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Benjamin Church was born in about 1639, at Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Richard and Elizabeth (Warren) Church. He was brought up to follow his father’s trade of carpentry, which, especially in his early years, carried him to many parts of the Plymouth Colony.
By 1674 Church had bought land and was engaged in building a house at Sogkonate (Little Compton, Rhode Island), where he became well acquainted with the Indians and was soon “in great esteem among them. ” The outbreak of King Philip’s War, in June 1675, found Church living on the frontier, where his first act was to dissuade Awashonks, squaw-sachem of the Sogkonate Indians, from joining the Wampanoags. During the summer, commanding small detachments of Plymouth troops, Church fought numerous skirmishes of no great importance aside from their value in teaching methods of Indian warfare. He constantly urged his superior officers to pursue the enemy, instead of building forts, but his suggestions were ignored.
In the “Great Swamp Fight” of December 19, 1675, near South Kingston, Rhode Island, he played a prominent part as captain of a Plymouth company, and was twice wounded. Had his advice, that the troops be allowed to remain and recuperate in the Narragansett fort, been followed, the English losses from exposure on the return march might have been greatly diminished.
During the following spring and summer the troops of the United Colonies undertook the systematic destruction of the Indians’ corn, and the capture of warriors, with their women and children. By offering his captives their choice between slavery or fighting against their kinsmen, Church enlisted many Indians in his forces and, with their assistance, took additional prisoners, including a squaw and son of Philip. The sachem himself, with his remaining followers, took refuge in a swamp near Mount Hope (Bristol, Rhode Island). Betrayed by a deserter, he was ambushed by Church on August 12, 1676, and shot in attempting to escape, by Alderman, one of Church’s Indians.
During King William’s and Queen Anne’s wars he served as major, and later colonel, in five expeditions against the French and Indians in Maine and Nova Scotia, in the last of which, in 1704, he plundered the French town of Les Mines and, in his blustering manner, ordered the governor of Port Royal to discontinue the raids on the English settlements. These expeditions accomplished little, since the enemy avoided decisive engagements, and Church, poorly compensated for his services, retired in disgust in 1704. He died near Little Compton, Rhode Island from injuries sustained in a fall from his horse.
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Church seemed to have been a man “of uncommon activity” even in his later years when he had grown so fat that the aid of a stout sergeant was needed to lift him over fallen trees. He was friendly to Native Americans. In spite of his achievements he was criticized for allowing some of his French prisoners to be “knocked on the head, ” an act which he found difficult to explain.
On December 26, 1671, Church married Alice Southworth.
