Reverend Blaxton and the "Poor Silly Lambs" of Massachusetts Fields

The Beaver
1623-1628

The 140-ton ship carries settlers for a plantation granted to the Council for New England and led by Captain Robert Gorges, a son of Sir Ferdinando. The ship’s course is set for Shawmut, but crosswinds force the vessel to the bottom of the bay.



Model of a 17th century English merchantman ship of about 400 tons
By user by User Musphot on Wikimedia Commons

 

They finally land at Wessagusset, site of a former settlement by a London adventurer, Thomas Weston. Abandoned six months before, Wessagusset’s rude log houses provide shelter for the newcomers.

Wapikicho is impatient to go to his family, but only when the landing is complete will Captain Gorges allow him to leave with an escort. Other natives returned to these shores have tricked their sponsors and run away for good. The party is made up of three armed men, plus Reverend Blaxton and his servant.

The boy from the wild fens of Lincolnshire is unsure of his footing in New England’s “howling wilderness.” Adam carries a rusty dirk and a stout piece of timber, scared out of his wits as they march toward Blue Hills. He’s baffled by Reverend Blaxton’s untrammeled delight in “a new Eden,” his master’s tunic flying as he races along behind Wapikicho.

The party gets a cold reception from Chickataubut, brother of Obbatinewat, now great sachem of the Massachusett. Chickataubut’s band comprises fifty warriors and their families, less than three hundred people and barely one-tenth of those alive before the Great Sickness. His antipathy toward the English stems from the desecration of his mother’s grave by settlers from New Plymouth, who stole bear skins that covered her sepulcher and trampled offerings to the Manitou.

 

Moswetuset Hummock, seat of Chickataubut of the Massachusett
(View from Quincy Shore Drive, 2009/ Wikipedia)

A joyful Wapikicho finds the wigwam of Chitanawoo at Massachusetts Fields. Strong-and-Good is forty-seven, still a sachem in spirit though her Shawmut clan is extinct. Wapikicho’s happiness is short-lived, for when he asks about Witawamet, he learns that his brother is dead.

Chitanawoo will say nothing about her warrior son’s death six months before. “Ask the Wotawenagee,” she tells Wapikicho. A name the Massachusett gave the English, who took it to signify “Good Men,” until they learned its true meaning: “Cut-Throats.”

Despite the tension, the Massachusett are generous hosts and provide a feast for the visitors. William Blaxton is clearly no Cut-Throat but a gentle soul filled with intelligence and compassion.

“Poor silly lambs,” he calls the boldest natives around him, rejoicing in God’s providence that led him to these shores.

The reverend’s servant is less sanguine about the “Tartars,” remaining as watchful as when plucking my lord’s brood geese from the fens. One little Tartar attaches himself to Adam, instinctively smelling out a fellow rabble-rouser. Jacques Petit is nine years old, a gangly long-boned fellow with all the makings of growing up like the big Frenchman who fathered him.

Imagining Boston - 10