The Fragile AllianceThe Wampanoags and the English- Part 1

Introduction: Who Were the Wampanoags?

Native people shaped this continent. They established civilizations here. Native

societies had risen and in some cases fallen long before Europeans arrived in the

Americas. As you look across the continent at this time, Shawnees in the Ohio Valley

are shaping that area, building their own societies; Cherokees are in the southeast,

Sioux in the western Great Lakes are reaching out in the plains, Apaches are on the

southern plains and in the southwest. Everywhere across North America there are

communities, tribes, and peoples whose histories are ongoing. The confederation of

tribes that made up the Wampanoag was one small section of the native web that

spread across North America.

The Wampanoags were part of a large network of individual tribes that spread

across southern New England. In their native language, Wampanoag means “the

People of the First Light.” Their land hugged the coast of what is now Connecticut,

Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. To the north were "the People of the Big Hill," the

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Massachusett. To the west and inland were the Nipmuc, "the People of the Fresh

Water." Then there were the Mohegan and Pequot, and Narragansett. All of these

different tribes formed one big community. Everyone was speaking different

dialects of the Algonquian language, but they were able to understand each other.

The half-dozen neighboring tribes had achieved a balance of power. The

Wampanoag had sufficient numbers to defend their territory against their nearest

rivals, the Narragansett. The vastness the land itself eased inter-tribal tensions.

1. The Epidemic

Before the 1600s, Patuxet was a large community of well over 2,000 native people.

In 1618, an epidemic swept through New England that reduced the population to

almost zero. We don't know exactly what this disease was. It's possible that there

were several diseases that attacked the Wampanoags, one following rapidly after

another. A village might have 2 survivors, and those 2 survivors were not just any 2

people. They were 2 people who had seen everyone they knew die miserable,

wretched, painful- extremely painful- deaths. So, it's not only that the population

was wiped out. It's that the survivors were deeply psychologically scarred by their

trauma, and vulnerable in ways that are hard for us to imagine. Massasoit had seen

9 of every 10 of his people perish of a cause nobody understood. As the season of

death ended, the Narragansett- spared the worst of the epidemic- began a series of

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raids on Wampanoag villages. And the exhausted Wampanoag looked to their chief,

Massasoit, to lead them into an uncertain future.

2. No Turning Back

In December of 1620, after 66 days at sea, The Separatists, or Pilgrims, landed off

the coast of what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Strict religious views had made

them unwelcome and unwanted in England. They had no home to go back to if they

failed to make one in this new world. They had to make it in the new world, or die

trying. Soon after coming ashore, they stumbled onto Patuxet, a Wampanoag village.

When the Pilgrims arrived they found houses fallen to ruin, fields lying fallow,

human bones scattered by animals bleaching in the sun . They didn’t know about the

epidemic that tore through the village a year earlier. They attributed this

devastation to God looking out for them and clearing the way for his chosen people.

Patuxet had easy access to fresh water, a decent harbor, and high ground from

which the Pilgrims could defend themselves. They set their lone cannon on a nearby

hill and christened the village New Plymouth. Massasoit sent warriors to keep an

eye on the strangers. The Wampanoag, even in their weakened state, could have

wiped out the visitors with ease, but they decided that the Pilgrims didn’t pose a

threat. In Wampanoag tradition, if you're thinking about making trouble, you don't

bring women or children. The Wampanoags did not think the Pilgrims were a threat

because they brought women and children with them. Secondly, the Pilgrims were

really sick. They were starving. The longer the Wampanoag watched, the more

pitiful the Pilgrims appeared. Forty-five out of the 102 Pilgrims who had made the

trip across the Atlantic died of disease or starvation by the end of the winter. But

even as their numbers dwindled, it was clear that the Pilgrims were not giving up,

and anxiety grew among the Wampanoag. While many powerful tribal leaders

argued that it was time to finish off the Pilgrims before their settlement took hold,

Massasoit was more patient. The final decision on handling the strangers would fall

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to him. Throughout that winter, Massasoit wrestled with the question of how to deal

with the Pilgrims. Massasoit was paying steep tribute (payment for safety) to the

Narragansett, but he knew they had the numbers to conquer the remaining

Wampanoag villages whenever they chose. He was aware that the Pilgrims came

from a nation of wealth and military might, and the weakened Wampanoag needed

any friends they could get.

3. An Alliance, and a Friendship

The Wampanoag and the Pilgrims were an unlikely match but the two peoples were

bound by what they shared: an urgent need for allies. The Pilgrims were completely

alone in a new world, separated by thousands of miles of ocean from friends and

family. The Wampanoag, badly weakened by disease, lived in fear of rival tribes.

Their alliance in 1621 benefitted both sides. During the first winter of 1620-21,

Massasoit considered the possibilities of some kind of alliance with the Pilgrims

because the Pilgrims looked so weak, given the fact that half of them died by the end

of the first winter. Massasoit thought, “this will be good. I can get from them the

things that I want from Europeans and I can control them. So they'll be an ally and a

benefit to me and my people.” The alliance seemed like a good deal for the

Wampanoags.

To make the alliance, Massasoit and 60 of his men went to Patuxet, and waited on

the far side of a small river. The Wampanoag chief refused to enter the village

himself until the Pilgrims agreed to give up a hostage. The English chose a young

man with little to lose. Edward Winslow was a 25 year-old whose wife was just days

from death. Winslow agreed to go as the hostage, and to deliver Governor John

Carver's invitation for Massasoit to enter Plymouth for talks. Massasoit and the

Pilgrims agreed to a treaty that said none of the Wampanoags would harm the

Pilgrims. If they did, Massasoit would send them to the Pilgrims for punishment.

Additionally, if any other tribes declared war against Massasoit, the Pilgrims would

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come to his aid. They also agreed that when trading, the Indians would not bring

their bows and arrows, and the Pilgrims would not bring their guns.

As a show of friendship, Massasoit formally gave the settlers the village of Patuxet,

and all the planting land and hunting grounds around it. In July, Edward Winslow

made a 40 mile journey to his new friend Massasoit's village, Pokanoket, and

presented the chief a gift of a copper chain. The Wampanoag agreed to trade with

only the English, and not the French. Massasoit would benefit as the facilitator of

trade between the English and other tribes.

In March 1623, Massasoit became extremely ill, and when word came to Plymouth,

Edward Winslow made a trip to Pokanoket to visit him. They found Massasoit in his

house, full of many visitors. Massasoit was now blind, but could still understand.

When they told him the English had come to visit him, he asked "keen Winslow?"

which means "are you Winslow?" Then he said, "matta neen wonckanet namen,

Winslow!" which means "O Winslow, I shall never see you again." Winslow gave him

a little bit of medicine, and scraped out the inside of his mouth which had swollen up

preventing him from eating or drinking anything. Then Winslow gave Massasoit

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water and more medicine. In about half an hour, Massasoit had regained his

eyesight and was getting better. Within a couple days Massasoit had his appetite

back, and eventually recovered. Massasoit then revealed to the Pilgrims a

conspiracy plot by the Massachusetts Indians to attack them and the Wessagusett

Colony, and the Pilgrims, led by Myles Standish, with the help of some of Massasoit's

men, defeated the plot before it could materialize.

4. Thanksgiving

Almost nothing is known about the most famous feast in American history- not even

the date. It happened, most likely, in the late summer of 1621, a little less than a year

after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth. They had a very difficult winter, but by the

next summer, with the help of the Wampanoag, the Pilgrims were able to plant

enough crops to sustain the settlement through the next winter. They meant to

celebrate their faith and belief that God had smiled on them. As the "thanks-giving"

began, a group of Wampanoag men led by their Chief, Massasoit, entered the

Plymouth settlement. They were not entirely sure of the reception they would get.

Massasoit and his men had brought five fresh-killed deer. The Thanksgiving

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celebration at Plymouth was certainly an unusual event. It's not something they ever

repeated. It is a snapshot of where the relationship between the Wampanoags and

Pilgrims stood in the fall of 1621. For the English, it establishes that they were going

to be able to survive because of the Native Americans.

For those who came to North America after the Pilgrims, the first "Thanksgiving"

would enter into national mythology, where it remains the bright opening chapter of

America’s story. At the beginning of the 17th century, you can see both groups of

people, European immigrants and Native Americans in the cautious process of

getting to know one another. They become dependent on one another, and exchange

more goods, ideas, and people. They share children, wives, and families, and have

more and more contact with one another. In a sense, the Pilgrims and the

Wampanoag come to share a great deal. The English come to be more like the native

people in many ways. They dress more like the natives. They use native words.

They're familiar with native ways. And the natives come to be more like English. A

lot of natives learn English. They wear English clothes. They build houses that are

English. This equal exchange works out because both groups needed each other.

5. The Alliance Breaks Down

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The English were in a race to establish an empire in the Americas. They were

competing for territory with the French, Spanish, Swedish, and Dutch. The

population of the English colonies was growing dramatically. The colonists were

demanding to establish new towns, create farms, and expand geographically. The

one thing that native people had that the English people wanted was land. The

English came from a society where land was in short supply. Ownership of land was

a mark of status as well as a source of wealth. For native people, land is home. You

are rooted to the land by generations of ancestors living on the land. Your identity is

tied up in the land. Land is not a thing to be bought and sold.

Massasoit did not feel pressured to sell land for the first 20 years of Plymouth's

existence and his first commitments to give up territory had seemed harmless. But

just as the English became more aggressive in trying to acquire more land,

Massasoit found himself in a weak bargaining position. The beaver population was

badly depleted, so the English no longer needed Massasoit's help in expanding their

trade. He was forced to give in and sell Wampanoag territory. Massasoit got what he

could for the Wampanoag land. He sold 1 parcel for 10 fathom of beads and a coat.

As time went on he asked for more: hatchets, hoes, knives, iron kettles, moose skins,

matchlock muskets, yards of cotton and pounds of English coin.

There were a variety of other ways that English took native land: everything from

just seizing it and then dealing with the legalities later, to occupying land that they

wanted to declare vacant and then take it. Another way to take land was that the

English would get natives indebted. As native people experienced sickness and

epidemic disease, they would become indebted for health-care that was provided by

the English. The English used this as a way to get their hands on additional land.

Once the debts added up, the English would go to the Indian estate to take

possession of the land for payment. This became a massive tool that the English

used to take land away from the native people.

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6. The Pequot War

With the growing English population in the 1630s, Puritan New England stopped

being weak and vulnerable and became a major power in the region. As the English

settlers look west, they see another major power: the Pequot tribes. The English

identify the Pequot as an obstacle to their expansion.

In the spring of 1637, a force led by the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies

destroyed the Pequot- the most powerful native tribe in the area. In the final battle,

English soldiers- to the horror of their native allies- burned an undefended village,

killing hundreds. The Pequot War established in native minds the potential savagery

of the English. The idea of 700 people- men, women, and children- dying in a

burning fort was a horrifying warning to the Wampanoags. It was a lesson that

Massasoit did not forget. Soon after the destruction of the Pequot, Massasoit

traveled to Massachusetts Bay Colony to deliver to its governor, John Winthrop, a

gift of sixteen beaver skins, and to restate his long-standing friendship with the

colonists, all in hopes they would continue to honor the promise of shared security

the English had made in that first long-ago treaty. Massasoit hoped that this tribute

was going to re-solidify his friendship with the colonists because he was worried. He

was not the only one with concerns. Governor John Winthrop wrote in his journal

that after the Pequot War dozens of native groups in the area came to Massachusetts

to the court and tried to make friends.

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7. The Praying Towns

When did the English lose their sense of openness, and their commitment to

Massasoit’s alliance? When the colonists became more independent, they realized

that they no longer needed the help of the native people. Right around that same

time, in the 1650s, the English made a huge attempt to convert the natives to

Christianity. Which is to say, in effect, “well if you're going to live among us, you

need to basically become us, because we can't live with people who are different

from ourselves.”

In 1651, Puritan minister John Eliot established a “praying town” in Natick,

Massachusetts. In Natick, as in the dozen praying towns that followed, native people

who converted to Christianity were assured physical safety and the promise of

eternal life so long as they agreed to live by the moral codes drawn up by Puritan

clergy. The praying towns were set up by the English to control native people.

Native people had to do everything the English way. They had to reject everything

related to their culture; all the traditions that were sacred to their fathers and their

fathers’ fathers since time began. They had to reject all of that in favor of following

the English way. What it boiled down to was that they had to look down upon their

own people. Wampanoag people got the idea that if they were to survive, they had to

at least say that they were assimilated into English culture. They had to say that they

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were Christian, or they were going to be wiped out completely. The English

missionaries demanded from native people much more than a belief in their English

God. This was part of the English cultural assault, which Massasoit must have seen

was tearing apart many native communities. As a result, Massasoit tried to stop the

missionaries. As Massasoit grew older, he made a point of demanding in land deeds

that Christian missionaries stay out of what remained of Wampanoag territory.

Massasoit died in the early 1660s, 40 years after his first alliance with the Pilgrims.

His passing came just as a new generation of English leaders were rising to power.

This generation of young colonists was not as dependent on the Wampanoags for

their survival as their parents were. Massasoit must have wondered what kind of

world he was passing on to his sons, to his people. Looking back, Massasoit would

on one level have felt he was true to himself for making a peaceful alliance with the

colonists, but on another level he must have regretted what he'd done. He must have

thought, “what if we had taken a different course of action in dealing with these

people?”

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