Was of the Wampanoag tribe, and at the date of King Philip's war must have been considerably advanced in life, as Church informs us that Annawon told him that he had served as a captain under Osamequin, Philip's father, and Osamequin at that time had been dead some 15 years. Probably King Philip was the third chief under whom the veteran officer Annawon had served. Little if anything appears in history concerning Annawon, until the battle near Mount Hope, August 12, 1676, in which King Philip was slain. In that battle Annawon behaved bravely; he did his whole duty in endeavoring to sustain the failing fortunes of his chief, and when further resistance was in vain he showed that great and very essential accomplishment in a military leader, the ability to conduct an orderly and safe retreat.

Capt. Benjamin Church, to whom the world now owes most that can be learned concerning Annawon, says that at the moment when King Philip fell with one bullet through his heart and another not over two inches from it, he for the first time discovered Annawon, who, "with a loud voice, often called out 'Iootash, Iootash'." Captain Church called to his Indian, Peter, and asked him who that was that called so. He answered, it was old Annawon, Philip's great captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it and fight stoutly. [202] That was on Saturday, August 12, 1676, and Church and his soldiers returned the same day to the island of Rhode Island, where he and they remained until Tuesday of the next week, when they all went ranging through the woods to Plymouth to collect the "thirty pieces of silver" that government allowed per head for each Indian he and his company had slain or captured. Capt. Church's son who was his amanuensis, adds, "methinks it was a scanty reward and poor encouragement." If Church and his men went to hunt Indians as an act of patriotism, if they put their lives in jeopardy for the saving of their country, it seems to the writer of this book that they never would have stopped to consider whether 30 shillings apiece for each Indian slain or captured was a small or large price, and let us hope that none of them save Church did. But if they went forth simply as executioners, man catchers, replenishers of the slave market, why that was another thing. Some of the worst criminals that the world has ever known have been employed as executioners, and the meanest specimens of human nature for money have been hired to take human life, and nobody would or could or did think any less of them even though they haggled with their employers about the price of their dirty and detestable work.

Capt. Church's son adds, that "For this march they received four shillings and sixpence a man, which was all the reward they had, except the honor of killing Philip."

How is the lustre of the name and the glory which has been accorded to the acts of Benjamin Church, dimmed by those two sentences in his history, written and published nearly forty years after the war with Philip had ended, and when, if ever, the warrior's soul would have been so enlarged as never to reckon for himself, or allow others to weigh as in a balance for [203] him, true honor, pure patriotism, and the paltry sum of a few shillings, the same number of pieces for which the traitor Judas sold unto death the innocent blood of his master! Yes, reader, just think of it, and let writer and reader blush with shame every time we think of it, that one whom we have been taught to consider as one of the brightest stars in our constellation of martial glory, noble self denial, and patriotism, as exemplified two hundred years ago, a man we have fondly hoped was greatly in advance of others of his nation in the day, age and country in which he lived, allowed his son unrebuked to reckon for him and give publicity to his shameful comparisons between the priceless reward of well doing, of pure patriotism, true honor, and four shillings and sixpence in money! As though one bore or could possibly bear any proper comparison with the other! If the father ever had any just and correct ideas of real honor, it seems that in his dotage these had been destroyed, or at least seriously effaced; but the shamelessness and moral obtuseness of the son makes it quite reasonable to conclude that he never had any.

In a note on the 161st page of this book, reference was had to the fact that not far from the date of Capt. Benjamin Church's death, *(IV-32) his son or sons received from the Mass. government, grants of large tracts of wild uncultivated lands, to satisfy the demands and claims set up for the unrequited services of Capt. Benjamin [204] Church in the Indian Wars; and this fact, taken in connection with the oft repeated complaints indulged in by the son who was amanuensis for the father, in arranging those materials for the press that appeared in Church's History, published in 1716, or about two years before that veteran officer's death, leads the writer of this book to suspect that the desire of Church's children to put money in their purse had in reality much more to do with the writing and printing of the "narrative of many passages relating to the former and latter wars" than the father's conviction that "every particle of historical truth is precious," or his "having laid" himself "under a solemn promise that the many and repeated favors of God" to him and those with him "in the service might be published for generations to come."

The faithful few that remained of the once powerful band of warriors that had followed King Philip on the war path, those who had escaped death and were above desertion, with the sachem Annawon who had come to the chief command since the death of Philip, were captured by Capt. benjamin Church and his command, August 28, 1676, at a place since known as "Annawon's Rock," in the extreme easterly part of Rehoboth, and only a few rods south of the turnpike road leading from Taunton to Providence, about 8 miles from Taunton and 10 from Providence. This noted rock extends north-east and south-west some 75 feet, and is in height about 25 feet.

The writer of this book has several times visited this spot and taken great interest in examining the locality. It is on the northern border of a wooded country, anciently known as Squannakonk Swamp, that is said to have embraced an area of nearly three thousand acres, and being probably inaccessable save when frozen, doubtless Annawon confidently and reasonably relied [205] upon it to protect him and his warriors from an English attack on that side. Annawon's lodging place was in part formed by felling a tree against the nearly perpendicular side of the rock, and setting up boughs of trees or bushes on the sides, and under this kind of arbor, Annawon, with his son, who was called young Annawon, and a few of Annawon's principal men slept. This lodging place was on a kind of terrace, and from half to two thirds the distance from the ground (next the swamp) to the top of the rock, as though the rock had been cut down nearly perpendicularly, part way from its summit to the base, and the stone taken out, thus leaving a kind of terrace, or shelf, stoned up on one side and one end, and supplied with a comparatively level bottom or floor, on which to spread the mats for their beds. Such is my recollection of the place as it appeared to me, and the difficulty of getting to it from the summit of the rock was much less than I had anticipated from reading Church's description of his descent when in pursuit of the chieftain Annawon. [While writing this book the author at this point broke off suddenly and delayed the writing and printing of this account until he had time and opportunity to revisit the "Annawon Rock," so called, which when done he continued as follows:] The writer of this book must confess that he felt considerable disappointment when visiting for the first time the Annawon Rock, as he did about twenty years ago, to find so few evidences of the natural difficulties complained of by Capt. Church in getting from its top to the campting place of Annawon, which he discovered while on the rock. I had always been accustomed from youth to consider the feat both difficult and dangerous, from Church's description of the same, which I will now quote. an Indian deserter from Annawon was Church's pilot, of whom Church said, [206] "The old man had given Capt. Church a description of the place where Annawon now lay, and of the difficulty of getting at him. Being sensible that they were pretty near them, with two of his Indians he creeps to the edge of the rocks from whence he could see their camps. He saw three companies of Indians at a little distance from each other, being easy to be discovered by the light of their fires. He saw also the great Annawon and his company who had formed his camp or kennelling place by falling a tree under the side of the great clefts of rocks, and setting a row of birch bushes up against it where himself, his son and some of his chiefs had taken up their lodging and made great fires without them and had their pots and kettles boiling and spits roasting. Their arms also he discovered all set together in a place fitted for the purpose, standing upon end against a stick lodged in two crotches, and a mat placed over them to keep them from the wet or dew. The old Annawon's feet and his son's head were so near the arms as almost to touch them, but the rocks were so steep that it was impossible to get down only as they lowered themselves by the boughs and bushes that grew in the cracks of the rocks. Captain Church, creeping back again to the old man, asked him if there was no possibility of getting at them some other way. He answered, no; that he and all that belonged to Annawon were ordered to come that way, and none could come any other way without difficulty or danger of being shot."

Had Church proceeded about forty feet further, he would have been enabled to go around the rock and come into Annawon's camp on firm and nearly level ground; but this he would not do, from the danger of being shot, and so he encountered the great danger, and difficulty too, as he would have us believe, of lowering himself down by the boughs and bushes that grew in [207] the cracks of the rocks, and without which "it was impossible to get down." The spot where Annawon and son were lying, being, as I have already stated, part way from the summit to the base of the rock, is well defined, and so far as I can learn unquestioned and undisputed; and yet, from my remembrance of it, as seen at the time mentioned, this difficult and perilous descent which so appalled Capt. Church taht he anxiously inquired "if there was no possibility of getting at them in some other way," was not more than eight feet in height nor quite perpendicular in descent. But lest I should do injustice to the truth were I to state my recollections as a fact, I have delayed to finish what I had proposed to write concerning the matter, till I could assure myself that my former conclusions were correct and recollections true. Accordingly, on the 22d of May, 1878, I rode 10 miles expressly to revisit the Annawon rock, and from an actual and careful measurement then made, am now prepared to testify that the descent was only six feet, and its angle little if any sharper than that of 45 degrees.

I am nineteen years older than Capt. Church was when he performed this feat that has been wondered at and applauded for more than two hundred years, and in that nineteen years I have grown, as Church would express it, "ancient and heavy" as well as clumsy; he had two strong arms and two very active hands, while I have but one arm, and one hand and that an awkward left one; and yet I passed down the rock and passed up again without the aid of boughs or bushes, and in fact experienced less difficulty in doing so than in getting over many an ordinary stone wall.

From where Annawon and son were sleeping, to the level ground near the rock where the other Indians were encamped, is so easy and gradual in descent that neither man nor beast would find it difficult to pass [208] either up or down, though the perpendicular height of that part where Annawon and son were, above the ground where the most of his Indians were encamped, considerably exceeds the distance from the chief's resting place to the summit of the rock.

There is one other place on the "Annawon Rock" that some persons possibly may contend was where Annawon and son were lying when captured by Capt. Benjamin Church, and to all such let me say that on my visit to the place, May 22, 1878, I took pains to measure the distance of that position from the summit of the rock, and found it to be four feet and six inches. But to contend that this was in fact the place, adds no support, but rather detracts from the pretensions of Church, and besides it is not so well supported either by tradition or established facts. The writer much prefers to give Capt. Church the benefit of the additional eighteen inches to help out his story of the great peril that he encountered in descending the precipice by clinging to boughs and bushes that grew in the cracks of the rocks. This over-estimate of the peril in descending was probably on a par with the bragging indulged in when describing the other details of the feat of capturing Annawon, who with his company were very poorly supplied with both arms and ammunition, reduced to a comparative handful in numbers, distressed, dispirited, and every day growing more feeble by constant and continual captures by the enemy and desertions to the English. Those deserters too from Annawon's camp were now with Church, acquainting him with every particular relating to its location, construction, defences and weaknesses. In short, Annawon and his company were captured without the discharge of an arrow, the stroke of a tomahawk, or the firing of a musket on either side; and why might they not have been expected thus to be overpowered [209] and captured, overwhelmed as they were with difficulties insurmountable, and the numberless advantages enjoyed by the English and others under the lead of Capt. Church, who, had he possessed a spark of generosity and true manliness, instead of falsifying as evidently he or his son did in stating the details of the transaction, overestimating the difficulties encountered, and laying claim to the exercise of a courage neither required nor put in practice, would have felt what the poet has more elegantly expressed -

That noble old chief, the "tried and true," faithful to the last, the aged Annawon, captain under Massasoit, Wamsutta and King Philip, and by the last regarded as his "great captain," was by the English executed in Plymouth soon after his capture in Rehoboth.