When "Leniency" Relly Meant "Enslavement"

Following the declaration of amnesty by the Massachusetts General Court on June 19, 1676, Indigenous people began surrendering to the English in hopes of leniency. Instead, as the months continued, they found that the “leniency” really meant captivity and the sale of their person, as opposed to execution. While some Indigenous surrendered, others tried to ally themselves with the English for additional leniency, often in ways that seemed to betray other Indigenous people. Still others, seeking mercy, surrendered to the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut. During the last week of July, more than three hundred Indigenous people were captured either while surrendering or while in conflict with the English. (1)

Given near carte blanche military powers, Captain Benjamin Church’s troops and their allies began to increase their attacks. On one campaign on or about July 24, 1676, Church and his men captured 126 Indigenous people near Sconticut Neck (modern Fairhaven and Mattapoisett, MA). (2)

On July 25, English and allied Christian Indian men, led by Captain Samuel Hunting, launched a raid near Dedham, MA, killing multiple Narragansett men, including the sachem Pomham. According to authors George Ellis and John Morris, writing in 1906, “Pumham, starved and surprised with a handful of warriors (many of them his relatives)...mortally wounded by a shot in the back and unable to stand, retained his hatchet and fought to the death.” They went on to write that “Fifteen of the band perished with their chief, and thirty-four others fell into the hands of the English.” (3) Pumham’s son, who was present at the raid, was one of the estimated thirty-four who were captured. Like many captives of King Philip’s War, Pumham’s son was sold into slavery by the colonists. (4)

On or about July 27, shortly after the raid at Dedham Woods, Sagamore John and approximately 180 Nipmuc gave themselves up at Boston, bringing with them Matoonas and his son, both of whom were executed. (5)

1. The Mohegan tribe of Connecticut was largely neutral throughout King Philip’s War. However, there were individual bands who had aligned themselves with the English.

2. To read the accounts of Benjamin Church, published by his son, Thomas, see “The entertaining history of King Philip’s War, which began in the month of June, 1675. As also of expeditions more lately made against the common enemy, and Indian rebels, in the eastern parts of New-England: with some account of the Divine Providence towards Col. Benjamin Church: / By Thomas Church, Esq. his son.” In the digital collection Evans Early American Imprint Collection. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/N09706.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections.

3. George Ellis and John Morris, King Philip’s War. (New York: Grafton Press, 1906.), 258.

4. Native Northeast Portal, “Pumham - 1676.”

5. This date has been recorded interchangeably throughout the secondary materials as July 26th and July 27th.