Great Swamp Fight

Great Swamp Fight
Part of the King Philip's War
A painting of the Great Swamp Fight.
Date December 19, 1675 Location near South Kingstown, Rhode Island Result New England victory
Belligerents
New England Confederation Pequot Mohegan	Narragansett
Commanders and leaders
Josiah Winslow	Canonchet
Strength
1,000 militia 150 warriors	1,000 warriors 1 fort
Casualties and losses
~70 killed ~150 wounded	~300 killed 1 fort destroyed

The Great Swamp Fight, or the Great Swamp Massacre, was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between colonial militia of New England and the Narragansett tribe in December of 1675.

Battle

A Portrait of King Philip, by Paul Revere, illustration from the 1772 edition of Benjamin Church's "The Entertaining History of King Philip's War."

On November 2, 1675, Josiah Winslow led a combined force of over 1,000 colonial militia including about 150 Pequot and Mohegan Indians against the Narragansett people living around Narragansett Bay. The Narragansett tribe had not yet been directly involved in the King Philip's 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.

File:BenjaminChurchNewYorkPublicLibraryStephenSchwarzmanBuildingPrintCollectionMiriamAndIraWallachDivisionPrintsandPhotographsID1217364.jpg

Benjamin Church, the first American ranger.

Led by an Indian guide, on December 19, 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, which occupied 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 natives were killed though exact figures are unknown. Many of the warriors and their families escaped into the frozen swamp; there hundreds more died from wounds combined with the harsh conditions. Facing a winter with little food and shelter, the whole surviving Narragansett tribe was forced out of the quasi-neutrality some had tried to maintain in the ongoing war and joined the fight alongside Philip. The colonists lost many of their officers in this assault and about seventy 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 their chief sachem Canonchet was captured and soon executed. On August 12, 1676 the leader of the Wampanoag sachem, Metacomet (also known as King Philip) was shot in the heart by John Alderman, a Native American soldier in Benjamin Church's company. King Philip's War, one of the greatest native uprisings in New England, had failed.

Notable Officers and Indian Chiefs

• Captain James Avery
• Major William Bradford
• Canonchet
• Benjamin Church
• Captain Isaac Johnson
• Captain Samuel Marshall, Windsor Horse Troop (killed in action)
• Captain Nathaniel Seeley (killed in action, age 48) was the oldest son of Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritan settler Robert Seeley, wounded while second-in-command to Captain John Mason during the Pequot War a generation earlier. Nathaniel served as Captain in the Fairfield County Dragoons, and was second-in-command of the Army of Fairfield County during King Philip's War. Seeley's widow, Elizabeth, was subsequently granted 200 acres of land by the Connecticut Colony in recognition of his sacrificial service.
• John Gorham I, whom Gorham, Maine is named after and who is the great grandfather of John Gorham 4th.
• Chief Metacomet
• Chief Uncas
• Governor Josiah Winslow

External links

• Great Swamp Fight memorial
• Anglo-Narragansett Relations in the 17th century