The Council were instructed to use their "utmost endeavors, 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.
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