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Updated: June 22, 2025
This was late in the summer of 1643. In September the commissioners of the United Colonies met in Boston and the case of Miantonomo came before them.
Nor did Williams or Eliot, by kindness or religion, ever command the fierce spirits of Miantonomo, Canonchet and Philip. Nevertheless, let history exalt these men.
When the Commissioners sharply called them to account for this, their sachem Canonchet, son of Miantonomo, promised to surrender the fugitives within ten days. But the ten days passed and nothing was heard from the Narragansetts. The victory of their brethren at Bloody Brook had worked upon their minds, so that they no longer thought it worth while to keep faith with the white men.
They decided that the rules of war permitted, and the safety of Uncas required, the death of Miantonomo. They were careful, however, not to permit his execution within their jurisdiction. The colonies were responsible for the death of this chief. Uncas was nominally their ally, but really their subject.
In his perplexity Uncas took his prisoner to Hartford, and afterward, upon the advice of the governor and council, sent him to Boston, that his fate might be determined by the Federal Commissioners who were there holding their first regular meeting. It was now the turn of the commissioners to be perplexed. According to English law there was no good reason for putting Miantonomo to death.
Miantonomo was less hostile, but Canonchet manifested the spirit of his grand uncle. Immediately after hostilities commenced with Philip the English demanded of Canonchet the surrender of certain Pokanokets alleged to be within his dominions. This was his reply: "Deliver the Indians of Philip! Never. Not a Wampanoag will I ever give up. No. Not the paring of a Wampanoag's nail."
They could not know that the forests would be cleared, that farms would spread over the countryside, and towns grow up along the river courses, and they themselves be driven farther and farther back into the wilderness. But Miantonomo denied that he had planned a united attack on the settlements.
The Narragansetts were the only tribe that could at all compete in strength with the fierce and haughty Pequodees; and their young Chieftain, Miantonomo, was already regarded by Sassacus as a dangerous rival. Such was the feeling that existed among the tribes near the settlements of Connecticut, when an event occurred that disturbed the peace of the whole community.
The decision was doubtless based purely upon grounds of policy. Miantonomo was put out of the way because he was believed to be dangerous. In the thirst for revenge that was aroused among the Narragansetts there was an alternative source of danger, to which I shall hereafter refer. It is difficult now to decide, as a mere question of safe policy, what the English ought to have done.
Between the rival sachems, Uncas and Miantonomo, the hatred was deep and deadly. As soon as the Mohegan perceived that trouble was brewing between Miantonomo and the government at Boston, he improved the occasion by gathering a few Narragansett scalps. Miantonomo now took the war-path and was totally defeated by Uncas in a battle on the Great Plain in the present township of Norwich.
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