Meet Muttawmp, Nipmuc Sachem of Quaboag

On November 10, 1665, The Deed for Quaboag Plantation was witnessed by Mettawomppe, also known as Muttawmp.

In July of 1675, Ephraim Curtis was employed by the Council in Boston to go into the Indian country around Quaboag and find out all he could about their present condition and designs. The Indians around Quaboag were in an ugly temper, and it was with much trouble that he finally prevailed upon them to listen to his message. At last, he gained speech with the Sachems and found that Muttawmp, the Sachem of Quaboag, was the leader. Curtis judged that there were about 200 warriors at this place.

Muttawmp was Sachem of the Nipmuc Indians based in Quaboag. He was cosigner of the deed of purchase at Quaboag and was a friend of the settlers in peacetime. Now he had achieved a position of eminence in the war cabinet of the Nipmucs. This Sachem was to be the leader of the forces responsible for the destruction of Quaboag Plantation. He took part in most of the major engagements, after the beginning of the war, as one of the leaders of the Nipmuc. Muttawmp had actually converted to Christianity and had become a Praying Indian. However, when King Philip began organizing the local tribes to rise against the English, Muttawmp, together with another Nipmuc sachem, Matoonas foreswore Christianity and decided to join him. When Philip arrived in Nipmuc territory, the combined villages were dominated by a small number of dynamic personalities who provided some central leadership for the peoples. One of these Sachems was Muttawmp of Quaboag, another was Matoonas of Pakachoag. Though Matoonas had once been the faithful chief constable of his Praying Indian community, he had acquired an everlasting hatred of the English when they executed his son for a murder of which he was clearly innocent. He was one of the first of the Praying Indians to join Philip.

On August 2, 1675, shortly before Philip's arrival in Nipmuc territory, Muttawmp and Matoonas had executed the next move in the War, a much bolder and larger scaled attack on Brookfield. They apparently viewed Brookfield as a worthwhile objective because of its well-stocked farms and a sensible one because of its isolation from defended towns. Toward Brookfield he directed the burning energies of some 200 warriors. At the attack Muttawmp's men were busily at work. Some were rifling the deserted houses, while others were driving the livestock into the woods. Once they had stripped the houses of all the valuables that caught their fancy, they set them on fire, then concentrated their attention on the garrison for three days and nights. During the successful attack on Brookfield, Capt. Edward Hutchinson was mortally wounded, as well as others. It alerted all southern New England, as Swansea and Dartmouth had not, to the horrifying reality that new England's Algonquians were on the march, with the means and the might to hit any desired target. It also displayed the natives' strategic intelligence. Muttawmp and Matoonas and their warriors were celebrating their victory on Aug 5th in the newly constructed Nipmuc Fort at Wenimisset (west of Brookfield), when Philip, the first rebel of them all, appeared with his company. When he arrived he was told the details of the Brookfield attack, news that pleased him so much he gave each of the leaders a peck of unstrung wampum.

Muttawmp was also the Nipmuc leader in the Battle of Bloody Brook on September 12, 1675, near South Deerfield, Massachusetts, in which fifty one English soldiers and seventeen colonial teamsters were killed, including Captain Thomas Lathrop; it was the battle itself which caused the name of the place to change from "Moody Brook" to "Bloody Brook", supposedly, because the stream near the battlefield turned red with blood.

In October of the same year, Muttawmp surrounded Hatfield, Massachusetts with 800 men and tried to draw the colonists out by setting fires outside of town. The militia within the town resisted the temptation to come out in force and only sent out a ten men party to investigate, nine of whom were killed or captured by the Nipmuc while the tenth made it back into town and warned the colonists.

On April 21, 1676, Muttawmp, with five hundred Native American warriors, routed the English in one of the most famous battles of King Philip's War, the attack on Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Later in the war, running out of supplies because of the colonists' scorched earth tactics, Muttawmp tried to make peace with the English. Muttawmp was promised by Richard Waltron that he would be allowed to live if he turned himself in. Waltron, however, broke his promise. Muttawmp was captured, taken to court, and executed on September 26, 1676 in Boston.

Source for Muttawmp:  The Red King's Rebellion by Russell Bourne