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1 2017-07-08T18:58:02+00:00 Lisa Brooks fec693e828c406419bf2b9fc046e7ea8bc7558cb 6 1 plain 2017-07-08T18:58:02+00:00 Lisa Brooks fec693e828c406419bf2b9fc046e7ea8bc7558cbThis page is referenced by:
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2017-07-04T11:55:40+00:00
Mohegan Diplomacy & James Printer’s release
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Sokwakik, September 1675
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2017-07-08T20:28:38+00:00
The violence in the Connecticut River Valley fueled the vitriol and apprehension that led to the capture and imprisonment of James Printer and his relations at Okkanamesit at the end of August. Yet it was also crucial to his redemption. As the missionary Daniel Gookin noted, Native actions at Pocumtuck led settlers to argue that “all the Indians” would prove “false and perfidious.” Although Gookin tried to assuage the fears and impulses of his fellow colonists, particularly regarding the mission communities, such suspicions fueled the containment of “neighbor Indians” at places like Hadley (Nonotuck) and Marlborough (Okkanmesit), ironically, creating stronger grounds for Native resistance. The Connecticut Valley was one more Native place that could not be contained, moving settlers to turn their attention to the visible Indians among them.
At the same time, colonists’ reliance on Native allies, like Attanwood’s Mohegan company, and scouts, like Job Kattenanit, intensified. When Lathrop and his forces were ambushed on the west side of the Great Beaver, as they attempted to retrieve both corn and colonists from Deerfield, it was a Mohegan company that came to their rescue, with reinforcements from Connecticut colony. The Mohegan delegation likewise used its invaluable position to argue for the fair treatment of James Printer and his kin. James's trial began on the same day as the ambush. The networks of alliance during the war were complex and always intertwined. The Mohegans’ recent conflicts with Native people of the Valley was a motivating factor for their participation, while their relationships of alliance and protection with Nipmuc towns led to their advocacy for James and his relations, who they knew to be innocent of the acts of violence for which they were accused. [1]
No signs at "Bloody Brook" acknowledge the assistance of Mohegan men in the battle on Pocumtuck land, nor are the stories and sacrifices of James Printer and his kin marked on the land at Marlborough or Boston.[1] Gookin, Historical Account, 450. Schultz and Tougias, 163. Oberg, #. Check sources re: Mohegan from chapter. -
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2017-07-08T20:37:29+00:00
Sokwakik
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The people upriver at Sokwakik had taken in their kin from Kwinitekw and defended them at the foot of the Great Beaver. This was a vast and vital Indigenous region, the south place of Abenaki country. The place the colonists called "Squakeag" was only the southernmost Sokoki town. Indeed the intervales of Sokwakik to the north would provide vital refuge to large groups of Native people from the south, as the winter came on, seeking sustenance and shelter from the war.
In early September, Captain Richard Beers and his company of thirty-six men and a team of oxen pushed past the blockade of the Great Beaver, seeking to reinforce the garrison at the outlying settlement at Squakeag. Not surprisingly, a Native force, including Nipmuc leaders, ambushed them at a Sokwakik field as they marched north, preventing further encroachment and discouraging additional military expeditions into Sokoki country.
Today, this place is marked by memorials to Captain Beers "and his men." The land where this monument stands once hosted Native women's planting fields and caches; although corn, lilies and milkweed still flourish here, no signs recognize such longstanding relationships as motivations for the ambush. Rather, we get the impression that Beers and his men were surprised by hostile intruders while they sought to protect settlers at "Northfield." This site was renamed "Beers Plain," as if the death of the colonial captain and his forces solidified English settlers' rightful claim to land. Ironically, Beers was in the first English expedition that identified "Suckquakege upon Connecticut River" as a place that should be colonized, in 1669, claiming "discovery." This expedition, which also included Daniel Gookin, Daniel Henchman, and Thomas Prentice (key players in the war) was commissioned by the Massachusetts General Court to ascertain a good location "to lay out a new plantation," northwest of Quinsigamon. Sokwakik was one of two locations they recommended "be reserved" to build "two or three towns." This context, relevant to the war and its colonial officers, is not noted on any markers. No signs mark this place as part of Sokwakik. A nearby sign announcing the location of "Indian Council Fires" recognizes a local settler memory, perhaps a romanticization, of the possible site of war councils to plan the ambush, but not the Sokoki women who planted, gathered and stored their harvest for winter here, nor the "Indian village on Beers Plain" mentioned in nineteenth-century histories.[1][1] J.H. Temple and G. Sheldon, A History of the Town of Northfield, Massachusetts, (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell, 1875), 50. Eric Schultz and Michael Tougias, King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, VT: The Countryman Press, 2000), 163-9.