The Cochecho Massacre: More Forgotten American History

Columbus and Taino Indians

Let’s get it straight: Columbus did not discover the New World. When his little fleet arrived in 1492, the Americas were already occupied by as many as 100,000,000 Indians. Within 500 years, European diseases had wiped out some 90% of them. Resettlement, enslavement, and what could easily be taken for genocide took a very heavy toll on the survivors.

Looking at that progression, it’s easy to think Native Americans were doomed as soon as the first Europeans stepped onshore. Not quite. Around 1000 A.D., when Greenland’s Vikings tried to colonize Vinland (coastal New England), an arrow shot into their leader’s heart by a one-footed Indian discouraged them for good.

Vikings at Iceland

620 years passed before Englishmen created a permanent toehold at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They succeeded primarily because the native occupants were wiped out two years before by disease introduced by transient fishermen. The Pilgrims were severely weakened by their own illnesses, but Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe let them stay, and sent the English-speaking Squanto to help the starving Pilgrims raise crops. An American legend was born. 

Squanto and Pilgrims

A half-century later New England’s tribes regretted their tolerance. Their croplands were purchased or seized, their game shot or driven away, and they could no longer support themselves by trapping fur or making wampum to sell. In 1675 Massasoit’s grandson, King Philip, led a concerted effort to push the invaders back, but New England’s tribes were defeated by the settlers’ superior firepower. Most Wampanoags and Narragansetts were slaughtered or enslaved, but some took shelter with other tribes.
 

I am in the preliminary stages of a novel about King Philip’s War. Peni Jo Renner’s forthcoming historical novel, Cochecho, covers the aftermath of that conflict. Like my historical novels Rebel Puritan, The Reputed Wife, and The Golden Shore (coming in spring 2017), Peni is exploring her ancestry in fiction, beginning with Puritan Witch and Letters From Kezia, and continuing with the doomed settlers of Cochecho in her latest work, appropriately titled Cochecho.

Wampanoag attack

That was the Indian name for Dover, site of the first English settlement in New Hampshire. In 1676 the Christianized Pennacook Indians were friendly with their English neighbors, but also gave refuge to several hundred fugitive Wampanoags. Alarmed by that threat, Major Richard Waldron asks Massachusetts for help, and two companies of militia are dispatched to Cochecho.

Grace Hampton was only six when her parents were killed by Indians. She and her sister are sent to live with an uncle in Cocheho. Now nine, Grace overhears Major Waldron plotting with the militia captains, but it means little to her.

1689 attack on Dover, NH

Nine-year-old Menane wants nothing more than comfort for his sick grandmother when he steals a blanket at Cochecho. Grace helps him hide from its vengeful owner. Thus begins an improbable bond which persists despite the slaughter of Wampanoags and Pennacooks by Waldron and the militia, and through the years until 1689, when the Pennacooks take their revenge on Major Waldron and the other English settlers at Cochecho.

Peni Jo Renner

Peni does a terrific job of bringing Cochecho and its people to life, both English and Native American. Both sides commit questionable acts, but both were also capable of heroism and tenderness. Peni’s story is an even-handed and enjoyable read, and offers a rare look into America’s forgotten history.

Images:

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/168.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vikings-a-memorable-visit-to-america-98090935/

http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/the-true-story-of-thanksgiving-squanto-the-pilgrims-and-the-pope/ 
https://www.amazon.com/Peni-Jo-Renner/e/B00FERF2X4/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1481924805&sr=8-1

The Great Swamp Fight of 1675

King Phillip image by Paul Revere.jpg

We have recently passed the anniversary of the December 19, 1675 Great Swamp Fight.  Earlier that year the Wampanoag tribe, led by King Phillip, rose up against encroaching English settlers in Massachusetts.  By the end of the year the battle was spreading, and it was feared that the Rhode Island’s powerful Narragansett tribe would join the Wampanoags.  Most of the settlers on the west side of Narragansett Bay had already taken refuge on Rhode Island.

On December 16^th a combined army from Massachusetts and Plymouth met at Wickford, Rhode Island.  They planned to use Jireh Bull's garrison house at Pettequamscutt to rendezvous with a force from Connnecticut, and their Mohegan and Pequot allies.  From there they would attack the Narragansetts’ principal fort in the Great Swamp.  Then word came that Bull's garrison had been destroyed by the Narragansetts, and about 18 English settlers were killed there.

 

King Phillip's War.jpg

It is said that James Eldred, about 15 years old, was one of two people who survived the massacre at Bull's Garrison.  After escaping from the house, Eldred was chased along the stream by an Indian who came so close as to throw his tomahawk, which missed.  The Indian grappled with James and drew his knife.  Eldred was unarmed, but got the knife and killed his attacker.  He heard another Indian approaching in the dark and fled, pursued closely.  Eldred hid among rocks by the stream until pursuit passed.  The stream is still called Indian Run.

Harking back to the Great Swamp Fight, which happened on December 19th, armies from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut met at Pettequamscutt.  They marched 15 miles through deep snow into the Great Swamp, to the Narragansett nation's winter village.  It was surrounded by several yards of downed trees and brush.  The English army broke in, killed hundreds of the Narragansett defenders and burned the village to drive away the survivors.  20 Englishmen died in the battle, and perhaps another 60 succumbed later.  Some from their wounds, others from feet and hands frozen as the troopers retraced their tracks to the coast after the battle.

Great Swamp Fight.jpg

John Tefft was one of the few settlers who did not leave the western side of Narragansett Bay before the Great Swamp Fight.  A letter written by Capt. James Oliver on 1/26/1676 mentions John’s death.  He wrote that Tefft’s son Joshua had joined the Narragansetts and married a Wampanoag woman.  During the Great Swamp Fight, Joshua fought against the English settlers.

Joshua was captured on January 14th while trying to steal cattle for food.  He told his English captors that he had been seized by the Narragansetts 4 weeks before, and had promised to serve the sachem for the rest of his life if they would spare him.  Joshua was taken to the Narragansett fort in the Great Swamp as the sachem's slave.  The chief died of wounds received during the battle.

Great Swamp Fight memorial.jpg Image by Patti Cassidy

His English captors did not believe Joshua's story, and Capt. Oliver declared that Joshua was a “sad wretch, he never heard a sermon but once these 14 years.”  Though Joshua begged for his life, four days later he was executed.  Many of the tales later told about him were possibly inflated; it was said he had actually joined the Indians 14 years earlier, renounced his nation and religion, and killed a miller as a pledge of his loyalty.  It was true that he helped the Indians design the fort in the Great Swamp, and fought against his own people during the battle there.  Joshua died a traitor's death in Providence, Rhode Island: hanged and his body cut into quarters to be displayed as a warning to others who might join the Wampanoags' battle. 

In a sad coda to the loss of life on both sides of the Great Swamp Fight, John Tefft also died.  Oliver wrote, "[Joshua's] father going to recall him (reclaim his body) lost his head at the hands of the Indians, and lies unburied."