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- [00:00]
Don Wildman
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- [00:32]
Jack Myers
what makes a leader worth following?
- [00:34]
Professor David Silverman
What should you really care about in your job? As technology is changing so quickly, is
- [00:39]
Jack Myers
it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own? What would that take?
- [00:45]
Professor David Silverman
What does success and risk look like when we're all at the starting gate together?
- [00:50]
Jack Myers
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [00:55]
Professor David Silverman
Join us each week and subscribe at your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [01:00]
Jack Myers
We'll tell stories, we'll hear from some of the best, and we'll try to figure this out together.
- [01:07]
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- [03:00]
Don Wildman
Every winter, the snow rolls in with an eerie, muffled silence. It is 1674, 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 into ghostly spirals. This time of year, the waters are frozen over. Birds and small mammals gladly use them as shortcuts. But for us here at Assawampsett Pond, the ice is unpredictable. In some places, thick enough to support several men. In others, it cracks and pops, threatening to collapse. And if it does, here at this location, at this pond, what lies beneath in the water could shatter a tenuous peace and forever echo through the colonial history of the North American continent. Hello, and welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman, and today we are heading back to the 1670s, half a century after the arrival of the Mayflower and what is arguably per capita, the. The bloodiest war in American history, known as King Philip's War. Who was this ruler, this eponymous King Philip? And how did events at Assawampsett Pond finally end? What slim chance there might have been for a peaceful coexistence between European colonists and native nations. To learn about this, I am speaking with Professor David Silverman 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.
- [04:54]
Professor David Silverman
How are you doing? Just fine. Thank you for having me.
- [04:57]
Don Wildman
You know, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Anyone living in or spending time in New England, which I do every summer here, hears about this subject from time to time, and most do not understand it. So let's start with an overview. What was King Philip's War?
- [05:12]
Professor David Silverman
King Philip's War is the great contest between native people and English colonists for control of the balance of power in southern New England in the 1670s. Right. We often style this as an Indian colonial war. The reality is a little bit more complicated than that. It's. In fact, what you have is a coalition of tribes in resistance to the expansion of the English colonies. And the English colonies are also allied with other native tribes in this war.
- [05:47]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Spoiler alert. History is written by the victors here, and so are the titles of these things. King Philip's War would be a European objective on this conflict, wouldn't it? Because there's a lot more behind that name.
- [06:01]
Professor David Silverman
We don't know what the native people would have called this war.
- [06:03]
Don Wildman
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 as Massachusetts, down all the way to New York. Right. That whole kind of what ends up being on the, on Long Island Sound.
- [06:20]
Professor David Silverman
The war is concentrated in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
- [06:26]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [06:27]
Professor David Silverman
Back in the 1670s, that area was divided between the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, 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.
- [06:48]
Don Wildman
Oh, wow. Okay. 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 US history, if you do the math, considering the populations at the time, I mean, per capita, this was a devastating conflict, wasn't it?
- [07:06]
Professor David Silverman
It is a devastating conflict. You know, whether it's the bloodiest in all American history or even just colonial American history is hard to say. I know historians have, have stressed that point repeatedly. You know, the fact of the matter is we have very poor statistics on casualty rates, particularly on the native side of things. Not only in this particular war, but for all colonial Indian wars. I think there are some other contenders. The Yemassee War in South Carolina in 1715-16 might very well have been as. Or more bloody, as we just can't say with absolute certainty. What we can say is this was a terrible war.
- [07:51]
Don Wildman
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 1675. This is early days. I mean, we've barely got the Dutch leaving in New York. I mean, the separatists have arrived in Massachusetts 50 years before. Give me a context here of this war.
- [08:10]
Professor David Silverman
Sure. Effectively this is a war in which native people recognize that if they don't strike the 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 their 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.
- [08:57]
Don Wildman
And they had learned these lessons over the course of, of course, 1620 to about 1661, which was mostly a peaceful coexistence. I guess we put it in quotation marks. By the time of this war, which again is going to happen in 1670s, Native Americans have suffered enormous population loss from decimation from, from diseases arriving from Europeans. What has happened all over north and South America, they've 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.
- [09:41]
Professor David Silverman
They've been having conversations for decades about the threat that English expansion posed to all of them. The first example of those conversations actually occurs in the 1640s when a Narragansett Sachem or chief named Mayan Tnomo 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, but 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 inter tribal rivalries are too fresh and fierce and the existential threat of, 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. Now, during the 1650s and the 1660s, the. The leader who is making that rallying cry is a Narragansett Niantic Sachem named Ninogret. But by the 1670s, the leader of this cause is a Wampanoag named Pemtacom, who the English call King Philip. He is the son of none other than Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader who had greeted and welcomed the separatists or Pilgrims in Plymouth and allowed their struggling colony to survive.
- [11:28]
Don Wildman
Right, Exactly. When we say a confederacy, how many nations are we talking about?
- [11:33]
Professor David Silverman
We're talking about roughly a half dozen. So the war begins with the Wampanoags, though, let's be clear. You know, the Wampanoags themselves are divided in this war. There are Christian Wampanoags 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 Wampanoags 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 Worcester, Mass. Eventually they're joined too by various small tribes in the middle Connecticut River Valley in what's now western Massachusetts. Sokokis Noritucks become Tucks, who the English called 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 Narragansetts joined. The Narragansetts and the Wampanoags 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.
- [12:49]
Don Wildman
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 ally or not ally 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 Massasoit, who is the chief of that Wampanoag confederation. The two sons we'll talk about a lot here are both Metacom, who the English call King Philip, and then Massasoit's elder son, Wamsudda. Let's talk about him. He is next in line after Massasoet. But he dies, right?
- [13:39]
Professor David Silverman
He does. You know, he dies in what the Wampanoags suspect is a case of English poisoning.
- [13:46]
Don Wildman
Oh, really?
- [13:47]
Professor David Silverman
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 Wampanoag Sachem in the early 1660s, no sooner has he assumed that position than the English start receiving intelligence or rumors. You know, it's hard to know how accurate this information is, but they start receiving news from native sources that Wamsudda is. Is holding conferences with the Narragansett. That's a really alarming proposition for the English because they know about the long standing hostilities between these groups. What's more, Wamsutter 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 Puritan colonies and Massachusetts would like nothing more than to annex Rhode island and then drum those. Those dissidents out of the area. So Wamsutta's land dealings with Rhode island combined with his. His dealings with the Narragansetts alarms the New England colonies. And eventually they force Wamsutta to come in for dressing down by English magistrates. He gets sick while he's there and dies shortly thereafter. Again, the Wampanoags think that the English have poisoned him to end his intertribal organizing.
- [15:29]
Don Wildman
I have three clarifications I want to make here. Where do these different names come from? When we're talking about Wamsutta, he was also known as Alexander. We're talking about Metacom. He was also known as King Philip. Who is bestowing these names? And how do we decipher here?
- [15:44]
Professor David Silverman
Right. So shortly after Wamsuda rises to the sachemship following the death of Massasoit, he and his brother Pametacom 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 Womsutta Alexander, and they call Pameticom Philip. Why these sachems 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. They had decided to break with their father's longstanding 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.
- [17:02]
Don Wildman
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 could do better.
- [17:08]
Professor David Silverman
Effectively. Yeah.
- [17:10]
Don Wildman
Interesting. I'm curious how the English perceive this, because again, precedent here, they're coming in to acquire land. I mean, at the very basis. This is a. 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. The obviously 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.
- [17:43]
Professor David Silverman
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 war. 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 and they can plant the land and they can graze their livestock on that land. But Native people don't assume that that use is to the exclusion of Native uses of 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 explicitly.
- [18:34]
Don Wildman
I see.
- [18:34]
Professor David Silverman
They say, you know, we will continue to fish on this land. We'll continue to plant at 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 once 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 criminal cases between Native people that occurred in Native territory, not just in English territory, but in Native territory. Yeah, that is really pushing the envelope. When Native people sold land to the English, it was not with the understanding that English law that English governance would take over. The understanding was that the old Native rules of things would apply. Yeah, 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 Wampanoag canoes crosses the Atlantic to England. And then those Wampanoags buy land in England. Has the jurisdiction of that land passed from the English to the Wampanoags? You would say, no, the Wampanoags 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 of Christianity. The English have been evangelizing Native people throughout the region. And roughly half of the Wampanoag tribe has taken up Christianity, especially on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket. With the adoption of Christianity, Native people stop following the rule of their sachems. And what they do is they stop paying tribute to those leaders, effectively taxes. And the English protect them from any retribution from those sachems. So there's a number of overlapping grievances which are driving this anti colonial resistance by native people.
- [20:59]
Don Wildman
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. Or do they actually think these people are docile and simply savages waiting to
- [21:18]
Professor David Silverman
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 that they will clamor to join it.
- [21:40]
Don Wildman
I see.
- [21:41]
Professor David Silverman
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. Their 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.
- [22:32]
Don Wildman
Okay, it is that ugly reality. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
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- [23:42]
Hayden
Howdy Howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [23:50]
Jack Myers
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [23:54]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [24:03]
Jack Myers
That's right.
- [24:03]
Don Wildman
Hei, hei.
- [24:04]
Jack Myers
So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [24:08]
Hayden
And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
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Jack Myers
Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:23]
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- [25:24]
Don Wildman
Let's get back to the course of events leading to war. Pemtacom, 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. Is that correct?
- [25:44]
Professor David Silverman
Right. You know, by the time Wamsutter dies In the early 1660s, the English have actually attained a population majority in southern New England. And conscious of that fact, they start throwing their weight around. So 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 sheep and 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.
- [27:03]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [27:04]
Professor David Silverman
All of these tensions are mounting, and
- [27:06]
Don Wildman
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.
- [27:18]
Professor David Silverman
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.
- [27:42]
Don Wildman
Right. Have they had that conversation before? Has there been a temptation to have this kind of confederated reaction?
- [27:50]
Professor David Silverman
Indeed, there has been. And you know, in the Hudson River Valley, the lower Hudson river valley, in the 1640s, there was a multi tribal uprising that nearly drove the Dutch into the sea in the. In the 1640s. And so, you know, again, these conversations have been stretching over the course of decades, but. But it's asking a lot of Native people to create a coalition on that scale, given that their rivalries between their polities predate the arrival of the English and hostilities between those groups continue all the way into the 1670s. So 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 tribal groups.
- [28:46]
Don Wildman
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 1674 and 65. I mean, this is really when this war begins, and we do call it King Philip's War. Is he the one that really triggers this thing?
- [29:06]
Professor David Silverman
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 Pecom trying to rally the tribes of the region against the English for years. For many years. Indeed. In 1671, that crisis built to a point that the English forcibly called him in to meet with authorities from Plymouth and Massachusetts, confiscated all of his people's guns and levied a massive fine on him that he could only pay with the Cession of yet more land. So the crisis had been brewing for quite some time. When it finally breaks, you know, what happens is a Christian Indian, and let's be clear, Pameticom reviles Christian idiots. You know, he says, there are no good double crossers. You know, they're English lackeys, you know, they're an enemy within. A Harvard educated Christian Indian named John Sassaman goes to meet with the Governor of Plymouth in December of 1674. And he says to him, you know, Philip Pemtacom 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 Sassaman and says, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard all this before. And you know, you can't believe native sources. And this too shall pass. As he's walking out the door, Sassamon says, I doubt you're ever going to see me again. And sure enough, he disappears.
- [31:01]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [31:02]
Professor David Silverman
The English conduct an investigation and eventually two native people, including a Christian, come forward. One of them says, I witnessed several of Pemtacom's men murder John Sassamon and bury him under the ice of frozen assa wamps at pond. Another native source comes forward and gives hearsay evidence to the same effect. And lo and behold, you know, they find Sassamon'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.
- [31:41]
T-Mobile Representative
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- [31:42]
Professor David Silverman
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 Pecom'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 on native territory, his sovereignty means nothing.
- [32:17]
Don Wildman
Amazing. It's like an episode of Law and Order here. Sometime later, David Metacom's warriors kill English cattle in Swansea. All of these things are stepping us towards open conflict, aren't we?
- [32:29]
Professor David Silverman
Oh, no question about it. And they start burning out buildings in Swansea and Rehoboth. 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 were called, 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, yeah, this will all
- [33:06]
Don Wildman
take about three years, 1675-78. 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.
- [33:18]
Professor David Silverman
For the first six months or so, the Natives are getting the best of it. The main reason they're getting the best of it is twofold. One is the English keep violating the neutral rights of native people and pushing them into war on the side of Pemotacom and against the English. So, you know, initially Pemtacom 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 Narragansett's into this war. Whether those groups would have entered it on their own accord, we simply cannot say. The other factor that's leading to 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 in Massachusetts. You know, eventually, by the time we get to early 1676, there's a real possibility, it looks like, that the Natives in resistance can push English settlement back to Boston and its inner ring of towns.
- [34:46]
Don Wildman
Yeah, tell me about the ambush that happens at Bloody Brook in South Deerfield. This is a terrible bloodshed, isn't it?
- [34:53]
Professor David Silverman
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. You know, what's more, they march bunched up together and, you know, whenever native people are with them, they say, you know, don'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, meanwhile, you have Nipmucks and River Indians who are lying in camouflage all along this trail. And when the English reach this bend in the trail where 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 to the knife. Yeah.
- [36:20]
Don Wildman
76 colonists in this particular ambush are killed. The English do drive them off, then they end up sending 100 native women and children into enslavement. There are all kinds of terrible things that happen 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 76 is a huge number per capita speaking. The English gamble during this. And they attacked the Narragansetts in Rhode island, who are neutral up to this point. Right. They dragged these guys in and I guess they'd been part of this confederacy, but they weren't actively fighting, is that right?
- [37:03]
Professor David Silverman
Yes and no. So the Narragansets haven't taken military action against the English as yet. However, a large body of Narragansets painted for war and armed, do march to the edge of the English town of Warwick, which is clearly meant as a threat. What's more, the Narragansetts have been taking in Wampanoag women and children and offering them protection with while Wampanoag men are out warring against the English and the English demand the Narragansets to turn over these Wampanoag non combatants. Narragansett won't do it. What's more, a high ranking Narragansett woman has married a high ranking Wampanoag war captain, suggesting that the diplomacy between these groups is getting quite close indeed. And rumors spread by the Mohegan Sachem Uncas, who hates the Narragansetts and is in alliance with the English, says that the Narragansett are just waiting for the spring of 1676 to roll around and then they're going to join the Wampanoags in arms. 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 Narragansett's are going to join this war against them. And so they launch a preemptive attack that makes the casualties at Bloody Brook look minor in comparison.
- [38:36]
Don Wildman
Yeah, 300 to 600 killed. These are large numbers, really. A thousand militia from Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth, Rhode Island. Altogether, Connecticut Even this colonist army is being organized over a large amount of territory, which brings to mind 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?
- [39:01]
Professor David Silverman
Well, the colonial strategy is really haphazard until the spring of 1676. 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, because 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 through a war of attrition. You burn down their food supplies and their houses season after season after season until they capitulate, you know, because 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 Narragansett. They strike the Narragansett's great swamp fort in the dead 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 them. But this is a problem for 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 Wampanoag or an Narragansett, the other major portion of your sustenance comes from fishing, fishing and clamming. Well, they don't. They're not in their fishing and clamming grounds anymore. So, you know, 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 1675, 76, and especially the spring, the early spring of 1676, native people are suffering starvation and disease, and their numbers are wilting by living on the run.
- [41:35]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And they realize they're outgunned. And so much of this is about the land that they are 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't escape from this. And that's what the English want basically, to sort of tip the table in their favor. Pemticom returns to his home grounds, which is Mount Hope. Right. Is that Mount Hope, Massachusetts?
- [41:58]
Professor David Silverman
Is that right? Yes. In Wampanoag, it's Montaup.
- [42:01]
Don Wildman
Montup. Sorry. He is eventually tracked down by a guy named Benjamin Church, using native guides and a man who betrays Pemticom. Same old story many times. Church surrounds this camp. Pemtacom realizes he was discovered. And tell me about this event. It's quite dramatic.
- [42:18]
Professor David Silverman
Sure. There's a long setup to this, which I think will be of interest to your listeners.
- [42:23]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [42:23]
Professor David Silverman
The story of Pemtacom and his men going back to Mount Hope, or Montaub, effectively begins in February of 1676, when they're camped near the Hudson River. The reason they're camped there is that they are purchasing guns from Dutch gun runners in Albany, which is part of the English colony of New York, but is overwhelmingly a Dutch town.
- [42:50]
Don Wildman
Yes.
- [42:51]
Professor David Silverman
The English governor of New York catches wind of this enemy camp, and he sends word to the Mohawks of the Iroquois League or the Haudenosaunees, 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 work. Your while with a very generous present of guns, powder and shot. And the Mohawks have long standing hostilities with some of these people. They hardly need the. The push. But they take the invitation and drive these Wampanoags, Narragansets and Nipmuks from their gun depot, in effect, back east into the teeth of the English and the colonists, Native allies, the Mohegans, the Pequots, and Christian Wampanoags. What's more, in the spring of 1676, Plymouth militia captain Benjamin Church prevails on English authorities to extend an offer of quarter or mercy to any native people who switch sides in the war.
- [44:04]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [44:04]
Professor David Silverman
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 forest warfare. And so it is at this moment that Pamtacom 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 pemtacom. And in a scenario that Pemticom would have absolutely dreaded, he shot down by a Christian Indian, a Christian Wampanoag, who the English called Alderman.
- [44:56]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [44:56]
Professor David Silverman
And after his death, Church orders Pameticom decapitated. And then Plymouth Colony mounts his head outside of the walls of Plymouth Fort to rot for the next 20 years. This is the very site where Permeticom's father had conducted his peace treaty with the, with the English and Plymouth Colony and where, you know, the, the so called first Thanksgiving took place.
- [45:23]
Don Wildman
Oh my goodness. Well, ironic, isn't it? I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
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Professor David Silverman
Here's a show that we recommend
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- [47:49]
Don Wildman
I have a quote here to read about this death, about Metacom's death. They let him come fair. 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 not above 2 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?
- [48:17]
Professor David Silverman
There is not. Mop up operations in southern New England continue throughout the summer and the fall of 1676. And what the English are doing is they're trying to kill every native warrior they can 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 seaboard in Maine. The war is going to last into 1678.
- [49:00]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [49:01]
Professor David Silverman
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, you know, this is an interesting way to think about the question of when the war ends. Native survivors of this war, many of them flee to the Jesuit, the Catholic Jesuit missions of the Saint 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 18th 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, of King Philip's War.
- [50:01]
Don Wildman
Interesting. Wow. I'm always here with the grim numbers. 5,000 native peoples died. Approximate, of course, another 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.
- [50:36]
Professor David Silverman
Sure, the native people are thinking of themselves as a race, actually, before the English are. The English still call themselves collectively Christians in the 1670s, even though native people, and for that matter, African American slaves, are increasingly becoming Christians too, and troubling the English understanding of that term. But the native people are calling themselves Indians. They've adopted this. This term from the English and are using it to refer to their collective interest in. And their. Their. The collective threat that they face from colonialism. So I would argue that this war is a racial watershed, particularly in Native people thinking of themselves as a single particular group of people. 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 1700, the colonists of New England are using that term. And it's a term that first emerges in the context of the massive enslavement of Africans and indigenous people in Barbados. It's later adopted by Virginia and South Carolina, and it works its way into the New England colonies by the early 18th century. Colonists who are English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, French, Swedish, you know, they're from a dozen different backgrounds, they have different religious denominations and even languages, are thinking of themselves collectively as white people, defined against both Indians and enslaved Africans.
- [52:38]
Don Wildman
Fascinating. It takes me back to a conversation we had with Sarah Lewis about her book about the origins of the white race in the white people's minds. How Caucasia was the Caucasian term was adopted to find a homeland of whiteness. All this idea of race and whiteness is an artificiality that comes out of these sudden conflicts that are happening as a result, really what happens in North America, isn't it?
- [53:03]
Professor David Silverman
Without question, you know, race is an invention by human beings for human purposes. And, you know, in the case of the invention of the category white in colonial America, it is a oppositional identity defined not just in the context of plantation slavery, not just relative to black people. It is an identity that colonists define relative to native people. Colonists originally think of themselves as Christians, and they contend that Native people can and should become civilized Christians by the wars, like King Philip's war, convince them that Native people can't change, right? That they cannot become civilized Christians, that they're indelible savages.
- [53:59]
Don Wildman
And so the idea of assimilation, this sort of grand notion that they're going to just want to come over to our side because they just don't know better and we give them a better way of life is not going to happen. And that will set the table for so much that happens in colonialized America, isn't it?
- [54:14]
Professor David Silverman
Yeah, I mean, other than in the romantic imagination of missionaries and a small segment of elites, the overwhelming majority of the now self identifying population contends that they are chosen by God to expand at the expense of the damned. The savages of America.
- [54:38]
Don Wildman
Yes, in so many ways. We now live still with the legacy of King Philip's war. Thank you so much, David. It was great to talk to you about this. Professor David Silverman is a professor of history at George Washington University, a leading scholar on Native American life in colonial New England, author of a number of titles, one of which is recently released, the Chosen and the Damned Native Americans and the Making of Race in America, as well as five others. I recommend you look this man up. Thank you so much. It was an honor to talk to you, David. I really appreciate it.
- [55:08]
Professor David Silverman
Thanks for having me.
- [55:11]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.
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