Tantamous

According to one source "[i]n his earlier years it is supposed [Tantamous] lived at Isabaeth, the country about the Assabet River, now Maynard."[5] Around 1635 Tantamous and/or his son Peter Jethro was present with a group of Native Americans to witness the sale of what is now downtown Concord to local colonists.[6] In 1651, Tantamous transferred land in what is now Maynard to Herman Garrett, a resident of Concord, by defaulting on a mortgaged mare and colt.[7] In 1659, John Smith of Charlestown unsuccessfully requested the Massachusetts General Court to deed him Tantamous' land near Sudbury as payment for a debt.[8] In 1653 an Indian named "Jethro" was brought into the Indian court in Nonantum with several other Indians for drunkenness, and he was recorded as having two illegitimate children by 1663, but it is not entirely clear if this is the same Jethro.[9][10] Later in life, Tantamous and twelve of his family members lived on the northwest side of what is now named Nobscot Hill, located in Framingham and Sudbury.[11]

Despite living amongst the praying Indians associated with John Eliot, Tantamous did not join their religion. In 1675 Tantamous and ten other Indians were falsely accused of committing a murder in the Lancaster raid after allegedly falling under suspicion due to their "singing, dancing, and having much powder and many bullets and slugs hid in their baskets," but they were acquitted when the true murderer, Monoco, a Nashaway, was discovered, and Peter Jethro actually communicated with the captors of Mary Rowlandson to obtain her release.[12][13] During King Philip's War, the government ordered Tantamous and his family to Deer Island, and in 1675 Tantamous received thirty lashes for abusive speeches.[14] Tantamous eventually escaped from Deer Island but his son, Peter, alerted the authorities (with alleged assurances that his family would not be harmed) of his father's whereabouts,[15] and Tantamous was captured at Cochecho (Dover, New Hampshire) and executed on September 26, 1676, on the Boston Common[16][3]^:19–20 [1]^:80 after being marched through the streets of Boston with a noose on his neck on the way to the Great Elm Tree.[17][18] In his history of the war, Increase Mather referred to the incident, stating, "That abominable Indian Peter Jethro betrayed his own Father, and other Indians of his special acquaintance, unto Death."[19] More recent historians suggest that Peter may have actually been working to turn in only John Monoco, the perpetrator of the Lancaster raid out of a sense of justice, and Monoco and Old Jethro may have intended to surrender peacefully in return for offering Canonicus, the Narragansett leader in exchange for their lives.[13] The remainder of Tantamous' family, other than Peter, were sold into slavery.[20]

Remnants of Tantamous' home and farm fields in Framingham could still be seen centuries after his death,[21] and his cave can still be seen today.[22] Tantamous' name is memorialized in Tantamouse Trail in Sudbury and Jethro Street in Maynard, and the Tantamous Lodge of the Boy Scouts.[23]