Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: The Pequot War of 1637
Chapter 2: John Winthrop and the Official Thanksgiving Declaration (1637)
Chapter 3: The Thanksgiving Feast of 1621
Chapter 4: Squanto: The Last of the Patuxet
Chapter 5: The Kidnapping of Squanto (1621)
Chapter 6: Captain Shrimp and the Wessagusset Massacre
Chapter 6:
Captain Shrimp and the
Wessagusset Massacre
Chief Massasoit: “There is a
currently a plot underway aimed against the Wessagusset, and Plimouth
Plantation.” (lightning strikes)
Captain Shrimp: “I'm not sure if it's
a plot of if those Englishmen are just choosing for themselves, to go
full-on Injun, and to live with the Massachusett on their own
accord.”
Chief Massasoit: “Watch out, for the tides are turning on Turtle Island. The Massachusett coerced those men of the Wessagusset colony to abandon their fort. They had been stealing from them, and intimidating them the whole time. Chief Chickatawbut does not care for the white man, and make no doubt about it, the Massachusett intend the Englishmen harm. The Massachusetts just got some guns, and they are prepared to use them against the Englishmen. They plan on destroying the Wessagussett colony, and then afterwards, turning on Plimouth, but they are only waiting for enough reinforcements so they can take both colonies in one swipe.”
Bradford: “Are you sure? How can you know for sure? Where did you get this information?”
Massasoit: “The forest talks to me, and there's many birdies in the forest.”
Bradford: “Just the Massachusetts?”
Massasoit: “No! There is more! The threatening tribes is only led by the Massachusetts, but the Nauset, Paomet, Succonet, Mattachiest, Agowaywam, and Capawack tribes from as far away as Martha's Vineyard also want to kill all of the English too!”
William Bradford: “Well... that sounds like everybody. Myles Standish! I have a mission for you, if you're up to it.”
Massasoit: “Wituwamat, a Neponset of the Massachusetts, is also among the belligerents.”
Shrimp: “Hell yeah. I'll be your Huckleberry.”
Bradford decided that Standish will proceed to the colony at Wessagussett. Standish picked 8 men including Hobbamock, and set out.
March 26, 1624
Wessagussett Colony
They met with the English settlers at
the plantation and told them of their attack plan. These settlers
were in terrible shape—they had almost no food and were being
humiliated and treated harshly by some of the local natives. They
agreed not to interfere with Standish's plan.
Shrimp: “We have come in peace, and
only mean to trade some of our goods with you.”
Native 1: “I'm curious about what you
have to trade... Now tell us, why are you really here?”
Shrimp: “Why what do you mean? We are
here to trade only.” (gives a sly grin)
Native 1: “I see anger in your heart.
I believe you are looking for something else.”
Seeing how few his men were, Pecksuot,
Wituwamat, and another native came up to Standish and sharpened the
points of their knives before his face; they tried to frighten him.
Wituwamat: “These
men have been stealing our tools and our crops, and you at Plimouth
have done nothing about this. We are here to rectify those wrongs.”
Shrimp:
“I can assure you, all wrongs can be made right, without the
wholesale slaughter of a people.”
Wituwamat:
“Well that's quite a tall boast, from such a short little bobtail.
Hey everybody! Come over here, and see the bald little fat man speak!
A little portly red teapot. Captain Shrimp is a man of very little
stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper. Shrimp is a tiny
chimney, soon fired.”
Wituwamat
[baseball card]
a Neponset of the Massachusetts
Pecksuot: Captain Shrimp may be a great
captain, he is but a little tiny man.”
[Pecksuot
a Neponset of the Massachusetts]
Wituwamat: “I laugh at how Englishmen
die. They die crying, making sour faces, because the Englishmen are
more like children than men.
Pecksuot: “Though I'm not an
important Captain like Shrimp is, I may be no sachem, yet I am a man
of great strength and courage. You better believe that.”
Wituwamat: “I have this knife, which
has a woman's face on it. I have two other knives at home, with a
man's face on them. One for each man I have killed. 1 Englishman, and
1 Frenchman. They should marry each other, no? The English and the
French act so much alike... But I must say, my knife eats Englishman
blood. My knife likes the taste of Englishman blood the best. My
knife eats, but it does not speak, like your guns do. I am very good
with my knife, short fat old man. Ole Captain Shrimp.”
Pecksuot: “Captain
Shrimp! You talk like a woman. You walk like a woman. You have the
face of a woman. You are a woman!”
Standish just stood by and gritted his
teeth at this taunts.
Standish: “We would like to have a
dinner with you all soon. We have brought some pork for you. Would
you not accompany us to dinner?”
Wituwamat (in Algonquin): “We can always eat their
food first, and then kill them later.”
Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and one other
brave, Wituwamat's 18 year old brother, went into a Pilgrim's log?
house for a meal.
The Englishmen shut the door.
The Massachusetts ate the Pork that was
offered, and on their plates. The Massachusetts had just began eating
when Shrimp yells:
“Now!”
The English attacked.
Standish attacked Pecksuot. Shrimp
lunged for the knife hanging from a string around Pecksuot's neck. He
grabbed it and began stabbing Pecksuot with it furiously. The other
pilgrims attackd Wituwamat and the other brave.
Wituwamat and Pecksuot in particular
put up a great struggle. “It is incredible how many wounds these
two warriors received before they died ... not making any fearful
noise, but catching their weapons and striving to the last.”
Shrimp pushed Pecksuot's knife into his
own heart. Pecksuot's chest had blood-spurting wounds.
Hobbamock: “I'm not meddling in
this.”
3 vs. 5
Wituwamat, Pecksuot, and Wituwamat's
younger brother;
vs
Shrimp, Hobbamock, and 3 of Shrimp's
men;
as soon as the door shut, Shrimp took
Pecksuot's stiletto and stabbed him in the heart to die. 3 Shrimp's
men takes Wituwamat and his lil brother.
The Pilgrims took Wituwamat's brother
prisoner, and the 18 year old boy starts yelling about the deaths in
Algonquin. “Hang that boy now!” Shrimp orders and Wituwamat's
brother is hung on the spot. Took Wituwamat's brother, and strung him
up, and killed him by hanging.
3 more were killed; bloodlust;
bloodthirsty; It took many stabbings to Pecksuot and Wituwamat to
die. They died like men. Fighting until their last breath. Fighting
the whole time.
With the 3 braves dead, Hobbamock, who
had simply stood and watched the attack, reminded Standish: “He was
calling you a little man earlier, but look! Now we see that you are
big enough to lay him on the ground.”
“As soon as it was over, Standish
ordered his soldiers to seize and kill every Indian male that could
be found.” Standish then sent word to the other Pilgrims to kill
all native men in the settlement. They killed two more, and Standish
and the men with him killed another.
Shrimp calls out to another gang of
Pilgrims to kill the Indians, so they obey. They killed 5 or 7 total;
1 escaped and warned the others, and
they all left; One native escaped, however and warned the others,
bringing the killing spree to an end. The natives ran away as Shrimp
and Hobbamock, who took off his coat, chased them into the woods.
Obtakiest... Shrimp and Obtakiest run
for a hill... but Shrimp makes it there first, so the natives just
find whatever tree is around...
Shrimp: “Come out and fight like a
man!” Nobody comes back.
Shrimp walks back to the Wessagussett
colonists.
Shrimp releases 3 female prisoners, not
taking their beaver coats away from them, or allow them to suffer the
least amount of discourtesy. Shrimp also didn't think about a
prisoner swap with the 3 Englishmen who were captured.
[Later on, 3 Englishman (Weston's) who
were with Obtakiest and the Massachusetts... were executed.]
Shrimp: “Do you
want me to leave some of Plimouth's men with you to keep guard?”
Weston's man: “I
think we want you to leave as soon as possible, and we're going to
figure out if we should too. Asshole.”
Shrimp: “You
going back to Maine?”
Weston's man:
“Maybe. Maybe England.”
Shrimp: “Huh.
Well then...” (yelling to his men) “Let's carry Wituwamat's head
back to camp! We shall hang it high, so that it strikes fear and
terror to all native Americans around here, that if they shall seek
to conspire against us, they too, will get their heads chopped off!
Let's move out men!”
XxxxX
Bradford: “You said Weston's people
wasn't happy with your services? How many people has to be murdered
before those people are happy?
Shrimp: “I think they intend on
leaving pretty soon. They told me so before I left.”
Bradford: “We had 5 Englishmen die
because of them. Ungrateful sons of bitches. Thomas Weston is a
bitter enemy unto Plimouth for all occasions hereafter today.”
Bradford (to the last prisoner): “And
tell your Chief, or Sachem, or whatever, Obtakiest, that if we catch
them around here, they'll get their just desserts.”
Hobbamock: “Is that really what you
wanted to say?”
Bradford: “Not really. It just didn't
come out like I wanted it to.”
Hobbamock: “You want to try it
again?”
Bradford: “Okay. Tell Obtakiest that
we're looking for him, and if we catch him slipping, he's going to
slip right on out of this world.”
Hobbamock: “It started out better,
but just went straight downhill afterwards...”
Bradford: “Look! Obtakiest will have
no peace! Not until we've consumed him, entirely. Whole.”
Hobbamock: “Just let it go. He gets
the point.” (in Algonquin) “Governor Bradford says that he will
eat Obtakiest if he sees him.”
Prisoner looks confused, and then
horrified.
“If Obtakiest comes around, he dies.
Understand?”
Prisoner nods, is released, and then
runs away.
“Imagine that. They calling us the
savages.”
7 Indians were killed; Shrimp cut off
Wituwamat's head, sailed back to Plimouth, and placed the bloody
trophy on a pike on top of the fort.
Bradford: “As for Capten Standish, we
leave him to answer for him selfe, but this we must say, he is as
helpfull an instrument as any we have, and as careful of the general
good.”
Narrator reads
Poem (while marching back with Wituwamat's head on a pike, and then
posting it up in the middle of town, on top of Shrimp's fort, the
tallest building in Plymouth):
“But when he
heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,
the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard,
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it.”
the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard,
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it.”
~Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (1858)
“Wituwamat's
head was placed on a pike in Plymouth, where it was prominently
displayed for the next twenty years. After chopping off the head of
Wituwamat, and displaying it for 20 years on top of their rooftops,
the Pilgrims became known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name
of “Wo-tow-que-nange” which in their tongue meant cutthroats and
stabbers.
John Oldham is Banished
From Plimouth
1624
Standish: “It's Oldham's duty today
to stand as sentinel, and I see that he's not in position, and
doesn't look as though he's going to do what he's supposed to be
doing.”
Bradford: “Well blast! I'm about sick
and tired of Lyford and Oldham being here anyways. Reverend John
Lyford has been conducting secret Church meetings away from us. He's
gathered a small following who wish to worship the way of the old
Anglican Church, as they did in England.”
Standish: “Well I won't stand for it,
so I'm going to have words with him right now.”
Bradford: “I'll be right there beside
you.”
Oldham: Myles Standish went to tell
Oldham that he needed to do his duty,
Oldham he pulled a knife out on Shrimp.
He threatened anybody would put his hands on him that he'd stab them
if they did.
John Oldham: Yall a bunch of traitors.
Lyford: “Myles, darling, you look
like a silly boy.”
Bradford: “I found that you were
writing bad about me. You and Reverend Lyon are trying to destroy my
colony.”
Oldham: “Why were you searching
through my things? That's an invasion of my privacy!”
Drawing his knife on Standish,
Oldham angrily denounced him as a
"Rascall! Beggarly rascal!" Lyford and Oldham were put on
trial for "plotting against them and disturbing their peace,
both in respects of their civil and church state."
“Now you get out of here, and you
never come back! For as long as Plimouth leaves, John Oldham will be
considered a traitorous treasonous bastard. You are hereby exiled!
Get gone now nigga!
“Coming up next!
Metacomet's War”
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