Los Angeles daily herald., 1875-02-25
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
A Memorable Year I'm the Annals of
New England.

Tn the annals of New England the
year 1875 is scarcely less memorable
than the year 1775. In the Summer
of that earlier year began the life-and-
death struggle known in our history
as Philips war. At that time the
united colonies of Massachusetts, Ply
mouth and Connecticut did not num-
ber more than $4,000 inhabitants, if
there were so many; and these were
scattered through about hundred
settlements, separated from one an
other by thick forests, but none of
them remote from tide water. 1t was
not quite forty years since Winthrop
and his associates had founded Boston;
and so peaceful had been ~ relati eas
between the colonists and the Indians
that Increase Mathey says the first
blood ever shed on the soil of Massa-
chusetts, ain way of hostility" was
in July, 1875, about three weeks after
the beginning of, the war, when a
1 y
habitants of Mendon. Almost from
the first attempts had been made to
civilize and Christianize the Indians;
the Bible had been translated into the
| Indian language, Indian scholars had
been admitted to Harvard college, land
wise and just laws had been enacted
| for regulating the intercourse with
the natives, and for preventing the ac.
| QUESTION of their lands by mere adj
venturers and speculators. "I think
can clearly say" wrote Gov. Wins
low, of Plymouth, in May, 1876, "that
before these present troubles broke
out the English did not possess one
foot of land in this colony but what
was fairly obtained by honest pur-
chase of the Indian proprietors." A
similar remark would probably apply
with nearly equal force to the other
colonies.
1t was under these circumstances
that the war was begun on the Goth of
June, 1875, Old Style, by an attack on
Swanzey, in Plymouth Colony, and
was waged by the savages with re-
lentless cruelty for more than year,
until it was virtually terminated by
the death of Philip, on the 18th of Au-
gust, 1876, at Mount Hope, in Rhode
Island During this period about six
hundred of the colonists were killed
in battle or barbarously murdered,
while others, like Mrs. Richardson, wife
of the minister of Lancaster, were
carried away to "a captivity more hor-
BILE than death; and about as many
buildings, mostly dwelling-houses,
http H.
Plymouth and Massachusetts, about
two-thirds were more or less dana ged
by fire, and of this number ten or
twelve were totally destroyed and were
deserted by their inhabitants. Even
after the death of Philip, the war lasted
for many months in the Eastern set
Elements, in what is now the State of
of Maine, and there it was only ter
minated after many more lives had
been sacrificeu. II to these losses we
add the expenses incurred in carrying
on the war, we shall be able to form
some faint idea of the difficulties under
which the men of that day labored in
laying the foundations of their COM
monwealth. In an official letter,
written in 1879, it is stated that the
disbursements for the war amounted
to more than 100000; and it has been
estimated that the debt of Plymouth
Colony alone exceeded in amount the
whole value of the personal property
of its Inhabitants. The colonists saw
very clearly that in that war there was
no truce; they must either conquer or
be exterminated.
1t was the fashion in the last gener-
alton to speak of Philip as recognized
sovereign, as wise and patriotic
statesmen, who with prudent forecast
saw the impending destruction of his
people or their swift expulsion from
the homes of their ancestors by the
advancing tide of English coloniza-
tion. Not thus did he seem to the
men of his own time. Not thus did
he appear to those who study the orig
inal sources of information, or who
endeavor to make themselves unac-
quainted with the unchanging ele-
ments of the Indian character Church,
who saw him after his death, says he
was naked, save his stockings and a
pair of short breeches, and adds, in
very ineligible language, "a aoleful,
great, naked, dirty beast he look'd
liken And the most candid and best
informed of our later historians, DR..
Palfrey, says: "The title of King,
which it has been customary to attach
to his name, dsguises and transfigures
to view the form of a squalid savage,
whose palace was a sty; whose royal
robe was a bear-skin or coarse blanket,
alive with vermin; who hardly knew
the luxury of an ablution; who was
often glad to appease appetite with
food such as men who are not starving
loathe; and whose nature possessed
just the capacity for reelection and the
degree of refinement which might be
expected to be developed from the
mental constitution of his race by such
a condition and such habits Of life.n
There is no evidence whatever that in
shrewdness, executive capacity or
personal bravery, he was superior
to any of the other sachems who
took part in the war; and it is
even IL matter of some doubt
whether he was himself present at any
of the conflicts with the English. The
war was in fact general uprising of
the neighboring tribes, of which Phil.
ip's tribe, the Wampanoags, was not
the most powerful or the most influ-
ential, and was inspired and guided as
much by other sachems as it was by
him.
1t is understood to be the intention
of the Rhode Island Historical Society
during the Summer and Fall of this
year, to celebrate by a series of excur-
sions and commemoration addresses
those incidents of the war most closely
connected with the history of their
own State. 1t will be matter for re-
gret If in Massachusetts,, which was
the chief actor and the chief sufferer
In tbi ,Nar;I Lone ctruUrla-at SWanUau