan died shortly thereafter, in April 1618.

Without the chief there to uphold peace between the settlers and his people,

discord erupted once again on both sides.

England continued to send colonists who overtook native lands and persisted in

converting the natives to Christianity.

A good many of the settlers wanted to adopt Powhatan children, civilizing them

by stripping away their customs and giving them an English and Christian

upbringing.

The natives were rightfully resistant of further cooperation with these new

invaders and justly cautious about handing their children over to a society

had continuously and relentlessly murdered their people and stolen their

property.

In 1620, another group of English colonists sailed into New England and

on the coast of Massachusetts.

They were separatists, or pilgrims, who had left England for the sake of

religious freedom.

They chose to settle in an abandoned Indian village, likely deserted due to

disease.

The settlers renamed this village, once called Patuxet, as Plymouth.

Many of the remaining native survivors of Patuxet joined the nearby Wampanoag

tribe. One such survivor, was a former Indian slave named Squanto.

He had been taken from his tribe and sold in Spain in 1614 by an English

captain. In 1618, Squanto made his way to England, where he gained passage back

to America.

With his entire family dead from disease, Squanto joined the Wampanoag,

the time were under the rule of Chief Massasoit.

When the pilgrims arrived in Patuxet and found that it was deserted, they

believed that God had purposely cleared the territory of savage natives and had

therefore provided this land solely for their arrival.

This superior attitude did not change once the pilgrims had established

with the Indians.

And like the settlers in Jamestown, the residents of Plymouth felt they should

have as much land as was necessary to expand their colonization.

As part of their ploy to gain this land, the Pilgrims sealed a friendship treaty

with the Narragansett Indians.

This tribe had a motive for wanting peace with the English, as the Pequot

Indians were in possession of the land between them.

The Pequots were another of the most powerful tribes in the area.

They did a great deal of trade with the Dutch of New Amsterdam, rather than with

the English colonists, taking away access to items that the English wanted

needed.

With the Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay colonies, as well as rival tribes,

the Mohegans and Narragansetts surrounding them, the placement of the

was a rather precarious one.

They also had access to the precious wampum found in whelk shells, which the

other tribes used to record important events and diplomatic meetings by

them into memory belts.

Once the Puritans had learned the value of wampum to the neighboring tribes,

they used it as leverage in trading with the natives.

The greedy desire to possess this prized resource quickly created hostile

relations between the English and the Pequot, as the English would force their

way into Pequot land to take whatever they could find.

As the Puritans had no tolerance for those who were different from them, they

did not feel that this invasion and theft was unwarranted.

Shortly after the arrival of the pilgrims, at Plymouth the weakening

between the natives and colonists living near the James River reached an end.

By spring of 1622 the colonists in Virginia had expanded their settlement

into Powhatan lands pushing the natives further away from the river and forcing

them into the outlying lands.

Without access to this major water resource

the Palatans were met with additional hardships to the ones they were already

facing.

After the death of Chief Palatan, his brother, Opecancanof, took control of

tribe.

He'd had enough of the English forcefully pushing into native lands,

was little left to do but to try and take it back.

It was the morning of March 22, 1622.

when a group of natives visited the English who were settled along the

They arrived bearing gifts for the settlers and expressed wanting nothing

than friendly interaction.

The natives were then invited in to the colonists' homes and to their tables to

dine, until they were all well scattered throughout the settlement.

Then, in a unified manner and completely without warning, They attacked the

colonists.

Surviving Englishman Edward Waterhouse later described the event in his

They came unarmed into our houses without bows or arrows or other weapons,

deer, turkeys, fish, furs, and other provisions to sell and truck with us for

glass, beads, and other trifles.

Yea, in some places they sat down at breakfast with our people at their

whom immediately, with their own tools and weapons either laid down or standing

in their houses, they baselessly and barbarously murdered.

In only a few hours, at least a quarter of the settlers were dead.

Their counterattack came swiftly to a level of even greater devastation.

The colonists leveled nearby Indian villages, destroyed the crops and all

food sources that they could find, while indiscriminately killing Indian men,

women, and children. Though the Powhatans had hoped to send a message to

settlers with their attack, the number of English colonists far outweighed that

of the Powhatan population, and the ruinous attack made on the Indians saw

end of the Powhatan legacy.

The massacre on March 22nd would not be the end of colonist versus native

bloodshed.

In 1633, an Englishman and pirate named John Stone was killed

on the Connecticut River after kidnapping several Indians for ransom.

The English insisted that it was the work of the Pequots, but they were

proof, and Stone's death resulted in nothing more than a deepening.

In 1636, Captain John Oldham was found dead.

Though it's uncertain who had killed that first boatman, the Narragansetts

admitted to being responsible for the death of Captain Oldham.

While it wasn't the Narragansetts the English primarily wished to eradicate,

these deaths gave them the excuse they'd been waiting for, to make an attack on

the Pequots.

Pequot leader, Sassacus, realized that war against his people was looming, and

he sought to build an alliance with the Narragansetts.

He was unsuccessful in persuading them to join him against the English, as the

Narragansetts were equally after the possession of Pequot lands.

Once the battle had started under the command of Captain John Endicott, the

Pequots counterattacked the outlying English settlements.

including Fort Saybrook in Connecticut.

But with the majority of the Pequots out fighting, their main village of Fort

Mystic was left with very little defense.

The villagers attacked in the night, and within an hour the battle was over.

The fort was in the process of burning to the ground.

Captain John Underhill, who was present for the attack, Describe the battle in

his journal, News from America.

Down fell men, women, and children.

Those that escaped us fell into the hands of the Indians that were in the

of us.

Not above five of them escaped out of our hands.

Our Indians came with us and greatly admired the manner of Englishmen's

but cried, Much it, much it, that is, it is not, it is not, because it is too

furious and slays too many men.

Great and doleful was the bloody sight, the view of young soldiers that never

had been in war, to see so many souls lie gasping on the ground, so thick in

some places that you could hardly pass along.

According to Dr.

Cotton Mather, a Puritan theologian, it was supposed that no less than six

hundred Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.

Nearly six hundred Pequot Indians.

mostly women, children, and men too old to fight.

Those who tried to escape were caught and killed.

Chief Sassacus was able to flee to Mohawk territory, but he was executed.

The Mohawks wanted to make it clear to the English that they did not get

involved with war and cared little for non -Iraquoian people.

Within two months, the English had defeated the last of the Pequots.

Those they did not kill were sold into slavery or divided between the Mohegans

and the Narragansetts as payment for their involvement in the mystic

Both Captain Endicott and Captain Underhill believed that their attack on

natives was part of their duty to God and ridding the lands of such heathens,

matter how they did it.

was completely justified in the eyes of their lord.

After the complete destruction of Mystic, the Narragansett and Mohegan

expressed their surprise at how brutal and quick to kill the English were,

while no doubt harboring new apprehensions towards the colonists.

Some of the conflicts and violence between the settlers and the natives

other reasons, reasons other than greed and the intolerance of cultural

differences.

Sometimes it was nothing more than the desire to find a scapegoat on which to

blame the poor outcome of crops, a decrease in crop profits, or any other

general misfortune experienced by the English.

In the case of Bacon's Rebellion,

The struggle didn't stem from troubled alliances between the English and the

natives, but rather between two stubborn and selfish leaders.

Governor Sir William Berkeley was a playwright and scholar, a favorite of

king, a veteran of the English Civil Wars, and a known Indian fighter.

This 70 -year -old governor of Virginia was well respected in his community.

In contrast, Berkeley's young cousin, through marriage, Nathaniel Bacon,

Jr., was a recognized troublemaker.

He had been sent from England to Virginia to live with Berkeley in the

that Bacon would mature through some honest, hard work.

But Bacon wasn't a fool.

He was intelligent and eloquent, and even though Berkeley treated Bacon

respectfully,

even provided him with a substantial land grant and a seat on the 1675

it wasn't long before Bacon began to plot some mischief.

The colony was already facing more than enough tribulation.

With the rising costs of general goods, repercussions from the most recent war

with the Dutch, and with Maryland and the Carolinas competing for profit

the commercialization of tobacco,

the Virginians were suffering some heavy losses.

Severe and damaging weather only further complicated matters by reducing useful

harvests.

This seemed like a plausible enough excuse to turn on their neighboring

who had next to nothing to do with the colonists' troubles.

In the summer of 1675,

The Doeg Indians raided a plantation belonging to Thomas Matthews near the

Potomac River.

The initial cause for the raid had been in regard to a petty disagreement over

non -payment, but several Doegs died during the altercation.

To make matters even worse, when the colonists decided to retaliate, they

after the natives in the same determined and wayward manner.

They ambushed the wrong tribe.

The attack on the innocent Susquehannocks was the incentive to

-scale Indian raid.

Berkeley stepped in, and in an effort to calm the chaos, he ordered an

investigation on the matter.

A meeting was also called to try and quiet the brewing storm, but it only led

further disaster.

when several Indian chiefs were killed in response.

Berkeley's attempt at restoring any kind of compromise between the irate Indians

and the bloodthirsty settlers was by relieving the local Indians of their

gunpowder and ammunition.

It was a futile move in trying to convince the settlers that the Indians

hostile.

This was followed up by the Long Assembly, held in March 1676.

which openly declared war on all bad natives.

For many settlers, all natives were considered bad, and they took it as an

invitation to obliterate the Indians.

The warring that followed led to a greater discontent for the colonists as

drastically hiked the taxes required to pay for the fighting.

The long assembly also caused several restrictions

on desperately needed trade between the Indians and the colonists.

Berkeley favored certain traders and allowed business to continue, while

were suddenly cut off completely and forbidden to engage in independent

Great resentment within the settlement resulted, and the tension continued to

build. In addition to this, trade became strictly monitored in an effort to keep

ammunition. and guns from going back into the hands of the Indians.

One of the traitors to be adversely affected by Berkeley's orders was Bacon,

this greatly fanned the flames of an impending rebellion.

Bacon was also against having peaceful relations with the natives, which

Berkeley was struggling to maintain.

To try and curb a negative and potentially violent eruption from his

Berkeley rode on to Bacon's land, with 300 men, but Bacon had fled into the

nearby woods to avoid possible detainment.

Berkeley followed this up with two petitions, one of them declaring Bacon a

rebel, and the other pardoned Bacon's men, under the condition that they

home without conflict.

Bacon was promised that he would receive a fair trial for his insubordination,

but his seat on the council would be revoked.

Instead of complying with these measures, Bacon attacked the Okanichi

who had thus far been friendly toward the settlers.

Berkeley was quickly running out of options for handling his defiant cousin.

Berkeley realized that he was going to have to take different measures if peace

and calm were to be maintained in what was quickly becoming an unmanageable

situation.

Berkeley agreed to overlook Bacon's attack on the Okaniches and proposed

would pardon Bacon if he turned himself over to be sent back to England for

trial.

None of this was to come about, however, as Bacon was elected into the House of

Burgesses by those who supported his manner in dealing with Indians.

Because of this, he was also able to attend the assembly of June 1676.

where he was unduly given credit for the reform of laws dealing with the

reconstruction of the voting regulations and limits on term years held in

certain political offices.

While these were rather important changes with high political impact,

only concern was in his campaign against the natives.

On the day of the June assembly, Bacon was captured and taken to Berkeley.

After receiving Bacon's forced and likely insincere apology, Berkeley

his cousin and permitted him to return to his seat on the council.

Despite any hopes that Berkeley may have had in stopping Bacon's plans, things

would only get worse.

It was in the midst of a heated debate over issues with the natives that Bacon

left subtly and without explanation.

He returned.

with an army of followers that Berkeley had not anticipated his cousin having,

and the governor found himself and the statehouse surrounded.

Insistent on getting what was owed to him, Bacon once again ordered that he be

given his commission.

Berkeley once again refused, and went as far as to call Bacon's bluff.

Here, shoot me before God.

Fair mark, shoot.

But Bacon refused, and a volley of bantering demands followed.

Berkeley granted Bacon his previous volunteer commission, but Bacon further

insisted that he be made general of all forces against the natives.

To this, Berkeley stubbornly refused.

Once again, Bacon stood his ground and threatened to attack the statehouse and

everyone in it if he did not get what he wanted.

Full power.

to act against the Indians without interference from the government.

Having no other choice in the matter, Berkeley caved, and Bacon took immediate

control. In the following month, Bacon's rebellion saw more struggle than

triumph.

Berkeley had left the area around the same time that a nearby settlement was

making its recovery from a surprise Indian attack.

This left the aftermath an unwanted reconstruction

in Bacon's hands.

Berkeley also removed supplies and weapons from Gloucester, making the

vulnerable to further attacks.

He then returned to Green Springs and left Bacon to deal with the entire mess

his own.

Despite this added chaos, Berkeley's absence gave Nathaniel Bacon control of

Jamestown between July and September of 1676, during which time Berkeley

attempted and failed in a single takeover.

On July 30, 1676, Bacon issued his Declaration of the People, in which

he declared Berkeley to be corrupt.

While Bacon's following had been too great for Berkeley to successfully

overthrow, it didn't take long before Berkeley found a way to infiltrate

army.

It gave his forces enough strength to retake Jamestown.

but not before Bacon made desperate attempts at maintaining control by

kidnapping the wives of Berkeley's supporters.

On September 19, 1676, with his popularity waning and many of his

lost to Berkeley, Bacon made his final attempt to regain control by burning

Jamestown to the ground.

It was just over a month later that Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.,

evaded the hangman's noose, and died of tuberculosis.

His fellow leaders in the rebellion were not so lucky, and once Berkeley had

regained full control, 23 persons were executed for their roles in the

This mess came to a final closing when the matter was investigated by an

committee and reported back to King Charles II.

As a result, Berkeley was stripped of its title as governor.

He died the following year after returning to England.

While the nearby Native Americans were drawn into this seemingly pointless

rebellion, they were no more a part of it than a means to an end, an excuse to

escalate the political struggle between two stubborn and power -hungry

Englishmen.

Not all violence between natives and the settlers was in the grand scale of war.

As more natives were being pressed to convert to Christianity, and by that,

meaning being forced to give up their cultures entirely, in the cutting of

hair, living within English praying towns, and dressing like the colonists,

vengeful retaliation began to grow to new heights within these communities.

English courts convicted and ordered the executions of three Wampanoag men for

killing John Fasemont, a Christianized Indian.

Sassamon had warned the English that fellow natives were planning an attack

the settlement.

This was the first ever Indian against Indian crime to be held in a Puritan

court.

Instead of setting an example, it opened the way for more killing.

Indians were slain for attacking English livestock.

Colonists killed fellow colonists who had taken Indians for their spouses.

Hundreds of Narragansetts, who had been allies to the Puritans during the Pequot

War, suddenly fell victim to them instead.

The one -on -one violence escalated, eventually avalanching into one of the

bloodiest European versus Indian wars to take place in New England.

Already thinking themselves far superior to the natives, English pilgrims found

Medicom, a young leader of the Wakanakets.

to be arrogant and a complication in their quest for greater expansion, and

nicknamed him King Philip.

Medicom was the son of Massasoit, the Indian chief who had generously helped

Plymouth pilgrims endure and survive their first winter in New England.

During the fifty -five years between the arrival of the pilgrims and the

beginning of what would be known as King Philip's War, The English had overcome

their struggles and grown in both population and prosperity.

At the same time, the natives experienced a slow decline in power and

thanks to the spread of European disease, consistent destruction of

through conflict, and the constant annexing of their lands by the English.

By 1675, there was more than enough cause for rebellion.

Philip had grown tired of seeing his people fall to the mercy of the settlers

and made his intentions known.

I am determined not to live until I have no country.

That declaration was not the tipping point for war, but rather the occasion

during which a few Wampanoags killed cattle belonging to an English farmer

were repeatedly trampling their Indian crops.

The act was answered by the farmer then killing an Indian and thereby opening

the floodgates for war.

The Nipmuc Indians joined up with the Wampanoags, creating a rather fearsome

army.

They attacked Brookfield, a settlement set deeply within Nipmuc territory, by

first ambushing English soldiers.

Eight soldiers were killed, while the rest of the company retreated to the

garrison.

They were followed there, and the town was burned down, with Indians

and barricading the settlers inside.

It would seem that the English had only two grim options, risk burning to death

within the garrison, or running and facing certain death at the hands of the

natives.

It was a well -timed heavy rainstorm.

that saved them from either face, and soldiers from settlements to the east

showed up just in time to rescue those trapped in Brookfield.

The Torch settlement would be abandoned for more than a decade and remain a pile

of ashes until 1686.

Following the failed attack on Brookfield, the Nipmucs and the

closer to the settlements along the Connecticut River Valley, a fertile

there was a major source of New England's food supply.

The natives were well aware that the English population was much lower here

in the Boston area, and with the Wacomtooks, Squawkigs, and Nowatoks

them on their warpath against the English, the settlers would be grossly

outnumbered.

In fall of 1675, these tribes attacked the town of Deerfield and forced the

English to abandon it.

Shortly thereafter, Captain Lothrop was ordered to return to Deerfield to

recover remaining supplies.

Together, the soldiers and farmers filled several wagons with food and

without native confrontation.

It was on their return trip, as they paused for a short rest, abandoning

weapons in the wagons, that their luck made a turn for the worst.

They had reached a brook.

and discovered that trees felled by the natives blocked their path.

Before weapons could be retrieved, the natives struck, and within moments, 71

English soldiers were dead.

Bloody Brook earned its title as it ran red with the blood of the English.

Writer William Hubbard would declare this attack the saddest day that ever

befell.

The attack at Bloody Brook did not end with the death of the soldiers.

Having heard the sounds of muskets being fired, Captain Mosley led his troops to

the scene and was recognized by the natives who supposedly gave him a

welcome.

Come, Mosley, come.

You seek Indians?

You want Indians? Here is Indians enough for you.

Mosley's counterattack and a large army of natives was unsuccessful, forcing him

and his men to retreat.

The deaths resulting from the attacks sent the Puritans into a religious

As they believed that these attacks were punishment from God for not abiding by

His strict religious codes, they began persecuting Quakers and both neutral and

Christian Indians with imprisonment or hanging.

None of this helped.

as the hostility of natives continued through the raiding and burning of the

towns of Patfield, Northampton, and Springfield.

The Indian chief Philip's army continued to grow.

He gained warriors from the Agawam tribe, once peaceful but bent on revenge

after English settlers saw to kidnapping and holding Agawam children hostage.

This poor choice of tactics by the English as a precautionary measure,

in the Agawams setting fire to Springfield.

By the time winter set in, the native attacks began to lessen.

Because so many had abandoned the tending of crops in lieu of the campaign

against the settlers, the Indians were faced with starvation.

The English were no better off, with central Massachusetts under the

control of Indians.

and the threat of the Narragansetts joining in against them. While the

Narragansetts had peaceful relations in Rhode Island, that was of little

consolation to the rest of New England.

In December of 1675, the colonists, in their paranoia over a Narragansett

attack, cast the first stone and started a battle that would later be known as

the Great Swamp Massacre.

General Winslow, and Indian fighter Benjamin Church took a thousand soldiers

from outlying areas directly into Narragansett territory and set upon an

unsuspecting Narragansett winter camp.

While many English were shot by the Narragansett's defense, more and more

in their place, eventually overwhelming the Narragansett with their attack.

Over 500 natives, mostly women and children, were killed.

and those who survived joined with King Philip for their last chance at revenge.

The warring continued back and forth between the peoples, all who were now

bloodthirsty for revenge.

In February of 1676, Chief Philip and his followers successfully

raided the town of Lancaster.

A barely surviving captive, Mary Rowlandson, gave an account of the

At length they came and beset our own house, which served as the garrison, and

quickly it was the dolefulest day that ever my eyes saw.

The house stood upon the edge of a hill. Some of the Indians got behind the

hill, others into the barn, and others behind anything that would shelter them.

From all which places they shot against the house, so that the bullets seemed to

fly like hail. Some in our house were fighting for their lives.

others wallowing in their blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the

bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head if we stirred out.

Rowlandson was among those taken by the Indians and forced to travel back and

forth across Massachusetts for the next six weeks.

Her eventual ransoming, back to the English, was an indicator of the

weakening power against the colonists, who, by this point, greatly outnumbered

the natives.

They were also facing starvation and lacked the weapons necessary to keep up

fight.

In May, Captain Turner and Captain Holyoke launched an attack on an Indian

along the Connecticut River.

A young English boy who had escaped native captivity disclosed the location

the camp.

At dawn, Turner and Holyoke struck.

killing the unsuspecting Indians as they fled.

Many drowned while trying to cross the river.

News spread quickly of this massacre, and warriors from surrounding areas

responded with an attack of their own.

Turner was killed as he and his men fled back to Hadley, but the forces of the

Wampanoag and the Nipmuc Alliance suffered irreparable damage.

Of those who survived, Some fled north, while even fewer remained to continue

fighting for a cause they had already lost.

After this last great battle, Philip returned to Mount Hope with a handful of

warriors.

He continued making quick, smaller attacks on some of the more isolated

the area, but none of them were enough to recover his previous power.

Benjamin Church tracked Philip during these raids.

and eventually caught up with him in August.

It was an Indian soldier under the command of Church who shot and killed

As a token, or perhaps as a warning to Indian warriors who might have had

notions of future attacks, King Philip's body was quartered and hanged for all

to see.

His hands were sent to Boston, and his head to Plymouth.

where it remained on a pole for years.

With more than 3 ,000 Indians killed as a result of King Philip's War, the few

hundred who remained, including Philip's wife and one of his sons, were sold

into slavery.

The Wampanoags, Nipmucs, and Narragansetts were all but wiped out of

existence.

When looking back on the invasion of the English colonists into Native American

lives, it is difficult to understand how a population of newcomers could claim

to lead a civilized existence.

The many wars and genocide of those already living on American soil, the

forceful stealing of land, supplies and food, and the annihilation of cultures

unlike their own, speaks volumes to the characters of the people who could in

fact be considered less civilized than their declared enemies.

What if the English had truly understood the ways of the natives, and instead of

succumbing to the need to take wealth by force, had instead lived quietly

alongside them?

If the colonists had abided by the words of neighboring tribes, and conformed

with customs already existing with the natives, instead of forcefully imposing

English ways upon those they encountered, how different would things

Even as many Europeans took natives as husbands or wives, and native children

were adopted into English families, the full acceptance of these established

cultures was rare.

In the case of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, the Union was used as a political

tactic to temporarily stave off more war.

The necessity for European settlers to expand and obtain greater wealth under

the threat of religious and royal retribution brought the destruction of

lives for which no justice can ever be granted.

Despite continuous warfare, loss of land and resources, and the forced

reconstruction of their lives, some Native American tribes still found ways

resist, rebuild, and carry on.

Their staying power and their willingness to share parts of their

us now to appreciate what many others from centuries ago chose to take,

quite tragically, for granted.