Part 2

During the white men’s stay at Sowams many of Massasoit’s friends and allies came to visit him, “some by their report from a place not less than a hundred miles.” To all comers one of the sachem’s chief men related the story of Massasoit’s illness, “how near he was spent; how, amongst others his friends the English came to see him; and how suddenly they recovered him to this strength they saw; he being now able to sit upright by himself.” But it was not by words alone that the “good folk” of Sowams showed their appreciation of the Englishmen’s services to them. “Whilst we were there,” writes Winslow, “our entertainment exceeded all other strangers. Divers other things were worth the noting,” he adds, “but I fear I have been too tedious.” Gladly would we have pardoned the worthy chronicler the most “tedious” description of that primeval entertainment which, doubtless included feasting and dancing and wild aboriginal sports. Of what inestimable value would it have been to the historian!

But it was at the moment of his guests’ departure that Massasoit demonstrated the depth of his gratitude to his preservers. Calling Hobbamock, the guide, aside he, in the presence of two or three of his most trusted counsellors, charged him to acquaint Winslow with the existence of a plot originated by the Massachusetts Indians against Weston’s colony at Wessagusset and the settlement at Plymouth. Hobbamock faithfully obeyed his sachem’s instructions. What would have been the fate of the Pilgrims had this timely warning not been given, we can only conjecture. Massasoit advised his white allies to “kill the men of Massachuset who were the authors of this intended mischief,” and this advice they were constrained to follow.

This second visit of the English to Sowams marks an epoch in the history of both red men and white. It firmly cemented, by mutual gratitude and esteem, the friendship first established on a political basis. Previous to it, Massasoit appears to have cherished some misgivings regarding the good faith of his Christian allies. But his restoration to health by their ministrations removed every doubt from his generous mind. Witness his words, “Now I see that the English love me and are my friends, and whilst I live I will never forget this kindness they have showed me.” He never did forget it.

Less than a decade after this eventful visit, an English trading house was established within the limits of Sowams of which at one period, Thomas Prince, afterwards governor of Plymouth colony, was “master.” The location of this trading house has caused historians as much perplexity as the location of Sowams village itself. William J. Miller in his “History of the Wampanoag Indians” says (p. 24), “The trading post was supposed to have been located on the Barrington side of the river (Warren River) on the land known as Phebe’s Neck.” A little thought will convince anyone familiar with the Sowams region that the trading house would never have been placed in Barrington, for the reason that a wide, deep, and unfordable river lay between Phebe’s Neck and Massasoit’s town which the white men would have been compelled to constantly cross and recross in their traffic with the Indians. Moreover, as early as 1652, an English settlement had been planted in what now constitutes the north-easterly portion of Warren on the banks of the Kickemuit River, and it seems only reasonable to suppose that the colonists placed their homes in close proximity to the trading house, which, probably, was also a fort.

Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts states in his “Journal,” under the date, April 12, 1632; “The Governor received letters from Plymouth signifying that there had been a broil between their men at Sowamset and the Narragansett Indians who set upon the English house there to have taken Owsamequin[8] the Sagamore of Packanocott, who fled thither, with all the people, for refuge; and that Captain Standish being gone thither, to relieve the three English which were in the house, sent home in all haste for more men and other provisions, upon intelligence that Canonicus, with a great army, was coming against them; on that they wrote to our Governor for some powder, to be sent with all possible speed; for it seemed they were unfurnished. Upon this, the Governor presently despatched away the messenger with so much powder as he could carry, viz., 27 pounds. The messenger returned and brought a letter from the Governor (Bradford) signifying that the Indians were retired from Sowamsett to fight the Pequots.”

The Narragansetts feared and disliked the white men. The Old Indian Chronicle states that they were jealous of Massasoit “because he had, from the first, been in high favor with the English.” Naturally they would have viewed the establishment of an English trading post at Sowams with displeasure. Whether their hostility to the whites led to the “broil” at Sowams, or whether, as has been suggested,[9] they invaded Pokanoket for the purpose of compelling Massasoit and his warriors to assist them in repulsing the Pequots, may be only conjectured. Standish, perhaps fearing a second incursion, remained at Sowamset until some time in May.[10]

In course of time, the trail leading from Plymouth to Sowams became a familiar path to the people of the Pilgrim settlement. The Plymouth records show that Edward Winslow made, at least, one more visit to Pokanoket, and that John Alden, Samuel Nash, and others, also journeyed there. All who explored the Sowamset district perceived that it was, like the valley of Eshcol, “a good land,” and the idea of establishing a plantation within its limits seems to have been entertained by the Plymouth government for some years before such a settlement was actually begun.

The most famous sojourner at Pokanoket, in those early days, was Roger Williams. Banished from Salem, in January, 1636, he “fled from the savage Christians of Massachusetts Bay to the Christian savages of Narragansett Bay.” In “a bitter winter season,” he made his way through the wild forests to seek a new home in the domains of Massasoit, the friend of white men. The best authorities believe that Massasoit gave him shelter at Sowams village until the spring broke. Williams himself, writes, “When I came (to the Narragansett) I was welcome to Ousamequin,” and “I testify and declare, that, at my first coming into these parts, I obtained the lands of Seekonk of Ousamequin.” If circumstantial evidence be of any value, Warren has certainly good grounds on which to base its claim to the honor of having been the first spot in Rhode Island pressed by the foot of the State’s illustrious founder. It is a fact worthy of note that, one hundred and twenty-nine years after Roger Williams sought refuge with Massasoit, Rhode Island’s great educational institution (Rhode Island College, now Brown University), began its career within a few rods of the site of the royal wigwam which, presumably, sheltered the Salem exile.

On September 25, 1639, Massasoit and his eldest son, then known as Mooanam, “appeared at Court and renewed the ancient league with the Plymouth government,” Massasoit “acknowledging himself a subject of the King of England.” Thirteen years later, as we find by the records of the colony, an English plantation, “rated” at the value of £01:10:00, existed at Sowams. This settlement was located on the banks of the Kickemuit River in the north-easterly part of the present town of Warren. It was completely destroyed by the Indians during King Philip’s war;[11] but, as late as Revolutionary times, the remains of its cellars and hearth stones were still visible. Its northern limit extended to what now constitutes the boundary line separating Warren from North Swansea. Its southern limits approached within less than a mile of the Indian village of the same name. At just what date the first log cabin of a white settler was erected at Sowams we have no means of ascertaining; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the little hamlet grew up, slowly, around the old trading house.[12]

The Kickemuit River is a picturesque stream which, rising in Swansea, winds along the shores of Warren and Bristol and empties into Mount Hope Bay at a point called by the Indians “Weypoiset,” by the English the “Narrows.” On the west bank of the river, near the site of the old boundary line of Warren and Bristol, is a living spring still known as Kickemuit Spring.[13] The soil in the vicinity of this spring is mixed with oyster, clam, and quahaug shells to the depth of several feet, and from it various aboriginal implements have at different periods been exhumed. It is evident that an Indian village once occupied the locality.[14]

The main trail winding from Kickemuit to Sowams was intersected by shorter paths leading to various sections of Pokanoket. The Metacom Avenue of today, familiarly known as the “Back Road,” is identical with the trail worn by moccasined feet in travelling to and from Mount Hope. Another trail closely following the lines of the present Kickemuit Road, School House Road, and Swansea Road, led to what is now North Swansea, and passed the “national grinding mill” of the Wampanoags,[15] a large flat rock located on the west side of the Swansea Road at a point very near the line separating Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There were other paths leading to Birch Swamp in the north-easterly part of Warren, to Poppasquash (the name then applied to the westerly part of Bristol), and to a ferry over Sowams River by means of which connection was made between Massasoit’s town and Chachacust, (a neck of land in what is now Barrington). The two last mentioned trails are identical with North and South Main Streets in Warren.

From the “wading-place” a trail ran eastward a short distance and then branched off towards Touiset, Mattapoisett, and other localities. A careful study of the early records of Swansea and Warren has convinced the writer that, in laying out highways, the original settlers of the towns, in many instances, merely widened the ancient trails used by the Wampanoags for no one knows how many centuries prior to the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay.

The Plymouth government having established a settlement at Sowams, “the garden of their patent,[16]” granted “certain worthy gentlemen” of the colony leave to purchase land in the Sowamset district. Negotiations were immediately entered into with the Wampanoag chief, which resulted in the sale of “Sowams and Parts Adjacent” by Massasoit and his oldest son Wamsutta (Mooanam or Alexander), in March, 1653. The purchasers of these “Sawomes Lands,” which included the greater part of Pokanoket were Thomas Prince, Thomas Willett, Miles Standish, Josiah Winslow, William Bradford, Thomas Clark, John Winslow, Thomas Cushman, William White,[17] John Adams and Experience Mitchell. The price paid was thirty-five pounds sterling, and the reader scarcely needs to be told that the Englishmen “got the best of the bargain.” Why Massasoit consented to “sell his birthright,” is a question more easily asked than answered; gratitude probably influenced him, in part. He never forgot that he owed his life to his English allies. Possibly, too, the wise statesman, realizing the superiority of the white man’s civilization, believed his people would be benefitted by closer relationship with them. He is said to have warned his sons that if they ever engaged in war against the English they would meet with defeat.

The Sowams proprietors did not immediately enter into possession of their entire purchase. By a clause in the “Grand Deed of Saile,” they were restrained from occupying “the neck” (_i. e._ Mount Hope Neck[18]) until such time as the Indians should remove therefrom, the term “neck” as used, however, really signifying only the “uplands,” or central portion of what now constitutes Warren and Bristol. The meadows (_i. e._ marshes) on either side the “great river,” (Sowams River), Kickemuit River, and in and about Poppasquash and Chachacust were the only portions of the territory which actually passed into their hands at the date of sale. These they at once proceeded to divide. The boundaries of the several “lots” are plainly described in the “Records of Sowams and Parts Adjacent” and may be easily traced on a map of Bristol County, R. I. The lots apportioned within the limits of Indian and English Sowams fell to the share of Captain Miles Standish, Experience Mitchell, Resolved and Peregrine White, Thomas Willett, John Adams, Thomas Prince, and John and Josiah Winslow.

The lot of Captain Standish included the marshes on both sides of Kickemuit River from the source of the stream to “the passage where they have usually gone over with canoes” _i. e._ the “wading-place.” Standish also had land on the east bank of the river from the wading-place to a “certain creek” running towards the upland. His next neighbor on the south was Experience Mitchell whose “meadow” extended from the creek before mentioned to “Clark’s Creek.” Beyond Mitchell’s land that of John Adams stretched from “Clark’s Creek” to “Rocky Run;” while, still farther south, the lot of Resolved White ran from “Rocky Run” to “Weypoisett,” the “narrows” of the river. Resolved White also possessed a strip of marsh on the west bank of the stream which began at the “passage with canoes” and ended at a “broaken red oak tree” whose location no man now knoweth.

The northern boundary of Captain Thomas Willett’s lot was marked by this same “broaken oak tree” and its southern boundary line was very near the “narrows.” In addition to this land Willet had a strip of marsh on the east bank of Sowams River. South of this strip was the lot of John Winslow, and south of Winslow’s meadow was a tract of land belonging to Peregrine and Resolved White. Willett’s meadow was apparently bounded by Massasoit’s village on the north, the marshes of which were not divided, undoubtedly having been reserved by Massasoit for the use of his people.

The land on the east shore of Belcher’s Cove, an arm of Sowams River, fell to the share of Thomas Prince. On the west side of the Cove the meadows “to the head thereof” were laid out to Josias Winslow and the Whites. The “Sowams Purchase” was a speculation, and the original proprietors did not long retain their land. That they were no losers by their investment is proved by the fact that Peregrine White sold his share for £40 pounds, five pounds more than was paid the Wampanoags for the entire territory bought.

From 1652 until the death of Massasoit in 1660, peace between the white men at English Sowams and the red men at Indian Sowams remained uninterrupted. The civilized farmer and the savage warrior appear to have each dwelt quietly under the shadow of his “own vine and fig tree.” Doubtless the inhabitants of Massasoit’s town were more or less affected by every day intercourse with their white neighbors. They must have learned many things unknown to the savages of districts remote from English settlements. Firm as was his friendship for the white men, however, Massasoit, Hubbard states, “was never in the least degree well affected to the religion of the English” and would fain have forced them to promise “never to attempt to draw away any of his people from their old pagan superstition and devilish idolatry.” He lived and died a heathen, clinging pertinaciously to the faith and gods of his fathers.

In 1658 the Plymouth government voted to raise a troop of horse “out of the several townships to bee reddy for service when required.” Each horse was to be “well appointed with furniture, viz.; a saddle and a case of petternells.”[19] Sowamsett contributed one trooper to this company.

For several years prior to the death of Massasoit, Wamsutta, or Alexander, was associated with his father in the government of the Wampanoags, and when the great chief’s spirit fled from earth to _Sowaniu_, the paradise of the red man, became the sachem of the tribe. He does not appear to have made his father’s town his own headquarters, but to have resided at Mount Hope. Probably his village stood near, or upon, the site of that occupied at a later date by his brother Philip. Philip’s town was not located as many writers have erroneouly stated, upon the mount, itself, but at a point about a mile and a half north of it and near the “narrows” of Kickemuit River. At and about this spot, relics of the aborigines have been disinterred in considerable numbers, and the remains of an ancient Indian burial ground was discovered there several years ago.

Soon after the death of his father Wamsutta repaired to Plymouth and “professing great respect,” desired the Court to bestow English names upon himself and his younger brother. The Court acceded to the request and named the sachem “Allexander Pokanoket,” his brother (Metacom) Philip, presumably after Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. For a brief period succeeding this event, the old time friendship of Wampanoag, and Englishman remained apparently undisturbed.

In 1660 the “rates” of Sowams were increased to £02:10:00. The little hamlet was slowly gaining in population and importance. During this year, the Court ordered a pound erected at Kickemuit, as Wamsutta complained that corn belonging to his people had been injured by swine, the property of the English. In June, 1661, Sowamsett and “all the naighbors there inhabiting” were placed under the “ward” of Rehoboth, and it was decreed that twenty shillings of Sowams’ rates should “be allowed for the easing of Sandwich rates.”

Alexander’s good faith began to be questioned by the English early in 1662. The governor of Plymouth colony having been informed that the sachem was endeavoring to persuade the old-time enemies of the Wampanoags, the Narragansetts, to join him in a revolt against the whites, deputed Captain Thomas Willett to investigate the truth of the report. Upon visiting Mt. Hope, Captain Willett was assured by Alexander that the Narragansetts had fabricated the story in order to injure the Wampanoags in the eyes of the English. The chief agreed to attend the next session of the Court at Plymouth that the charges against him might be fully investigated; yet when the Court convened he failed to appear being, it was said, at that very date upon a visit to the Narragansett country. The government decided to deal peremptorily with him and, accordingly, Josias Winslow, then Major Commandant of the Colonial militia, was depatched to bring him to Plymouth by force. Winslow and his party came upon the sachem, suddenly, at a hunting lodge near Munponset Pond in the present town of Halifax, Mass.; and, when Alexander declined to accede to the Court’s demand, Winslow presented a loaded pistol at his breast threatening him with instant death if he persisted in his refusal. Alexander and followers were almost helpless, their guns which had been stacked outside the lodge having been seized by the English before entering, and consequently, after a parley, and at the earnest entreaty of his people, the sachem yielded to the inevitable and, accompanied by his wife and a long train of warriors and squaws began the march towards Plymouth. Upon reaching Duxbury he was entertained at Major Winslow’s house, pending the arrival of orders from Governor Prince who resided at Eastham. But the haughty spirit of the Wampanoag king could ill brook the humiliation of arrest and imprisonment, and Alexander was soon smitten with a raging fever induced by grief and anger. The best medical skill was summoned to attend him, but he sank rapidly, and his terrified followers, believing him poisoned by the English, entreated to be allowed to carry him to Mt. Hope, promising to return with him as soon as he should recover and offering to send his son[20] as a hostage. Their request was granted and with all possible speed they started on the homeward journey. They bore their chief on a litter until they reached Titicut where they embarked in canoes, but had proceeded only a short distance down the river ere they perceived that he was dying. They immediately drew their frail barks to the shore, lifted him from the canoe, and tenderly placed him upon the grass. In stoical silence they awaited the end; and, when, the last fluttering sigh had escaped the pallid lips, they replaced the form of the dead sachem in the canoe, grasped their paddles and, with hearts burning with grief, anger, and thirst for revenge, pushed swiftly and silently down the stream.

The tragic death of Alexander,――the direct result of the bold and perhaps unwise policy of the Plymouth government――broke the first link in the chain of friendship that had bound Wampanoag and Englishman together. The sullen attitude of the savages awakened anxiety among the colonists, and it was with some alarm that those dwelling at the Sowams’ settlement beheld a vast concourse of savages gathered at Mt. Hope to mourn for the dead chief and to celebrate his brother Philip’s accession to the sachemship. But the feared outbreak of hostilities did not occur. Whatever Philip’s real feelings were, he apparently desired to live in amity with the English; and a few months after becoming the head of his tribe renewed the “covenant” which Massasoit had made with the government of Plymouth. He does not seem to have, at first, felt a prejudice against the Christian religion for, in the winter of 1663-4, he and his people sent to John Eliot for “books to learn to read and to pray unto God.” Eliot’s son twice visited Pokanoket and taught among the Wampanoags, and from a letter addressed by Eliot to the United Colonies in 1664, it appears probable that the apostle, himself, labored at Mt. Hope in 1664-5.

The hamlet by the Kickemuit continued under the ward of Rehoboth during 1663 and 1664, being ordered to so remain until such time as the “naighborhood should be in a capassitie and desire to be a township of themselves.” In 1664 Sowams was rated at £2:05:00; in 1666 at £07:17:06; in 1667, at £10:10:00. During this same year, “Wannamoisett[21] and Parts Adjacent” were incorporated as a township under the name of Swansea. The charter granted it described the township as “all such lands that lyeth betwixt the salt water Bay and coming up Taunton River all the land between the salt water and river and the bounds of Taunton and Rehoboth.” It will readily be seen that the site of Warren was included within the bounds of this extensive territory. The history of Sowams thus became merged in that of Swansea, less than a score of years after its commencement, and from the annals of Swansea the chronicler must glean the facts that make up its final chapters.

It is not within the province of this sketch to discuss at length the causes which led to that mighty struggle between savagery and civilization known is history as King Philip’s War. For some years after he became sachem, Philip maintained an outward show of fealty to the English. But as time went on the relations of red men and white became strained. The Indian saw the forests rapidly vanishing beneath the colonist’s axe, and realized that the game on which he depended for sustenance would, also, soon disappear. He was forced to sell his lands for the necessities of life, and he complained bitterly, and too often with reason, of wrongs inflicted upon him by his white brother. Moreover, he was fast becoming debased by the vices of civilization. Philip was a statesman and a patriot. He loved his country and his people. In the increasing power of the English he saw presaged the downfall of his race. He resolved to attempt the extermination of the usurpers. His fertile brain evolved a scheme for a union of the various native tribes against the common foe. The English suspected his designs, yet he many times adroitly baffled their watchfulness. The fates, however, were against him, and he was destined never to work out the salvation of his people.