The Raid on Salmon Falls occurred on March 27, 1690, during King William's War, a conflict between English colonial settlements and French-allied Native American forces in North America. The raid targeted the English settlement of Salmon Falls, located in present-day Berwick, Maine, as part of broader French and Native American military operations against English colonial positions. The attackers' original objective had been to target the home of Edward Tyng at Fort Loyal, but they altered their plans and chose to attack Salmon Falls instead.
The raid was led by Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and his son Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, working in coordination with Norridgewock Abnaki chief Wahowa. The attackers plundered and burned the village of Salmon Falls. During the assault, thirty-four men were killed, and fifty-four people, primarily women and children, were taken captive and carried away to Canada. Following the destruction of Salmon Falls, militia forces mustered from Portsmouth moved to pursue the raiders but were driven off in a skirmish that occurred later that same day. After successfully repelling the militia pursuit, Hertel continued his campaign by conducting additional raids on present-day Portland, Maine.
The Raid on Salmon Falls demonstrated the vulnerability of English frontier settlements to coordinated French-Native American military operations during King William's War. The successful capture and destruction of the settlement, combined with the significant number of captives taken to Canada, represented a significant blow to English colonial expansion in the region. The raid illustrated the ongoing threat posed by French colonial forces and their Native American allies to English settlements in the northeastern frontier.
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.
34 English killed; 54 English captives (mostly women and children)
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