Mayflower

frontiersman. As a roughneck intermediary between civilization and savagery, the frontiersman had a natural distrust of authority and relied on his own instincts, bravery, and skill to survive. What makes Church unique is that he was one of the first New Englanders to embrace the wilderness his forefathers had shunned. When war erupted in June 1675, he was the right man in the right place to become a truly archetypal American.
    Out of the annealing flame of one of the most horrendous wars ever fought in North America, he forged an identity that was part Pilgrim, part mariner, part Indian, and altogether his own. That so many characters from American history and literature resemble him—from Daniel Boone to Davy Crockett to Natty Bumppo to Rambo—does nothing to diminish the stunning originality of the persona he creates in Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip’s War. That Church according to Church is too brave, too cunning, and too good to be true is beside the point. America was destined to become a nation of self-fashioned and self-promoting men. What makes his story so special, I believe, is that he shows us how the nightmare of wilderness warfare might one day give rise to a society that promises liberty and justice for all.
    There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is the Moseley way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Philip’s War proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence. Then there is the Church way. Instead of loathing the enemy, try to learn as much as possible from him; instead of killing him, try to bring him around to your way of thinking. First and foremost, treat him like a human being. For Church, success in war was about coercion rather than slaughter, and in this he anticipated the welcoming, transformative beast that eventually became—once the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were in place—the United States.
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    Church concludes his account of the war with a vignette. In January 1677, the Plymouth magistrates asked him to lead a few minor mop-up operations. Over the course of the winter he succeeded in capturing several additional Indians. One of the captives was an old man to whom Church took an immediate liking, and he asked the Indian his name.
    â€œConscience,” the old man replied.
    â€œConscience,” Church repeated with a smile; “then the war is over, for that was what they were searching for, it being much wanting.”
    Church was supposed to deliver the old man to Plymouth, where he would undoubtedly have been shipped off as a slave to the West Indies. Instead, Church asked him where he wanted to live out the rest of his life. The Indian told him the name of an Englishman in Swansea he had known before the war. Church made some inquiries, and soon Conscience had a new home.
    It was a small victory to be sure, but in the winter of 1677 it was the best that Benjamin Church could do.

Acknowledgments
    T HIS BOOK BEGAN on Nantucket Island in 1995 with a Native American symposium sponsored by the Nantucket Historical Association. There I met John Peters, or Slow Turtle, then Wampanoag tribal medicine man and executive director of the Massachusetts Commission of Indian Affairs; Tony Pollard, or Nanepashamet, then curator of Plimoth Planatation’s Wampanoag Indian Program; and Russell Gardner, or Great Moose, then Wampanoag tribal historian. Gardner, in particular, was a huge help to me in researching the book I subsequently wrote about Nantucket’s Native American legacy, Abram’s Eyes. Sadly, all three had passed away by the time I began work on this book—a work that draws on many of the insights they provided, both in writing and in person, a decade or more ago. I also owe a debt to Wampanoag tribal members Helen Vanderhoop Manning and June Manning, who guided my earlier researches on Martha’s Vineyard, and the late Elizabeth Little, whose knowledge of Nantucket Native Americans was unmatched. Thanks also to the late Albert “Bud” Egan and to his wife Dorothy Egan and their support through the Egan Foundation and the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies.
    Over the course of the last three years, I have benefited from the help of many individuals and institutions: James Baker at the Alden House; Ellen Dunlap, John Hench, Nancy Burkett, Georgia Barnhill, Thomas Knoles at the American Antiquarian Society;