Mayflower

tell by the way she had watched him drink the rum that she suspected the liquor had been poisoned. When the sachem declined to take the calabash, Church poured some rum into his palm, slurped it down, then, raising up the gourd, took yet another “good swig,” which he later remembered “was no more than he needed.” At last confident that the rum was safe to drink, Awashonks accepted the calabash, and after taking a drink, she and Church began to talk.
    The first thing the sachem wanted to know was why he had not returned a year ago, as promised, with a message from the governor. Church explained that the sudden outbreak of the war had made that impossible, and, in fact, he had attempted to contact her when he and a small group of men had come to Sakonnet only to become embroiled in the Pease Field Fight. At the mention of this encounter, the warriors rose up from the grass in a great “hubbub,” with one of them shaking his wooden club at Church with an intention that was impossible to misinterpret.
    Honest George explained that the warrior had lost his brother at the Pease Field Fight and “therefore he thirsts for your blood.” It was then that Nompash, Awashonks’s chief warrior, stood up and commanded his men to be silent and “talk no more about old things.” Church turned to Awashonks and said that he was confident the Plymouth authorities would spare their lives and allow them to remain at Sakonnet if they disavowed Philip. He cited the example of the Pequots, a tribe that had once warred against the English but was now a trusted ally. He concluded by saying that on a personal level he sincerely looked forward to reclaiming “the former friendship” they had once enjoyed.
    This was enough for Nompash. The warrior once again stood, and after expressing the great respect he had for Church, bowed and proclaimed, “Sir, if you’ll please to accept of me and my men, and will head us, we’ll fight for you, and will help you to Philip’s head before Indian corn be ripe.” Church had found his warriors. But now he had to secure the permission of Plymouth Colony.
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    Once the Nipmucks decided they must sue for peace in June, Philip was forced to flee from Wachusett Mountain. Since the Mohawks were now his avowed enemy, he could not head to the west or the north, and the Mohegans were waiting for him in Connecticut to the south. He must return to Plymouth Colony, where there were still considerable supplies of corn hidden in underground storage pits.
    Coming south with Philip were the sachems Quinnapin and Weetamoo, and by June, approximately a thousand Pokanokets, Narragansetts, and even some Indians from as far away as the Connecticut River valley had ventured into Plymouth Colony from the north. On June 16, they attacked Swansea and burned all but four garrisons to the ground. On June 26, the Indians returned to that settlement, this time turning their attention to Wannamoisett, the portion of Swansea first settled by the Brown and Willett families in the 1650s. By this time Alexander and Philip’s old friend Thomas Willett had been dead almost two years. Willett’s twenty-two-year-old son Hezekiah had recently married Anna Brown and was living in a house equipped with a watchtower. Confident that no hostile Indians were in the vicinity, Hezekiah ventured out with his black servant only to be caught in a vicious cross-fire and killed. The Indians cut off his head and, taking the servant captive, returned to their encampment in triumph.
    Hezekiah had been killed by Indians who were unaware of the Willetts’ long-standing relationship with Philip and his brother. Before his death, Massasoit had instructed both his sons to be kind to John Brown and his family, and the sight of Hezekiah’s dissevered head appears to have had a profound and wrenching effect on Philip. The black servant later told how “the Mount Hope Indians that knew Mr. Willett were sorry for his death, mourned, combed his head and hung peag [wampum] in his hair.”
    Philip had returned both to the land and to the people he had known all his life. Philip was at war with Plymouth, but a tortured ambivalence had characterized his relationship with the colony from the very beginning. In the weeks ahead, the war that ultimately bore his name acquired the fated quality of Greek tragedy as events drew him, with an eerie remorselessness, home.
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    Church was