Wars With the Indians
The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the
affairs of the New England colonies, was characterized by widespread
excitement and deep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere.
Scarcely a section of the territory from Maine to the frontier of
New York and the towns of Long Island but felt the strain of
impending change in its political status. The winning of the
charters and the capture of New Amsterdam were momentous events in
the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island and Connecticut; while
the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and the acrimonious
debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly the towns of
that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, and
contentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state of
perturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as to
jurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut's
charter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east
to Flushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people into
discordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already
mentioned, an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or
another seems to have made trouble in nearly every part of the
British world, appeared at this time in Long Island and, denying
Connecticut's title to the territory, proclaimed the King. In
January, 1664, he established a government at Setauket, with himself
as president. This event set the towns in an uproar; Captain Young
from Southold, upholding Connecticut's claim, came "with a trumpet"
to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed Long Island Sound to support
Scott's cause; and at last Connecticut herself sent over officers to
seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would "sacrifice his
heart's blood upon the ground" before he would yield, he was taken
and carried in chains to Hartford.
Both Plymouth and Massachusetts sent letters protesting against the
treatment of Scott, and the heat engendered among the members of the
New England Confederation was intensified by the controversy over
New Haven and the "uncomfortable debates" regarding the title to the
Narragansett territory. Massachusetts wrote to Connecticut in 1662,
" We cannot a little wonder at your proceeding so suddenly to extend
your authority to the trouble of your friends and confederates"; to
which Connecticut replied, hoping that Massachusetts would stop
laying further temptations before "our subjects at Mistack of
disobedience to this government." The matter was debated for many
years, and it was not until 1672 that Massachusetts recognized
Connecticut's title under the charter and yielded, not because it
thought the claim just but because "it was judged by us more
dangerous to the common cause of New England to oppose than by our
forbearance and yielding to endeavour to prevent a mischief to us
both."
In Rhode Island conditions were equally unsettled, for the
inhabitants of the border towns did not know certainly in what
colony they were situated or what authority to recognize; and though
these doubts affected but little the daily life of the farmer, they
did affect the title to his lands and the payment of his taxes, and
threw suspicion upon all legal processes and transactions. The
situation was even more disturbed in the regions north of
Massachusetts, where the status of Maine and New Hampshire was
undecided and where the coming of the royal commissioners only
served to throw the inhabitants into a new ferment. The claims of
Mason and Gorges were revived by their descendants, and the King
peremptorily ordered Massachusetts to surrender the provinces.
Agents of Gorges appeared in the territory and demanded an
acknowledgment of their authority; the commissioners themselves
attempted to organize a government and to exercise jurisdiction
there in the King's name; but in 1668 Massachusetts, denying all
other pretensions, adopted a resolution asserting her full right of
control, and, sending commissioners with a military escort to York,
resumed jurisdiction of the province. The inhabitants did not know
what to do. Some upheld the Gorges agents and the commissioners;
others adhered to Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts itself there
were grave differences of opinion, for the younger generation did
not always follow the old magistrates, and the people of Boston were
developing views both of government and of the proper relations
toward England that were at variance with those of the more
conservative country towns and districts.
The larger disputes between the colonies were frequently accompanied
with lesser disputes between the towns over their boundaries; and
both at this time and for years afterwards there was scarcely an
important settlement in New England that did not have some trouble
with its neighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over
their dividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme
attempted to mow the same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle
with clubs and scythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of
Windsor and Enfield "were so fiercely engag'd" over a disputed strip
of land, reported an eye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide
this controversy by force, "a resolute combat" ensuing between them
"in which many blows were given to the exasperating each party, so
that the lives and limbs of his Majesties subjects were endangered
thereby."
Though clubs and scythes and fists are dangerous weapons enough, the
only real fighting in which the colonists engaged was with the
Indians and with weapons consisting of pikes and muskets. Indian
attacks were an ever-present danger, for the stretches of unoccupied
land between the colonies were the hunting-grounds of the
Narragansetts of eastern Connecticut and western Rhode Island, the
Pequots of Connecticut, the Wampanoags of Plymouth and its
neighborhood, the Pennacooks of New Hampshire, and the Abenaki
tribes of Maine. Plague and starvation had so far weakened the coast
Indians before the arrival of the first colonists that the new
settlements had been but little disturbed; but, unfortunately, as
the first corners pushed into the interior, founding new
plantations, felling trees, and clearing the soil, and the trappers
and traders invaded the Indian hunting-grounds, carrying with them
firearms and liquor, the Indian menace became serious.
To meet the Indian peril, all the colonies made provision for a
supply of arms and for the drilling of the citizen body in militia
companies or train-bands. But in equipment, discipline, and morale
the fighting force of New England was very imperfect. The troops had
no uniforms; there was a very inadequate commissariat; and alarums,
whether by beacon, drum-beat, or discharge of guns, were slow and
unreliable. Weapons were crude, and the method of handling them was
exceedingly awkward and cumbersome. The pike was early abandoned and
the matchlock soon gave way to the flintlock — both heavy and
unwieldy instruments of war — and carbines and pistols were also
used. Cavalry or mounted infantry, though expensive because of horse
and outfit, were introduced whenever possible. In 1675, Plymouth had
fourteen companies of infantry and cavalry; Massachusetts had six
regiments, including the Ancient and Honorable Artillery; and Maine
and New Hampshire had one each. Connecticut had four train-bands in
1662 and nine in 1668, a troop of dragoneers, and a troop of horse,
but no regiments until the next century. For coast defense there
were forts, very inadequately supplied with ordnance, of which that
on Castle Island in Boston harbor was the most conspicuous, and, for
the frontier, there were garrison-houses and stockades.
Though Massachusetts had twice put herself in readiness to repel
attempts at coercion from England, and though both Connecticut and
New Haven seemed on several occasions in danger from the Dutch,
particularly after the recapture of New Amsterdam in 1673, New
England's chief danger was always from the Indians. Both French and
Dutch were believed to be instrumental in inciting Indian warfare,
one along the southwestern border, the other at various points in
the north, notably in New Hampshire and Maine. But, except for
occasional Indian forays and for house-burnings and scalpings in the
more remote districts, there were only two serious wars in the
seventeenth century — that against the
Pequots in 1637 and the great
War of King Philip in 1675-1676.
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