Strout Origins: Stolen Land

An author’s disclaimer, some Strout basics and the 1614 kidnapping of Tisquantum and 26 other Wampanoags.

Plymouth Colony’s Pilgrims were hardly fleeing religious persecution — they were instituting it, from Quaker whippings to the creation of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania by Englishmen fleeing Englishmen.

From Miles Standish’s shocking 1623 massacre at Wassagusset to the yearlong extinction of the Pequots, Massasoit watches as the mutually beneficial relationship he envisioned crumbles in the face of relentless English aggression.

Massasoit’s heir, “King Philip,” having been humiliated by the Massachusetts Bay Colony one too many times, attempts to unite Northeast Woodlands tribes against their occupiers. In response, Pilgrims and Puritans decimate their former neighbors, mounting their enemies’ heads on pikes at Plymouth.

As the victors distribute land newly evacuated by the enslavement and murder of thousands of its indigenous keepers, Christopher Strout and Sarah Pike get married at Marblehead and quickly settle in Cape Cod.