The Name of War

From its 1829 premier until at least 1877, the play Metamora; or, the Last of the Wampanoags is among the most popular productions of the 1800s. It depicts Philip, or Metamora, as a noble but tragic hero. The story resonates with audiences, especially in the 1830s, when Native American groups are forcefully expelled from their homelands in the Southeast. Upwards of half of these groups die along the “Trail of Tears” under President Jackson’s “Indian removal” program.

The success of Metamora and its star, Edwin Forrest, spawns imitations. Many of them, along with Metamora itself, are considered schmaltzy by the critics. “King Philip fever” takes the nation: towns are named for Metamora, biographies are written, nursery rhymes are sung about him, and his purported relics turn up.

Much of the hubbub comes from a national reconsideration of the colonists’ treatment of the Indians. Washington Irving’s essay, “Philip of Pokanoket,” describes the Indian leader as a hero to his people but abused by the English. Irving condemns the original settlers’ self-serving antipathy toward the Algonquians, specifically the anti-Indian writings of Increase Mather. Irving’s essay is widely reprinted during the Metamora craze.

While 1775 colonists remember King Philip’s War as a battle against Indian oppression and a dress rehearsal for the Revolutionary War, Metamora depicts the Indians as the aggrieved party, waging their own struggle against foreign tyranny and oppression from English invaders.

Forrest wants to create an independent American literature and theatre. His style, plain-spoken and passionate, differs greatly from that of the English theatre. Metamora and Forrest contribute to America’s growing sense of itself in the 1800s. Ironically, “Forrest was most American when he played an Indian" (200).

Forrest feuds with English actor Charles Macready, whose sophisticated, highbrow performances remind Americans of everything they think is wrong with Britain. The feud culminates in a riot outside the Astor Place Opera House in New York City that results in 22 deaths and 150 injuries.

Forrest researches carefully the Indian character in creating the role of Philip. He reads from the novels of James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, studies the artwork of Paul Revere, and peruses the writings of Hubbard and Church. One of his sources is a close friend, Choctaw Indian Push-ma-ta-ha, whom he admires for his unfettered, raw masculinity, by contrast with what Forrest views as a feminizing European influence on American urban life, manners, and dress. There is a possibility that Forrest and Push-ma-ta-ha may have been romantically involved.

Contemporary critics generally admire Forrest’s performance but complain that Metamora whitewashes the Indian’s cruel behavior in war and depicts the settlers as entirely in the wrong. In Augusta, Georgia, where the Indian controversy is being resolved by exiling them, audiences boo and hiss at Philip’s angry diatribes against white settlers; subsequent ticket sales quickly tail off.

Cherokees, under their leader Sequoyah, develop a writing system, set up a democratic local government, wear European clothing, own farms, and even maintain slaves. Their concerns are heard in the US Supreme Court. New Englanders especially admire and support the Cherokee nation. Most abolitionists and many white authors argue that Indians should not be removed but instead remain where they are and become more assimilated into the European American way of life around them.

Many Americans begin to lament the disappearance of Indians from the Northeast and regret that the Indians are about to exit as well from the Southeast on a forced march, yet few argue that they should give back the lands taken by their European forebears.

Many Americans in the early 1800s, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall among them, admire Philip but excuse the first settlers' conduct toward the Algonquians. They deplore the current treatment of the Southeastern Indians, suggesting that perhaps the present generation can do better.

President Jackson argues that the fate of Southeastern Indians, like that of the New England Algonquians, is historically inevitable, and that forced relocation is the civilized answer. Most Americans support Jackson's view. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Supreme Court sides with the Indians against the state’s Indian removal project, but Jackson sidesteps the decision by federalizing the program.

In 1833, Metamora plays in Boston, where Penobscot Indians attend a performance; after Philip’s death scene, they chant a funeral dirge. Penobscot and Wampanoag Indians still living in Massachusetts petition the state for self-government and redress of property losses. William Apess, a Pequot Methodist minister, campaigns for the local Indians and, at Mashpee, Massachusetts, joins Wampanoags who detain a white man for removing wood from Indian acreage. Apess spends a month in jail, but the “Mashpee Revolt” becomes famous.

In public speeches, Apess warn that Indians will continue to resist, sometimes violently, if they aren’t treated fairly. Apess recites the Lord’s Prayer as translated into Massachusett, and he likes to quote Philip, though there remains no record of the dead warrior’s words beyond the allegations of witnesses or the inventions of playwrights and poets.

In 1847 a spoof of Metamora is staged in Boston. Philip dies multiple times but keeps getting back up, finally crying out, “Confound your skins, I will not die to please you" (221). The play pokes fun at Indian stereotypes: among other things, Philip says “Ugh” a lot, and his wife’s name is Tapiokee.

By the 1860s, Indian plays, including Metamora, have declined in popularity. As conflicts increase with Natives out West, the age-old contempt for indigenous peoples undergoes its own revival. By the 1880s, American audiences will watch Buffalo Bill’s Indian shows, but people generally regard the Natives as relics.

On a large, flat rock on the shore of Mount Hope Bay, Rhode Island in 1835, an etched inscription made of strange symbols is discovered. At first, many believe it is an artwork left behind by Viking explorers in 1007 CE. Later investigations note that the inscription bears a close resemblance to Cherokee letters that spell out the sounds of the Wampanoag phrase “Metacomet, Great Sachem.” This rock is either a linguistic attempt to connect the popularity of King Philip with 1830s efforts by Native populations to retain their homelands, or is a hoax perpetrated by over-eager archaeologists.

During the past few decades, Indians have campaigned for their cultural and political revival. Some, the Narragansetts, for example, attain federal recognition as nations; some thrive as money rolls in from reservation casinos. Like the original colonial quest to preserve Englishness, Native Americans today attempt to protect and enhance their own Indianness.