Great Swamp Fight
South Kingston, RI
December 19, 1675
Fire was used to destroy a Narragansett fort during the battle of the Great Swamp Fight. The Great Swamp Fight was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between the combined colonial militia of the Plymouth, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay Colonies and the Narragansett tribe. Long story made short: After 30 years of peace, the encroachment of the growing colonial population and the colonial push for religious conversion collided with native resistance to assimilation. John Sassamon, a converted "Praying Indian," was found murdered. Three Wampanoags were arrested, convicted, and hanged for his muderer. The allied warriors of the Narragansetts and Wampanoags subsequently waged a guerilla war against the colonists. After just a few months of fighting, the native forces had successful attacks on settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticuthad and had burned the settlement of Newport to the ground and heavily damaged Providence. The allied native forces began to run low on supplies and retreated to northern Rhode Island to open a cache of corn. Another native tribe allied with the colonists, told the colonists about the cache, and guided them on an ambush of the warriors. After which (presumably in revenge for the burning of Newport and Providence), on December 19, 1675, the colonists converged on southern Rhode Island, in the Great Swamp, where the Narragansetts had built a palisaded fort that housed the women, children, and elderly of the tribe. The massive fort, which occupied about five acres of land and initially housed over a thousand Indians, was over run after a fierce fight. The fort, including 500 to 600 wigwams, was burned, its inhabitants killed or evicted, and most of the tribe's winter stores were destroyed. From 300 to 1000 natives were killed. The colonists suffered about 70 of their men killed and nearly 150 more wounded. |
