Then Again: Geography and history made Vermont a battleground in the frontier wars

1SHARES

An 1827 engraving depicts the Wampanoag chief Metacom, who was known as King Philip by the British. Wikimedia Commons

Editor’s note: Mark Bushnell is a Vermont journalist and historian. He is the author of “Hidden History of Vermont” and “It Happened in Vermont.”

They are Vermont’s forgotten wars. Forgotten, perhaps, because they were fought so long ago, before there even was a place called Vermont. Forgotten because they were fought by powers that no longer hold sway here. Forgotten because there were so darn many of them.

The fighting kicked off with King Philip’s War (1675-77), followed soon by the similarly named King William’s War (1689-97). Then, with a nod to gender equity, we had Queen Anne’s War (1702-13). Next came Grey Lock’s War (1723-27); like King Philip’s War, it was named after a Native American chief. Then came King George’s War (1744-48) and finally the best known of the pre-Revolutionary conflicts, the French and Indian War (1754-63). In hindsight, it might have been simpler to name the times of peace.

Why did the region around Vermont see so much warfare? The answer is complex and involves a mixture of history and geography. One of the main reasons is that Vermont was the border area between empires — France’s colonial holdings to the north and England’s to the south, east and west, once the Dutch had vacated New York — and between competing Native Americans nations — Algonquins in Vermont and Iroquois on the New York side of the lake. Additionally, Vermont is straddled by two key waterways, the highways of their day — Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River — which were much coveted by the various groups and used often as the route of attack.

The first of the conflicts, King Philip’s War, erupted after a Wampanoag chief named Metacom (whom the British called King Philip) organized a revolt against opposing tribes and the British. Metacom, who focused his forces around the Indian village of Squakheag (in current-day South Vernon, Vermont, and neighboring Northfield, Massachusetts), and launched attacks on English settlements near Boston. It was bloody warfare. Metacom’s forces killed about 2,000 settlers, destroyed a dozen New England towns and damaging many others.

Metacom — who drew warriors from the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Pocumtuck and Narragansett tribes — also attacked tribes that had aided the British, including the Monhegans and Pequots. Among the war’s casualties was Metacom himself, who was tracked and killed by British militia.

King William’s War was, like others to follow, an extension of a European conflict. England’s “Glorious Revolution” had dethroned the Catholic King James II, replacing him with a Protestant king and queen, William and Mary, who declared war on France. In North America, England enlisted the Iroquois’ help in attacking the French. It didn’t take much arm twisting. The Iroquois had been in conflict with the French pretty much constantly since 1609, when Samuel de Champlain paddled down Lake Champlain with the Iroquois’ foes, the Algonquins, and killed three Iroquois chiefs.

After the Iroquois raided the Montreal area in 1689, the French governor, the Comte de Frontenac, struck back. But he attacked the British, not the Iroquois. He wanted to extinguish the Iroquois threat by making them trading partners. So he sent troops south on Lake Champlain to attack English settlements in New York. He figured that if he could destroy the settlements, he could disrupt their trade arrangements with the Iroquois. The attack was brutal. It hit the settlement at Schenectady, New York, and left 60 men, women and children dead. Another 80 were taken captive and marched north.

In response, British forces, accompanied by Indian allies, attacked Montreal. The French, with their Indian supporters, replied by attacking Albany. They also changed strategy and attacked the Mohawks, part of the Iroquois nation, near Schenectady. Frontenac turned up the pressure by upping the reward for scalps. The Algonquins responded with a series of attacks on the British settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in the Connecticut River Valley.

VTDigger is underwritten by:

A peace treaty in 1697 brought a five-year respite before the start of Queen Anne’s War, the American front in the War of Spanish Succession. (The war is so named because the Spanish king died childless and fighting broke out in the struggle to succeed him.) Deerfield bore the brunt of the action. It was attacked in 1704 by a group of about 200 French soldiers and 140 Abenaki. The attackers had snowshoed south on Lake Champlain and hiked across the Green Mountains before descending on the village. They killed 47 settlers and took another 111 captive, marching them back north through the wilds of Vermont to Canada. Twenty were killed or died along the way. The war finally ended with a peace treaty in 1713.

Peace held for a decade, until the onset of Grey Lock’s War, which was triggered by British colonies’ continuing push into Indian territory. We know little about Grey Lock’s origins. He is believed to have been born a Woronoke in Massachusetts. Like many others, he was forced to move north by the expanding British population. He settled among the Abenaki living in Missisquoi, a seasonal Abenaki community near the present-day town of Swanton. The British called him Grey Lock because of his streak of prematurely grey hair. His Abenaki name, Wawanolewat, is more telling. It means “he who fools the others.”

From his Vermont base, Grey Lock and several men attacked the Massachusetts towns of Northfield and Rutland, killing five and taking two captive. After he attacked Northfield again, the townspeople demanded protection. Massachusetts Gov. William Dummer refused to launch a counterattack but authorized construction of an 8-foot-tall stockade fort north of Northfield in what is now Brattleboro. It was the first permanent European settlement in Vermont. The fort was meant to block raiding parties venturing south, but did little good. Grey Lock and his men skirted the fort and again attacked Northfield. In response, nearly 60 volunteers set off from Northfield in July 1725 to locate and destroy Grey Lock’s Castle, as they called his base. (In reality, it was a simple wooden structure.)

The settlers traveled up the Connecticut to the Wells River and then up the Winooski River. These men reported climbing a “vast high mountain,” possibly Camel’s Hump, and seeing Lake Champlain below. They traveled north along Lake Champlain to about Colchester. Then, running low on supplies, they returned to Massachusetts. While other Indians signed peace treaties, Grey Lock never agreed to stop fighting the war named for him.

Another European war, this time the War of Austrian Succession, soon reignited fighting between the French and British in North America, where it was called “King George’s War.” By now, British settlements were moving up the Connecticut River. Settlements at Westminster and Rockingham, known then, respectively, as Fort Number One and Fort Number Two, faced attacks from French and Indian forces. The peace treaty four years later resulted in the French regaining some territory in Canada, but did little to keep the peace.

War returned six year later. This time war here actually anticipated the start of a European conflict, the Seven Years War, which wouldn’t start for another two years. The English, French and Indian War — or French and Indian War, as it is better known — actually started with a battle over who owned western Pennsylvania in 1754.

But conflict had already been brewing in Vermont for more than a year. Abenakis had protested a rumored British plan to build a road from Charlestown, New Hampshire, to what is now Newbury, Vermont, an Indian stronghold. Incensed, the Abenakis switched allegiances and sided with the French. This change, along with Abenaki attacks on Vernon and a pair of towns on the east shore of the Connecticut River, helped cement the distrust between the British and Abenakis.

While the militaries of France and Britain battled along the west shore of Lake Champlain, Vermont was spared most of the fighting. This war would have huge consequences for the region, however. Under the terms of the peace, France renounced any claims to Vermont and the surrounding area. The treaty triggered a rapid influx of British settlers to Vermont, where they would live in relative peace, at least until the next war, the American Revolution, started 15 years later.

Search This Blog

Purple Hearts Missions Possible; Healthy Horizons; Native American Warriorz Task Force