The Name of War

by Jill Lepore

  21Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 342-43.

  22Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 360-61. There was, nonetheless, “a Report that they had forced Mrs. Rowlinson to marry the one eyed Sachem, but it was soon contradicted; for being a very pious Woman and of great Faith, the Lord wonderfully supported her under this Affliction, so that she appeared and behaved her self amongst them with so much Courage and majestick Gravity, that none durst offer any Violence to her” (Saltonstall, New and Further Narrative, 83). Still, Rowlandson’s insistence on her freedom from sexual violation seems all the more frantic, since few colonists would have expected her to receive such treatment.

  23Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 360-61.

  24For a compelling argument attributing the preface to Mather see Kathryn Zabelle Derounian, “The Publication, Promotion, and Distribution of Mary Rowlandson’s Indian Captivity Narrative in the Seventeenth Century,” EAL 23 (1988): 240-43. Derounian bases her claims in part on work done earlier by David Minter, “By Dens of Lions: Notes on Stylization in Early Puritan Captivity Narratives,” American Literature 45 (1973-74): 343; and David A. Richards, “The Memorable Preservations: Narratives of Indian Captivity in the Literature and Politics of Colonial New England, 1675-1725,” unpublished Yale College thesis, 1967. Rowlandson may also have been first inspired to write her narrative by reading several other chronicles of the war or by speaking with their authors. During the year she lived in Boston, Rowlandson met with both Increase Mather and William Hubbard, and she may well have read one or more printed accounts of the war (several of which told the story of her captivity). On Rowlandson’s encounters and relationships with Mather and Hubbard see Derounian, “The Publication, Promotion, and Distribution,” 241-42, and Breitwieser, American Puritanism and the Defense of Mourning, 7.

  25Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 320.

  26This telling metaphor, between Indian captivity and publication, was also invoked by Samuel Nowell in the preface to his own account of the war, in which he wrote, “The Love I have for this Country … hath made me Run the Gauntlet by exposing this to the world” (Nowell, Abraham in Arms, 273).

  27Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 320.

  28Ibid., 321.

  29Roger Williams to John Leverett, January 14, 1676, The Correspondence of Roger Williams, ed. Glenn W. LaFantasie (Providence: Brown University Press, 1988), 2:711. Tift also apparently provided the English with important information; Major Treat reported to the Connecticut Council that Tift, before he was executed, had impeached the Narragansett sachem Ninigret for sending mats to enemy Indians after their wigwams were burned (Major Treat to the Connecticut Council, January 1676, CCR 2:401).

  30An elaborate story of Tift’s betrayal was told by James Arnold in the late nineteenth century. Arnold (who spelled the name “Teftt”) suggested that Tift, rather than Stonewall John, was behind the construction of the Narragansett fort at the Great Swamp. Arnold, however, provided no primary sources to document any of his claims (James N. Arnold, “Joshua Tefft,” Narragansett Historical Register 3 [1884]: 164-69). More recently, Douglas Leach has suggested that “whether Tefft was actually as much of a traitor as he was thought to be may now be open to doubt. His argument that he had joined the Indians under duress may very well have been essentially correct” (Flintlock and Tomahawk, 139-40). Writing in 1984, Colin Calloway (“Rhode Island Renegade: The Enigma of Joshua Tift,” Rhode Island History 43 [1984]: 137-45) suggested that Tift had been living as a “renegade” for fourteen years and had married a Wampanoag woman, but as I show here, that version of the story is contradicted by other seventeenth-century evidence.

  31“The Examination of Thomas Warner, that had been a Prisoner with the Indians,” February 25, 1675, in A Narrative of the Causes … with other Documents, ed. Franklin B. Hough (Albany, N.Y.: J. Munsell, 1858), 144. See also “Narrative of the Captivity of Quentin Stockwell” in Samuel Gardner Drake, ed., Tragedies of the Wilderness (Boston, 1846), 60-68; Harris, A Rhode Islander Reports, 42, 66, 78-80.

  32Saltonstall, Present State, 39-40. More general accounts of the torture of captives can be found in Wharton, New-England’s Present Sufferings, 1-2; Saltonstall, New and Further Narrative, 98-99; Harris, A Rhode Islander Reports, 66. As suggested in the Prologue, the colonists were not unlikely to participate in the infliction of torture, or to inflict it themselves. An important difference between Indian and English torture, however, is that the English most often inflicted torture to extract a confession, while the Indians inflicted torture to fulfill a social and cultural need, as discussed in the Prologue. In addition, the techniques employed by the two peoples differed considerably. The most detailed account of colonists’ torture methods has Captain Samuel Moseley in the role of torturer, inflicting psychological as well as physical torments:

  Capt. Moseley took two Indians, a Father and his Son, and willing to examine them both apart, proceeded thus: Took the old Man and bound him to a Tree, after he was so bound, he sent away the Son by a File of Men out of Sight; the old Man there confessed he was a Praying Indian, and that he was only hunting for deer thereabouts, but said that his Son was one of those Men that wounded Capt. Hutchinson: So then, after they had pumped him as much as they could, they fired a Gunn with no Bullet in it over his Head, untied him, and sent him another Way … ; then brought they his Son, bound in like Manner, they telling him that they had shot his Father, and would shoot him also, if he would not confess what he was, and what he knew: He fairly told them, that he was a Praying Indian, but his Father made him go with him to the Nipmog Indians, and that there they shot three or four Times a Piece, whereupon they then brought the old Man and tied him to his Son, and Examined them together, at Length they confest they were both among the Nipmoogs, and that the Son did wound Captain Hutchinson; after their Examination they were both shot to Death (Saltonstall, Present State, 39; see also Gookin, “Historical Account,” 456-57).

  33Rowlandson did report the torture of a pregnant Englishwoman who had tried to escape her captors. To make an example of her the Indians “gathered a great company together about her, and stripped her naked, and set her in the midst of them; and when they had sung and danced about her (in their hellish manner) as long as they pleased, they knocked her on head, and the child in her arms with her: when they had done that, they made a fire and put them both into it, and told the other children that were with them, that if they attempted to go home, they would serve them in like manner” (Soveraignty, 332).

  34Roger Williams to John Leverett, January 14, 1676.

  35James Oliver to unknown, January 26, 1676, NEHGR 39 (1885): 380.

  36Mather, Brief History, 108. Saltonstall, Continuation, 67. Joseph Dudley to unknown, December 21, 1675, NEHGR 40 (1886): 89.

  37Major Treat to the Connecticut War Council, January 1676, PCR 2:401. James Oliver to unknown, January 26, 1676. Saltonstall, Continuation, 67.

  38Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Images and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 6-10, 230-34. A developing literature on the “gender frontier” of early Indian-European relations is now emerging, which argues that emerging identities of race were complicated (and sometimes reinforced) by each culture’s ideas about gender. Kathleen M. Brown, for instance, has recently discussed this in relation to Jamestown (“The Anglo-Algonquian Gender Frontier” in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women [New York: Routledge, 1995], 26-48).

  39Rowlandson, Soveraignty, 360.

  40June Namias has recently explored the gendered meanings of captivity in White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). She points out, for instance, that male and female captives were treated differently (only men were required to run the gauntlet).

  41Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 71. For a
contrary argument, proposing that what ethnohistorians have called the adoption context actually was a form of slavery, see William A. Starna and Ralph Watkins, “Northern Iroquoian Slavery,” Ethnohistory 38 (1991): 34—57.

  42Mather, Brief History, 154.

  43Gookin, “Historical Account,” 476. See also Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, 100.

  44Daniel Gookin sent orders dated November 2 for Captain Joseph Syll to take Indian spies from the praying town of Natick and meet up with Henchman and his soldiers to investigate the situation at Hassanemesit (Daniel Gookin to Captain Joseph Syll, November 2, 1675, NEHGR 41 [1887]: 403). Henchman sent scouts ahead on November 3 and arrived there himself on November 5. On November 9 Henchman and twenty-two soldiers marched to Hassanemesit again, suspecting enemy Indians might now be occupying its wigwams; on their arrival, they were met with gunfire and eventually retreated (Henchman to Massachusetts Council, November 3, 1675, in Annals of the Town of Mendon, 1659-1880, comp. John George Metcalf [Providence, 1880], 71-72; Henchman to the Massachusetts Council, November 5, 1675, Annals of Mendon, 72-73; Henchman to the Massachusetts Council, November 10, 1675, Annals of Mendon, 73-74).

  45Daniel Henchman to the Massachusetts Council, November 5, 1675.

  46Massachusetts Council to Richard Smith, November 6, 1675, Mass. Arch. 68:46b; Massachusetts Council to Captain Appleton, November 11, 1675, Mass. Arch. 68:57, 58; magistrates and deputies of Boston to Richard Smith, November 21, 1675, Mass. Arch. 30:188-89. Emphasis mine.

  47Gookin, “Historical Account,” 455-62. Hubbard, Narrative, 1:95-96. Moseley was later asked to account for his actions and supplied a halfhearted apology (Moseley to John Leverett, October 5, 1675, NEHGR 37 [1883]: 179). On Moseley’s order to have an Algonquian woman torn to pieces by dogs see Samuel Moseley to John Leverett, October 16, 1675, Mass. Arch. 68:18; reprinted in NEHGR (1883) 37:180.

  48Gookin, “Historical Account,” 455-61. Drake, Book of the Indians, 3:81.

  49William Harris reported that “one Mr Eliote & Some other Soe much standing up in favor of the said Indeans Supposed were in great danger of the mulltitude of Some outrageous English …” (Harris, A Rhode Islander Reports, 66). According to Nathaniel Saltonstall, James Oliver berated Daniel Gookin for his advocacy of the Indians, telling him “that he ought rather to be confined among his Indians, than to sit on the Bench; his taking the Indians Part so much hath made him a Byword both among Men and Boys” (Saltonstall, Present State, 40). On the lynching party see Saltonstall, Present State, 40-41. For a general discussion of these events and of the wartime fate of Christian Indians more broadly see Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk, 147-54.

  50Gookin, “Historical Account,” 450-52. This order stipulated that such Indians were not to “travel above one mile from the center of such of their dwellings unless in company of some English, or in their service … on penalty of being taken as our enemies or their abettors” (Order of the Massachusetts Council, August 30, 1675, Grafton, Massachusetts, Local Records, AAS). Some Christian Indians had in fact asked the Council for protection (Anthony and James to the Massachusetts Council, July 19, 1675, Mass. Arch. 67:220). Connecticut passed a similar resolution, making it lawful for Indians traveling alone to be shot at will, on August 31 (CCR 2:359).

  51MCR 5:46, 57. Gookin gives a lengthy report on the debate over whether to confine the Indians to Deer Island in his “Historical Account” (468-71). One author claims, against all the evidence, that the Indians themselves requested confinement on the island (Farther Brief and True Narration, 4). Similar measures were adopted in other colonies. In Rhode Island, Indians over age twelve living in English households were ordered “bound in the day time (if he goeth abroad from his house)” and “locked up in the night” in March 1676 (RICR 2:534). In Plymouth Colony orders were given on February 29, 1676, “that the Namassach-esett Indians be speedily removed to Clarkes Hand, and ther to remaine, and not to depart from thence without lycence from authoritie upon paine of death” (PCR 5:187).

  52Reverend Emerson to the Massachusetts Council, September 17, 1675, in Annals of Mendon, 65, but see also 69-70 and 71-72.

  53Gookin, “Historical Account,” 436.

  54John Lyne and Numphow to Thomas Henchman, c. November 15, 1675; reprinted in Gookin, “Historical Account,” 483.

  55Gookin, “Historical Account,” 473-74.

  56MCR 5:64.

  57Order of the Massachusetts Council, November 26, 1675, Mass. Arch. 30:185b.

  58Gookin, “Historical Account,” 485. At some point during the winter a Christian Indian called “Old Aharon” (the father of William Nahauton) sent a petition to the Massachusetts Council asking for “liberty to goe too som place wheare I might get som clames som wood and som corne.” He claimed the English owed him a favor since he “hath long been a friend unto the Inglish and hath gone forth with them at all tymes as hee hath been called and would have been willing to suffer with them” (Old Ahaton to the Massachusetts Council, undated, Mass. Arch. 30:200a).

  59Mary Pray to James Oliver, October 20, 1675, MHSC, 5th ser., 1 [Gookin] (1871): 105. Pray also claimed that “it is report by the Indians them selves that Cap. Gucking helps them to powder, and they sel it to those that are imployed by Philip to bye for him.”

  60Roger Williams to John Leverett, January 14, 1676.

  61Saltonstall, Present State, 49. See also Richard Waldron to John Winsley, February 10, 1676, Gay Transcripts, MHS. Significantly, Increase Mather later preached against the persecution of praying Indians (Exhortation, 186-87).

  62Gookin, “Historical Account,” 494. In late February Thomas Shepard (with whom Rowlandson and her husband would live after her redemption in May) testified before the Court that a man from Maiden had approached him and “asked him if he would goo with him to Dere Island. His words were these. will you go with us to Deere island to destroy the Indians” (Deposition of Thomas Shepard given before the Massachusetts Council, February 15, 1676, Mass. Arch. 68:136b). After hearing Shepard’s testimony the Council warned the plotters against the project (Gookin, “Historical Account,” 494).

  63Deposition of Edward Page before the Massachusetts Council, February 15, 1676, Mass. Arch. 68:136.

  64Ambrose Dawes and others to the Massachusetts Council, February 22, 1676, Mass. Arch. 68:140 and 141. There are several other letters in the Massachusetts Archives advocating the use of stronger measures against the Indians, including one proposing the use of dogs (unknown to the Massachusetts Council, April 21, 1676, Mass. Arch. 68:214, 215).

  65Gookin, “Historical Account,” 497-500.

  66Deposition of Elizabeth Belcher, Martha Romington, and Mary Mitchell before the Massachusetts Council, March 4, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:192. Scott later delivered a petition claiming he did not “remember Ever I uttered Such Expressions” but that he did remember being drunk (Richard Scott to the Massachusetts Council, March 26, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:196).

  67“By the Society A.B.C.D.,” February 28, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:193, 193a.

  68Order of the Massachusetts Council, February 29, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:194a.

  69Order of the Massachusetts Council, March 14, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:197.

  70MCR 5:84.

  71Gookin, “Historical Account,” 517-18.

  72Tukapewillin’s name is also rendered as Tuckapewillin and Tachuppouillan.

  73On February 21 the Massachusetts authorities had ordered John Curtis of Roxbury “to take sixe Indians from the island for his assistance, with their armes, some of which Indians may be improved for spies” (MCR 5:74). Among the six selected were Job Kattenanit, James Quanapaug, and William Nahauton (Gookin, “Historical Account,” 500-501).

  74Thomas Hinckley to his wife, February 10, 1676, MHSC, 4th ser., 5 (1861): 1.

  75Job Kattenanit to the Massachusetts Council, February 14, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:190a. James Quanapaug, who spied with Kattenanit, also reported that “Marlborough Indians are with them; they say, they were fetched away by the other Indians; some of them are ver
y willing to come back” (deposition of James Quanapaug before the Massachusetts Council, January 24, 1676, MHSC, 1st ser., 6 [1799]: 208). Meanwhile, Jonathan Fairbanks, who had traveled with Kattenanit on his search for his family, later petitioned the Council to release from Deer Island a ten-or twelve-year-old Indian girl whom he had found with Kattenanit’s family and wished to keep for himself (Jonathan Fairbanks to the Massachusetts Council, April 19, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:200). Like Kattenanit, Awaukun, another Christian Indian who had fought with the English, also petitioned the Massachusetts Council for help in freeing his son, captive among the Nipmucks (Awaukun to the Massachusetts Council, undated, Mass. Arch. 30:191a).

  76Gookin, “Historical Account,” 490-91.

  77Order of the Massachusetts Council, August 30, 1675, Grafton, Massachusetts, Local Records, AAS (the note about Tukapewillin’s visit is written at the end of the order, and undated, though it must date from the following spring); see also Gookin, “Historical Account,” 504-5, in which it is claimed that Eliot visited Tukapewillin at Captain Page’s house.

  78Gookin, “Historical Account,” 489.

  79“Rev. John Eliot’s Records of the First Church at Roxbury, Mass.,” NEHGR 33 (1879): 299. Captain Tom is occasionally referred to by an Algonquian name, Wattasacompanum.

  80Massachusetts Council to the Constables of Dorchester and Milton, June 19, 1676, Mass. Arch. 30:204a.

  81James Quanapaug’s name is also rendered as Quannupokkis or Quannapohit, and he is sometimes referred to as Rummy Marsh and by an entirely different name, James Wiser (deposition of James Quanapaug [here spelled Quannupokkis] Alias Rummy Marsh before the Massachusetts Council, undated, Mass. Arch. 30:172). On James Quanapaug’s journey among the Nipmucks see the full testimony he provided upon his return, dated January 24, 1676, and transcribed in MHSC, 1st ser., 6 (1799): 205-8.