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Updated: May 9, 2025
There thus very naturally grew up, upon both sides, a spirit of alienation and suspicion. Alexander kept aloof from the English, and was cold and reserved whenever he met them. Rumors began to float through the air that the Wampanoags were meditating hostilities.
Just north of Little Compton, in the region now occupied by the upper part of Tiverton, and by Fall River, the Pocasset tribe of Indians dwelt. Wetamoo, the former bride of Alexander, was a princess of this tribe. Upon the death of her husband and the accession of Philip to the sovereignty of the Wampanoags, she had returned to her parental home, and was now queen of the tribe.
Advancing a little farther, Governor Carver met them with his reserve of military pomp, and the monarch of the Wampanoags and his chieftains were escorted with the music of the drum and fife to a log hut decorated with such embellishments as the occasion could furnish.
They appear to have had no sachem of distinction, and at one time were tributary to the Narragansets, but were now tributary to the Wampanoags. They had thus far been living on very friendly terms with the inhabitants of the towns which had been settled within the limits of their territory.
The premature explosion in some measure averted the danger. It gave the English time to strike several severe blows against the tribe of their great enemy, before his allies had determined to make common cause in his design. The summer and autumn of 1675 had been passed in active hostilities between the English and Wampanoags, without openly drawing any other nation into the contest.
By successive sales of parts of their territory, they were now shut up, as it were, in the necks or peninsulas formed by the northern and eastern branches of Narragansett Bay, the same territory now constituting the continental eastern portion of Rhode Island. Though always at peace with the colonists, the Wampanoags had not always escaped suspicion.
No lands were taken without payment, yet the sales were far from being voluntary. A new generation of Indians, too, had grown up, and, heedless of the lesson taught their fathers, the Narragansetts, Nipmucks, and Wampanoags, led by King Philip and Canonchet, rose upon the English. A dreadful war followed. When it ended, in 1678, the three tribes were annihilated.
As the Wampanoags were then, and had been for forty years, at peace with the English, and as they were not at war with any other people, and were in the very heart of their own territories, no precautions whatever were adopted against surprise. Major Winslow dispatched a portion of his force to seize the guns of the Indians, and with the rest entered the hut.
He was so kindly treated that presently Massasoit, principal sachem of the Wampanoags, who dwelt between Narragansett and Cape Cod bays, came with a score of painted and feathered warriors and squatting on a green rug and cushions in the governor's log-house smoked the pipe of peace, while Standish with half-a-dozen musketeers stood quietly by.
Gookin, speaking of the Wampanoags, says: "There are some that have hopes of their greatest and chiefest sachem, named Philip. Some of his chief men, as I hear, stand well-inclined to hear the Gospel, and himself is a person of good understanding and knowledge in the best things. I have heard him speak very good words, arguing that his conscience is convicted.
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