“I know their tactics, I can be useful…”
Benjamin Church – America’s first commissioned Army officer. Author of his autobiography, essentially self-aggrandized anecdotes about his successes in King Philip’s War and northern New England. Church tries to fill a moral vacuum, but Josiah Winslow will fill the void perniciously. Church is indignant. He is raised within miles of Philip. He is a well-respected carpenter who ends up marrying into Plymouth royalty. Suspicious of the early colonial war footing, Church eventually wins an argument: gather as many afraid, scared, and disenfranchised natives to fight against Philip, and we’ll win. He becomes masterful at raids, ambushes, and bounty – native women, children and men sold into slavery. Pennies on the head.
