31.8 America: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 5/16)

In 1675 serious Indian troubles began in the so-called King Philip's War. Metacom, chief of the Wampanoag and called King Philip by the English, was one of the original friends of the Pilgrim fathers and a frequent patron of Boston stores. But he became surly over various chastisements and developed a plot to attack the settlers. The chief's Harvard educated Indian secretary, Sassamon, tipped off Governor Winslow, however, and Sassamon was subsequently killed by other Indians. The murderers were found, tried and hanged. Two weeks later war broke out with Philip's Wampanoag and their allies, the Nipmuch. The New England Confederation retaliated with a declaration of war, thus involving Connecticut. The Indians were not organized and had only hit and run tactics. The Narragansett tribe on the Bay sheltered some of the Indian refugees, giving Winslow the excuse to attack them with 1,000 men and finally winning in the roughest battle ever fought on New England soil, save the later battle of Bunker Hill. Philip was killed in August 1676 and most of his Indians were captured. The women and children were used as house servants and the men were shipped to the West Indies as slaves. The war in the area of Maine did not end until 1678 and the Indians there retained their land and later helped the French against the English. (Ref. 222 )

When the Catholic king, James II, assumed the English throne in 1685 the Massachusetts Bay Colony was given a new administrator, Sir Edmund Andros. When William and Mary ascended the English throne, however, the people of Boston jailed Andros and returned to their pre-Andros government. New troubles began in 1689 when the French and their Indian allies began to raid in Maine and New Hampshire. The New England authorities at Boston struck back directly at Port Royal and Quebec, as the first offensive of the King William's War. The campaign, under Sir William Phips in 1690, was a fiasco. The dreary war dragged on and although King William ended the European end of the conflict in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick (see Europe ), the American battles continued until 1699.

Rhode island

This Puritan colony was founded by the Reverend Roger Williams, who had been banished from the Massachusetts Colony. Williams was loved by the Indians, lodged with them, learned their language and respected them. He felt that it was possible that God might feel their religion equal to Christianity, a heresy of that day. The only unity in the colony was one of religious liberty. Its fate was to be found with the other Puritan colonies in the New England Confederation.

Connecticut

Connecticut, too, was formed as a migration from the Massachusetts colony, led by the Reverends Hooker and Stone. The original settlements were along the Connecticut River at Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield. New Haven was settled separately, but all joined together as Connecticut, in 1662. A code of laws was drawn up, beginning with penal laws, which were actually borrowed from the Bible. (Ref. 217 ) Like Rhode Island, this colony's history in this century is bound to that of Massachusetts, in the Confederation.