Dec 16 2007
The Great Swamp Fight – 332 years ago today
As I sit inside this stormy day, warm by the fire, my thoughts are eighty miles to the west, in a swamp in the town of South Kingston, Rhode Island, near the campus of the University of Rhode Island, a place still desolate by modern standards, off a boring stretch of Route 195 between Connecticut and Providence.
On a day like this, 332 years ago, the most significant “battle” of what has been called the bloodiest (per capita) conflict in the history of America — the Great Swamp Fight — took place in a Rhode Island swamp, an attack by the colonial militia from the Plymouth, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay Colony killed about 300 Narragansett Indians (precise figures are unknown) on an island in the middle of Rhode Island’s Great Swamp.
Led there by an Indian guide, the militia were able to reach the fort because an unusually cold late fall had frozen the swamp, making an assault possible.
The dead were mostly women and children. Those who fled into the swamp faced a long winter without food and shelter.
The irony of the assault was that the Narragansetts had been neutral in the King Philip War, staying out of the fight waged by Metacomet (King Philip) and the Wampanoag tribe. The Great Swamp Fight assured that neutrality would be forgotten, and the Narragansetts joined the terrible war.
Gerald Hyde, a state historian, wrote in 1938 on the occasion of a memorial marker being installed at the site:
“A fort in the Great Swamp had been built by the Narragansett Sachem, Canonchet, as a place of refuge. Because of its location on a small island of dry land in the midst of a great swamp, he no doubt considered it impregnable. It was, however, only partially completed and consisted of “pallisadoes stuck upright in a hedge of about a rod in thickness.” Two fallen trees formed natural bridges which were the only entrances and the principal one was guarded by a block house. Inside the fort the stores, harvests and accumulated wealth of the Narragansetts had been brought and there asylum had been offered the aged and infirm and the women and children of the Wampanoags of King Philip.
The United Colonies of New England declared war against the Narragansett Indians on November 2, 1675, charging them, among other things, with “relieving and succouring Wampanoag women and children and wounded men” and not delivering them to the English, and also because they “did in a very reproachful and blasphemous manner, triumph and rejoice” over the English defeat at Hadley. They voted to raise a thousand soldiers to be sent against the Narragansetts unless their sachems gave up the fugitive Wampanoags.
The forces of the United Colonies under Governor Winslow marched across Rhode Island and on December 14 attacked the village of the Squaw Sachem Matantuck near Wickford and burned 150 wigwams, killing seven Indians and taking nine prisoners. The Narragansetts then began a guerrilla warfare, sniping Colonial troops wherever occasion offered.
On the night of December 15 the Indians surrounded Jireh Bull’s large stone house on Tower Hill and massacred all but two of the occupants. The smoldering ruins of the house were found by English scouts the next day. It is possible that the Indians had learned of a plan for the Connecticut contingent to join the other forces at this house and had destroyed it in order to handicap the colonies. Three days later the two English forces joined at Pettaquamscutt and planned to attack the Indians the next day.
Ordinarily the swamp was practically impenetrable, as it is to this day, but due to the severe December weather the marshy ground had frozen and the English soldiers gained easy access to the island. The Indian outposts retreated into the fort where they were followed by the English. The terrible battle which then began took place amidst ice, snow, under brush and fallen trees.
At first repulsed, the English continued the assault, though with heavy losses. They contested almost every foot of ground until the Narragansetts, also suffering many casualties, were driven gradually from their fort into the swamp and woods.
Meanwhile, the English had set fire to the wigwams, some 600 in number, and flames swept through the crowded fort. The “shrieks and cries of the women and children, the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and appalling scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers. They were in much doubt and they afterwards seriously inquired whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity and the benevolent principle of the gospel,” says one early account.
The retreating Indians were driven from the woods about the fort, leaving the English a complete, though costly, victory. They had lost five captains and 20 men and had some 150 wounded that must be carried back to a house some ten miles distant. To the terrors of the battle and fire were added the bitter cold and blinding snow of a New England blizzard through which the English toiled back to Cocumcussa. The hardships of that march took a toll of 30 or 40 more lives. The Indians reported a loss of 40 fighting men and one sachem killed and some 300 old men, women and children burned alive in the wigwams.”
Nathaniel Philbrick wrote an outstanding account of the war recently in his book, Mayflower. I decided to locate the site and to my sad distress I see it is somewhere near the Amtrak line, where, on countless occasions I have hurtled through on the Acela, oblivious to the fact that the fastest section of track between Boston and Washington runs somewhere near the scene of the massacre.
Call it my senescence, but I feel more and more aware and freaked out by the history around me, the paved over battlefields, the Old Post Roads, the historic paths now covered with subdivisions and strip malls. Reading David McCullough’s 1776 and the account of the British attack on New York, and then being there last week, and looking across at Brooklyn and thinking of the rustic wilderness there, the fighting along the Gowanus Creek, now a stinking cesspool — the landing of the British at Kips Bay. The battles of White Plains and Trenton … and then skip forward to the urban anonymity of both, marked by a bronze tablet or two where heroes and cowards fought centuries before ….
Thanks for an interesting account of this history — and a moving personal reflection at the end. My father is the genealogist and amateur New England historian in my family, and I’ve spent the last year archiving his family history essays to a wordpress blog (with access limited to the family, so far). I’ve linked your essay in the archived edition of my father’s report on this same subject. (I imagine that you track links and might wonder.)
I am a great grandson of John G Clarke who owned the portion of land upon which the fight occured in 1675. I have a number of his papers, including maps. What I found interesting about your article was the comment about passing so closely on the train-I have a newspaper article published in 1892 which begins “possibly few of those who occasion to hurry between New York and Boston on the shore-line are aware that their train passes a most interesting colonial battlefield.
I am a great grandson of John Baker, who was wounded by musket fire to his leg in the Great Swamp Fight and was crippled the rest of his life. Later he received a colonial pension for his wounds of 10 pounds and 4 pounds per year thereafter. I didn’t realize until recently that the battle can be viewed as similar to the Sand Creek massacre in Colorado. However, knowing that John Baker was wounded, and dozens of militia wounded, there must have been some fire wielding enemy. Or is friendly fire likely? The John Baker line married into the Polley and Winn family lines, and from there into the Cleveland line. Thanks for posting this website, as it is most interesting.
Frank Mielke (grandson of Susan Baker b. Minn. 1889)
Frank — I highly recommend Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower for a contemporary account of the battle. Benjamin Church, a prominent colonial officer and the father of the modern “Rangers” wrote a first person account as well.
Indeed, the Narragansetts were armed and fortified inside of a stockade or palisade. This was not a simple heinous act of a colonial army setting fire to some huts, but a real battle with casualties on both sides.
It is also not the only “massacre” in the region, apparently another took place nearby in Mystic involving the Pequot tribe.
Fellow blogger Tim Abbot at Walking the Berkshires also had an ancestor who fought in The Great Swamp Fight. For an excellent account please read:
http://greensleeves.typepad.com/berkshires/2007/02/dust_on_the_sou.html
I live close to the Great Swamp Managment Area and hav been there several times including today. It’s a beatiful area but filled with much saddness for obvious reasons. Its a mus see area as the hicking is wondeful. And the moutain bike trails aren’t to bad either.
The Great Swamp Fight was the largest engagement during King Phillip’s War and was in no way was a massacre like Sand Creek in colorado. Canochet and his warriors almost succeeded in thwarting the colonial assault. The many casualties attests to the the highly contested outcome. This engagement is a tribute to the colonial soldiers and the Narragansett warriors who fought it. December the nineteenth 1675 will always be a special date in my heart, and I thank God for the privilage on living in so great a nation. Many gave their lives for me.
Joseph Michael Bonelli
Our line of the Sheldon Family is descended from the progenitor, John Sheldon, who, according to a map assembeled by Carder H. Whaley, lived just north and east of the John G. Clarke (mentioned above by Norman C. Lynch). Actually, the map lists two John G. Clarkes, one living somewhat to the east of the other.
The site of their homes, (according to the above map) was near the intersection of Route 2 and Liberty Lane (which is south and west of the intersection of 138 and Route 2) somewhat west of West Kingston, Rhode Island today.
Interestingly, John Sheldon and his son John Jr., in a 1679 petition to King Charles II, cited their difficulities in this war of 1675-1676, in which many valuable possessions were lost. There are several other names on the map in that same area of Rhode Island.
An interesting historical account can be read in a paper titled “Sheldons of South Kingstown”, ‘The First Two Generations’, by Margaret B. Jones, Ph.D. which includes a copy of the above mentioned map. I believe it is available from the Sheldon Family Assocation (online) for a small cost.
I was fortunate to be able to read and study my brother’s copy.
May I make a small editorial comment? In the first paragraph you write:
“off a boring stretch of Route 195 between Connecticut and Providence”
I believe this should read Route I-95, the interstate highway 95, rather than 195. I do not believe there is a route 195 (all numerals) in this area.
Thank you for your otherwise informative article.
anon – thx, good catch
I am a direct descendant of two of the participants of The Great Swamp Fight: Ensign Henry Bowen and his wife Elizabeth Porter Johnson the daughter of Capt. Johnson who was killed in the battle. My written family history records that Ensign Henry Bowen took over command from his father in law after he was killed. Henry Bowen was brought over from Wales by his father and mother Griffith and Margaret Bowen in 1637 as a child along with brothers and sisters.
As I recall from my reading of the Great Swamp Fight the actual location has never been documented. There is a marker but that is apparently a rough guess.
My colonial blood relation Thomas Abbe from Wenham, MA joined the Ipswich-based troopers led by Colonel Appleton, and marched with the United Colonies expedition that burned out the Narragansetts at the Great Swamp.
As I understand it, Thomas was one of the seriously wounded men carried back through the frozen night march back to Smith’s Castle. He came back alive to Wenham — but I believe he suffered from a serious Vietnam-like PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
In a document from 1682, his elderly Puritan father took the drastic step of disowning his son, citing unspecified “bad behavior” for cutting him off and rendering him a family outcast. I have to think Thomas was haunted by what he did and saw, in an ugly incident in an ugly war that fundamentally scrubbed southern New England clean of its First People.
Eventually, Thomas made his way out of the Bay Colony, and recovered a successful frontier life down in the Connecticut Colony as a founder of the Enfield settlement. I hope he made peace with his part in a savage Puritan massacre and ethnic cleansing operation.
I’ve visited the site of the battle a few times, once coming away with some musket balls, souveniers I treasure. This campaign was a preventative measure, voted on, with some reservations from the Ct. representatives, to contain the conflict which was not, at the time of the campaign, being won. There were concerns that if the Naragannsetts were allowed to remain without answering to the requirements of the treaty, they would be a formidable foe in the spring when the vegetation would hinder the colonial militia. This was the best organized campaign in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Basically composed of farmers, their sons, artisans, merchants and apprentices the army endured in the 24 hour period before and after the battle hardships no modern army is trained for. They spent the night before in an open field, no tents, blasted by a snow storm; marched the next day at 5AM in the snow to the fort 14 miles away, fought 3 hours, and marched back 18- 20 miles to their HQ at Wickford. The general and his staff got lost and didn’t show up until the next day. Some of the dead were left behind. Capt. Church advised they not burn the fort but use it as a base as it was furnished with grain- stocked wigwams. His advise was over-ruled which resulted in the death of more wounded. The total number of colonial dead was over 80, eventually
J.S.,
I’ve canoed the Great Swamp many times. Could you tell me where the actual site of the battle was that you found musket balls? I find this story so facinating and truly feel remorse for the Naragansett Indians.
Thanks.
Mike
I haven’t found any pointers to the actual site myself. I understand the monument is not the location.
The topography of the area, even though it is somewhat rural, has been affected by the elements and civilization has accelerated the process so the location of the Great swamp Fight doesn’t appear to be anything like what is described by historians who visited the area as late as the nineteenth century when the island in the swamp, the actual sight of the battle, was still there. I found the musket balls a few hundred yards to the west of the monument
Greetings to all my Narragansett Country/Pettaquamscutt Purchase/”Unclaimed Lands”/”King’s Province”/”King’s County”/”South County”/Washington County, Rhode Island (Colonie[sic]) cousins…. With all our nearby Tucker and “(H)Wahley” and Worden and Holley/Holloway and Congdon and Cross and Tucker and Tucker and Tucker and Tucker cousins nearby, we’ve farmed the east side of Worden’s Pond and Cousin Roscoe oversaw for many years, the Aquapaug Boy Scout Camp on Worden’s east side, which as our Sheldon cousins will remember was given by the aforementioned (Cousin) Carder (Henry) (H)Wahley to them….the…..”Long Jacket” Tuckers lived, and live,all along Tuckertown Road and Worden’s Pond Road, the “Short-Jacket” Tuckers down in the woods south of Tucker’s Pond nearby….
…and the Great Swamp Fight encampment was in the swamp on the north side of Worden’s Pond, where….Mr. Easterbrooks mapped out the metes and bounds…and Pettaquamscutt Historical Society Craig Anthony, who did all the recent Tefft research….thinks that he knows where the actual site was….Craig having done the most current research on our fourth-great-uncle Joshua Tefft(Tift) who not only fought from inside the fort on the Narragansetts’ side, but was later punished for his unfortunate role by being the only New Englander ever drawn and quartered for high treason. The Mr. Clark(e) whom cousin Sheldon refers to, was also our cousin through the Tuckers….Chollie-(H)Winfield-Tucker’s…..great-grandparents….
For those who know the region, we’re all related-to-each-other….(ahem!)…several times over… Richard Smith of Smith’s Castle, Cocumcossoc at Wickford, RI was the Indian Trader of the area whose fortress blockhouse trading post housed the United Colonies combined troops who came through to fight the battle, and Jeriah Bull’s blockhouse on Tower Hill to the east, where Quaker George Fox preached, was burned to the ground a scant day or two before the battle. Tenth-great-grandfather Smith provided the burial ground for any number of those of the United Colonies killed that day, and they lie somewhere on the grounds of “Smith’s Castle” near nearby Wickford, RI today, and was a brilliant early “diplomat”, as he was a close friend to the Dutch, who claimed the area also, and whose trading posts were off Jamestown Island nearby, and at the “King Tom Farm” in nearby Charlestown. Smith’s daughter married the son of Lodowick Opendyck, who was a Dutch West Indies officer and who came to live at Smith’s Castle after the English took New Amsterdam in 1664. Sieur Opendyck was my…..tenth-great-grandfather as well… (as was Roger Williams). The “United Colonies”, by the way, did not include the Rhode Island Colonie, but protected the interests of Governor Winthrop “Pere” and Governor Winthrop, “Fils”, who were powers in the Bay Colonie and the Hartford Colonie, respectively, and who supported the Atherton Purchasers and finally, the Hartford/Connecticut Colony claim to the Narragansett Country, as against the Pettaquamscutt Purchasers. We local “Swamp Yankees” take a dim view of the Bay Colony and Hartford Colony folk who arrested any number of us and hauled us away, when good King Charles-the-son, granted US title to our lands….(it is said that Cousin Carder Whaley’s ancestor was the same Judge Whal(l)ey who signed his father Charles I’s death warrant), and through the King’s Commissioners, King Charles II gave the Rhode Island Colonie the right to govern the “unclaimed lands”, which were the Narragansett tribal lands, and which are the Washington County, Rhode Island of today. The Great Sachem Canochet and his people got a raw deal, and if it weren’t for Roger Williams, they would have lost much more than they lost, and in a much more rapid timeframe. As it was, the only one crafty enough to survive the depredations of the United Colonies interfering in our local lands, was Ninigret/Ninicraft I, Chief Sachem of the Narragansett’s subject tribe the (Eastern) Niantics, who managed to keep out of the conflict, and who in the end absorbed his former lead tribe the Narragansetts, and whose successors were all crowned on “coronation rock” at the Niantic tribal “King Tom Farm” at nearby Charlestown, which my late grandfather owned. The gentleman is quite right….this was hardly the only Indian swamp massacre in the area, as a mere 38 years before, in 1637, the United Colonies again stormed through the area, but this time, recruiting the Narragansetts who were at the time their allies….to proceed down the Pequot Trail from Wickford to massacre the Pequots at their swamp encampment fortress on the east side of where Mystic Seaport is today. Nor were these two the only local campaigns fought in the swamps against the Indians, as a punitive expedition by the Hartford Colony against Ninigret I was fought in swamps on the nearby lands of Charlestown and Westerly-Misquamicut townships at a time between the Pequot War and the Great Swamp Fight of the “King Phillip” Indian War of 1675. Happily for the Niantics, the Hartford forces failed to find them on that occasion. They had had enough of the United Colonies, who had taken Block Island away from them, and from us, and who created the somewhat-bizarre municipality on our western South County boundary of “Southold”, which belonged for a brief seven years, to the Bay Colonie and not to Hartford, so we South Countyites were bounded for awhile on the west, and the south, by the Massachusetts Colony. Such are the vagaries of history.
The site of the Great Swamp Fight monument, which is somewhat near our Congdon cousins’ farm on “South County Trail”, which was/is the old Pequot Trail…..is generally believed now not to be the site, either of the Naragansetts’ fort nor of the massacre itself. Some state of the art archeology is called for, as it is for the Dutch trading post at Fort Neck in Charlestown. The “Queen’s Fort” in Wickford, where the Bay Colony troops killed so many of the Narragansetts prior to the Great Swamp Fight, also merits a careful archeological dig, as does the “Devil’s Foot” area of Wickford’s Quidnesset section where the main Narragansett encampment was.
Thank you for your own reminiscences! We much appreciate your website.
With my very best wishes,
Barry Hale Browning, who is….hopelessly related to everyone in the area, and dearly loves his South County, Rhode Island.
David Churbuck said:
“…I feel more and more aware and freaked out by the history around me, the paved over battlefields, the Old Post Roads, the historic paths now covered with subdivisions and strip malls.”
So do I. I saw somewhere on your blog that you are interested in the American Civil War. I am too, specifically in the battle of Gettysburg.
After traveling to several civil war battlefields in Virginia and lamenting the lack of preservation, I began a concentration on Gettysburg. It’s close enough to visit on day trips, and it takes a lot of day trips for someone like me to understand the field. For a Navy guy like me, Gettysburg was a complicated battle to understand. The water is generally flat, and the field at Gettysburg isn’t, and the commanders there were very sensitive to seemingly small, and also large, terrain features. It’s a fascinating field fought over by some fascinating people.
The point, though, is that the park service is doing a brilliant job of working to return the battlefield to it’s state at the time of the battle. This involves actually cutting down a lot of trees that came up post battle, because farmers in the 1860′s wanted to maximize the amount or arable land at their disposal. They kept stands of hardwood trees for their wood needs, and planted the rest of their land.
Why is that important? Because with the trees removed, we can see the field as the strategic and tactical commanders saw it, and that gives us a much better insight into how they made their decisions, and sometimes quickly (Hancock pushing the 1st Minnesota forward against Wilcox’s BRIGADE), during the battle. Example: stand at the spot where Hancock was wounded, and you can see both why he returned to that spot again and again during Longstreets assault on the second day, and how clearing the trees from the area between there and the Trostle farm has improved our ability to understand what went on there.
All is not lost.
Re: Thomas Bowen
I am a descendant of Capt. Issac Johnson as well, through his son Nathaniel. Thank you for the information that I am now adding to my genealogy. I had no idea that this battle had taken place, let alone with my ancestors participating.
I really enjoyed reading your article. I am a descendant of Joseph Tucker who was killed in the great Narragansatt war. I find it hard to trace him but I thank God he and others died so I could live the life I do today.
Hello People:
I am so glad to know there is so much interest in this history. I am decended from Capt. Nathaniel Seeley and have to also inform you of his father Lt. Robert Seeley of the Winthrop Fleet.
I know there are strong feelings regarding this battle and can not say that the lose of life in any war doesn’t reflect what happened in this encounter. I think it would make a great movie and should be taught in school. These are our beginnings and can not be undone but, should be told and carried on through generations to come. This was an epic battle fought in the midst of a New England blizzard, in the middle of a swamp. The time was over three hundred years ago. It is hard to get our minds around it with all of the history that has passed.
I have also read the book Mayflower by Nathaniel Philibreck and have had a lot of great reflections of how life was for our families to have lived in a time when everything you had came from the efforts of a joined community. These people were harrassed to come to America, due to there religious beliefs, from England, to a land were only 39 members of the original pilgrams remained. They came better equiped to last in this wilderness. Many were taught by the Native Americans to live and hunt and survive.
This was truely a vast wild country that no one that is living today can frankly understand. It was a fight for survival and to them as anyone faced with a threat of impending doom, did what they had to do.
They had no advanced science, it was worse off than Gilligans Island. I wish all of you that have come to learn from this site well.
Blessings to all.
P.S. I forgive Joshua Teft