The Battle of Turners Falls: Historical Trauma and the Legacy of King Philip’s War (1675-1677)

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Memory, Archaeology, And The Social Experience Of Conflict and Battlefields" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

King Philip’s War was the most devastating conflict in American history proportional to the population. Thousands of Native people died from disease, starvation, and battlefield deaths, and the survivors abandoned the region or were placed on reservations that were a fraction of their former homelands. The Battle of Turner’s Falls (May 19, 1676) was the most decisive battle of King Philip’s War. It was the beginning of a process that resulted in the dissolution of the Native Coalition and ultimately the piecemeal defeat of all the tribes in the coalition. The project is unique in that its success has been the result of collaborative work between Indigenous and Euro-American representatives whose ancestors fought in the battle and academics. This paper will discuss the archaeology of the Battle of Turners Falls, and the contributions of Indigenous and Euro-American perspectives that provided significant insights into the memory and legacy of the battle.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Historical Memory, Archaeology, And The Social Experience Of Conflict and Battlefields

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 113