"Does your God have the power to destroy so many Massachusett?"

Shawmut
1613-1617

In May 1615, a French ship, Mistral, drops anchor in Massachusetts Bay. French traders have been sailing down the coast from Nova Scotia for ten years. They know the landmark mountain with three hills as Trimontaine, recalled today in Tremont Street. Captain Etienne Finch and his crew of eighteen watch eagerly as a flotilla of canoes paddle out to them with beaver skins. Chikawanka-Jack facilitates the barter, which goes smoothly for two days.

Peddock's Island, Boston harbor - Bruce Herman/ Bostonharbor.com



On the third day, Jacques is absent when the canoes draw up to the ship. Nineteen-year-old Witawamet is first aboard. Without warning, the natives seize concealed weapons and attack the crew, slaughtering all save Finch, who is wounded and holes up in his cabin. He steps out when he thinks the coast is clear, only to be brained by Witawamet. White Eagle triumphantly takes a scalp lock for the pole in his mother’s wigwam.

Held captive during the attack, Jacques is released in time to witness the burning of the Mistral. At a celebration with the great sachem Obbatinewat, Porcupine Jack makes a grim prediction:

 

God will punish the Massachusett for this bloody deed. The Europeans will occupy their lands and expel or kill them all.

Obbatinewat takes Jacques to a vantage point overlooking Massachusetts Fields. “Are there this many people in Europe?” he asks. “Does your God have power to destroy so many Massachusett?” Told that even in a small European town, there are more people, Obbatinewat bursts out laughing. Chikawanka-Jack is a great joker, indeed!

It’s not God or the Europeans who strike the first blow, but the Abnaki (known also as Tarratines.) Late summer 1615, Abnaki war parties penetrate the bay and cut a bloody swath across the islands toward Shawmut.

Re-enactors: Source: Sad Tale of the Massachset



Chitanawoo leads the defense of the peninsula. She’s a true Amazon wielding a seven-foot spear with a fluted point, so deadly a single thrust slices through an enemy’s heart. Witawamet is at his mother’s side, quickly grown to a full-blooded warrior.

The Shawmut find a brave ally in Jacques, who makes no more prophecies but lives for the hour. In his finest moment, Porcupine Jack goes down, holding a barricade at the Little Neck against a horde of Abnaki.

Imagining Boston - 6