The Name of War

by Jill Lepore

  Unfortunately for the aptly named Job, however, Captain Samuel Moseley found out about his plan and successfully subverted it. Instead of meeting Kattenanit, Tukapewillin and his companions were captured by Captain Benjamin Gibbs and his soldiers, who, Gookin claimed, took all of Tukapewillin’s goods, including “a pewter cup, that the minister had saved, which he was wont to use at the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, being given him by Mr. Elliot for their use.” On being brought to Marlborough, the captured Indians were harassed and abused by the English, so much so that Tukapewillin’s wife and eldest son and another woman and her daughter ran off and “escaped away into the woods,” probably regretting ever having left the Nipmucks. (Tukapewillin’s wife even left a nursing child behind with the English.) Soon afterward, Tukapewillin and his remaining companions were sent to endure yet another form of captivity on Deer Island. (On his own return, Job Kattenanit was shipped back to Deer Island.)76

  During a brief release from the island, Tukapewillin was brought to John Eliot’s house. Questioned by Eliot and others, Tukapewillin mourned the absence of his wife and son but insistently declared his loyalty to the English: “I nevere did join with them against the English. Indeed they often solicited me, but I utterly denied & refused it. I thought within myself it is better to die than to fight the church of Christ.” Tukapewillin’s statement to Eliot is the most eloquent surviving description of the extreme vulnerability of Christian Indians during the war, a vulnerability that had taken more lives than just John Sassamon’s. Tukapewillin pleaded,

  Oh Sir I am greatly distressed this day on every side, the English have taken away some of my estate, my corn … my plough, cart, chaine, & other goods. The enemy Indians have also taken a part of what I had, & the richest Indians mock & scoff at me, saying now what has become of your praying to God. The English also censure me, & say I am a hypocrite. In this distress, I have no where to look, but up to God in Heaven to help me.77

  From Tukapewillin’s statement, it appears that non-Christian Algonquians hated the “preying Indians” as much as the English did. Tukapewillin reported that Philip had even given his men orders to make sure to bring the most notable Christian Indians to him alive, “that he might put them to some tormenting and cruel death.”78

  Because Joseph Tukapewillin was captured by English soldiers while running away from enemy Indians and because Eliot advocated his cause, Tukapewillin was spared from fates worse than confinement on Deer Island: execution and foreign slavery. Other Hassanemesit Indians were not as fortunate. A Christian Indian named Captain Tom, who, along with Printer and Tukapewillin, had been compelled to go with the Nipmucks when they came to Hassanemesit in November 1675, was captured by the English in June 1676 and tried for treason. While Captain Tom claimed to have been captivated by the Nipmucks, his story, like Joshua Tift’s, was not believed. On June 12 Captain Tom was brought to Boston and, as John Eliot reported in his diary, “a great rage was against him.” On June 14 Captain James Cowell and other English soldiers “testified thei saw him at Sudbury fight,” but Captain Tom denied this charge, claiming that he had been sick during the attack on Sudbury and had “never ingaged against the English.” He had only joined the Nipmucks, he claimed, because “a devil put it into his head to be willing to goe with them [and] knowing the rage of the English.”79 On June 19 the Massachusetts Council issued a warrant for several witnesses to appear to testify regarding Captain Tom’s loyalty.80 A Christian Indian named James Quanapaug, who had served with Job Kattenanit as a spy for the English, testified that when he was among the Nipmucks he had seen Captain Tom and “heard him say that he was caried away from Hassanmiku by the enimy though he was also afraid to goe to deere island.” Furthermore, Quanapaug had

  heard som of the enimy mock Tom & som heard of the indians carried captive that they cryed when they were caried away, more like squas than men. Capt. Tom also told me that hee was wearing of living among those wicked indians, & greatly desired to bee among the praying indians & englisshe againe … [he] told me that hee never had or would fight against the english.

  (Job Kattenanit was also available to corroborate Quanapaug’s story.)81

  Although Quanapaug’s testimony provided compelling evidence that Captain Tom had in fact been a captive among the enemy Indians, several Englishmen contradicted this account. Edmond Rice, who had served under Captain Wadsworth, testified that he “well knew Capt Tom Indian … that lived withe the Indians” and that he had seen Captain Tom at the fight at Sudbury, “walking with a long staffe Grinning as he went.”82 Even more damning was the testimony of John Partridge of Medfield, who declared that “When the Indians came to our towne of Medfield, and were partly about my house in the fyring of it & … I did heare the very reall voice of Captaine Tom.” Partridge recognized the voice, he claimed, because he had heard it before the war, when Captain Tom, as a leader in the praying town of Natick, had come “with his natick Souldiers to medfeild & comanded them.”83

  If Quanapaug’s version of the story was true, Captain Tom, like Joshua Tift, was judged harshly for choosing captivity over death. Neither Tom nor Tift was able to redeem himself by telling his story or, in Tom’s case, by having his story corroborated by Indians loyal to the English. Daniel Gookin claimed Captain Tom was “a pious man” who was simply “tempted beyond his strength; for, had he done as he ought, he should rather have suffered death, than have gone among the wicked enemies of the people of God,” but that, instead, he had “yielded to the enemies’ arguments, and by his example drew most of the rest.”84 When that “dreadful hour” had come and enemy Indians said, “Come go along with us,” Captain Tom and Joshua Tift were expected to give their lives rather than be taken captive and so, in a sense, were Mary Rowlandson and Joseph Tukapewillin, but only two were able to exonerate themselves.

  The unredeemability of Captain Tom and Joshua Tift rested, in part, on their sex—it was more difficult for men to explain why they had chosen captivity over death than it was for women. Quanapaug’s testimony in this regard is particularly revealing. He said that he had heard that Tom and other captives “cryed when they were carried away, more like squas than men.” Intimately familiar with English gender conventions, Quanapaug perhaps realized that Tom’s only hope of redemption lay in making him seem as weak as a woman. In a similar fashion, William Nahauton, another Indian intimately familiar with English ways (he had testified against Sassamon’s murderers), played to English ideas about gender when petitioning for the release of a female relative being held prisoner in Boston. “Although she did belong to phillip his Company,” Nahauton wrote, “shee being a woman whatever her mind hath been it is very probable she hath not dun much mischefe.”85Nahauton’s strategy, seeking exoneration for his kinswoman on the basis of her sex, was successful; she was ordered released.86 But Quanapaug’s suggestion that Captain Tom was as weak as a woman could not save him.

  On June 20 John Eliot visited Captain Tom in prison. That same day the Massachusetts Council declared the war’s first day of thanksgiving (to be held on the twenty-ninth) to give thanks for their signal victories over the enemy. On June 21 Eliot went to the governor “& intreated that Capt Tom might have liberty to prove that he was sick at the time when the fight was at Sudbury & that he was not here.” The governor spoke of “how bad a man Tom was,” and Eliot, with unusual rage, told the governor that “at the great day he should find that christ was of anothr mind.” The next day, as Eliot walked to attend a sermon in Boston, a marshal handed him a sheet of paper announcing the upcoming thanksgiving. After the sermon was over, the same marshal ushered Captain Tom to the gallows. In his diary, Eliot reported that Tom addressed the crowd and said: “I did never lift up hand against the English, nor was I at sudbury, only I was willing to goe away with the enemise that surprized us.”87In his own diary, Bostonian Samuel Sewall reported more blandly, “Two Indians, Capt. Tom and another, executed after Lecture.”88

  V

  IN NOVEMB
ER 1675, when James Printer was faced with choosing among captivity among the Nipmucks, confinement to Deer Island, execution, or foreign slavery, he chose captivity. If calling what he endured “captivity” seems somehow inaccurate, that is partly the legacy of Mary Rowlandson, whose narrative established the defining elements of what would prove to be a sturdy genre, the American story of captivity in the wilderness. And yet Printer’s captivity made Rowlandson’s redemption possible. Increase Mather said the return of English captives was the result of prayer. “For some, prayer hath been more abundantly poured forth; so for Mr. Rowlandson his wife and two children, and we have seen the Lord returning them all again.”89 But in reality, Mary Rowlandson’s redemption depended not only on the assistance of Englishmen such as Mather (who intervened on her behalf before the Massachusetts authorities) but also on the negotiations of Indians who had either been temporarily released from Deer Island or had been taken captive by enemy Indians. In a sense, Rowlandson’s release from captivity was predicated on those same Indians’ own bondage.

  On March 31, 1676, the Massachusetts Council released a Christian Indian named Tom Dublett (also known as Nepanet) from Deer Island and instructed him to travel to the central part of the colony to deliver a letter to Mary Rowlandson’s captors. “Inteligence is Come to us,” the Council wrote, “that you have some English (especially weomen and children) in Captivity among you. Wee have therefore sent this messenger offering to redeeme them either for payment in goods or wampum, or by exchange of prisoners.” The Council asked that the sachems respond by letter (“if you have any among you that can write your Answer to this our messenger, wee desire it in writting, and to that end have sent paper pen and Incke”) or send a messenger (“provided he Come unarmed and Carry a white flagg upon a staffe vissible to be seene, which wee call a flagg of truce; and is used by civil nations in tyme of warre”).90

  On April 12 Tom Dublett dutifully returned to Boston carrying a letter signed by the Nipmuck sachems Sam and Kutquen Quanohit and transcribed by Peter Jethro, a Christian Indian who had been taken captive by the Nipmucks at Hassanemesit. Although the sachems made assurances regarding the safety of the captives and followed the Council’s instructions in the manner of their reply, its contents were disappointing. As one Englishman remarked, theirs was “a very insolent Letter, that as yet they had no need to accept of Ransom for our Captives.”91 Clearly the sachems were aware of the strength of their negotiating position, and the damage the war had done to the English:

  You know, and we know, you have great sorroful with crying; for you lost many, many hundred men, and all your house, all your land, and woman, child, and cattle, and all your things that you have lost.92

  Apparently the Nipmuck sachems (or Jethro himself) were not especially pleased with Tom Dublett. “We now give answer by this one man; but if you like my answer, send one more man besides this Tom, and send with all true heart, and with all your mind, by two men.”93 Accordingly, when Dublett was sent back for further negotiations, he was accompanied by another Christian Indian named Peter Conway. When Dublett and Conway arrived, Mary Rowlandson spied them and learned their task. “Though they were Indians, I got them by the hand, and burst out into tears; my heart was so full that I could not speak to them.”94 On April 27 Dublett and Conway returned to Boston with another letter, this written by James Printer and not signed by the sachems:

  I am sorrow that I have don much wrong to you and yet I say the falte is lay upon you, for when we began quarel at first with Plimouth men I did not think that you should have so much truble as now is: therefore I am willing to hear your desire about the Captives. Therefore we desire you to sent Mr Rolanson and goodman Kettel: (for their wives) and these Indians Tom and Peter to redeem their wives, they shall come and goe very safely: Whereupon we ask Mrs Rolanson, how much your husband willing to give for you she gave an answer 20 pounds in goodes.95

  The Council, however, was disappointed with Printers reply. On April 28 the Council sent the sachems another letter, this time asking for “a plaine & direct answer to our Last Letter.” “Wee received your Letter by Tom & Peter, which doth not answer ours to you, neither is subscribed by the sachims nor hath it any date, which wee know your scribe james Printer doth well understand should be.” Dublett and Conway, along with an Englishman named John Hoar, returned to Nipmuck country to deliver this message.96

  When the Council delegation arrived, Mary Rowlandson asked to see John Hoar: “I begged them to let me see the English man, but they would not.” During a break in negotiations, however, she was finally allowed to meet with him, and learned of the possibility of her imminent release. Afterward she addressed her captors eagerly: “I now asked them, whether I should go home with Mr. Hoar? They answered No.” At the end of another day of negotiations, James Printer visited Rowlandson and Hoar to inform them of the likelihood of Rowlandson’s release. The next morning, according to Rowlandson, the Indians “called their General Court (as they call it) to consult and determine, whether I should go home or no: and they all as one man did seemingly consent to it, that I should go home; except Philip, who would not come among them.”97 Mary Rowlandson was released on May 2 and returned to Boston on May 3.

  Within two months of Mary Rowlandson’s reunion with her husband in Boston, James Printer, responding to an offer of amnesty, returned to Boston as well.98 On July 8, 1676, as Increase Mather reported,

  Amongst others, James an Indian, who could not only reade, and write, but had learned the Art of Printing, notwithstanding his Apostasie, did venture himself upon the mercy and truth of the English Declaration which he had seen and read, promising for the future to venture his life against the common Enemy.99

  Like all returning Indians, Printer was required to demonstrate his loyalty to the English. Some submitting Indians began by “crying out against King Philip, and other ill Counsellors, as the Causes of their Misfortunes,” and Printer himself had lain the foundation for a possible reconciliation with the English when he wrote in April, “I am sorrow that I have don much wrong to you.”100 It was deeds and not words, however, that the English required. As Thomas Whalley reported, “those that come in are conquered and help to conquer others.” Most often, surrendering Indians were required to join the English army in capturing and killing enemy Indians “that Soe lately wear theyre friends” (with the result that “the Indeans are a great teror one to the other & afrayde of the sighte of each other”).101 Thus on July 3 the Massachusetts Council had instructed Daniel Gookin to order Printer, who had likely expressed an interest in securing amnesty for himself, to demonstrate his fidelity “by bringing som of the enemies heads.”102 (Here, “heads” may mean “scalps.”)103 Apparently Printer succeeded in securing the necessary badges of fidelity and returned to English society; he soon returned to his work at the Cambridge Press.

  Mary Rowlandson reconciled herself to her captivity by writing about it; James Printer reconciled himself with the English by bringing in the scalps or heads of enemy Indians. Words and wounds are not equivalent, but they are sometimes analogous. James Printer picked up a hatchet and killed Indians, Mary Rowlandson picked up a pen and wrote about them. Both responses helped these former captives redeem themselves and return to English society. Others, such as Joshua Tift and Captain Tom, were not so successful. Of course, Rowlandson’s welcome was never truly in doubt; a pious pastor’s wife, she was never in danger of being executed on her return. Unlike Joshua Tift, Mary Rowlandson had nothing to answer for—except, perhaps, the memories and the guilt that haunted her. James Printer and Captain Tom, meanwhile, had every reason to worry, despite their former close relations with the English. In the end, what was at stake for Mary Rowlandson and James Printer could not have been more different. Printer killed to save his life; Rowlandson wrote to save her soul.

  Mary Rowlandson wrote her way out of captivity and back into the Christian, English fold, freeing herself from memories of life among savages. James Printer could never fully belong t
o English society (and we might wonder whether would he have wanted to), but he did resume his former place as a printer at the Cambridge Press. And herein lies the greatest irony in the two captives’ tales. The abundance of phonetic misspellings in the Cambridge edition of Rowlandson’s narrative (“Second Addition,” for instance, instead of “Second Edition”) has led several scholars to conclude that the type was set by the only worker at the press who was not a native English-speaker: James Printer.104 Printer, then, not only wrote the letter negotiating Rowlandson’s redemption by ransom, he also set the type documenting her redemption by prose.

  “Come and hear what she hath to say,” the preface to Rowlandson’s narrative urged.

  Read therefore, peruse, ponder, and from hence lay by something from the experience of another against thine own turn comes, that so thou also through patience and consolation of the scripture mayest have hope.

  Title page of the “Second Addition” of Rowlandson’s narrative. Courtesy of The Trustees of Boston Public Library

  James Printer placed these inky letters side by side on the type tray: lay by something from the experience of another against thine own turn. It is impossible not to wonder what he thought. Did he measure Rowlandson’s sufferings against his own? The author of the preface boasted that “no Friend of divine Providence will ever repent his time and pains, spent in reading over these sheets, but will judge them worth perusing again and again.”105 Whether Printer found inspiration or desperation in reading Rowlandson’s narrative will remain a mystery, but the truth of the preface’s prediction about the book’s popularity cannot be denied. The Soveraignty and Goodness of God, the last and most enduring of the King Philip’s War narratives, was printed four times in 1682. It proved so popular that it was literally read to pieces; of the first edition, only four tattered leaves survive.106