Incident at Machias (Jul 1676)

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Machias, Maine
Surname/tag: Waldron Lawton

Historical Event: Jul 1676 at Machias, Maine in historic French Acadia

Beligerents:

Henry Lawton and William Waldron

32 unoffending Indians kidnapped from Machias

Outcome:

A continuation and escalation of hostilities

An edict forbidding Indian slavery without a locally-issued permit

Two of those captured are restored

A trial for the offenders

Although it was not a military event, this event is widely considered a precipitating factor in the migration of King Philip's War to the northern theater of Maine and New Hampshire after Metacom was killed at Mount Hope.

The Incident at Machias was a tragic miscalculation by a pair of scoundrels and rogues who captured, and soon thereafter sold into slavery, 32 unoffending Indians who were going about their lives at Machias, in Maine, which was part of French Acadia. Lawton and Waldron had no business being in those waters, and Waldron had been caught before, so he knew he was not in English waters. William Waldron's timing could not have been worse.

Note: We do not know exactly the relationship between William Waldron and Richard Waldron; some journalists record William as nephew, other as son. Neither do we have a record of any formal commission signed by Richard Waldron, only a report of such.

From Pannick at the Eastward

"[...] A final contributing factor was "the perfidious & unjust dealing of som English... who have Stolen Eight or Nine persones from the Indianes." Gardner was referring to an incident in November 1675 when a Boston vessel under the command of William Waldron (a son of the Major, and armed with a formal commission from his father) had sailed to Acadia, nominally to trade, but "principally to take Indians". Through subterfuge and force they had captured several groups of Abenaki people, including a "Sagamore and his squaw", then sailed to the Azores to sell them into slavery. Even though some of the perpetrators were subsequently arrested and tried at Boston, irrevocable damage was thereby done to Indian relations in the northeast."

From The Changing Nature of Indian Slavery in New England

"Massachusetts indicted two men [Henry Lawton and William Waldron] in November of 1675 under the manstealing law “for kidnapping Indians and selling them as slaves at Fyal,” and sent agents to redeem some native captives who had been seized by Massachusetts trader Captain Richard Waldron in 1677 and shipped to the Azores." [...] "Richard Waldron kidnapped approximately 200 Wampanoags and Pennacooks who had come to his Maine outpost under a flag of truce and offers of amnesty."

From The Incident at Machias

"A truce was made at Cocheco on July 3, 1676, being negotiated by Major Richard Waldeme and signed by Squando of the Pigwackets, Wonnalancet of the Penacooks, Robin Doney of the Canibas, and Sam Numphow, a leader of the praying Indians of Wamesit, and a grandson of Passaconaway. "

[...]

"In July 1676, while King Philip's War was still in progress, an outrage was committed against the small peaceful band of Indians at Machias who were affiliated with the Penobscots. By some undescribed stratagem Henry Lawton and William Waldron of Boston kidnapped 32 unoffending Indians from Machias with the intent of selling them as slaves. Machias was about 120 miles east of the St. George River, and far within the bounds of French Acadia as determined by the Treaty of Breda. However at this time, there was no active French rule in Acadia, and Massachusetts had not yet acquired jurisdiction. Much of the coast of Maine was in a state of anarchy."

"There was indignation in Boston, and Governor John Leverett issued an order for the arrest of Lawton and Waldron. Lawton was taken into custody and placed in jail in Boston, but Waldron eluded capture with his cargo of Indian slaves. "

On August 23, 1676, at Boston, Edward Rawson, the Secretary of the colony had issued a warrant for the arrest of Lawton and Waldron "for seizing and carrying away 30 Indians where one Sagamore & his squaw to ye Eastward" (Baxter D H M e 6:120).

[...]

"Waldron took the 32 Abenakis to Fayal (modern Faial Island),the westernmost of the Azores. [...] Governor Leverett persuaded a kind-hearted English sea captain, Bernard Trott, to try to rescue the Indians. Trott sailed to Faial and secured the release of the chief and his wife, but the other 30 Abenakis had disappeared into the cruel oblivion of slavery. [...] The 32 Indians taken from Machias must have represented about half the population of the village, for 12 years later a census revealed 26 Indians in nine wigwams, with 10 men, 10 women, and 6 children in the Machias band (Gargas 1688)."

[...]

"The Canibas and Penobscots now became fully involved in the war. The English inhabitants of Pemaquid fled to Monhegan Island for safety in August 1676, and petitioned the Massachusetts government for a redress of grievances and for supplies of guns and powder."

[...]

A further consequence was an Indian Slave Act (29 March 1677) that restricted keeping Indian slaves.

Sources

• "Early History of Dover, Strafford County, New Hampshire. : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men" - Hurd, D. Hamilton, Philadelphia 1882. p.216 (Accessed 20 Oct 2022.) http://www.nh.searchroots.com/strafford.html#Dover

• Frank T. Siebert. “The First Maine Indian War: Incident at Machias (1676).” Actes Du Quatorzieme Congres des Algonquinistes, pp. 137-156. William Cowan, ed. Ottawa: Carleton University.

• Baker, Emerson W., "Trouble to the eastward: the failure of Anglo-Indian relations in early Maine" (1986). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1539623765. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-mh0r-hx28

• Mary Beth Norton. "In the Devil's Snare". Chapter 3, entitled "Pannick at the Eastward". Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Dec 18, 2007. pp. 89, 91. (Available at library or Amazon.) (Accessed 22 Oct 2022) Internet Archive

• “Petition of William Waldron,” Massachusetts State Archives, Volume 30, document 213a. Transcription from The New England Indian Papers Series (NEIPS), Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza, eds., Yale University Library Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10079/digcoll/3611.

• Our Beloved Kin. "William Waldron’s Defense: The Capture and Return of Wabanaki Noncombatants". Contributed by Allyson LaForge with Lisa Brooks. (Accessed 22 Oct 2022)

• "Waldron vs. Smith: Shipwreck at The Eastward, 1671". Barbara Rumsey. Boothbay Region Historical Society. Maine History; Volume 39, Number 2; The Early Coast of Maine; 6-1-2000.

• Margaret Ellen Newell. "The Changing Nature of Indian Slavery in New England, 1670–1720". Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 71 "Reinterpreting New England Indians and the Colonial Experience". (Accessed 22 Oct 2022) https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1397

• Bilodeau, Christopher J.. "Creating an Indian Enemy in the Borderlands: King Philip’s War in Maine, 1675-1678." Maine History 47, 1 (2013): 10-41. (Accessed 23 June 2023) https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal/vol47/iss1/3