The Captive’s Lament: Reinterpreting Rowlandson’s Narrative

This chapter presents a nuanced close reading of The Sovereignty and Goodness of God . . . A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, framed within Indigenous geographies. Although Rowlandson conveyed a picture of a forbidding wilderness, she traveled through an intricately mapped network of Indigenous people and places, including the Nipmuc interior and the Connecticut River Valley. This chapter provides an alternative map and narrative of Rowlandson’s “removes” through Native towns and territories and elucidates the ways in which the stories of Weetamoo, James Printer, and Mary Rowlandson intertwined. Shortly after the raid on her town of Lancaster, Rowlandson was carried to the Nipmuc stronghold of Menimesit, where she encountered James and his extended family, and was given to Weetamoo, whom she followed deep into the interior of Nipmuc and Sokoki countries, as the saunkskwa sought protective sanctuaries for Native families who were evading colonial troops.

Introduction

Beginning with a scene from Edward Winslow’s Good News From New England, this chapter introduces key methodologies and contexts. It introduces central figures, including Weetamoo, James Printer, and Mary Rowlandson, and key places, including Pocasset, the Harvard Indian College, and the Wabanaki Northern Front. It frames interpretive lenses, including Indigenous languages, the “archive of the land,” reading scenarios and digital mapping.

The Printer’s Revolt: A Narrative of the Captivity of James the Printer

This chapter explores the beginning of King Philip’s War in the Nipmuc country, focusing not only on Native responses and resistance but also on the colonial drive toward containment, charged by fear of unknown spaces and increased racialization of “Indians.” The Nipmuc scholar James Printer and his mission community of Hassanamesit are a center from which the story spirals out to the broader Nipmuc country, the Connecticut River Valley, and Massachusetts colony. This chapter highlights Nipmuc gatherings at the sanctuary of Menimesit and the ambush and standoff at Quaboag, known as “Wheeler’s Surprise,” and the Brookfield siege, focusing on strategic Indigenous guerilla warfare tactics and environmental knowledge. It also focuses on Indigenous diplomacy, including the arrival of Metacom in Nipmuc country. James and his kin at first attempted to avoid any embroilment in the burgeoning war but soon found themselves drawn into the conflict, as scouts serving colonial companies and captives taken in colonial campaigns. This chapter conveys the context of James’s own captivity by Massachusetts forces and his imprisonment in Cambridge, the site of his earlier education.

The Queen’s Right and the Quaker’s Relation

This chapter analyzes the origins of King Philip’s War from within Wampanoag territory, highlighting the perspectives of Wampanoag leaders, including Metacom (or Philip) and Weetamoo, as recorded by Rhode Island lieutenant governor John Easton, a Quaker, on the eve of the war. These accounts center colonial encroachment on Wampanoag land and governance as a key motivating factor for both Indigenous resistance and colonial containment.

Interlude: Nashaway

This Interude provides an account of the colonization of Nashaway, a fertile intervale at the crossroads of Indigenous trails, which became the English colonial town of Lancaster, Massachusetts. It focuses on the relationship between trade, colonization, and dispossesion, providing groundwork for understanding the Nipmuc context of King Philip’s War and for the raid on Lancaster, the originary moment of Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative.

Interlude: “My Children Are Here and I Will Stay”

This interlude narrates the journey of Job Kattenanit, James Printer’s brother, to Menimesit as a scout and spy for Massachusetts colony. The chapter relies on a careful reading of Job’s petition, preserved in the Massachusetts Archives, an account of Job’s journey by magistrate Daniel Gookin, and the “Relation” of the scout James Quananopohit, Job’s partner in the spying mission, which provides a detailed snapshot of life at the Nipmuc stronghold during the winter of 1675-76. This short piece provides a prelude to the chapter on Mary Rowlandson’s narrative, concluding with Job Kattenanit’s attempt, via an eighty-mile journey on snowshoes, to warn Massachusetts settlers of the imminent raid on Rowlandson’s town of Lancaster.

Here Comes the Storm

This chapter explores the diverse, complex ways in which war entered into Indigenous communities and homelands by approaching the beginning of King Philip’s War from multiple places and viewpoints—ranging from mothers and leaders like Weetamoo and her sister Wootonakanuske to scouts embedded in colonial companies like James Quananopohit and his brother Thomas—bringing multifaceted Indigenous characters and perspectives to the fore, while also considering the tactics and experiences of colonial leaders and soldiers from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The chapter evokes the experience of the “storm” of war as it spirals through the land, using interpretive frameworks drawn from Indigenous studies. This chapter begins at Weetamoo’s homeland of Pocasset and moves to neighboring Wampanoag and Narragansett territories, including Montaup, Sakonnet, and Nipsachuck.

Namumpum, “Our Beloved Kinswoman,” Saunkskwa of Pocasset: Bonds, Acts, Deeds

This chapter analyzes deeds and other documents in which the Wampanoag saunkskwa Weetamoo appeared as a major diplomatic figure, setting the stage for her alliance building during King Philip’s War. Weetamoo materializes only on the eve of war in most histories, which often rely on postwar narratives that displace both her diplomacy and the war waged against Indigenous women and their agricultural fields. This chapter fills a substantial gap in the record, focusing on the documents that demonstrate Weetamoo’s leadership prior to the war, as well as the challenge she posed to male settlers in Plymouth and other New England colonies, who sought to impose local colonial rule. The chapter interprets key documents through the frameworks of Indigenous kinship, geography, governance, and sustainable agriculture, highlighting the strategic adaptations of Wampanoag and Narragansett leaders in response to English colonialism. By bringing together many obscure but related documents, this chapter builds a frame for better understanding the motivations, interventions, and experiences of Weetamoo and other neighboring Indigenous leaders which formed the ground for their responses to King Philip’s War.

The Roads Leading North: September 1675–January 1676

This chapter brings together multiple strands, and numerous archives, to explore the interconnections among regions and communities impacted by King Philip’s War, as it spread in the fall and winter of 1675. It shows the growing chaos of the conflict and increasing forcefulness of the colonial policy of containment in the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Nipmuc countries, as well as the expansion of that conflict and policy into the Wabanaki coast and interior, including the fledgling settlements in northern New England. The chapter moves toward a wider view of the geography of King Philip’s War. It begins by following Weetamoo to Narragansett, where she cultivated crucial alliances; then shifts to the Northern Front of Wabanaki country, including Penacook and Abenaki communities; then returns to the Nipmuc country, conveying the story of James Printer’s “capture” by his Nipmuc relations in November 1675 and his travel to Menimesit, where James and his family were joined by Weetamoo and her kin, following the infamous Great Swamp massacre at Narragansett in December 1675. This chapter juxtaposes and interweaves multiple historical threads to show how all of these spaces and stories are intertwined, forming a wide and dynamic tapestry of Indigenous geography.

Prologue: Caskoak, the Place of Peace

This Prologue opens at Caskoak, or Casco Bay, in Wabanaki territory, as English and French explorers, merchants, and settlers are entering Native space. This brief opening offers a unique view of a seemingly familiar scene, by showing a snapshot of the encounter between the English explorer Christopher Levett and the Wabanaki “Queen” of Casco Bay. This brief chapter introduces Native American women leaders and their relationships to diplomacy, agriculture, and early deeds.