The Death of John Sassamon

In the years before extensive European contact, 25,000 Algonkianspeaking Indian peoples inhabited the woodlands and coastal plains of south and central New England. By 1680, after sixty years of contact, only 14,000 native Americans remained, whereas the number of white settlers had soared to nearly 66,000. Tribal warfare, injury, and familiar diseases claimed many Indian lives in those years, but in this instance the bitter conflict known as King Philip's War cost thousands of Indian lives.1 These loses are now recalled as mere statistics, but two Indian deaths have survived as pivotal events in New England Indian history. The death of King Philip in the bloody war that bears his name signaled the end of military resistance to white invasion for the Indians of coastal southern New England. A lesser-known event, the puzzling death of Philip's one-time aide, John Sassamon, is of equal importance. His mysterious death, one year before the defeat of Philip, sparked the beginning of that terrible conflict. Chroniclers of the time could not agree upon the circumstances of John Sassamon's death, and their accounts differ on very significant facts with obvious biases. In fact, most versions contain inconsistencies and contradictions. Modern historians are similarly divided in their interpretations of the event. This essay will describe the Sassamon case as set forth by both contemporary and modern writers. In doing so, it will bring into focus the myriad problems that confront historians preparing to write about native Americans. Indeed, an examination of the Sassamon case is itself a graphic example of the many difficulties to be encountered in the writing of New England Indian history.2 John Sassamon's story is in many ways the culmination of a half

Genealogy · New england · Political science · American Environmental and Regional History · Archaeology and Natural History · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law

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