Mayflower

Moseley’s company, claimed that if he should be lucky enough to encounter Gookin on a Boston street at night, “I would pistol him. I wish my knife and scissors were in his heart.” There was even talk of leading an assault on the Praying Indians at Deer Island. As Gookin realized, Scott and those like him were merely bullies who, frustrated by the army’s lack of success, “would have wreaked their rage upon the poor unarmed Indians our friends.”
    Plymouth was not immune to such sentiment. In February, the Council of War, headed by Governor Winslow, voted to send the Praying Indians of Nemasket to Clark’s Island in Plymouth Harbor and “there to remain and not to depart from there…upon pain of death.” But even as officials acted to curb the freedoms of the colony’s friendly Indians, they were, as Benjamin Church soon found out, reluctant to pay for putting an end to the war.
    On February 29, Church attended a meeting of the council at Winslow’s home in Marshfield. The raid on Medfield the week before had been followed by an attack on nearby Weymouth, and there were fears that the colony was about to be overrun with hostile Indians from the north. A member of the Council of War proposed that a militia company of sixty be sent to the outlying towns in the colony to defend against a possible Indian attack. The same official proposed that Church be the company’s commander. But just as he had done prior to the Great Swamp Fight, Church refused the offer of command. Instead, he had a proposal of his own.
    If the Indians returned to Plymouth, it was reasonable to assume that, in Church’s words, “they would come very numerous.” As Massachusetts had learned, it was a waste of time stationing militias in town garrisons. Although they helped to defend the settlement in the event of an attack, they did nothing to limit the Indians’ activities. The only way to conduct the war was to “lie in the woods as the enemy did.” And to do that, you not only needed a large force of several hundred men, you needed a large number of friendly Indians. “[I]f they intended to make an end of the war by subduing the enemy,” Church insisted, “they must make a business of the war as the enemy did.” Instead of worrying about how much money was being spent, Plymouth officials should equip him with an army of three hundred men, a third of them Indians. Give him six weeks, and he and his men would “do good service.”
    The council turned him down. The colony, it explained, was already woefully in debt, and “as for sending out Indians, they thought it no ways advisable.” But Church’s words were not without some effect. The man who agreed to serve in his stead, Captain Michael Pierce of Scituate, was given, in addition to sixty Englishmen, twenty “friend Indians” from Cape Cod.
    Church decided his first priority must be to ensure the safety of his pregnant wife, Alice, and their son, Tom. If the Indians should come in the numbers he expected, he knew that Duxbury, where they were now located, was likely to be a prime target. Even though it meant leaving the colony, he resolved to take Alice and Tom to Aquidneck Island. It was an unpopular decision both with the authorities, from whom he needed a permit, and with his wife’s relations. Eventually Church was able to convince Governor Winslow that he could be of some use to him “on that side of the colony,” and he was given permission to relocate to Rhode Island.
    Prior to their departure, they stopped in Plymouth to say good-bye to Alice’s parents. The Southworths were adamant: their daughter should remain in Plymouth safely tucked away with their grandson in Clark’s garrison on the Eel River, just a few miles from the town center. At the very least, she should remain there until she’d delivered her baby in May. But Church was just as obstinate, and on March 9, they set out for Taunton, from which they would proceed by boat down the Taunton River to Mount Hope Bay and Aquidneck Island.
    In Taunton the Churches encountered Captain Pierce and his company. Pierce must have known that Church had spurned the command that he had chosen to accept, but that did not prevent the captain from offering to provide Church and his family with an escort to Rhode Island. Church politely declined Pierce’s “respectful offer,” and the