— 1,100 Gunther. (high est.) “1675: King Philip’s War.” In Campbell. Disasters, 2008, 13.[1]
–300-1000 Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide… 2007, p. 239.
— >1,000 Tompkins. The Great Swamp Fight 19th of December 1675. 1906, p. 9.
— >1,000 Willsey and Lewis. “Massachusetts,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 487.
— 600-800 Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America. In Drake 1836, p. 165.[2]
— 300-700 Bodge, G.. The Narragansett Fort Fight, December 19, 1675. Boston, 1886, 15.[3]
— >600 Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars. 2007, p. 17.
— ~600 Utley, Robert M. and W. E. Washburn. Indian Wars. Boston: Mariner, 2002, 54.
— >400 Gunther. (Low est.) “1675: King Philip’s War.” In Campbell. Disasters, 2008, 13.
— 370 Wikipedia. “Great Swamp Fight.”
— 365 Hyde. “Historic Great Swamp Opened At Last.” The Regional Review (NPS), 1938.
Narrative Information
Bodge: “After three hours hard fighting, with many of the officers and men wounded or dead, a treacherous enemy of unknown numbers and resources lurking in the surrounding forests, and the night coming on, word comes to fire the wigwams, and the battle becomes a fearful holocaust, great numbers of those who had taken refuge therein being burned….When now the fortress and all its contents were burning, and destruction assured, our soldiers hastily gathered their wounded and as many as possible of their dead, and formed their shattered column for the long and weary march back to Wickford….” (Bodge 1886, 11.)
“Of the losses of the enemy there can be no reliable account. Capt. Oliver says, ‘By the best intelligence we killed 300 fighting men, and took say 350 and above 300 women and children.’ Mr. Dudley, two days after the fight, reckons about two hundred; Capt. Mosely counted sixty-four in one corner of the fort; and Capt. Gorham made an estimate of at lest one hundred and fifty. The desperate strait of the Indians is shown by their leaving the dead in their flight. Indian prisoners afterward reported seven hundred killed.” (Bodge 1886, 15.) (Bodge, George Madison. The Narragansett Fort Fight, December 19, 1675. Boston, 1886, pp. 11, 15.)
Drake: “1675….Dec. 19. – The memorable Narraganset Swamp Fight takes place, in which about 100 English perish and 6 or 700 Indians. The English army returns home soon after and is disbanded.” (Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836. In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836, p. 165.)
Gunther: “The first colonial victory was the ‘Great Swamp Fight,’ directed against the main Narragansett community in southwestern Rhode Island. Guided by warriors from the Mohegan and Pequot tribes, allied to Connecticut, the colonists attacked on December 19, 1675, firing Narragansett homes and their fort, killing roughly 100 warriors and between 300 and 1,000 women and children at a cost of 220 casualties. It was a controversial victory against a neutral tribe that had reportedly harbored Wampanoag refugees, and it drove the desperate Narragansett to join Philip’s rebellion…. “Roughly 4,000 Algonquian and 2,000 colonists (and allies) died, making King Philip’s War per capita the most devastating war in American history.” (Gunther. “1675: King Philip’s War.” 13-14)
Hyde. “Historic Great Swamp Opened At Last.” The Regional Review (NPS), 1938:
“The Great Swamp at South Kingston, Rhode Island, was the site of the last stand of the Narragansett Indians in King Philip’s War against the Colonists. In the bloody engagement which took place there on Sunday, December 19, 1675, troops from the Confederation of the United Colonies of New England including Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut and Rhode Island took part and because of the numbers participating, killed and wounded, the battle had been unequalled in New England up to that time. As a result of the battle, the military strength and resources of the most powerful Indian tribe in New England were broken forever.
“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.
“In 1906 a rough granite shaft about 20 feet high was erected by the Rhode Island Society of Colonial Wars to commemorate this battle. Around the mound on which the shaft stands are four roughly squared granite markers engraved with the names of the colonies which took part in the encounter and two tablets on opposite sides of the shaft give additional data.” (Hyde, Gerald H. “Historic Great Swamp Opened At Last.” The Regional Review (NPS), Vol. I, No. 6, Dec 1938.)
Kiernan: “On November 2, 1675, the Commissioners of the Puritan United Colonies proclaimed that the Narragansetts were ‘deeply accessory in the present bloody outrages.’ Six companies of foot and a cavalry troop from Massachusetts joined the forces of Governor Winslow of Plymouth, who became the commanding officer. They set out to stage a preventive attack on the Narragansetts. Some 300 Connecticut soldiers and 150 Mohegans and Pequots reinforced them on December 18. The next day, the English army surrounded the main Narragansett fort in the Great Swamp. It comprised 500-600 wigwams, housing 3,000 or 4,000 Indians, mostly women and children.
“As at Mystic in 1637 and Stamford seven years later, the English fired the fort and killed Indians who fled their burning wigwams. One Englishman reported that his fellows ‘had now a Carnage rather than a Fight, for every one had their fill of Blood.’ Benjamin Tompson reflected: ‘Had we been cannibals here might we feast.’ He celebrated the attack with a poem: ‘Sundry the flames arrest and some the blade / By bullets heaps on heaps on Indians laid / …Here might be heard an hideous Indian cry, / Of wounded ones who in the wigwams fry.’ An Englishman whom the Narragansetts had held captive in the fort stated that the Indians later returned and counted 97 of their warriors killed and 48 wounded, ‘beside what slaughter was made in the houses and by the burning of the houses.’ Only five or six wigwams remained standing. Attackers led by Benjamin Church fired on a group of 60 to 70 Indian fighters, one of whom later told Church that the volley had ‘killed 14 dead on the spot and wounded a greater number,’ of whom many died of their injuries. Church reported: ‘Some of the enemy that were then in the fort have since informed us that nearly a third of the Indians belonging to all that Narragansett country were killed by the English and by the cold that night.’ The English attack had killed between 300 and 1,000 women and children. It was ‘total war.’
“The next month the Connecticut Council urged New York to send Mohawks against Philip to ‘utterly extirpate this bloody generation…to gratify the English.’” (Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. Yale University Press, 2007, p. 238-239.)
Nunnally: “December 19, 1675, The Great Swamp Fight – Rhode Island. The combined armies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Connecticut, totaling more than 1,150, attack a large fortified Narragansett village called Canonchet’s Fort located in the Great Swamp. Completely overwhelmed, the Indians flee into the swamp, leaving over 600 dead on the field. More than eighty of the English troops are killed.”[4] (Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars: A Chronology of Confrontations Between Native Peoples and Settlers and the United States Military, 1500s-1901. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2007, p. 17.)
Tompkins. The Great Swamp Fight 19th of December 1675. 1906, pp. 3, 5-11:
“Of all the single incidents,” says John Fiske, in what is known as King Philip’s War, the most bloody and disastrous to the forces, and in the numbers engaged on each side, and most important in its results, is what has been designated as the Great Swamp Fight.”….
“Early in December, the Colonial troops commenced to gather. There were six companies from Massachusetts, under the command of Major Appleton and Captains Moseley, Gardner, Davenport, Oliver and Johnson; from Connecticut, five companies, under Major Treat and Captains Seeley, Gallup, Mason, Watts and Marshall; two companies from Plymouth, under Major Bradford and Captain Gorham. Captain Benjamin Church was invited by Governor Winslow to command a company: he declined taking a commission, but promised to accompany the expedition as a volunteer. Attached to the levy from Connecticut were some Mohegan Indians; but they did not render any substantial aid in the fight which followed….
“…on the 18th the various forces were united and the whole army encamped in the open air, the weather being cold and snowy. The next day, upon setting out, Captains Moseley and Davenport led the van; Major Appleton and Captain Oliver followed; General Winslow and the Plymouth forces held the centre; and the Connecticut contingent brought up the rear. Captain Oliver in his account says: “In the morning, Dec. 19th, Lord’s Day, at five o’clock, we marched; snow two or three feet deep and withal an extreme hard frost so that some of our men were frozen in their hands and feet and thereby disabled from service.” Cotton Mather says in his work: The whole army marched away through cold and snow and very amazing difficulties enough to have damned any ordinary fortitude.” The cold, severe as it was upon the men, proved, however, of this advantage: that it froze the surroundings of the fort and made its capture more feasible.
“The stronghold of the Narragansetts, fifteen miles away, was reached at one o’clock. This fort which the Indians had fortified to the best of their ability, was on a solid piece of upland, encompassed by a swamp. In it were gathered according to the best authorities, about thirty-five hundred Indians. On the inner side of this natural defence they had driven rows of palisades, encircled about with a hedge nearly a rod in thickness; and the only entrance to the enclosure was by a fallen tree or log; four or five feet from the ground, “this bridge being protected by a block house right over against it, from which,” says Hubbard, “they sorely galled our men that first went in.”
“In spite of the fact the English were wearied by their long march through the snow, scarcely halting to refresh themselves with food, immediately upon arriving they commenced the onset. The Colonists had been so long in making their preparations that the Indians were well apprised of their approach and had made the best arrangements in their power to withstand them. The beginning was most disastrous to the officers. Captain Johnson, of Roxbury, was shot dead on the bridge as he was rushing over at the head of his company. Captain Davenport, of Boston, had succeeded in penetrating within the enclosure when he met the same fate. Captain Gardner, of Salem, and two of the Connecticut Captains, Gallup, of New London, and Marshall, of Windsor, were also killed outright, while Lieutenant Upham, of Boston, and Captain Seeley, of Stratford, received wounds which afterwards proved fatal. Major Bradford, of Plymouth, was sorely wounded, as well as Captain John Mason, of Norwich, and Captain Benjamin Church.
“Notwithstanding the fall of their leaders, the rank and file pressed on, and although the entrance was choked by the bodies of the slain yet, over the mangled corpses of their comrades, the assailants climbed the logs and breastworks in their efforts to penetrate the fort. Once they were beaten out, but they soon rallied and regained their ground. The conflict raged with varying success for nearly three hours. “The struggle,” says Arnold, “on either side was one for life;” “Whichever party,” he adds, “should triumph, there was no hope for the vanquished; Christian and savage fought alike with the fury of fiends, and the sanctity of the New England Sabbath was broken by the yells of the savages, the roar of musketry, the clash of steel and all the demoniac passions which make a battle ground an earthly hell.” The carnage was fearful; the result was yet doubtful; until an entrance to the fort was effected in the rear by the reserve guard of the Connecticut troops. “The Indians, who were all engaged at the first point of attack, were surprised and confused by a heavy fire behind them; their powder was nearly consumed; but their arrows continued to rain a deadly shower upon the charging foe. The wigwams were set on fire within the fort, contrary to the earnest entreaty of Captain Church, who, with his knowledge of military matters and the condition of the assailants, realized the importance of shelter and food to the exhausted conquerors.” He says in his narrative that “he begged them to forbear and spare the wigwams in the fort from fire,” for, he adds, “they were all lined with baskets and tubbs of grain and other provisions sufficient to supply the whole army until Spring, and every wounded man might have a good warm house to lodge in, which otherways would necessarily perish with the storm and cold, and, moreover, that the army had no other provisions to trust unto or depend upon; that he knew the Plymouth forces had not so much as a biscake left, for he had seen their last dealt out.”….but it was too late. The infuriated Colonists had already commenced the work of destruction; in a few minutes the frail material of five hundred Indian dwellings furnished the funeral pyre of the wounded and dying; the blazing homes of the Narragansetts lighted their path to death.”
“More than a thousand of the enemy perished. The English lost, in killed and wounded, according to Hubbard, over two hundred; and other accounts place the numbers still higher. A large proportion of these might have been saved if the advice of Church had been followed.
“When night fell there was no shelter or provisions for the conquerors or conquered. The Indians escaped to an open cedar swamp in the neighborhood, where many perished for want of food or covering. “The fate of the English,” says Rhode Island’s historian, “was no better. They had taken a weary march of fifteen miles since daybreak, without halting for food, and had spent the remainder of the day in desperate combat. They had now to retrace their steps in the dark, through a dense forest, with a deep snow beneath their feet and a December storm howling about their heads. By the glare of the burning wigwams they formed their line of march back to Wickford, bearing with them their dead and wounded,”…
“It was two o’clock before they reached the camping ground. The cold was severe; many died on the way; the limbs of the wounded were stiffened; and fatigue had disabled most of the remainder. There was no shelter or provisions of any sort, and when morning dawned it was found that death had done a melancholy work. The heavy storm during the night had wrapped many a brave soldier in his winding sheet, and the depth of the new fallen snow made it difficult for the survivors, in their weak condition, even to move. Captain Church truthfully says in his narrative: Having burned up all the houses and provisions in the fort, the army returned the same night in the storm and cold, and I suppose that every one that is acquainted with that night most deeply laments the miseries that attended them, especially the wounded and dying men. But it mercifully came to pass that Captain Andrew Belcher arrived at Mr. Smith’s from Boston with a vessel laden with provisions for the army, who must otherwise have perished for want.”
“After the Great Swamp Fight the sick and wounded were carried to the Island of Rhode Island, where they were cared for by the people of Portsmouth and Newport….
“The power of the Narragansetts was irretrievably broken; the survivors returned the next day to their smouldering and ruined fort, and found some provisions to ameliorate their starving condition. It was fortunate that the Indians had been too dazed by their defeat to pursue their retreating foes or the remnant of the English army would have been destroyed; and this course, says Mather, had been advised by some of the leaders of the Narragansetts.
“Although fought upon her own soil and a great sufferer, yet Rhode Island, as such, took no part in the expedition. The enterprise was undertaken by the so-called Confederacy, of which Rhode Island was not a member. The religious freedom of that Colony caused her to be regarded with suspicion by the other governments, and she was left out of their union. Neither was the consent of Rhode Island asked to invade her territory for the purpose in hand, which was a violation of her Charter and a disregard of the rights of a sister Colony.
“The Commissioners of the Confederacy averred that the Narragansetts had proved treacherous, but the General Assembly of Rhode Island believed the war unnecessary. In a letter to the Connecticut authorities the following year, they claimed that the Narragansetts were subjects of His Majesty the King, and put under the government of Rhode Island, and that there had been no manifestation of war against us from them till by the United Colonies they were forced to war or to such submission as it seems they could not subject themselves to, thereby involving us in such hazards, charges and losses which have fallen upon us in our plantations that no Colony has received the like, considering our numbers and people.” But notwithstanding this assertion on the part of the General Assembly, it can hardly be conceived that the Narragansetts would have remained quiet under the circumstances, stirred up, as they were, by the machinations and persuasions of King Philip; and if they had not been subdued at this time still greater must have been the sufferings of Rhode Island….” (Tompkins. The Great Swamp Fight 19th of December 1675. 1906, p. 3, 5-11)
Utley and Washburn: “Perhaps three hundred warriors and an equal number of women and children were killed. The attackers lost seventy men, among them seven of the fourteen company commanders.” (Utley, Robert M. and Wilcomb E. Washburn. Indian Wars. Boston: Mariner Books, 2002, p. 54.)
Wikipedia. “Great Swamp Fight.”:
“On November 2 1675, Josiah Winslow led a combined force of over 1000 colonial militia including about 150 Pequot and Mohegan Indians against the Narragansett tribe living around Narragansett Bay. The Narragansett tribe had not yet been directly involved in the war, but had allegedly sheltered many of King Philip’s men, women and children and several of their warriors had reportedly been seen in Indian raiding parties… The colonists distrusted the Narragansett and feared the tribe would join King Phillip’s cause come spring, which caused great concern due to the tribe’s location. The decision was made to preemptively strike the Narragansett before an assumed uprising. Several abandoned Narragansett Indian villages were found and burned as the militia marched through the cold winter around Narragansett Bay. The tribe had retreated to a large fort in the center of a swamp near Kingston, Rhode Island. The building of such a defensive structure gives credence to the argument that the Narragansett never intended aggressive actions, thus the colonist’s preemptive attack may have been unwarranted and overzealous.
“Led by an Indian guide, on December 16, 1675 on a bitterly cold storm-filled day, the main Narragansett fort near modern South Kingstown, Rhode Island was found and attacked by the colonial militia from Plymouth Colony, Connecticut Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony. The massive fort occupying about 5 acres (20,000 m2) of land and was initially occupied by over a thousand Indians was eventually overrun after a fierce fight. The Indian fort was burned, its inhabitants, including women and children, killed or evicted and most of the tribe’s winter stores destroyed. It is believed that about 300 Indians were killed (exact figures are unknown) in the fighting. Many of the warriors and their families escaped into the frozen swamp. Facing a winter with little food and shelter, the whole surviving Narragansett tribe was forced out of quasi-neutrality some had tried to maintain in the on-going war and joined the fight alongside Philip. The colonists lost many of their officers in this assault and about 70 of their men were killed and nearly 150 more wounded. The dead and wounded colonial militiamen were evacuated to the settlements on Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay where they were buried or cared for by many of the Rhode Island colonists until they could return to their homes.
The Great Swamp Fight was a critical blow to the Narragansett tribe from which they never fully recovered. In April 1676, the Narragansett were completely defeated when the Wampanoag sachem Metacom was shot in the heart.” (Wikipedia. “Great Swamp Fight.”)
Sources:
Bodge, George Madison. The Narragansett Fort Fight, December 19, 1675. Boston, 1886. Accessed: http://books.google.com/books?id=ajQBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836. In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Gunther, Michael. “1675: King Philip’s War,” pp. 13-14 in Campbell, Ballard C (ed.). Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: A Reference Guide to the Nation’s Most Catastrophic Events. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2008.
Hyde, Gerald H. (Inspector for Massachusetts and Rhode Island). “Historic Great Swamp Opened At Last.” The Regional Review (National Park Service), Volume I, No. 6, December, 1938. At: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/regional_review/vol1-6f.htm
Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. Yale University Press, 2007, p. 239. Partially Google digitized. Accessed 1-26-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=XR91bs70jukC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=1676&f=false
Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars: A Chronology of Confrontations Between Native Peoples and Settlers and the United States Military, 1500s-1901. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2007.
Tompkins, Hamilton B. The Great Swamp Fight 19th of December 1675 (A Paper read before the New York Chapter of the Colonial Order April 11th, 1906). NY Chapter of the Colonial Order, 1906. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=sqkTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Utley, Robert M. and Wilcomb E. Washburn. Indian Wars. Boston: Mariner Books, 2002.
Wikipedia. “Great Swamp Fight.” 5-2-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Swamp_Fight
Willsey, Joseph H. (Compiler), Charlton T. Lewis (Editor). Harper’s Book of Facts: A Classified History of the World. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[1] “Roughly” one hundred warriors and upwards of 1,000 women, children and elderly.
[2] Drake writes that the English kill 600-700 Natives, while losing 100 of their own.
[3] Three hundred “fighting men” is noted as a Capt. Oliver’s “best intelligence,” whereas the “Indian prisoners afterward reported seven hundred killed.” Women and children as well as elderly non-combatants were in the structures set fire and thus burned to death. It would be usual that women and children and the elderly would greatly outnumber “fighting men.” Thus it seems probable that the Native fatalities would be significantly higher than 300.
[4] Cites: Church, Colonel Benjamin. Diary of King Philip’s War. Chester, CT: Pequot Press, 1975; Hoyt, Edwin P. America’s Wars & Military Excursions. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1987; Leach, Douglas Edward. Flintlock and Tomahawk: New England in King Philip’s War. NY: Macmillan, 1958; Lincoln, Charles H. Narratives of The Indian Wars. NY Barnes & Noble Books, 1913; and Schultz, Eric B. and Michael J. Tougias. King Philip’s War. Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 1999.
