American Experience (1988) s21e05 Episode Script

1
(man speaking Native American
language)
It is a story
at the heart of America
one richer and more surprising
than we've been told.
(tribal drumming)
American Experience
presents a story
that spans 300 years
and a vast continent.
WOMAN:
The greatest thing a person can
have is the power.
Benegotsi. It's scary.
It is a story of hope
courage
and survival.
We were about to be
obliterated culturally.
Our spiritual way of life,
our entire way of life,
was about to be stamped out.
(roaring)
MAN:
Every tribe in this country
has a time of horror
Absolute horror when they were
confronted by this invader.
MAN:
What we did to the Southeastern
Indians, it's ethnic cleansing.
MAN:
It was done to them,
so they did it back
But better.
MAN:
Whatever means and manner
we could,
since the Europeans
arrived here,
we've had to fight
for our survival.
An epic history of America
(whooping)
seen through Native eyes
too remarkable
too inspiring
to ever forget.
The master of life has appointed
this place
for us to light our fires
And here we shall remain.
Exclusive corporate funding
for American Experience
provided by:
Major funding provided by:
Funding for We Shall Remain
provided by:
And by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
and:
(men speaking Nipmuc)
NARRATOR:
Almost nothing is known about
the most iconic feast
in American history,
not even the date.
It happened, most likely,
in the late summer of 1621,
a little less than a year
after the Wampanoag
saw a small group of strangers
land on their shores.
Half these strangers
Men, women and children
Had died of disease, hunger or
exposure in their first winter
on the unforgiving edge
of North America.
But by the next summer,
with the help of the Wampanoag,
the Pilgrims had taken a harvest
sure to sustain the settlement
through the next barren season.
And they meant to celebrate
their faith
that God had smiled
on their endeavor.
Fill up the pot, my child,
and fetch some more water.
Mind your step.
More chairs here?
We should have this
done in no time.
NARRATOR:
As the "thanks giving" began,
a group of Wampanoag men,
led by their chief, Massasoit,
entered the Plymouth settlement,
not entirely sure
of the reception they'd get.
MAN:
They're here.
(offers greeting in Nipmuc)
JENNY HALE PULSIPHER:
Sometimes the Pilgrims are
saying back off
and sometimes I think they bring
the Wampanoags closer,
depending on what
circumstances are like.
But this is a celebration
of their survival,
of their recognition that they
probably wouldn't have survived
without the assistance
of these Indians.
This is a time clearly when
they're welcome.
The governor cannot
mean 'em to stay.
NARRATOR:
Massasoit and his men had not
appeared empty-handed.
They brought five
fresh-killed deer,
providing some of the vittles
for a celebration
that stretched over the next
three days.
MILES STANDISH:
Musketeers, make ready!
Musketeers, fire!
(cheering)
NARRATOR:
The Wampanoag and the Pilgrims
were an unlikely match,
but the two peoples were bound
by what they shared:
an urgent need for allies.
The Pilgrims were completely
alone in a new world,
separated by thousands
of miles of ocean
from friends and family.
The Wampanoag badly weakened
by rolling epidemics
Lived in fear of rival tribes.
That they found one another in
1621 looked like a boon to each.
NEAL SALISBURY:
The Thanksgiving celebration
at Plymouth
was certainly an unusual event.
It's not something
we see thereafter.
It symbolizes where
the relationship stood
as of the fall of 1621.
(laughs)
(speaking Nipmuc):
An.. kan too koche?
(laughter)
PILGRIM:
Well, I'm glad you're
amused, anyway.
(speaking Nipmuc):
PILGRIM:
You like it, there?
Bellycheer.
SALISBURY:
For the English,
it establishes that they're
going to be able to survive
because of the Native Americans.
(laughter)
(yells in excitement)
It looks to be some kind
of gambling game.
SALISBURY:
There are strong personal
relationships, certainly,
going on among the leading
political figures on each side
and, for all we know, among
other individuals as well.
(laughter)
NARRATOR:
For those who followed the
Pilgrims across the Atlantic,
the first Thanksgiving would
enter into national mythology,
where it remains the bright
opening chapter
of the American creation story.
For the Wampanoag,
and for Massasoit,
the memory of that day would
recede into darker places,
shadowed by betrayal and loss.
JILL LEPORE:
It's as if you could take
the storybook version
of American history the myth
of the first Thanksgiving
And turn it entirely
upside down.
Here is this story that's sad,
that's sinister
and finally is about cruelty
and power.
COLIN CALLOWAY:
Looking back, Massasoit would,
on one level have felt he was
true to himself,
but on another level he must
have regretted what he'd done.
He must have thought,
"What if we had taken
a different course of action
in dealing with these people?"
NARRATOR:
They lived in a place
of privilege,
at the edge of a world,
where every new day began.
And they called themselves
the Wampanoag
The People of the First Light.
RAE GOULD:
Well, think about it:
you're here.
You are in the east.
You see the sun rise.
In relation to your world,
to what you know,
you are the
People of the First Light.
You are the Wampanoag.
NARRATOR:
Behind the Wampanoag,
the sun's west-moving light
slowly revealed 3,000 miles
of human culture
from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific.
CALLOWAY:
Indian people shaped
this continent.
They established
civilizations here,
societies that had risen
And in some cases fallen
Long before Europeans arrived.
As you look across the continent
at this time,
Shawnees in the Ohio Valley
are shaping that area,
building their own societies;
Cherokees in the Southeast;
Sioux in the western Great Lakes
reaching out in the plains,
Apaches on the southern plains
and in the Southwest.
Everywhere across North America
there are communities and tribes
and peoples whose histories
are ongoing.
(speaking Nipmuc):
NARRATOR:
The confederation of tribes
that made up the Wampanoag
was one small network section
of the Native web
that spread across
North America.
The People of the First Light
hugged the coast
of a vast ocean.
To the north were the People of
the Big Hill, the Massachusett.
To the west and inland were
the Nipmuc,
the People of the Fresh Water.
Then the Mohegan and Pequot,
and the Narragansett.
GOULD:
Just think of this one
big circle,
and everyone speaking
different dialects
of an Algonquian language,
but they were mutually
intelligible.
So we're all interrelating with
each other, marrying, trading,
sharing resources,
using resources.
R. DAVID EDMUNDS:
It was a community
of communities
and they had intermeshed
and had their own agendas,
their own political problems,
their own warfare,
and their own trade.
There was a rich sort of
political interaction
in this region.
TALL OAK:
Sometimes everyone gets along
and sometimes they don't.
But they resolved the conflicts
sometimes with military activity
and sometimes through
negotiations.
We had times when
we forgave offenses
as part of our tradition, when
certain ceremonies were held,
like the Green Corn Festival,
which was held around the
harvest time for the corn.
That was a time when you would
forgive all the offenses
of different people that
you might not have been
on good terms with,
and you would invite them
to the ceremony
and they would come and you'd
exchange songs and dances.
We continue with that
because we believe everything we
have is a gift from the Creator.
NARRATOR:
The half-dozen neighboring
tribes had achieved
a balance of power, the weaker
paying tribute to the stronger.
The Wampanoag had
sufficient numbers
to defend their territory
against their nearest rivals,
the Narragansett.
And the bounty of the land
itself eased inter-tribal
tensions.
NARRATOR:
The shallows of the ocean
and the bays
gave up heaps of shellfish;
inland rivers watered
the growing fields,
where the Wampanoag cultivated
corn, beans, squash.
The woodlands were filled with
game for food and furs
to get them through the cold
dark of winter.
In 1615, the land sustained tens
of thousands of people.
SALISBURY:
The explorers who describe
these regions
all describe the Native peoples
of New England
living in these very
populous villages.
In fact, Champlain,
sailing for the French,
decided that they didn't want
to colonize New England
because there were too many
people here.
NARRATOR:
For a hundred years,
alien ships had trolled
off the Wampanoag coast,
apparitions on the horizon.
Odd-looking European
explorers and fishermen
occasionally came ashore,
but they made scant effort
to establish relations.
NARRATOR:
The visitors were known to kill
Native people,
or to capture and carry away
men and women.
But in the century since
Columbus,
the Europeans had yet to leave
any real footprint
on the Wampanoag shores.
(man speaking Nipmuc)
SALISBURY:
In the years 1617 to '19,
an epidemic swept through
New England.
We don't know exactly
what disease this was,
and some of the reports
of symptoms
seem to suggest
different diseases.
It's possible that one followed
rapidly upon the other.
KAREN KUPPERMAN:
A normal epidemic
hits a few people
and then other people get sick,
but the first people start
getting better.
In this case,
everyone gets sick at once.
SALISBURY:
A sickness was usually
interpreted as an invasion
of hostile spiritual powers.
And the Native people had
medicine men,
whom they called "powwows,"
who were experts at countering
the spirits of the diseases
with which Native people had
experienced.
In this case the powwows
were ineffective;
often they were victims
themselves.
LISA BROOKS:
The way that Native people
refer to it
is that the world
turned upside down.
LEPORE:
A whole village might have
two survivors,
and those two survivors were
not just like any two people.
They were two people who had
seen everyone they know die
miserable, wretched, painful
Excruciatingly painful deaths.
LEPORE:
So, it's not only that the
population was eviscerated,
it's that the survivors were
deeply affected
by their experiences,
and vulnerable in ways that are
hard for us to imagine
You know, this sort of
post-apocalyptic vulnerability.
NARRATOR:
Massasoit had seen nine of every
ten of his people perish
of a cause nobody understood;
tiny microbes for which
the Native population
had no natural defense,
alien diseases left behind
by European sailors.
As the season of death subsided,
the Narragansett
Largely spared the ravages
of the epidemic
Began a series of raids
on Wampanoag villages.
And the beleaguered Wampanoag
looked to Massasoit
to lead them into
an uncertain future.
EDWARD WINSLOW:
I think there's a channel
further starboard.
STANDISH:
I spy it.
WINSLOW:
Not much further now, lads.
STANDISH:
Haul away.
Put your backs into it.
Pull, lads, pull!
NARRATOR:
In December of 1620,
after 66 days at sea
and five uneasy weeks on
the northern tip of Cape Cod,
a scraggly cult from England
anchored its sailing vessel
The Mayflower
Off the mainland coast
and sent a small party of men
to scout the wooded shores.
STANDISH:
Ship oars.
Prepare to set sail.
MAN:
That'll keep
'em away.
NARRATOR:
Radical religious views had made
the Pilgrims unwelcome
and unwanted in England.
They had no home to go back to
if they failed to make one
in this new world.
Soon after coming ashore,
the scout party stumbled
onto the Wampanoag village
of Patuxet.
Miles, it's a village.
JONATHAN PERRY:
Prior to the 1600s,
Patuxet was a large community
of, it's estimated,
well over 2,000 Native people.
In 1618, the sickness reduces
the population to almost zero.
Some kind of jewelry.
PERRY:
When the English arrive,
they find houses fallen to ruin,
fields lying fallow,
human bones bleaching in the sun
that have been scattered
by animals.
They attributed this devastation
to God looking out
and clearing the way
for his chosen people.
I think we've found a home.
MAN:
We'll need more wood
piled up over here.
NARRATOR:
Patuxet had easy access
to fresh water,
a decent harbor, and high ground
from which the Pilgrims could
defend themselves.
They set their lone cannon
on a nearby hill
and christened the village
New Plymouth.
The fortifications were hardly
sufficient to the task;
the Wampanoag, even in their
weakened state,
could have wiped out
the visitors with ease;
instead Massasoit sent warriors
to keep an eye on the strangers.
TALL OAK:
The Pilgrims reported themselves
in their journals
that they saw Indians.
And, of course,
when they didn't see them,
they thought they saw them
because any time
a bush would move
they were sure there was
an Indian behind it.
Our people always had to watch.
It was part of survival.
You had to watch anyone,
to observe how they were
and to see how they were going
to act.
CALLOWAY:
When Indian people see
the strangers who have arrived
and they've brought with them
women and children,
that makes them different
from previous Europeans that
they've seen or heard of.
JESSIE LITTLE DOE:
In Wampanoag tradition,
if you're thinking about
making trouble,
you don't bring your women and
you don't bring your children.
So to see folks showing up
with women and children,
immediately they're
not a threat.
Secondly, they're really,
really sickly
and they're starving.
WILLIAM BREWSTER:
To you who are troubled,
rest with us,
when the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from Heaven
with his mighty angels,
in flame and fire
taking vengeance on them
that know not God,
and that obey not the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray always for you,
that our God would
count you worthy
of this calling
NARRATOR:
The longer the Wampanoag
watched,
the more pitiful the strangers
appeared.
One hundred and two Pilgrims
had made the trip
across the Atlantic.
Midway through that winter,
15 had died of disease
or deprivation.
By the end of the winter,
the Pilgrims had buried 45
of their fellow travelers.
Thirteen of the 18 women
had died.
But even as their
numbers dwindled,
it was clear the strangers
were not giving up
and anxiety grew
among the Wampanoag.
While many powerful tribal
leaders or sachems
Argued that it was time
to finish off the Pilgrims
before their settlement
took hold,
Massasoit counseled patience.
The final decision on handling
the strangers would fall to him.
Sachem of the Pokanokets
One of the groups that made up
the Wampanoag confederacy
He had risen to the leadership
of all the Wampanoag,
earning his title, Massasoit.
Massasoit is a classic sort
of village chief
or super village chief
in the Algonquian world.
He is a man of great respect
among his people.
He doesn't have
the coercive power
that a European sovereign
or a monarch would have.
He is a person who leads
by example,
and people have faith in his
leadership and his experience.
NARRATOR:
Throughout that winter,
Massasoit wrestled
with the question
of how to deal
with the newcomers.
The chief's first impulse
had been to put a curse
on the Pilgrims and watch them
die off altogether.
But the weakened Wampanoag
needed any friends
they could get.
Massasoit was paying steep
tribute to the Narragansett,
but he knew his near neighbors
had the numbers
to overrun the remaining
Wampanoag villages
whenever they chose.
And he was aware
that the strangers
came from a nation of wealth
and military might.
KAREN KUPPERMAN:
During the winter of 1620-21,
Massasoit must have been
thinking about the possibilities
of some kind of alliance
because the Pilgrims look
pretty manageable,
given the fact that 50%
of them are dead
by the end of the first winter.
Massasoit and this is
an assumption that was made
by Indians all up and down
the coast
Would have thought,
"This will be good.
"I can have these people here.
"I can get from them the things
"that I want from Europeans
and I can control them.
So they'll be an ally and
a benefit to me and my people."
This country ain't
fit for man or beast.
That's ready now.
MAN:
We'll need more
wood over here.
(man yells in distance)
PILGRIM:
Get the guns!
Stay there.
NARRATOR:
In the first days
of spring, 1621,
Massasoit sent a small party
into the Pilgrim settlement.
Stay back, everyone.
(dog barking)
(speaks Nipmuc)
!
Please.
NARRATOR:
The Wampanoag chief
and 60 of his men
waited on the far side
of a small river;
he refused to enter
the village himself
until the Pilgrims agreed
to give up a hostage.
The English chose a young man
with little to lose.
Edward Winslow was a 25-year-old
whose wife was just days
from death.
You're all right, lad.
NARRATOR:
Winslow agreed to go
as the hostage
and to deliver Governor John
Carver's invitation to Massasoit
to enter Plymouth for talks.
WINSLOW:
I come from
King James
who welcomes you
with love and peace.
(speaking Nipmuc)
The King sees you, my lord,
as his friend and ally.
Please, enter our village.
Mr. Carver the governor
Would like to speak with you.
Please, we wish to be
at peace with you
as our closest neighbors.
(loud metallic clang)
Please.
(trumpeter plays)
(trumpeter and drummer
play together)
NARRATOR:
Among the men with Massasoit
that day
was a Wampanoag who could act
as translator.
(speaks Nipmuc)
NARRATOR:
Tisquantum, or Squanto, had been
kidnapped years earlier
and sold into slavery in Europe.
When he made his way back home,
Squanto could speak
a little English
and was familiar
with European custom.
(speaks Nipmuc)
My king welcomes you here.
CALLOWAY:
This is one of the very first
of these treaty encounters
that are going to become
such an important part
of Anglo-American relations
with Indian peoples
across the continent.
We want to be at peace with you.
We want you to promise that none
of your people
will harm any of our people.
(speaks Nipmuc)
Let us agree then that if anyone
unjustly attack you,
that we will help you,
and if anyone
unjustly attack us,
then you will help us.
NARRATOR:
There was cause for joy
on both sides.
The Pilgrims had friends to help
them navigate
the unfamiliar hardships
of their new home.
The Wampanoag had made
themselves
the first and favored ally
of the new English colony.
JENNY HALE PULSIPHER:
There's a very clear sense
that Massasoit understands
the entire treaty as reciprocal.
At the very end of the treaty
it says if you do these things,
then King James will esteem you
his friend and ally.
So it would make very good sense
for the Indians
to think this is an alliance,
this is a meeting
between friends.
As soon as the treaty is
concluded, that very day,
Massasoit says,
"Tomorrow I'll bring my people
and we'll plant corn
on the other side
of the stream."
So this sense that,
"Oh, we're the same people now.
We're going to be sharing
everything."
NARRATOR:
Over the coming months,
the two peoples made
halting moves
towards codifying
their alliance.
As a show of friendship,
Massasoit formally ceded the
settlers the village of Patuxet
and all the planting land
and hunting grounds around it.
In July, Edward Winslow
made a 40-mile journey
to Massasoit's village,
Pokanoket,
and presented the chief a gift
of a copper chain.
The Wampanoag agreed to trade
with the English alone
and not the French.
Massasoit would benefit as
the facilitator of trade
between the English
and other tribes.
A few weeks after
Winslow's visit,
the Pilgrims invited the
Wampanoag to take part
in their first American
thanksgiving.
But what sealed the relationship
was a simple show
of personal respect.
In February of 1623,
when a messenger arrived
at Plymouth with the news
that Massasoit was
desperately ill,
Winslow like many Algonquian
Rushed to his side.
(men and women speaking,
wailing)
KUPPERMAN:
Winslow makes the point that
this is what Indians do.
When a friend is sick,
everyone congregates
at the friend's bedside.
This is one of those places
where Winslow is acting
as he knows Indians expect
people to act.
Massasoit.
KUPPERMAN:
Edward Winslow is a very
interesting man.
He was the second in command
in Plymouth
and he's the one who takes it
upon himself
to become the principal emissary
to Massasoit.
KUPPERMAN:
Some Indians had a dual
chiefdom system.
That is, they had
a overall chief,
who is called the
"inside chief,"
who is responsible
for the community
and basically stays
within the community.
And then there's an
"outside chief,"
who is responsible
for, essentially,
foreign relations and war.
Winslow is acting
as the outside chief.
Please, heavenly Father, watch
over your child Massasoit.
Imbue him with your strength
of spirit.
NARRATOR:
Winslow's medicine was of no
particular benefit to Massasoit,
but the chief did recover
and Winslow was there,
representing the entire
Plymouth colony,
when Massasoit was able
to rise again.
NARRATOR:
In spite of a growing trust
between Edward Winslow
and Massasoit,
the relationship between the
Pilgrims and the Wampanoag
remained tentative.
The Pilgrims were separatists,
devout Christians who had fled
the Old World
for fear its corruptions would
darken the Godly light
in which they dwelled.
Corrupting influences
lurked everywhere.
She cannot mean to eat this.
NARRATOR:
Even Winslow, who found the
Wampanoag and other tribes
"trustworthy," "quick of
apprehension," and "just,"
fretted about close contact
with Indians.
LEPORE:
You see at the beginning
of the 17th century
this kind of cautious
getting to know one another.
As those peoples become more and
more dependent on one another
and exchange more and more goods
and ideas,
and people
Children, wives, families
Have more and more contact
with one another,
in a sense, the two peoples come
to share a great deal.
The English come to be more like
Indians in many ways.
They dress more like Indians;
they use Indian words.
They're familiar
with Indian ways.
And the Indians come to be more
like English.
A lot of Indians speak English;
they wear English clothes;
they build houses
that are English.
There's a reciprocity
of exchange
that actually turns out
we might think, "Oh, how lovely.
What a nice multicultural fest
that is."
But actually it makes everyone
very, very nervous.
NARRATOR:
The Pilgrims were
especially wary;
they were badly outnumbered
and many Indians, they believed,
bore the English
"an inveterate malice."
They also knew Massasoit hadn't
the power to shield them
from every danger.
So, in the spring of 1623,
after hearing rumors
of a planned attack
by Massachusett Indians
to the north,
the Pilgrims under their
militia leader Miles Standish
Made a deadly preemptive raid
and returned to Plymouth
with an object lesson
to those who would cross them.
STANDISH:
Gentlemen, here is
a proper trophy.
(cheering)
NARRATOR:
"This sudden and
unexpected execution
has so terrified the Indians,"
Edward Winslow wrote,
"that many have fled
their homes.
Living like this, on the run,
many have fallen sick and died."
Shocking and brutal
as the raid was,
Massasoit counseled his sachems
to keep up relations
with Plymouth.
The Wampanoag were still the
favored friends of the English
and the English were surely
no threat to their friends.
CALLOWAY:
Massasoit is able to keep
this peace for a long time,
which suggests that it's not
simply his personality
and his command
that's doing that.
The nature of Native society
means that he is representing
what the majority of his people
want to do.
The Indians wanted certain
things from the Europeans:
knives, axes, swords
and steel drills.
JEAN O'BRIEN:
Europeans bring things like
metal kettles
that are very useful
for Indian people
and Indian people incorporate
those goods
into their own cultures
on their own terms
and in their own ways.
LISA BROOKS:
For Native people,
trade is about binding
people together
in relationships of reciprocity.
So that was the question.
How do we bring the English
into these relationships
of reciprocity?
(speaking Nipmuc)
TALL OAK:
We lived right near
the shoreline,
and we harvested the quahogs,
which you make
the quahog chowder from
and all the other good things.
And then, after you eat the
contents, you saved the shell.
We wasted nothing
that the Creator gave
because everything was a gift,
and from the shell
from the quahog,
the purple spot is what we made
the wampum beads from.
All the tribes respected
the wampum,
and the value that wampum had
was spiritual more so
than material.
We used it in ceremony;
it sealed agreements;
it was what notarized
a transaction.
When wampum was exchanged,
no one would break the agreement
that went along with the wampum,
be it marriage agreement
or a treaty or whatever,
because it was so sacred,
and you don't go against
the Creator.
EDMUNDS:
Initially the Europeans
then will say,
"Well, this must be like silver
or gold.
"This is something that Indian
people will use
and trade back and forth."
So they accepted it initially
as well, and wampum is seen
as Native American currency
by the English.
NARRATOR:
European traders,
long familiar
with a money economy,
set in motion a system
for exchanging hard goods
for wampum,
making the Indian's traditional
ceremonial amulet
the coin of the American realm.
Trade flourished under
this ingenious new system.
English merchants eagerly
awaited Indian furs
from the New World;
the beaver hat was the
fashionable new accessory
on the streets of London.
And the arrival at Plymouth
of product-laden ships
from England was happy news
to all.
With the import of steel drills,
Native tribes could greatly
speed the manufacture of wampum.
KUPPERMAN:
It's much easier to create
a wampum shell,
to drill that hole
through the center,
with a steel drill
than with a stone drill,
and so suddenly there's
a large supply of wampum.
And what this means is
that tribes in the interior
who previously had very
little access to wampum
now are able to get it,
and they're also groups that
have furs and other things
to trade to the Europeans.
DANIEL K. RICHTER:
Plymouth colonists
rely on Massasoit
to begin brokering connections
with other Native groups.
So Massasoit becomes
this very important node in
these regional exchanges
among furs and European goods
and wampum,
all of which are being exchanged
many times in different groups
depending on who has what.
NARRATOR:
With the Pilgrims integrated
into the web of his alliances,
Massasoit's gamble
Welcoming the strangers
Seemed to have paid
handsome dividends.
RICHTER:
I think he would have looked
back over the previous decade
and thought that he had done
some pretty good work.
It must have seemed possible
to Wampanoags
and to other Native groups
in southern New England
to envision a future in which
English and Native communities
could live profitably together.
NARRATOR:
In the spring of 1630,
a fleet of ships,
led by the Arabella,
appeared off the coast
to the north of Plymouth
carrying a thousand
new immigrants.
While the Pilgrims had been
escaping Europe,
these Puritans meant
to re-create
a new and more pious England
in America.
They had embarked from England
with a grant from their king
to establish the Massachusetts
Bay colony
and with a boundless sense
of mission.
EDMUNDS:
In Europe at this time,
and particularly among the
Christian kingdoms of Europe,
there was this belief
in the right to go out
and usurp land that was not
occupied by Christian people.
And this there was a
religious basis for this
As well as political
In that this was
a God-ordained practice
in which one would be spreading
Christianity
and would be spreading
European civilization,
and there was a moral obligation
to do so.
NARRATOR:
On board the Arabella,
days before it landed,
the future governor of the new
Massachusetts Bay colony,
John Winthrop,
essayed the epic vision.
"The Lord shall make us
a praise and glory,
"for we must consider that we
shall be as a city upon a hill.
The eyes of all people
are upon us."
The Puritans washed
into Massachusetts Bay
by the thousands in the next
five years,
establishing town after town,
their path cleared by new waves
of small pox
hitting tribes in New England.
TALL OAK:
One of the historians
of the Puritans
I'm quite sure it was one
of the clergymen said,
in reference
to the death of so many
of the Massachusetts
people, that,
"The land was almost cleared
of those pernicious creatures,
so as to make way
for a better growth."
Now he's talking about women,
children, all of that,
but that's the way they related
because their unfounded notion
of European superiority.
They kept coming,
one boatload after another.
BROOKS:
You have all of these people
who are coming over from England
with that sense of entitlement.
They have this image
of the colonies
as if there's just great space
for them to occupy
and there are great resources
that are for the taking.
NARRATOR:
In less than a generation,
Massasoit saw
the English population
surrounding the Wampanoag rise
from 300 to 20,000.
KUPPERMAN:
The animals that the English
bring with them
are incredibly devastating
because they just let them
run loose.
The pigs in particular
had apparently
no natural enemies here.
They would talk about, you know,
innumerable numbers of pigs
just vacuuming up the acorns
and the other things on which
Native people relied for food
and on which these animals
that the Native people
were accustomed to hunt
relied for food.
(pigs squealing)
(yelling in Nipmuc)
RICHTER:
The population of
the English colonies
was growing dramatically
with an increasing demand
to establish new towns,
create farms and expand.
The one thing
that Native people have
that the English people
want is their land.
CALLOWAY:
Access to and acquisition of
this so-called "free land"
that the Americas offer is
a source of constant
and recurrent conflict
with Indian people.
The English came from a society
where land was in short supply.
Ownership of land was
a mark of status
as well as a source of wealth.
For Indian people,
land is homeland.
You are rooted to it
by generations of living
on the land;
your identity is tied up in it.
It's not a commodity
to be bought and sold.
NARRATOR:
Massasoit had not felt
pressured to sell land
for the first 20 years
of Plymouth's existence,
and his first commitments
to cede territory
had seemed harmless.
But just as the English became
more aggressively acquisitive,
Massasoit found himself
in a weak bargaining position.
The beaver population
was badly depleted,
collapsing the trade
on which his relationship
with the Pilgrims
had been built;
and the English no longer needed
Massasoit's help
in expanding their
commercial reach.
So he was forced to bend to his
ally's desire to have his land.
The chief got what he could
for the Wampanoag land.
He sold one parcel for ten
fathom of beads and a coat.
As time went on he asked for
more: hatchets, hoes, knives,
iron kettles, moose skins,
matchlock muskets,
yards of cotton and
pounds of English coin.
PULSIPHER:
There are several incidents
where Massasoit's clearly
disgruntled
with the way things
are changing.
For instance, he agrees to sell
some of his land
to some of the settlers
down in Rhode Island.
And they pay him for it
and he says,
"This is this is nowhere
near enough."
And he gives it back.
And they refuse to take it.
They refuse to take the gifts
the payment back.
And they say, you know,
"You can't return this
"and this is a done deal.
This land is now ours."
NARRATOR:
The English were in a race
to establish empire
in the Americas,
jockeying for territory
with the French, the Spanish,
the Swedish, the Dutch.
KUPPERMAN:
They're very expansive, and
they don't expand incrementally.
They're aware that
the Connecticut River
is a major conduit of trade.
The Dutch are already
on the lower end of the river
and so clearly they want to
control the Connecticut River
from its midsection.
With the influx of English
people in the 1630s,
Puritan New England ceases to be
weak and vulnerable
and now becomes a power
in the region.
As they look further west,
they see another major power.
The English identify the Pequot
as an obstacle
to their expansion.
NARRATOR:
In the spring of 1637,
Massasoit received word
that a force,
led by Massachusetts Bay
and Plymouth colonies,
had destroyed the Pequot,
the most powerful Indian
confederacy in the area.
In the final battle,
English soldiers
To the horror
of their Indian allies
Had burned an undefended
village, killing hundreds.
O'BRIEN:
The Pequot War established
in Indian minds
the potential savagery
of the English.
The idea of 700 people
Men, women and children
Perishing in the burning
of a fort
was incomprehensible to Indians.
It was a cautionary tale
that Massasoit did not forget.
NARRATOR:
Soon after the destruction
of the Pequot,
Massasoit traveled
to Massachusetts Bay Colony
to deliver to its governor,
John Winthrop,
a gift of 16 beaver skins
and to restate
his long-standing friendship
with the colonists,
all in hopes that they
would continue to honor
the promise of shared security
the English had made in
that first, long-ago treaty.
PULSIPHER:
Massasoit hopes
that this tribute
is going to solidify his
friendship with Massachusetts
because he's worried,
and he's not the only one.
Winthrop writes in his journal
that after the Pequot War,
dozens of Indian groups in
the area come to Massachusetts
to the court and try
to make friends
Say, you know, "We want to be
your friends, your partners,
your subjects,"
whatever it takes.
They're frightened.
(children laughing)
NARRATOR:
Massasoit's eventual heir
his second son
Was born around the time
of the Pequot War
and nearly 20 years after
the arrival of the Pilgrims.
He knew no world but the one
in which English and Wampanoag
lived together.
Even his names would suggest a
man comfortable in two cultures;
he was first called Metacom,
and later Philip.
He came of age in the 1650s,
in a world his forefathers
could not have imagined.
He fancied fine English lacework
and richly detailed wampum.
He was one of the few Wampanoag
who kept pigs.
And he counted among
his close friends
both Indians and Englishmen.
He was described
by an English traveler
as walking through
the streets of Boston
decked out in massive amounts
of wampum,
showing his wealth
and his power,
comfortable walking
in this world
that had been created together
by the English and
the Native people of the region.
NARRATOR:
As he approached manhood,
Philip was more and more aware
of his father's growing unease.
Massasoit's tribal borders
had receded
in around Narragansett Bay.
Disease continued to thin
the Wampanoag.
His trusted ally,
Edward Winslow, had died.
The new leadership in Plymouth
had little memory of the time
they had needed
Massasoit's help.
When do the English
lose their sense of openness?
Well, when they become
more independent.
When they realize that they
no longer need the Indians.
And right around that same time,
in the 1650s,
they make one attempt to convert
the Indians to Christianity,
which is to say, in effect,
"Well, if you're going to live
among us,
"you need to basically
become us,
"because we can't live
with people
who are different
from ourselves."
NARRATOR:
In 1651,
Puritan minister John Eliot
established a "praying town"
in Natick, Massachusetts.
In Natick, as in the dozen
praying towns that followed,
Indians who converted
to Christianity
were assured physical security
and the promise of eternal life
so long as they agreed to live
by moral codes
drawn up by Puritan clergy.
TALL OAK:
The praying Indian towns were
set up by the English
to basically control Indians.
You had all these rules
that were alien in concept,
and Native people had to do
everything in the English way;
and everything Indian,
of course
All the traditions that were
sacred to your fathers
and your father's father
since time immemorial
You had to reject all that
in favor of following
the English way.
So you had to look down
on your own people,
essentially,
is what it boiled down to.
Wampanoag people here
got the idea
that somehow if we are
to survive at all,
we've got to at least say
that we're assimilated.
We've got to say that we're
Christian, whatever that means,
or we're going to be wiped out
completely.
In order to be accepted as
a full member of the church,
you needed to relate
a conversion experience
that was witnessed
by the congregation
and that was deemed sufficient
that you've been saved,
that you believe yourself
to be saved.
We have this remarkable set
of documents
that were published at the time
called Tears of Repentance
that were Indians from Natick
relating their conversion
experiences.
And they were witnessed
by a panel of ministers.
MAN (dramatized reading):
I heard that Word,
that it is a shame for a man
to wear long hair,
and that there was no such
custom in the Churches;
at first I thought I loved not
long hair, but I did,
and found it very hard
to cut it off;
and then I prayed to God
to pardon that sin also.
MAN (dramatized reading):
When they said the devil
was my god,
I was angry,
because I was proud.
I loved to pray to many gods.
Then, going to your house,
I more desired to hear of God.
Then I was angry with myself
and loathed myself
and thought God will not
forgive my sins.
MAN (dramatized reading):
I see God is still angry with me
for all my sins
and He hath afflicted me by the
death of three of my children,
and I fear God is still angry
because great are my sins,
and I fear lest my children
be not gone to Heaven.
The English missionaries
demanded from Indian people
much more than an expressed
belief in their god.
It was part of an English
cultural assault,
which Massasoit must have seen
was tearing apart
many Native communities.
And I think that's why
he wants to try and
curb the missionaries,
try and stop this kind
of assault taking place.
(whooping)
NARRATOR:
As Massasoit's days drew down,
he made a point of stipulating
in land deeds
that Christian missionaries
stay out
of what remained
of Wampanoag territory.
(singing)
(cheering)
(speaking Nipmuc)
NARRATOR:
Having watched the English erode
his tribe's landholdings
and his father's authority,
Philip determined to make
a marriage of power.
He wed a woman who was a leader
in her own right,
the daughter of a chief who had
opposed Massasoit's alliance
with the English
from the beginning.
CALLOWAY:
Massasoit must have wondered
what kind of world
he was handing on to his sons,
to his children.
I think there's
a certain resignation
in some of his actions toward
the end of his life,
an attempt to stem the tide of
English assault on Indian land,
on Indian culture,
on Indian sovereignty,
and a lingering hope that maybe
things will still work out okay,
maybe there can still be peace,
because I think that
was his vision
of what New England would be,
was a vision of peace.
NARRATOR:
Massasoit died
in the early 1660s,
40 years after his first
alliance with the Pilgrims.
His passing came just as
a new hard-edged generation
of English leaders
was rising to power
Men like Josiah Winslow,
Edward's son,
who was intent on hastening
the final reckoning
between the Wampanoag
and the English.
Philip, just 24 years old,
took his father's place
as the Wampanoag chief.
JONATHAN PERRY:
And suddenly it's all on him.
He was leading in
a very difficult
and very dangerous time,
where essentially every part
of our society
was being stripped away.
RICHTER:
The wampum trade was declining;
the fur trade was declining.
The demand for the English
to acquire more and more
Algonquian land was increasing.
More and more Native people,
for whatever reason,
were choosing to move
to praying towns.
The world that had
created Philip
was collapsing around him.
NARRATOR:
Philip hoped to strike
a delicate balance,
maintaining his alliances
among the English
while also maintaining
what remained
of Wampanoag sovereignty.
He continued to abide by the
terms of his father's treaty.
But like his father,
he rejected repeated efforts
by Puritan missionaries
to convert him.
"If I became a praying sachem,
I shall be a poor and weak one,"
he said, "and easily
trod upon by others."
He also declared a moratorium
on land sales.
English authorities had little
interest in humoring
the young Wampanoag chief.
O'BRIEN:
There were a variety of ways
that English claimed possession
of Indian lands
Everything from just
seizing them
and then attending to
the legalities much later;
merely occupying lands that
they want to declare vacant
and thus available
for the taking;
and one that is, I think,
often overlooked
is that the English would get
Indians indebted.
As Indians continued
to experience ill health
and epidemic disease,
one of the things
they become indebted for
is health care that's being
provided by English guardians.
These English guardians
used this as a way
to get their hands
on Indian land.
So that once the debts have
been accumulated,
they go to the Indian estate
for the land for payment.
And this becomes
a massive mechanism
of Indian dispossession.
What people felt for millennia
"This is my land,
and my land is me, and I am it,"
obviously, because we come
from it, and we eat from it,
and things die,
they go into the land,
and we eat from what grows
from there.
So when we say land ahh-key,
it's just ahh-key land.
But if you say "my land,"
you have to say na-tahh-keem.
This means that
"I am physically the land,
and the land is physically me."
And after Europeans were here
for about 70 years,
people started to write
na-tahh-key, which is so sad,
because that means
"I am not necessarily
part of the land anymore"
My land can be separated
from my person.
EDMUNDS:
There is a continual erosion
of tribal people's ability
to maintain control
over their own lives.
And I think by the 1660s,
Philip finds himself
up against the wall.
In other words,
unless one makes a stand,
the Wampanoag
or the tribal people
are going to be completely
overrun.
NARRATOR:
In 1671, rumors spread
that Philip was growing angry
and preparing to act.
Authorities in Plymouth
Josiah Winslow
chief among them
Summoned Philip
to account for himself.
LEPORE:
Josiah Winslow has
no curiosity whatsoever
about these people with whom
he's grown up.
He's known them all his life.
He considers them an obstacle.
He considers them untrustworthy.
He wants nothing more than to
find a means of provoking a war
that could lead
to their extermination.
WINSLOW:
You have,
have you not, in recent times,
procured a great and unusual
supply of both ammunition
and provisions,
planning an attack on us
both here in Taunton
and in other places?
These charges against me
are false.
If you have no such designs,
have your men hand
over their weapons.
TALL OAK:
He had two choices:
either give all the weapons up
or acknowledge to the English
that he was preparing for war,
as they were accusing him of.
So he had to choose the lesser
of the two evils.
(men conversing angrily)
NARRATOR:
Before taking his leave,
Philip was made to sign
a confession
in which he admitted disloyalty
to the English
and promised to turn over
any weapons the Wampanoag
had amassed.
RICHTER:
This is a real turning point
for Philip
in that it's quite clear that
the aims now of the English
are not just to gain more
and more land,
not just to undercut
Native people
economically and spiritually,
but clearly to make Native
people their subjects.
EDMUNDS:
They no longer are being treated
as equals;
they're no longer being treated
as allies;
they're being treated
essentially
as second-class citizens
in their own country.
NARRATOR:
Philip was not eager to make
a fight with the English.
A war would shred his father's
historic alliance
and put his entire tribe
in peril.
There were only a thousand
Wampanoag remaining,
and nearly half were living
in the praying towns.
Philip had few warriors.
But the Wampanoag chief
did prepare,
seeking allies
among nearby tribes
and quietly buying up firearms.
At home in Mount Hope,
with his English friends nearby,
Philip wrestled
with the enormity
of a war against Josiah Winslow
and Plymouth colony.
He was clearly a person caught
in historical forces
that gave him very difficult
choices,
and like many Indian leaders
in those situations
across the continent,
he must have been weighing
the options of peace and war,
he must have been trying to
balance conflicting pressures.
NARRATOR:
Betrayal forced Philip's hand.
In January 1675,
Philip's personal secretary
traveled to Plymouth
to warn Governor Winslow that
Philip was arming for war.
Three weeks later,
the secretary was dead.
English authorities arrested
three of Philip's men,
tried them for the murder
and executed them.
For Indian people, of course,
a killing of an Indian
by an Indian in Indian country
was something that should have
been settled by Indian people.
After that blatant assault
on Indian sovereignty,
Philip must have been
under incredible pressure
from his warriors to step up
and do something about this.
NARRATOR:
As whispers of a coming war
spread among the English
colonists that following summer,
the deputy governor
of Rhode Island
invited Philip to a meeting
to offer some friendly advice.
Koonepeam, Philip.
EASTON:
We thank you
for coming over
to speak with us.
Our business is to try to
prevent you from doing wrong.
We have done no wrong.
EASTON:
If you start a war
against the English,
much blood will be spilt.
A war will bring in
all Englishmen,
for we're all under one king.
I urge you to lay down
your arms, Philip,
because the English are
too strong for you.
Then the English should treat us
as we treated the English
when we were too strong
for the English.
NARRATOR:
Philip's angry young warriors
refused to heed Easton's warning
that war with Plymouth
would bring every colony in
New England down on their heads.
Days after the conference
with Easton,
Philip sent warning
from Mount Hope
to an old English friend
in nearby Swansea:
it might be best
to leave the area.
NARRATOR:
When Wampanoag warriors began
their rampage,
Philip stood with them,
convincing other aggrieved
tribes in the area,
including the Wampanoags'
old rival, the Narragansett,
to join their fight
against New England,
a fight the English would come
to call King Philip's War.
EDMUNDS:
This war that breaks out in
New England is a major war.
It has a big impact on the
societies in New England,
both Native American and white.
By the winter of 1676 or so,
to get outside of Boston
for Europeans was a very
dangerous prospect.
RICHTER:
Native American forces had
devastating victories
over the English in the early
months of that war,
destroyed large numbers of towns
and people and property,
and were very much winning
that war
and putting the English
on the defensive.
EDMUNDS:
The war spread to Connecticut.
The war spread
into Rhode Island.
The war spread
into eastern New York.
Tribe after tribe after tribe
became involved in this.
NARRATOR:
English colonists
from the outlying villages
fled to bigger towns.
Some simply boarded ships
and headed back to Europe.
Alarmists among
the English feared
they would all be driven
into the sea.
The English look now very
differently at Indian people,
even those Indian people
who have lived among them,
even those Indian people
who have committed
to living a Christian life and
are living in the praying towns.
These Indians now come to be
regarded as, at the very least,
a potential fifth column
As people who cannot be trusted,
as people who are liable
to turn on you at any time.
NARRATOR:
As winter approached,
the colonists banished hundreds
of Christian Indians
living in the praying towns
Men, women and children.
They took them on a forced march
to the Charles River,
put them in canoes,
and put them on Deer Island
in the middle of Boston Harbor,
which at that time of year
is a cold, blustery place.
Over 300 or 400 perished
from lack of food and exposure,
because they gave them no
blankets or food or anything
and just dumped them there.
NARRATOR:
The war ground on,
month after month,
exacting a terrible price.
25 English towns were destroyed.
More than 2,000 English
colonists died.
But the shared danger
did unite the colonies,
and they lashed back.
In early 1676, Philip could feel
the tide turning,
and then the powerful Mohawks,
longtime allies of the English,
made a surprise attack,
killing almost 500 of Philip's
men and dooming his confederacy.
(woman sobbing)
A year into the war,
scores of Indian villages had
been burned to ash.
5,000 Native people had died.
Hundreds of men, women and
children who did survive
"heathen malefactors,"
Josiah Winslow called them
Were loaded onto boats, shipped
to the West Indies and Europe
and sold into slavery.
(wailing)
Native tribes in southern
New England had been crushed
and would never again control
their destiny in their homeland.
In the summer of 1676,
Philip retreated home
to Mount Hope with his wife
and children,
his cause all but lost.
PULSIPHER:
It does seem a little unusual
that he would come back
to Mount Hope,
because there are so many troops
around there
looking for him.
It's like consciously walking
into a trap.
LEPORE:
When he returns to Mount Hope,
he certainly has given up.
He's going there to die.
Rather than a grand,
heroic military figure,
he's a more poignant,
sad figure,
a person filled with sorrow
at the end of his life.
NARRATOR:
On August 12, 1676,
an English militia unit
Along with a praying Indian
named John Alderman
Surprised Philip and his
dwindling band of followers.
PERRY:
After Philip was shot
by Alderman,
they dismembered his body.
The scarred right hand of Philip
was given to Alderman
as a trophy of the war.
His parts were strewn
about the colonies,
spread to the four corners.
This is a warning to other
people, to other Indian people.
This is what the English will
This is how the English will
deal with rebellion,
deal with treason.
And remember that in English
eyes, Philip was a traitor,
and this was the punishment
meted out
by 17th-century Englishmen
to traitors.
NARRATOR:
Massasoit's son was dead
and scattered,
but the colonists were taking
no chances;
they captured Philip's son
and heir a nine-year-old boy
And locked him in a jail
in Plymouth.
While English authorities
deliberated
on whether to sell the boy into
slavery or simply murder him,
the Puritans gave thanks
to their God.
LEPORE:
And the final day
of thanksgiving of the war
is the day that Philip's head
is marched into Plymouth.
This decapitated head on a pole,
it's erected
in the center of town
and is cause
for a great celebration.
NARRATOR:
They wouldn't take it down,
Philip's head.
For two decades, while Philip's
son lived in slavery
in the West Indies,
the head was displayed
in Plymouth,
a reminder to the Indians
about who was in charge,
a reminder to the English
that God continued to smile
on their endeavor.
CALLOWAY:
It's hard to see how conflict
could have been avoided
and how the outcome of that war
could have been different.
Looking at the generation
before this war,
there is at least a moment
where things were different.
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