Episode 18: Murder in Plymouth
Plymouth Colony v. The Peach Gang
In 1638, four English indentured servants attacked and robbed Penowanyanquis, a member of the Nipmuc tribe. Once the killers were caught, colonial authorities decided to put the men on trial. The case seemed clear enough. But with tensions rising between colonists and indigenous peoples, not to mention a makeshift court system, could the Plymouth colonists find a path to justice and prevent further violence?
Episode Resources
Episode Transcript
Works Cited/
Referenced
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Jennifer L. Aultman, “From Thanksgiving to War: Native Americans in Criminal Cases of Plymouth Colony, 1630-1675,” The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, last revised February 2001.
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William Nathaniel Banks, “History in Towns: Grafton, Massachusetts,” The Magazine ANTIQUES, Fall 2010.
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John Bessler, “Foreword: The Death Penalty in Decline: From Colonial America to the Present,” Criminal Law Bulletin vol. 50, no. 2 (2014).
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William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912), Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
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William Bradford and Edward Winslow, A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England, or, Mourt’s Relation (London: John Bellamie, 1622).
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Rebecca Beatrice Brooks, “History of Plymouth Colony,” History of Massachusetts, September 28, 2016.
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Patricia Scott Deetz and James Deetz, “Plymouth Town Early Descriptions, 1620-1628," The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2000-2007.
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Patricia Scott Deetz and James Deetz, “Population of Plymouth Town, Colony & County, 1620-1690,” The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2000-2007.
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Nancy Eldredge, “Who are the Wampanoag?” Plimoth Patuxet Museums.
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Christopher Fennell, “Plymouth Colony Legal Structure,” The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, last modified December 14, 2007.
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Glenn W. LaFantasie, “Murder of an Indian, 1638,” Rhode Island History Vol. 38 No. 3 (August 1979).
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John H. Langbein, History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2009).
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Thomas Lechford, Note-book kept by Thomas Lechford, esq., lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638 to July 29, 1641, ed. Edward Hale Everett (Cambridge, MA: J. Wilson and Son, 1885).
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Jennifer Lord Paluzzi, “Cisco Homestead receives Grafton historic preservation funds,” Grafton Common, October 22, 2019.
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“National Register of Historic Places: Hassanamisco Reservation, Grafton (Worcester), MA,” July 14, 2011.
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“Native America and the Mayflower: 400 years of Wampanoag history,” Mayflower400, 2020.
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Anna Neuzil, “Women in Plymouth Colony, 1633-1668,” The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1998, last modified December 14, 2007.
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Eric W. Nye, Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Conversion of Currency, accessed September 8, 2024.
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Tobey Pearl, Terror to the Wicked: America’s First Murder Trial by Jury, Ending a War and Forming a Nation (New York: Pantheon Books, 2021).
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Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England: Printed By Order of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (New York: AMS Press, 1855-1861).
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Cheryll Toney Holley, “A Brief Look at Nipmuc History,” Hassanamisco Indian Museum.
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Cheryll Toney Holley, “Hassanamesit,” May 6, 2023.
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Cheryll Toney Holley, “Hassanamisco Reservation on the National Register of Historic Places!” November 10, 2011.
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“Treaty of Hartford,” Venture Smith’s Colonial Connecticut.
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John Underhill, Newes from America; Or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England; Containing A True Relation of Their War-like Proceedings These Two Yeares Last Past, with a Figure of the Indian Fort, or Palizado (London: Peter Cole, 1638), ed. Paul Royster, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Digital Edition.
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Roger Williams, A Key Into the Language of America (London: Gregory Dexter, 1643).
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Roger Williams, letter to John Winthrop, August 1638.
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“Roger Williams–Minister, Merchant, Magistrate,” National Park Service, last updated September 6, 2024.
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John Winthrop, diary, published as Winthrop’s Journal “History of New England” 1630-1649, ed. James Kendall Hosmer (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908), Vol. 1.