Battles -- United States; United States -- History, Military -- To 1900
No longer sheltered by the River Indians, who now began to make their
peace, and even attacked by bands of the Mohawks, Philip returned
to his own country, about Mount Hope, where he was still faithfully
supported by his female confederate and relative, Witamo, squaw sachem
of Pocasset. Punham, also, the Shawomet vassal of Massachusetts, still
zealously carried on the war, but was presently killed. Philip was
watched and followed by Church, who surprised his camp on August 1st,
killed upward of a hundred of his people, and took prisoners his wife
and boy. The disposal of this child was a subject of much deliberation.
Several of the elders were urgent for putting him to death. It was
finally resolved to send him to Bermuda, to be sold into slavery--a
fate to which many other of the Indian captives were subjected. Witamo
shared the disasters of Philip. Most of her people were killed or
taken. She herself was drowned while crossing a river in her flight;
but her body was recovered, and the head, cut off, was stuck upon a
pole at Taunton, amid the jeers and scoffs of the colonial soldiers,
and the tears and lamentations of the Indian prisoners.
Philip still lurked in the swamps, but was now reduced to extremity.
Again attacked by Church, he was killed by one of his own people, a
deserter to the colonists. His dead body was beheaded and quartered,
the sentence of the English law upon traitors. One of his hands was
given to the Indian who had shot him, and on August 17, the day
appointed for a public thanksgiving, his head was carried in triumph to
Plymouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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