Norwich bulletin., 1913-05-03
AMERICAN INDIANS
KING PHILIP

The little Puritan colony at Nan tucket was aghast at murder just committed within it's borders.
 boastful Indian-either drunk or else relying on the protection of the settlers-had spoken evil of the dead by ancient Indian law it was mortal sin to speak ill of the dead And it was the duty of the next of kin" to avenge the words by death.
 And, in this case, the next of kin chanced to be the sachem's son and successor, Metacomet, known to the white men as King Philip" No one imagined Philip would dare outrage English laws by obeying so barbarous a custom. Yet he appeared at Nan tucket one day in 1865, slew the In- dian who had insulted his fathers memory, and returned unpunished to his own people. This was the sachem' s first open defiance of white mems law. Soon the land was red with his deeds. He was fated to fall as his first victim had just fallen, beneath the hand of an averaging next of kin
 The Avenger and His Crime.
 Massasoit had been sachem of the mighty Pokanoket tribe that owned all the land from Narragansett Bay to Massachusetts. He was friendly to the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass, in 1920, and made a solemn peace treaty with them. He even begged them to give English names
 to his two sons, NamsuttO and Meta comet. Accordingly the youths were renamed Alexander" and Philip" When Massasoit died, Alexander, the elder son, became sachem. Alexander was accused of plotting against the English and was arrested. Then he died from a sudden illness and the h. dians declared the white men had poisoned him.
 Philip became sachem. He had a heritage of bitter hatred against the English. Not only did he believe they had murdered his brother, but he had watched with growing dread the way in which they were robbing the In dians of their land. We are wont to think of our Puritan ancestors as saintIy folk. In some respects, per haps they were. But in their treat ment of the simple friendly Indians their claim of sanctity receives a se- were shock. On one pretense or an other they seized. bought at ridiculous ly cheap price, or ofherwies secured huge tracts of the savages' iand, until at last Philip found himself and his once mighty tribe cooped up in two little tongues of land at Bristol and Tiverton R. l.. Yet, for a time. Philip held firm to the treaties his father had made. He lived at Montauk lpro- nOunc6Q Dyf tLG EASllSu A1OunG Hope'O near Bristol and ruled his sadly restricted people as best he could.
 But the old friendly feeling between white man and Indian was daily merg- ing into mutual hate and suspicion. In 1874 a renegade Indian bore word to the settlers-whether falsely or truthfully-that Philip was planning war The Puritans at once forced mat ters to such an issue that Philip found it necessary either to fight or lose what little authority he had left. He sent women and children of his tribe for protection to his allies the Arrangements, summoned all his available warriors and took the heid
 On Sunday, June, 30, 1875, while the inha bitants of Swansea, not far from Plymouth, were at church, Philip and his band swept down upon the town. There was a wholesale killing and burning. The war was on. Next Philip attacked the town of Hadley, but was beaten back, it Is said, through the generalship of mysterious white haired man Supposed to he William Goffe, the regicide,) who rallied the colonists to a brave defense Soon afterward, at the battle of Bloody Brook, Philips men slew seventy three Britain soldiers. But while the In- dians were scalping their victims Eng fish reenforcements came up and routed them. Philip led his murderous savages through the Connecticut val ley. leaving ruin, death and desoia- tion in his path. burning and sscking Springfield, Northfe1d and Brookfleld,