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Updated: June 27, 2025
His warriors were slain or scattered all over the country, his provisions and ammunition were exhausted, and Canonchet, his most valuable ally, had planned his last ambuscade, and rallied his Narragansets for the last time. The rapidity of Philip's movements, and the fierceness of his attacks, had deprived his warriors of the moral power to withstand reverses.
Canonchet, son of Miantonomo and grand nephew of Canonicus, was chief of the Narragansets. When the colonists first became acquainted with this tribe, Canonicus was their sachem, but his nephew Miantonomo was associated with him in the government. This sachem was never a friend to the English, and he early sent to Plymouth a bundle of arrows bound in a rattle-snake's skin as a war challenge.
Not far from his territories there was another powerful tribe, the Narragansets, who, in their strength, were sometimes disposed to question his authority. All this information interested the colonists, and they were anxious, if possible, to open friendly relations with Massasoit.
He assured Captain Willet, the messenger, that the accusation was a gross slander; that the Narragansets were his unrelenting foes; and that they had fabricated the story that they might alienate from him his good friends the English. He promised that he would attend the next meeting of the court at Plymouth, and prove the truth of these declarations.
Wood, describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they "are the most curious minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels. The northerne, easterne, and westerne Indians fetch all their coyne from these southern mint- masters.
But now, in three months after the signing of this treaty, Philip, with the aid of the Narragansets, was constructing a fort in the very heart of their country, and was making it the general rendezvous for all his warriors. The Narragansets could bring a very fearful accumulation of strength to the cause of Philip.
Upon the eastern shore of Narraganset Bay, in the region now occupied by Little Compton and a part of Tiverton, there was a small tribe of Indians in partial subjection to the Narragansets, and called the Soykonate tribe. Here also a woman, Awashonks, was sachem of the tribe, and the bravest warriors were prompt to do homage to her power.
Wetting some gunpowder, he smeared his own face so as to resemble the adverse party; then, giving the hint to an Englishman, he pretended to pursue him with an uplifted tomahawk. The Englishman threw down his gun and fled, but a few steps in advance of his pursuer. The Narragansets, seeing that the Indian could not fail to overtake and dispatch the unarmed fugitive, did not interfere.
The Narragansets occupied what is now Rhode Island and the islands adjacent thereto, while Philip as the chief of the Pokanokets or Wampanoags had his seat at Montaup or Mount Hope. It was not, however, expedient or possible for him to consecrate a large force upon any one point.
Winter now again whitened the hills of Plymouth. Early in January, 1622, Canonicus, sovereign chief of the Narragansets, notwithstanding the alliance of the foregoing summer into which he had entered, dreading the encroachments of the white men, and particularly apprehensive of the strength which their friendship gave to his hereditary enemies, the Mohegans, sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows tied up in the skin of a rattlesnake.
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