Conflict Between English Colonists and Native Americans Lead to War Casualties
William Cleaves: 1638-1676
While William Cleaves isn’t my direct ancestor—he was
married to my eighth great-grandaunt Sarah Chandler who I wrote about in the
previous post—the Vital Records of
Roxbury, Massachusetts record of his death caught my eye:
“Cleave, Wm, under the command of
Capt. Samell Wadsworth, slain by Indians at Sudbury, Apr 21, 1676.”
That was a story I wanted to pursue, despite the lack of
blood relationship. William was obviously serving as a soldier, but why? This
was a full century before the Revolutionary War. I wanted to learn what led up
to William’s death. I was unfamiliar with this piece of American history.
From my research, I discovered that William Cleave was
killed in one of the battles of King Philip’s War, a conflict between the
indigenous people of New England and the colonists. After repeated broken
promises and treaties between the colonists and the Wampanoag tribe who had
been their allies, a war broke out, with atrocities on both sides. The
indigenous people were led by the Wampanoag chief Metacom, who was also known
as Philip by the colonists, hence the conflict’s name of “King Philip’s War”.
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| Illustration of fighting in King Philip's War |
Wikipedia describes the significance of King Philip’s War as
follows:
“The war was the
greatest calamity in seventeenth-century New England and is considered by many
to be the deadliest war in Colonial American history.[11] In the space of
little more than a year, 12 of the region's towns were destroyed and many more
were damaged, the economy of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies was all but
ruined and their population was decimated, losing one-tenth of all men
available for military service.[12][a] More than half of New England's towns
were attacked by Natives.[14] Hundreds of Wampanoags and their allies were
publicly executed or enslaved, and the Wampanoags were left effectively
landless.[15]” (See 1 below)
As tensions escalated with the indigenous people, the
colonists put together armed militias of soldiers to defend the frontier
communities. William Cleave probably volunteered to fight out of a desire to
protect his family and fellow colonists. He was one of several men from Roxbury,
Massachusetts under the command of an experienced officer, Captain Wadsworth.
There are several accounts of the Battle of Sudbury where
William Cleave was killed. Probably the best can be found in the George M.
Bodge book on the war (See 3 below). An officer who served in the war, a Major
Gookin, wrote about what he witnessed. Bodge used the Gookin account to
describe how Wadsworth and his men discovered a small group of soldiers being
attacked by a large group of native warriors. Bodge wrote that Wadworth’s men “rushed forward with the usual impetuous
haste, and were caught in the usual ambuscade, for when within about a mile of
Sudbury they were induced to pursue a body of not more than one hundred, and
soon found themselves drawn away about one mile into the woods, where on a
suddun they were encompassed by more than five hundred, and forced to a
retreating fight towards a hill where they made a brave stand for a while (one
authority says four hours) and did heavy execution upon the enemy…”
Illustration of the attack on Capt. Wadsworth's company
Here is a summary from the Sudbury Senior Center of the
action on April 21, 1676 after Wadsworth engaged the enemy:
“The largest battle of
the "Sudbury Fight" took place when hundreds of Native American
warriors ambushed a combined force of roughly fifty English Colonial soldiers
from the Boston area under the command of Captain Samuel Wadsworth, plus
roughly twenty soldiers from the Marlborough garrison under the command of
Captain Samuel Brocklebank, in the valley between two hills now called Green
Hill and Goodman's Hill.
It is surprising that
the combined force of Colonial soldiers would be easily ambushed, since both
Captains were highly experienced and used to the ambush tactics of their enemy.
The Colonial soldiers
fought their way to a more defensible position at the top of Green Hill, but
they remained completely surrounded by large numbers of Native American
warriors.
The Native American
commanders dislodged the Colonial soldiers from their defensive position at the
top of Green Hill by setting fire to a line of dry brush and trees upwind of
them on the side of the hill.
The wind-driven flames
and smoke from this forest fire forced the Colonial soldiers into a hasty and
uncoordinated retreat down the hill toward a mill building in what is now the
Mill Village shopping center south-west of the top of Green Hill.
Captains Wadsworth and
Brocklebank and most of their soldiers who had survived the earlier phase of
the battle were killed during this hasty retreat; some of their bodies were
later recovered on the western side of Green Hill.
A few soldiers were
captured, tortured, and then killed by Native American warriors.
A few Colonial soldiers made it to the mill building and were rescued that night by other Colonial soldiers most of whom were with the Watertown Company.” (See 2 below).
I surmise from this description that William Cleave was
killed when Wadsworth’s company retreated toward the mill. It is believed that
32 soldiers were killed from Wadsworth’s company of about fifty to sixty men. Cleave
was listed among ten Roxbury men killed at Sudbury under Wadsworth’s command.
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| Crest of Green Hill today: site where William Cleaves' company made a stand |
The hill where William died is now part of a quiet
residential area in Sudbury. It’s hard to believe that a fierce battle was
waged there almost 350 years ago. I am so glad I was able to learn about this
important piece of American history.
Sources:
1. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_War
2. 2. King Philip's War and The "Sudbury
Fight" by The Sudbury Senior Center. http://www.sudbury01776.org/saved_pages/SudburySeniorCenter_KingPhilipsWar.html
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