Human history in New England goes back well over 12,000 years. However, familiar historical narratives of our towns are uneven and selective, usually covering only the last 400 years and centered around the white Anglo-American settlers. Missing from our local histories are the life-stories and contributions of Indigenous and Black People who are also part of these communities. Click here for a 41-minute presentation by archaeologist and historian Gail Golec recorded on November 22, 2024.

Reconstructing their narratives is difficult but there are clues spread throughout documents and stories, highlighting Indigenous and Black People as soldiers, neighbors, friends, church members, land owners, farmers, musicians, trades people and thus integral to small-town New England life. In Part 1, Golec explores the history of Indigenous New Englanders in NH and VT in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Golec begins by describing John Eliot‘s recruitment of six-year-old Nipmuc Native, Wawaus, who was enrolled in Harvard College as a praying Indian and renamed “James Printer“. She goes on to talk about King Philip’s War and how it changed New England into the 18th Century.

She concludes her presentation by talking about Printer’s grandson, David Abraham, who moved to New Hampshire and fought on the side of the Colonists during the Revolutionary War.