ors, with promise of such rewards as they judge meet, to get the Mohegans and Pequots” to cut off the Indians of Philip. Governor Winslow was commander-in-chief, and was instructed by “care, courage, diligence, policy and favor, to discover, pursue and encounter, and by the help of God to vanquish and subdue the cruel, barbarous and treacherous enemy, whether Philip Sachem and his Wampanoags, or the Narraganset and his undoubted allies, or any other their friends and abettors.”
Canonchet, son of Miantonomo and grand nephew of Canonicus, was chief of the Narragansets. When the colonists first became acquainted with this tribe, Canonicus was their sachem, but his nephew Miantonomo was associated with him in the government. This sachem was never a friend to the English, and he early sent to Plymouth a bundle of arrows bound in a rattle-snake’s skin as a war challenge. Miantonomo was less hostile, but Canonchet manifested the spirit of his grand uncle. Immediately after hostilities commenced with Philip the English demanded of Canonchet the surrender of certain Pokanokets alleged to be within his dominions. This was his reply: “Deliver the Indians of Philip! Never. Not a Wampanoag will I ever give up. No. Not the paring of a Wampanoag’s nail.”
He was of course charged with being in alliance with Philip. A force of a thousand men with such Indian allies as could be mustered, was marched immediately into his country. This was the force engaged on the 19th of December in the famous Swamp Fight, the most sanguinary battle of Philip’s War. Six hundred warriors were slain, six hundred wigwams were burned, and an unknown number of women, children and old men perished in the flames. The English loss exceeded two hundred, among whom were several brave officers. From this moment the fortunes of Canonchet were identified with Philip’s, and he is supposed
