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350 years ago, as opposed to the usual 250 years ago, on April 21, 1676, a coalition of Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and Narragansett fighters besieged the Haynes Garrison house on the West Bank of the Sudbury River. Later, they ambushed the company led by Captain Wadsworth as they marched back from Marlboro. This day is known as the Sudbury Fight, and in some sources, the Battle of Green Hill. The English militia lost 74 men; the losses of the indigenous coalition have no reliable estimate, perhaps fewer than a dozen, perhaps hundreds. This was the last battle in eastern Massachusetts of the King Philip’s War.
As Town Historian, I drafted and the Select Board signed this proclamation:
350th Anniversary of the Sudbury Fight
WHEREAS: The clash of cultures and people known as the Sudbury Fight came violently to our Town of Sudbury 350 years ago on April 21, 1676,
WHEREAS: Seventy-four English militiamen lost their lives.
WHEREAS: Approximately 120 members of a coalition of Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett Native Americans lost their lives, as estimated by Puritan authors. No bodies were found to be counted.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
All of the individuals whose lives were lost in this tragic encounter are to be honored and respected.
Signed by the Select Board on March 31, 2026.
That proclamation states the barest of facts.
To state more than that is to delve into an event of such complexity that it boggles the mind. To begin to understand it, we must hold a myriad of viewpoints such as the men who died, the Town of Sudbury, the righteous Puritans, the Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and Narragansett tribes, the towns of Concord, Roxbury and others who lost so many of their able bodies.
I have just finished a masterpiece of historical research of the King Philip’s War with an indigenous perspective: Our Beloved Kin, by Lisa Brooks.
There will be a Sudbury 250 talk at the community center on Sunday, April 26, Sudbury’s Indigenous History, by Jasmine Goodspeed at 4 pm. The next event is Sudbury 250 Day, May 16th, make your plans to park at LS and shuttle or ride you bike or walk to Town Center. A beautiful Sudbury 250 pin will be waiting for you there.