The Fragile Alliance
The 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 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.
- 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 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 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 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, "mattaneenwonckanetnamen, 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 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 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
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.
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.
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 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.