Benjamin Church1
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CHURCH1 1. Paul Revere’s engraving of him, above, is merely a recycled engraving of the English satirist and poet Charles Churchill, who for this appropriation has had a powder horn awkwardly inscribed around his neck. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK A WEEK: In the words of the old nursery tale, sung about a hundred PEOPLE OF years ago, — A WEEK “He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured to quell the Indian’s pride.” In the shaggy pine forest of Pequawket they met the “rebel Indians,” and prevailed, after a bloody fight, and a remnant returned home to enjoy the fame of their victory. A township called Lovewell’s Town, but now, for some reason, or perhaps without reason, Pembroke, was granted them by the State. “Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four, And of the rebel Indians, there were about four-score; And sixteen of our English did safely home return, The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn. “Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die, They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye, Who was our English Chaplin; he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew.” Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses nor hear any war-whoop in their path. It would be well, perchance, if many an “English Chaplin” in these days could exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his valor as did “good young Frye.” We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings to-day? — “And braving many dangers and hardships in the way, They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May.” But they did not all “safe arrive in Dunstable the thirteenth,” or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth “day of May.” METACOM MYLES STANDISH BENJAMIN CHURCH CAPTAIN JOHN LOVEWELL LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1639 At about this point Benjamin Church was born. Ambrose Martin made some remarks about the church in Concord that landed him in hot water. He said that the church covenant was but a “humane invention” and he said that “hee wondered at God’s patience, feared it would end in the sharp,” and he said that “the ministers did dethrone Christ and set up themselves.” he was ordered to pay £10 and ordered to submit to Mr. Mather “to bee instructed by him.” When he failed to comply, the town first seized and sold his cow, and then placed a levy upon his house and land. Mr. Flint, Lieutenant Willard, and Richard Griffin were appointed “to have the ending of small matters this year.” They would be reappointed to this authority during the following two years.2 NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Captain Benjamin Church “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 2. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1675 June: News of troubles reached Concord. The Wampanoag, under Metacom the 2nd son of Ousamequin Yellow Feather the Massasoit, had killed six Europeans at Swansea on Narraganset Bay. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” The native villages of “Praying Indians” were Punkapaog, Natick, Magunkaquog, Hassanemesit, Nashoba, and Wamesit, situated more or less in a half circle around Concord. Their closest village was Nashobah, which was six miles from Concord, on Nagog Pond. The leaders there were Tahattawan, and Waban, and the Squaw Sachem to whom the armed white men had presented their hostess gifts and from whom the English town of Concord had “purchased,” allegedly, its land. The tribal remnant of the epidemics of 1617 and 1633 had moved from Nawshawtuct Hill at the junction of the Assabet and the Musketaquid to beyond Nagog. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK By 1675, possession and use of firearms was complete. Therefore: An attempt was made to separate the friendly Christian Indians from the wild savages, and some were brought in to Deer Island in Boston harbor. Others [primarily women and young children, and excluding any males of warrior age] were brought to Concord and entrusted to John Hoar, who built a workshop and stockade for them next to his own house, which is now known as Orchard House. This caused a furor in Concord. Many considered the Christian Indians just spies and informers. The town defenses were in a precarious state [due to the fact that many of the white men were away, fighting in the race war]. The Reverend John Eliot jotted in his diary that: When the Indians were hurried away to an iland at half an hours warning, pore soules in terror thei left theire goods, books, bibles, only some few caryed thier bibles, the rest were spoyled & lost. Nearly a mile long and 210 acres in extent, this inner island Deer Island is the 2d-largest in Boston Harbor. Our National Park Service now refers to these detainees of “King Phillip’s War” (a name designating the blame for its initiation as his rather than ours) as “prisoners” and as “captives,” evidently in order to create the false suggestion in the minds of current visitors that these people had been captured hostile warriors rather than what they actually were, the innocent families of the Christian allies of the white people. However, the National Park Service does acknowledge that of the approximately 500 nameless persons whom they denominate “prisoners” and “captives,” the few who survived the 1675-1676 winter of exposure and starvation had been subsequently enslaved on the mainland. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK Awashonks, the Squaw Sachem of the Wampanoag band at Sakonnet, held a dance and invited Benjamin Church, a notable English settler of Little Compton, Rhode Island who during the coming genocide would make himself a white hero. When Church arrived at the dance he found six Wampanoag of Metacom’s band were attending in their war gear. Awashonks’s husband told Church he feared that Metacom’s band was preparing itself for a war which it had come to consider inevitable. Church persuaded Awashonks that she needed to remain loyal to the English. Notice the disparity here. Church, because he was a white man, could show up armed for this meeting (below is his actual rough-and-ready sword, with a grip made out of ash wood and a guard made out of a piece of bent iron by a local blacksmith) and that wasn’t warlike and alarming — but when Indian braves attend this meeting in similar attire according to their own culture, because they are not white men that is warlike and alarming.) HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Captain Benjamin Church “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1676 July 4, Tuesday (Old Style): The soldiers of Captain Benjamin Church began the ethnic cleansing of Plymouth, by searching out and taking into detention any remaining Wampanoag families. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK August 2, Wednesday (Old Style): On approximately this day there was a fight between Englishmen and native Americans at a place called Lockety Neck, now the town of Norton. Captain Benjamin Church, leading the company of men he had chosen individually for their Indian hunting skills and motivation, intercepted Metacom, the designated culprit, as he was crossing the Taunton River, and captured his wife Wootonekanuske and their son, aged about nine years, and several other native women and children: My heart breaks; now I am ready to die. They decided that the boy was important enough as a pawn, being the future hereditary sachem of the tribe, that they should not off him right away. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: BENJAMIN CHURCH PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK August 12, Saturday (Old Style):3 The word was out early that morning that King Phillip, with his wife Wootonekanuske and child having been taken captive, and with all his efforts to obtain help from other native tribes having proven to be totally fruitless, had given up and gone home to Pokanoket to await his fate: The next news we hear of Philip was that he had gotten back to Mount Hope, now like to become Mount Misery to him and his vagabond crew.