ralship, who was gifted both with the power of appeal to the
younger Indians and with the finesse required to rouse other chieftains
to a war of vengeance. Philip, or Metacom, was the second son of old
Massasoit, the longtime friend of the English, and, upon the death of
his elder brother Alexander in 1662, became the head of the Wampanoags,
with his seat at Mount Hope, a promontory extending into Narragansett
Bay. Believing that his people had been wronged by the English,
particularly by those of Plymouth colony, and foreseeing that he and
his people were to be driven step by step westward into narrower and
more restricted quarters, he began to plot a great campaign of
extermination. On June 24, 1675, a body of Indians fell on the town of
Swansea, on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay, slew nine of the
inhabitants and wounded seven others. Though assistance was sent from
Massachusetts and Plymouth, the burning and massacring continued,
extending to Rehoboth, Taunton, and towns northward. The settlements
were isolated before the troops could reach them, their inhabitants were
slain, cabins were burned, and prisoners were carried into captivity.
The Rhode Islanders fled to the islands; elsewhere settlers gathered in
garrisoned forts and blockhouses and in new forts hastily erected.

Though the authorities of Connecticut and Massachusetts sent agents
among the Nipmucks hoping to prevent their alliance with Philip, the
effort failed, and by August the tribes on the upper Connecticut had
joined the movement and now began a determined and systematic
destruction of the settlements in central New England. The famous
massacre and burning of Deerfield took place on September 12, the
surviving inhabitants fleeing to Hatfield, leaving their town in ruins.
Hatfield, Northfield, Springfield, and Westfield were attacked in turn,
and though the defense was sometimes successful, more often the
defenders were ambushed and killed. So widespread was the uprising that
during the autumn, a desultory warfare was carried on as far north as
Falmouth, Brunswick, and Casco Bay, where at least fifty Englishmen were
slain by members of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes.

As yet the Narragansetts, bravest of all the southern New England
Indians, whose chief was Canonchet, son of the murdered Miantonomo, had
taken no part in the war. But as rumor spread that they had welcomed
Philip and listened to his appeals and were probably planning to join in