Soldiers in King Philip's war. Containing lists of the soldiers of ...

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they had received, and while the old chiefs were allowed to negotiate
with the English about a treaty, Canonchet and the younger
men, with Quinnapin as an able second, were training and preparing
for war. After the junction was made with the Northern tribes,
Philip having been apprised of it and promised plenty of ammunition
from the French, the Narragansets were added as a part of the great
hostile force of Indians gathered in the western parts. Canonchet,
according to the contemporary historian, Hubbard, became the real
leader of the great unorganized army of the Indian tribes. His
warriors far outnumbered the other tribes, besides being better trained
and equipped, despite the severe losses they had met at the great
fort. Mr. Hubbard wrote in 1676, about Canonchet upon the
Connecticut in the winter and spring of 1675-6 :
For all the whole body of the Indians to the westward, trusting under
the shadow of the aspiring Bramble; he took a kind of care of them upon
himself. Wherefore foreseeing so many hundreds could not well subsist without
planting; he propounded it in his Council, that all the West plantations
upon the Connecticut River taken from the English, should this last
summer be planted with Indian Corn ; which was indeed in itself a very
prudent consideration : To that End he resolved to venture himself with but
thirty men (the rest declining it) to fetch a seed-corn from Seaconk, the
next town to Mount Hope; leaving a body of men, not fewer than fifteen
hundred to follow him or meet him about Seaconk the week after.
Mr. Hubbard's account continuing shows that the great chief
pursuing his purpose came with his small company into his own
territories, evidently with the design of recovering the large quantities
of corn that were left stored in various places, and probably with
the intention of planning a descent upon some of the southern plan-
tations, as, on February 10th, their confederates, probably with their
help, had swept down upon Lancaster, and ten days later upon
Medfield. The intention of the Indians was evidently to distract the
attention of the English by striking heavy blows in distant parts of the
colonies. Connecticut was protected by the presence of the Mohegins
and Pequods, whom the hostile Indians dreaded far more than
the English, as they were their equals in wood craft and Indian
tactics. After the attack upon Medfield, the attacking party
advanced into Plymouth Colony, and probably formed a junction
with another large body, doubtless with the purpose of concentrating
a large force upon some of the larger towns, while smaller bodies
kept making demonstrations here and there upon some smaller
places. On February 25th they assaulted Weymouth, and burned
seven or eight houses and barns. On March 12th they pushed even
into Plymouth town and destroyed Clark's Garrison House, about
two miles from Plymouth village, with eleven persons within it,
plundered the provisions, a quantity of ammunition, and quite a sum
of money, without a single man lost or wounded. Another party
suddenly assaulted Warwick on March 16th or 17th, and destroyed