Confronting the Winthrops - Greenbelt Outsider

Colonial Attack on Pequot Fort May 26, 1637

19th Century Engraving from The New York Public Library

The Pequot War is known for the brutality of the colonists’ attack on hundreds of Pequot non-combantants. Less well known is that the attack of May 26, 1637 laid the groundwork for capturing and enslaving far more Pequot women and children. Enslavement became the primary reason for the settlers to continue their attacks through September 21, 1638.

Colonial officers were not paid by the government but through the spoils of war. Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop Sr. distributed captives among his officers and kept high status captives for himself.

After killing more than twenty male Pequot captives, colonial officer Israel Stought wrote to the Governor about the remaining fifty women and children in his custody: “[T]her is one … that is the fairest and largest that I saw amongst them to whome I have given a coate to cloath her: It is my desire to have her for a servant… . There is a little Squa that Steward Calacot desireth … Lifetennant Davenport allso desireth one, to witt a tall one that hath 3 stroakes upon her stummach.” Winthrop distributed women and children to his officers but kept for himself Wincumbone, the wife of the Pequot Sachem Mononnotto, and her children who served in his household.

John Winthrop Sr.

“The most important religious and political figures in early New England eagerly sought Pequot captives and incorporated them into their households in large numbers as a solution to the severe regional labor shortage that coincided with the Pequot War. Men such as Governor John Winthrop recreated the manors of their former homeland with retinues of Indian dependents.”

“Indian captives conferred more than status and honor to the English who sought them, however; they provided concrete economic benefits, and slave ownership spread quickly even to the middling ranks of society. Forced Indian labor augmented the colonial workforce in important ways. Indians brought highly valued skills to New England homes and enterprises.”

“They toiled in ironworks, fisheries, livestock raising, extensive agriculture, provincial armies, and other enterprises that required unusually large workforces. They also made crucial contributions to small-scale household economies, since women produced many goods for market by the mid-seventeenth century.”

Margaret Ellen Newell “Brethern by Nature”

When John Winthrop Jr. left Massachusetts for Connecticut in 1639, the younger Winthrop transferred the land he occupied on Castle Neck to his sister-in-law Martha and her second husband Samuel Symonds. Martha’s son Daniel Epps married his step-sister, Samuel Symonds’ daughter Elizabeth. Daniel and Elizabeth Epps received 320 acres at Castle Hill from their parents In 1660.

When Daniel and Elizabeth Epps received Castle Hill, most of the Irish and Scottish prisoners brought over by the colonists had been released from their bondage. Daniel and Elizabeth needed new laborers. They began indenturing the Pawtucket to work on their farm.

When the Okemesw8 arrived at Castle Hill in 1669, she was accompanied by Pawtucket laborers who recently had been released by Daniel and Elizabeth. Daniel and Elizabeth assumed that Okemesw8’s grandsons came to replace the recently freed laborers. They took her older grandson into their household to assimilate him into the values and lifestyle of the settlers colonizing Agawam.

Okemesw8 was determined they would not take her younger grandson. Although her motivation is not recorded, it is likely she planned to teach him her people’s language and traditional knowledge. For more than a decade, she protected her younger grandson near Wigwam Hill as she waited for the older boy’s release.

John Winthrop Jr.

“John Winthrop Jr.’s contemporaries jokingly called him ‘the Sagamore of Agawam,’ Winthrop behaved much like other sachems who competed for power, influence, territory, and tributaries in the post–Pequot War era. His rivals included Indian leaders as well as the other English colonies that vied over jurisdiction of the former Pequot territory.”

“[The Pequot Sachem] Cassacinamon helped Winthrop negotiate land transfers from local Indians in ways that incorporated indigenous peoples’ expectations of continued usage rights and reflected their rituals of agreement and consensus. In return, Winthrop pressed the Nameaug Pequots’ case to English authorities, arguing that ‘if the Pequotts be not taken vnder the English… there wilbe noe living for English there.’”

Margaret Ellen Newell “Brethern by Nature”

As an Indigenous woman, Okemesw8’s odds of success against one of the most powerful familes in New England were vanishingly small. Despite the odds, Okemesw8 would have been able to recognize that fissures had opened between the settlers colonizing her homeland. She took advantage of these divisions to challenge the Winthrop family still living at Castle Hill.

When Daniel and Elizabeth Epps sued to remove the younger grandson in 1684, fifteen years after Okemesw8 first arrived at their farm, Okemesw8’s strategy successfully exposed their betrayal of Puritan values.

Due to this betrayal, Daniel and Elizabeth Epps lost their lawsuit at the Quarterly Court in Salem, but their allies at the General Court in Boston overturned this decision.

Historians have assumed that Okemesw8’s wealthy neighbors, Henry and Lydia Bennet, who had both the resources and the motivation to defy the Winthrops, could not prevent Daniel and Elizabeth from removing the child. However, the historical record suggests that Henry and Lydia may have paid the price required to block Daniel and Elizabeth from removing the boy to Castle Hill.

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