Native American leaders in western Massachusetts are marking the end of a historical study into a massacre that took place in 1676, during King Phillip’s War.
According to historical record, 250 Native American men, women, and children were slaughtered by English settlers at a camp on the Deerfield River, just across from what’s now known as Turners Falls.
Native historian David Brule, president of the nonprofit Nolumbeka Project, said he grew up near the site, knowing very few details of what became known as the Battle of Turners Falls.
“All we knew was that Captain (William) Turner attacked some Indians and killed about 250 of them a long time ago,” he said. “Nothing was mentioned about the fact that this had been an Indian, Native American homeland for 12,000 years.”
In 2012, the town of Montague secured a $200,000 grant from the National Park Service to study what happened during and after the massacre, including what Brule described as a “traumatic” seven-mile retreat by Turner’s colonial militia.
“I find it incredibly important for people to know who was here, who were the victims, and that those victims’ descendants or their tribal relations are still here,” he said. “There are living Nipmuc numbering in the thousands in Massachusetts.”
Brule, who coordinated the research project for the town, said investigators just released their final report, focused on archaeological and historical findings. He said it was not yet available to the public.
While Brule said understanding the event is important on its own, the 12-year investigative process was just as meaningful.
That included monthly meetings of tribal officers and historical commissioners, “talking about what we know and what we're finding out,” he said. “And the natives give their perspective, which in many cases has not been available or even asked for. So that part has been really ground-breaking.”
He said there were times of tension among Native participants and local government officials, including disagreements over which group was responsible for the worst violence. “Here we are, 349 years after the event, and people still have a deep feeling, whether it's anger or frustration or whatever,” Brule said.
But by the end of the town’s process, he said, “the non-tribal people got to start figuring out what the indigenous point of view was about all of this….and vice versa.”
Brule, who is tribal chairman of the Nehantic Nation, said he’s glad the project wrapped up before the Trump administration changed federal research priorities.
The next step, he said, is to educate the community on what they’ve learned, including the posting of historical signs written by members of the Nipmuc and Abenaki tribes, as well as archaeologists who worked on the study.
Brule presented some of the study findings at the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival in Turners Falls on August 3, in a tent just across from the site of the battle.
