Mayflower

“pretend ing some petite injuries done him in planting land.” Whatever the specific cause, it was a momentous decision for a leader who had, prior to this, consistently backed away from the threat of any genuine conflict.

    The “Seat of Philip” at the eastern shore of Mount Hope
    Some New Englanders dared to suggest that the Indians were not entirely to blame for the threatened insurrection and that Plymouth was guilty of treating the Pokanokets in an unnecessarily high-handed manner. In an attempt to prove otherwise, Plymouth magistrates invited a delegation from Massachusetts to attend a meeting with Philip at the town of Taunton on April 10, 1671.
    Philip and a large group of warriors—all of them armed and with their faces painted—cautiously approached the Taunton town green, where an equally sizable number of Plymouth militiamen, bristling with muskets and swords, marched back and forth. Fearful that he was leading his men into a trap, Philip insisted that they be given several English hostages before he ventured into town. Tensions were so high that many of the colony’s soldiers shouted out that it was time for them to attack. Only at the angry insistence of Massachusetts-Bay officials were the Plymouth men made to stand down. Finally, after the exchange of several more messages, Philip and his warriors agreed to meet inside the Taunton meetinghouse—the Indians on one side of the aisle, the colonists on the other.
    It was a scene that said much about the current state of Plymouth Colony. Forty-four years before, the Dutchman Isaack de Rasiere had described how the Pilgrims assembled in their fort for worship, each man with his gun. Now the children of the Pilgrims had gathered with the Pokanokets in a proper meetinghouse, not to worship but to settle their growing differences—the English on one side of the aisle in their woolen clothes and leather shoes, the Indians on the other with their faces painted and their bodies greased, and all of them, Puritans and Pokanokets alike, with muskets in their hands.
    It did not go well for Philip. Once again, the Plymouth magistrates bullied him into submission, insisting that he sign a document in which he acknowledged the “naughtiness of my heart.” He also agreed to surrender all his warriors’ weapons to the English. According to William Hubbard, one of Philip’s own men was so ashamed by the outcome that he flung down his musket, accused his sachem of being “a white-livered cur,” and vowed that “he would never [follow Philip] again or fight under him.” The son of a Nipmuck sachem left Taunton in such a rage that he was moved to kill an Englishman on his way back to his home in central Massachusetts. He was eventually tried and hanged on Boston Common, where his severed head was placed upon the gallows, only to be joined by the skull of his father five years later.
    In the months that followed, the colony required that the Indians from Cape Cod to Nemasket sign documents reaffirming their loyalty to Plymouth. The magistrates also insisted that Philip and his warriors turn over all their remaining weapons. When Philip balked, it seemed once again as if war might be imminent. Fearful that Plymouth was about to drive the Pokanokets and, with them, all of New England into war, the missionary John Eliot suggested that Philip come to Boston to speak directly with Massachusetts-Bay officials.
    Philip appears to have been thankful for the missionary’s intervention. However, Eliot made the mistake of suggesting that his two Indian envoys bring John Sassamon, who was now living in Nemasket, to their meeting with Philip. The sight of his former interpreter appears to have ignited a fresh outburst of anguished rage in the already beleaguered sachem. In early September, when a messenger from Plymouth arrived at Mount Hope, he found “Philip and most of his chief men much in drink.” Philip angrily knocked the messenger’s hat off his head and “exclaimed much against Sassamon.” According to Philip, the hated Praying Indian had told Plymouth officials that the Pokanokets had been secretly meeting with some Narragansett sachems.
    Eventually Philip did as Eliot suggested and went to Boston. As the missionary had said might happen, the sachem received a much more sympathetic hearing than he had ever been given in Plymouth. Philip agreed to meet with Plymouth officials on September