THE SEAFLOWER, NATIVE SLAVES, AND KING PHILIP'S WAR

1. THE SEAFLOWER, NATIVE SLAVES, AND KING PHILIP'S WAR Philip Or Metacomet (also known as King Philip) (c. 1640–1676),

2. In 1676, fifty-six years after the sailing of the Mayflower, a similarly named but far less famous ship, the Seaflower, departed from the shores of New England.  Like the Mayflower, she carried a human cargo. But instead of 102 potential colonists, the Seaflower was bound for the Caribbean with 180 Native American slaves Seaflower Slave trade from the Seaflower

3. Josiah Winslow Plymouth Colony • The governor of  Plymouth Colony, Josiah Winslow--son of former Mayflower passengers Edward and Susanna Winslow--had provided the Seaflower's captain with the necessary documentation. In a certificate bearing his official seal, Winlow explained that these Native men, women, and children had joined in an uprising against the colony and were guilty of "many notorious and execrable murders, killings, and outrages." As a consequence, these "heathen malefactors" had been condemned to perpetual slavery.

4. The Seaflower was one of several New England vessels bound for the West Indies with Native slaves.  But by 1676, plantation owners in Barbados and Jamaica had little interest in slaves who had already shown a willingness to revolt. No evidence exists as to what happened to the Indians aboard the Seaflower, but we do know that the captain of one American slave ship was forced to venture all the way to Africa before he finally disposed of his cargo. And so, over a half century after the sailing of the Mayflower, a vessel from New England completed a transatlantic passage of a different sort. West Indies with Native slaves. 

5. King Philip's War 1675-1676 Philip Metacom accepted the English name Philip when he replaced his deceased brother as the Wampanoags' principal sachem in 1662 • The rebellion referred to by Winslow in the Seaflower's certificate is known today as King Philip's War. Philip was the son of Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader who greeted the Pilgrims in 1621. Fifty-four years later, in 1675, Massasoit's son went to war. The fragile bonds that had held the Indians and English together in the decades since the sailing of the Mayflower had been broken. Massasoit's war sachem meeting with a pilgrim leader

6. Philip's War lasted only fourteen months, but it changed the face of new England. After fifty-five years of peace, the lives of Native and English peoples had become so intimately intertwined that when fighting broke out, many of the region's Indians found themselves, in the word of a contemporary chronicler, "in a kind of maze, not knowing what to do."  Some Indians chose to support Philip; others joined the colonial forces; still others attempted to stay out of the conflict altogether.   Violence quickly spread until the entire region became a terrifying war zone. A third of the hundred or so towns in New England were burned and abandoned  There was even a proposal to build a barricade around the core settlements of Massachusetts and surrender the towns outside the perimeter to Philip and his allies.

7. The colonial forces ultimately triumphed, but at a horrifying cost. There were approximately seventy thousand people in New England at the outbreak of hostilities. By the end of the war, somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand were dead, which more than three-quarters of those losses suffered by the Native Americans. In terms of percentage of population killed, King Philip's War was more than twice as bloody as the American Civil War and at least seven times more lethal than the American Revolution.  Not counted in these statistics are the hundreds of Native Americans who, like the passengers aboard the Seaflower, ended the war as slaves.

8. The "Pilgrims" are Visited by Massasoit Chief of the Pokanokets Philip's residence was at Mount Hope; from it he could look on the south over the beautiful expanse of Narraganset Bay

9. DEATH OF KING PHILIP.

11. Review • Philip Or Metacomet (also known as King Philip) (c. 1640–1676), Wampanoag sachem and leader in King Philip's War. Son of the powerful Massasoit, who had helped early Plymouth Colony survive, Metacom accepted the English name Philip when he replaced his deceased brother as the Wampanoags' principal sachem in 1662. His resistance to English territorial expansion and judicial authority offended Plymouth officials, who subjected him to accusations and humiliating rebukes before 1675, when Wampanoag warriors launched the raids that escalated into King Philip's War. The operational role that he played in this costly struggle is not clear; several capable leaders were involved in the guerrilla action that stunned the New England colonies. Philip did travel long distances through the forests, encouraging bands from various Algonquian tribes to join the desperate rebellion. A mixed force of Indians and English militiamen finally killed him in 1676. According to eyewitness Benjamin Church, an Indian executioner making a speech over Philip's body said that “he had been a very great man and had made many a man afraid of him.” Even in defeat, Philip remained a fearsome symbol of Native American resistance and military prowess.

12. Plymouth Colony (or Plantation), the second permanent English settlement in North America, was founded in 1620 by settlers including a group of religious dissenters commonly referred to as the Pilgrims. Though theologically very similar to the Puritans who later founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Pilgrims believed that the Church of England could not be reformed. Rather than attempting to purify the church, the Pilgrims desired a total separation.

13. Al·gon·qui·an (ăl-gŏng'kwē-ən, -kē-ən) • A family of North American Indian languages spoken or formerly spoken in an area from Labrador to the Carolinas between the Atlantic coast and the Rocky Mountains. • A member of a people traditionally speaking an Algonquian language.

14. Benjamin Church • Benjamin Church (1639–1718), colonial soldier A farmer in Plymouth‐Colony, Benjamin Church soldiered in three wars. The son of a veteran of the Pequot War, he served as a provincial captain during King Philip's War. In December 1675, Church was a member of a New England army which struck a fortified Narragansett settlement in the Great Swamp in Rhode Island. The surprise attack succeeded, killing more than 600 Indians and destroying the village. Church was wounded in the engagement. The following summer, he led a force into the Mount Hope swamp in Rhode Island, where the Wampanoag chieftain, Metacom, dwelled. The raid caught Metacom by surprise, and he was killed in the brief battle. Church emerged as a New England hero for having destroyed the settlers' adversary. He additionally achieved a reputation as a skilled Indian fighter

15. Hannah And The Indian King by Elizabeth Shaffer  - Historical novel on Prince Phillip's war.   Study guide available at no additional cost or shipping and will offered after checkout.$9.95     246 pages   ISBN 0-936369-36-3