What Really Happened at Turners Falls? The Story of a Massacre

This monument to Captain William Turner sums up an old and perhaps familiar telling of history. We have a colonial hero, later slain in battle. Small but mighty colonial forces overcome the odds. Apparently passive "Indians" are taken by surprise. Nameless Native people are "destroyed."

How accurate is this picture of history? Not very, according to this unique panel discussion led by David Brule of the Nolumbeka Project, with archaeologist David Naumec and Liz ColdWind Santana Kiser, tribal historic preservation officer of the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck Indians. All three panelists were at the heart of a remarkable 13-year, National Park Service-funded project investigating the true story of the Turners Falls massacre. David Brule chaired the project from its inception in 2013.

Since the 1670s most historians have told the story of Turners Falls/Peskeompskut as a remarkable, heroic colonial victory. With the findings from this investigation, as our panel shows, we now know the story is far more nuanced.

Three hundred and fifty years ago on May 19, 1676, William Turner's colonial forces attacked a camp of Native elders, women and children - noncombatants who had taken refuge after fleeing fighting in the south - and slaughtered hundreds. A Native coalition counterattacked the following day in an underreported decisive Indigenous victory. But what remains in memory is the Turners Falls massacre, one of the worst atrocities in a war of atrocity.

This panel discussion will reveal what really happened, based on findings from battlefield terrain technologies and archaeology. The panelists will share Indigenous and archaeological/anthropological perspectives, and discuss this unique study - an on-going collaborative investigation by battlefield experts, local historical commissioners, and tribal historic preservation officers from the Nipmuck community, as well as from the Aquinnah Wampanoag, the Elnu Abenaki, and the Narragansett tribal historic preservation office.

This new historical perspective is crucial to Indigenous communities in revealing the truth about the past, contributing to healing that place, addressing certain multi-generational trauma, and, in a small way, beginning to help heal Northeastern tribal descendants.

David Brule has been project coordinator for the study of the Battle of Great Falls/ Wissatinnewag-Peskeompskut May 19, 1676 funded by the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program from its inception in 2013 to publication of its final report in 2025. He is also president of the Nolumbeka Project, a tribal non-profit organization that promotes education and awareness of Indigenous histories and cultures of the middle Connecticut River Valley and beyond. He is a featured speaker in numerous educational programs and presentations throughout the Connecticut River Valley.

David is the author of several books comprising his series on regional history, local culture, and the natural world: West Along the River. He serves as chairman of the Nehantic Tribal Council and the Nehantic Nation Cultural Conservancy.

David Naumec is a historian, archaeologist, and museum consultant who is collaborating with several Connecticut institutions to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution while also serving as an adjunct history professor and working in the field of cultural resource management. Dr. Naumec is a graduate of UConn Storrs, holds a master’s degree in history and museum studies from Tufts University, and completed his doctorate in early American history at Clark University. His professional and personal research interests include Native American history, colonial North America, the history of Connecticut, and conflict archaeology. Dr. Naumec was co-investigator with Dr. Kevin McBride of the University of Connecticut for the Battle of Great Falls/Peskeompskut NPS-funded project from 2018-2025, where he served as military historian and battlefield archaeologist.

Liz Cold Wind Santana-Kiser is an elder, council woman and tribal historic preservation officer for the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck Indians. She is married with six children, and many grandchildren. For more than five decades, she has worked at the forefront of improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous People.

She founded the Nipmuck Women’s Health Coalition, a disease-prevention and health promotion coalition to support Nipmuck and other tribes throughout New England. Liz has also collaborated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School to coordinate the first major conferences on health disparities affecting Nipmuck peoples. She also worked with the Great Brook Valley Health Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, and co-founded the Nipmuc Family Dental Clinic.

Liz currently serves on the 1676 Battle of Great Falls Advisory Board in Turners Falls, Mass., Harvard Alumni Committee on Developing Educational Module on Ethics in Public Health, the Stolen Relations Project on Indigenous slavery at Brown University, Worcester Arts Museum community and cultural groups for reinstallation of American art galleries.

She has earned many prestigious awards including the prized Eagle Feather for her years of work and dedication to the revitalization and wellbeing of indigenous Nipmuc people and beyond.

FIND OUT MORE

David Brule, "What Really Happened at the 1676 Great Falls Fight?" Historic Deerfield, October 28, 2024

Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Historic Preservation Office and Associates for the Battle of Great Falls/ Wissatinnewag-Peskeompskut Pre-Inventory Research and Documentation Project, "Remembering and Reconnecting: Nipmucks and the Massacre at Great Falls," October 2015

Kevin McBride, David Naumec, William Keegan, and David George, "The Battle of Great Falls/Wissantinnewag-Peskeompskut-Phase II, May 19, 1676, Site Identification and Documentation Project," American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service, September 8, 2025

The Partnership of Historic Bostons is an all-volunteer organization. As always, our public history events are free. But to make events such as this one - as well as our Metcom's Resistance series, we need your help! Please donate now to support real history.

Image: The monument to Captain William Turner at Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Although it's listed on the historic registry, the monument's message is now challenged. Photo credit: Maryann Zujewski, 2025