What Is Possible? or The Massacre at Turners Falls

In February it’s very cold in New England. Intellectually this is not a shocking revelation, but when I stepped out of the airport door at 6 am after a red eye flight across the country into 38 degree air, I understood this with more conviction in the chill of my bones. Snow covers the fields and rolling hills of “New” England as I am driven from the airport to my hotel in Deerfield, Massachusetts. This is the first time I’ve been here in the winter and as a kid from Cali, who can count the times I’ve traveled through the Northeast on one hand, this is new territory. The land is full of new names and places, untold stories and unknown ways.

Just North of Deerfield, at the intersection of the Mohawk Trail and the Connecticut River, is a small town called Turners Falls. For years, Turners Falls was a gathering place for many of the Native tribes in the area including the Narragansett, Pocumtuck and Abenaki. The point where two major trade routes connect, it was a natural crossroads and a great place to fish. The tribes, who often conflicted over territory or trade in other places, have a common understanding here. This is a sacred place, a place of peace.

After King Philip’s War erupted 333 years ago, the area now known as Western Massachusetts was pocked with battles and conflicts. It was proportionally the deadliest war in the history of the United States with over 3000 Natives and 600 colonists killed. In May of 1676, some 300 Natives were camped at the falls they referred to as Peskeompscut, place of the split rock. General Turner and a militia of about 150 men attacked at dawn, shooting directly into the shelters of the sleeping Natives, killing men, women, children and elders indiscriminately. Over 200 died within minutes. As the English retreated, other Native warriors from down river counter-attacked and about 40 of the Puritan militia fell including General Turner. The Puritan community decided to name the Falls after Turner. Later the town built a Mill on the river to support the extremely heavy logging that would decimate the old growth forests across the state. Today the Mill is mostly closed and sits empty overlooking the roaring Connecticut River. Turners Falls is a small town with a haunting history.

I learned all this as I prepared to perform at a private boarding school in the area. Whenever I travel to make a presentation, I try to learn something of the local history so I can ground my performance in the specifics of the place. I want to honor the spirits of the land and of the indigenous people who traditionally lived there. I also want to make my presentation as relevant as possible for the students I perform for and talking about the very land they live on is a powerful way to keep the conversation focused. When I asked the students what Native tribes live in that area there was an uncomfortable silence screaming across the auditorium. While all the students routinely travel through Turners Falls and live just down the road, almost none of them had ever heard this history.

Talking to some of the locals, I learned that Turners Falls is the most economically depressed towns in the area. That it has a reputation of being a place of bad luck.
Is this coincidence? Folk superstition? Or is there a connection with the history of the place and the lives of the people who live here? According to Peter Nabokov, who wrote Where the Lightening Strikes, the Lives of American Indian Sacred Places, “New England is notorious for the ghosts of old residences and the restless spirits that continue to haunt its crossroads and clearings”. He proposed that “the unredeemed history of Euro-American greed, which evicted most of New England’s Indians from their homes and lands and tried to “disappear” them from historical memory” is still present with us today and will not go away simply by being ignored.

Apparently, some white folks in town are saying that until there is some kind of public acknowledgement of what happened here, the negative energy that pervades Turners Falls will not go away. I wasn’t able to find out if anyone is actually organizing to make something happen or if it’s just coffee table talk. But it’s a very compelling idea. What would it look like for the predominantly white community of Turners Falls to create a public community ceremony to acknowledge the history of the land? Obviously, plaques are a tried and true method, but what else could they do? What kind of statement, action, change is possible? What kind of healing?

The potential is huge. But so is the status quo. Most people in most towns prefer to pretend that the massacres never happened, that their streets did not once run with indigenous blood, that the founding of their precious churches and schools is not inherently linked to the violence that “cleared” the land. These days the kind of leadership it would take from inside the Turners Falls community to make something happen and be meaningful is hard to find.

As I stand in the snow at the edge of the river, watching the water rush down towards the ocean, I wonder what these rocks have seen. The changes of the centuries, the cycle of the seasons, the fish runs, people come and go. The land does not forget. The massacre is still here, hanging in between time, in the crystal cold winter air, in the bad luck of Turners Falls, in the timeless rush of water on rock, in the psyche of the land. What is possible?