HISTORY WITH A VENGEANCE
REVIEW: Drake, James D. King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675-1676. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
I was born and raised in New York state, though now I reside in Rhode Island. Such being the case, on occasion I have thought to familiarize myself with the history of the state and of New England. I discovered the book, King Philip’s War: Civil War In New England, 1675-1676, by James D. Drake. I read it because the issues raised in that war continue to bedevil Rhode Island.
A brief resume of the war is as follows: In 1675, the Wampanoag Tribe under the leadership of King Philip, also known by his native name, Metacom, rebelled against the English colonies in Southeastern New England with whom it had various alliances, and against whom it had various grievances including the peremptory hanging of two Wampanoags. (The author is excellent on the causes of the war.) The Wampanoags were joined by some but not all the other tribes in the region. After initial success in fighting the war, the rebels were defeated by the English settlers, and essentially eradicated. As part of that war, there occurred, in 1676, in the area now known as West Kingston, RI, a battle called the Great Swamp Fight, in which the Indians were defeated. The Great Swamp Fight is considered to be the first massacre of native peoples in America.
The reason the war continues to be a factor in Rhode Island is that the remnants of the native tribes, melded into a single tribe now called the Narragansetts, have been attempting to get the right to build a casino under terms of the Indian Gaming Act passed by Congress in 1988. They have been frustrated in doing so by Rhode Island’s leading politicians----and hypocritically because gambling exists in other venues in Rhode Island, and is increasing. (The politicians pander to the moral sense of the people while advancing gambling in other guises. Further, prejudice is involved because the Narragansetts intermixed with the descendants of African slaves, though of course the politicians deny their prejudice.) The Narragansetts are considered a threat, though there are hardly 3000 of them, as compared to about 1 million other residents of the state.
Further again, there continues to this day to be litigation about the Narragansetts attempting, a few years ago, to open a smoke shop where federal and state taxes were not collected on tobacco products. The Rhode Island State Troopers, under the Republican Governor Donald L. Carcieri, forcibly closed the smoke shop, though now it is admitted that force was not needed but that legal warrants could have accomplished its closing until the issue of sovereignty could be decided.
Further once more, it is impossible to get away from associations with that era. Indian names are part of every section of the state. The Wampanoag Trail is a major highway from Providence to the communities on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay. Nearby to where I live, there are the names of streets: Metacom, Pokanoket, Massasoit, and on and on. I live on Wamsetta Avenue.
Finally, neither is it possible to avoid the names of the English settlers who prosecuted the war in the New England colonies: Winslow, Winthrop, Coddington, Church, Cotton, Denison, Eliot, Mather, Gorton---I could go on and on with such names. These names fill the telephone books, and those persons are related to the colonial figures in some manner.
I agree with Drake that King Philip’s War was not a racially instigated war of the English settlers against the Native American tribes. However, as the author is careful to point out, while some of the Indians, in tribal groups and as individuals, fought on the side of various English colonies, none of the English colonists sided with the rebels. Furthermore, the Native American tribespeople were greatly outnumbered by the English, on the order of about 18 thousand to about 60 thousand. And with the English way of fighting, which was annihilatory (both the Indians of that time and the author condemn it), the outcome was predictable.
I also agree with Drake that the origins of America are multiple and not exclusively linear from the New England colonies. However, neither is the 17th century experience of the English Colonies discontinuous with the development of the United States---even though there are many “Americas,” from colonial, to revolutionary, to the national period, to the civil war era, to the rise of finance capitalism (the Gilded Age), to the immigrant period, to the Great Depression era, to the World Wars I & II, industrial, cold war, Vietnam, etc. I came to intellectual awareness in the 1960s and know from personal experience that that era differs so much from the era of Bush II, 9/11 and the Iraq War as to comprise a different and distinct political entity. America, though, is a case of “E Pluribus Enum” not only with persons but with politico-economico-cultural eras.
There is a grisly contemporary note in Drake’s fine book. We know of the barbarity of the Islamic terrorists in decapitating a few western hostages. The native American tribes that rebelled against the English colonies were considered to have committed treason because they had made certain alliances with the English colonies. That was English law in the 17th century. It is doubtful that the tribes understood the English law. However, the penalty for treason was to be drawn and quartered. King Philip was killed in the Great Swamp Fight. Nevertheless, his corpse was dragged out of the bog and the punishment was administered to it. (In case you do not know what it means to be drawn and quartered, I will tell you. First, the head is cut off. Then the body is hacked apart at the waist, and the torso and crotch are each halved.) Surely, the Islamic terrorists are barbaric, and just as certainly were the 17th century colonists, and so are we who are their direct descendants.
In fact, reading Drake’s fine, precise and carefully written book it appears to me less that I am engaged in an exercise of the understanding of ancient history than in reading a subtext to the daily news.
(TRC Final Revision 08-17-09)
