Monoco, a 17th-century Nashaway sachem known to New England Puritans as One-eyed John, led raids against English settlements during King Philip's War. After decades of peaceful coexistence between settlers and natives, tensions escalated in August 1675 when the Nashaway attacked the Lancaster settlement, with further violence continuing into 1676 as part of the broader native-settler conflict. Monoco's raids exemplified the violent phase of this conflict, during which he also kidnapped Mary Rowlandson and her children, an act that would gain historical significance through Rowlandson's later publication of her captivity narrative.
On March 13, 1676, Monoco led a raid on Groton, Massachusetts, where he took control of a garrison house in the center of town. He then engaged Captain James Parker in negotiations, threatening to burn multiple towns including Chelmsford, Concord, Watertown, Cambridge, Charlestown, Roxbury, and Boston. According to accounts, Monoco declared in his dialect: "What me will - me do." Following these threats, he proceeded to burn the town of Groton to the ground, forcing its inhabitants to flee to Concord.
The raid resulted in the destruction of Groton and the displacement of its residents, demonstrating the military capability and determination of Nashaway forces under Monoco's leadership. The burning and destruction served as a dramatic assertion of indigenous resistance during King Philip's War, though the article provides limited information about the ultimate consequences of this specific action beyond the immediate destruction and evacuation of the settlement.
European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.
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