By Conrad Reeder
Massachusett Vocabulary
(current research can be found here: https://living-language-land.org/wampanoag/
William Wood’s New England’s Prospect 1634
(unless otherwise noted)
Abbomocho: Devil
Aberginian: What the Natives called themselves. (Native Americans did not understand why the English called them “Indian.” Plane, Anne Marie. Colonial Intimacies. New York, Cornell UP: 2000 p15.)
Anglish: English
Appepes naw: When I see it I will tell you my mind
Commaco: Feast & dance
Haha: Yes
Kautántowwit: The great Southwest to whose House all souls go. (Williams 1643)
Keihtan: God or Great Spirit
Kekechoi: Much pain
Kítthan: Sea (Moondancer, Narragansett)
Manittóo: A God
Manittôwock: They are Gods. (Williams 1643)
Mandu: God
Mattamoi: Die
Míchachunck: Soul
Musquántum manit: God is angry (Roger Williams 1643) The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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Netchaw: Brother
Nétop: Friend (Roger Williams 1643)
Nux: Yes
Nummag ne wuttamâuog: I offer this tobacco. (Moondancer 115)
Neen womasu sagimus: My loving sachem
Noe wammaw ause: I love you
Okummus nepáuzshad: Grandmother Moon (Moondancer)
Sachem: King or Chief
Squaw Sachem: Queen or Chief or wife of Chief (Moondancer)
Taubut ne an hee: Thanks heartily.
Wunêtu Nittá: My Heart is good. (Roger Williams 1643)
Wunnohteaonk: May peace be in your hearts (Moondancer)
WuttWutt∞tchikkinneasin nippâwuschikkinneasin nippâwus: Grandfather Sun (Moondancer)
Tom maushew – Husband
INDIAN SONGS
Ia-pag-ya ma-in-te – Baby swimming down the river (with the current) Kiowa Lullaby
We-mi-lan-gundo wu-lamo Talli talegaking – All were peaceful, long ago, there at the Talega land (Delaware Walam Olum)
He-Ga He-Ga/He-Ga Ne He – Penobscot Song of Greeting
Kwa Ha Hi-a/Kwa Nu Kwa Nu De He No The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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Kwa Nu De Kwa Nu De/ He No – Penobscot War-Dance Song – roughly means “I wish you were dancing too.”
French
Le meilleur likker sur le continent – The best liquor on the continent.
Non likker! Pistolets du besoin. Poudre. Nous vous commerçons des peaux de castor. – No likker. Need guns. Powder. We trade you beaver skins.
Castor n’est pas assez pour 30 pistolets. Je veux une femme. Même un diable attirant comme moi se sent seul. – Beaver is not enough for 30 guns. I want a woman. Even an attractive Devil like me gets lonely.
Celui-ci ressemble à beaucoup d’amusement! Venez au papa, amoureux. – This one looks like a lot of fun! Come to papa, sweetheart.
THE CAPTIVE MUSIC
(Suggested)
ACT I
1. Fife and Colonial Drum “Opening Salvo March.”
2. WEETAMOO Flute Melody
3. Native Drums “Garrison Attack”
4. “The Governor Goes To War”
5. WEETAMOO Flute Melody “Medicine Wheel”
6. Kiowa Lullaby “A-Go-Go” (Hush Thee Child – WEETAMOO sings.)
7. Native “Ahhh-bamacho Song!” The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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8. Fife and Colonial Drum Whip
9. WEETAMOO’s War Chant (Ensemble)
10. Kiowa “We-Mi-Lan-Gundo” (All Were Peaceful)
11. Corn Woman Dance (Ensemble)
12. Fife and Colonial Drum Reprisal
13. Give Away Dance
14. Fife and Colonial Drum March
ACT II
15. Fife & Colonial Drum “Opening Salvo March Reprisal”
16. “All Praise To Thee, My God” (A cappella hymn – Clerk & Mather sing)
17. “Papoose Lament” Counterpart with WEETAMOO singing “Hush Thee Child” (Ensemble)
18. French Jig Production (Ensemble)
19. WEETAMOO Flute Death Song
20. Annie’s Jericho Song (Annie Sings)
21. Native Drums “Freedom”
22. “Drums Unite!” (Ensemble)
MAIN CHARACTERS’ DESCRIPTIONS
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WEETAMOO (abt. 1644 -1676) is a historical Native American Queen or Squaw Sachem of the Pocasset, who we mostly know about from the descriptions of her by her enemy, Mary Rowlandson. She was much loved by her people, based on the grief displayed at her death, as reported by Increase Mather, “when it [her head] was set upon a pole in Taunton, the Indians who were prisoners there, knew it presently, and made a most horrible and diabolical Lamentation, crying out that it was their Queens [sic] head” (Strong 94). Her name translates “sweetheart.”
MARY ROWLANDSON (1637-1711) is a Puritan minister’s wife captured by local Natives during a raid on Lancaster (10 Feb 1676), who wrote one of the era’s best-sellers about her ordeal as a slave to WEETAMOO and Quinapin, most likely edited by Increase Mather (Strong 104). Her book titled, The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682) was the seminal book for the plethora of propagandized captivity books that followed, which the clergy subsequently used to demonized the Native People. In the play, The Captive, she speaks as she wrote it in her book.
GOVERNOR is typical of the combatant Puritan leaders, in particular:
1. John Winthrop, the Younger (1606-76) Governor of Connecticut (1659-1676). Winthrop Senior coined the phrase, “City Upon a Hill” in a sermon reiterating the Pilgrims’ mission to create a holy community in the New World. Winthrop died in Boston, where he had gone to attend a meeting of the commissioners of the New England Confederation.
2. Josiah Winslow (1628-80) was the son of Mayflower pilgrim John Winslow,“I shall never see thee again, Winsnow” [sic] (Massasoit). Governor of Plymouth Colony (1673-80). Some evidence points to WEETAMOO’s first husband, Wamsutta (Alexander 1634-62), being poisoned at Winslow’s house after he was forcibly brought in by Winslow for questioning (Schultz 23), an event that festered and sowed another seed of war.
3. Note: Bastards were born to so-called Puritan leaders. Although, John Lyford, Plymouth’s Minister circa 1624, was later banished, mostly for his lack of Puritan ethic or allegiance, he was specifically found guilty of fathering a bastard. William Bradford wrote that Lyford’s wife “could keep no maid-servant but he would be meddling with them, and sometimes she had taken him in the act” (Bradford 106). Who knows how many children Lyford fathered or who with? The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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Lyford’s known bastard was a white child, but a woman of color in 17th century New England would have had no sympathy from anyone and no one to hear her complaint. As long as the child was cared for, and Puritan society was not bothered with any care-taking responsibilities, there would have been no record. A famous 17th century Broadside entitled, “The Summons to New England,” attacked perceived licentiousness of Puritans. “And keep a handmaid to, if need,/ To multiply, increase, and breed” (Godbeer 20). Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire.
REVEREND is a composite of Puritan ministers, in particular, Increase Mather (1639-1723) the Puritan Minister, who wrote, The History of the War With the Indians in New England (1676) and father to Cotton Mather (Salem Witch Trials). He is filled with the Spirit of the Lord and a vocal promoter of the war-leading the offense for Puritan “scorch and burn” tactics.
CAPTAIN is a composite based on the exploits of Puritan military leaders during King Philip’s War, in particular, Captain Benjamin Church (1639-1718), the leader of the Rangers, who mimicked the Natives “skulking” way of warfare. This character represents the first archetypal character that became the American frontiersman who embraced the wilderness as “the intermediary between civilization and savagery” (Philbrick 357). Church was the principal aide to Governor Josiah Winslow, and at times (unlike other leaders, such as Captain Moseley: Schultz 40) displayed acts of kindness towards the Natives (Philbrick 323).
ANNIE speaks for the African slaves of Puritan New England, who historically have had no voice. Captured Native Americans, men, women, and children, were sold in Spain and some of those funds were used to buy Africans to work in New England, starting in the 1630s. The “danger of keeping revengeful warriors in the colony far outweighed the value of their labor” (McManus 6). Estimates are that at least 200 slaves were in the area in 1676. http://www.slavenorth.com/massachusetts.htm
JOSHUA is a composite of the “Praying Indians,” who were converted in large numbers by Reverend Eliot, and were helpful (and crucial) in helping the English fight Philip and The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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Weetamoo, at least the Praying Indians not exiled to Deer Island (prison) to starve. Internecine tribal warfare can be thoughtfully examined through the sympathetic eyes of Joshua, a man trying to survive. He may be a “Praying Indian,” but he is first, a Native American, and proud of it.
QUINAPIN (1645-1676) is Weetamoo’s third husband and a leader in the Narragansett tribe. A Native American male in his prime, he is caught up in a war defending his way of life.
DEER HEART is the Spider Woman of the tribe, the Storyteller, the oral historian of Native Culture. She is the heart and soul of her people: the keeper of the sacred fire.
POWAH is the shaman, the spiritual leader of the tribe and the healer in charge of physical health. Powah is an androgynous character.
SLAVERY NOTES:
1. “Samuel Maverick, apparently New England’s first slaveholder, arrived in Massachusetts in 1624 and according to [John Gorham] Palfrey, owned two Negroes before John Winthrop, who later became governor of the colony, arrived in 1630” (Greene 16).
2. In 1645, Emanuel Downing, brother-in-law of John Winthrop, wrote to him longing for a “juste warre” with the Pequots, so the colonists might capture enough Indian men, women, and children to exchange in Barbados for black slaves, because the colony would never thrive “untill we gett … a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our business” (Greene 62).
3. An observer to New England in 1687 wrote that there was “not a house in Boston” that “has not one or two” slaves (Berlin 58).
4. In 1641, a Negro maid of Israel Stoughton joined the Dorchester Church (Vaughan 271). Who is to say this woman or another like her didn’t give birth to a child fathered by a white man? To accept in the common record and even romanticize that Pocahontas (of the same era) went freely to the English, when in fact she was already married and kidnapped (Strong 47), is historical rape. A conjecture that a slave girl may have had The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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sexual relations with the Puritan master of the house twenty years before King Philip’s War may be called artistic license, since the conjecture can’t be proven to be false either. Human nature is what it is: sexually charged.
5. There is no evidence that Winthrop owned slaves, but “that is not conclusive. He did use Indian slaves” and his son, Deane, “used African-American slaves on his farm” (Bremer 314).
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THE CAPTIVE: A Synopsis
The Captive presents the story of WEETAMOO, a doomed Native American Queen in 17th century New England, who led her Pocasset braves (the ones who survived the scourge of European diseases) in battle against the invading English and their Native Allies during King Philip’s War (1675-76). The colonial army was organized under the auspices of the New England Confederation, a body formed to combat Indians that evolved into an enduring institution, eventually challenging their overlord, the British Crown, a hundred years later in the American Revolution.
King Philip’s War was the last concerted effort of coastal northeast Woodland Nations to expel the English, in particular the Puritans, and they nearly succeeded. This singular event ignited a fire storm that swept over the entire North American Continent, annihilating ancient cultures, entire eco systems and the animals they supported. For eleven weeks and five days in early 1676, when a Confederation victory was not assured, Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan Preacher’s wife, was WEETAMOO’s slave. This true encounter has been brought to life on stage in context with the events of their time. The metaphorical story of Annie and Joshua gives voice to the dispossessed. Musical instruments, period songs and dialogue lifted from historic journals all combine with the thrill of spectacle into a dramatic play in two acts: The Captive.
Bio
Conrad Reeder is a playwright, composer, actor and writer whose plays have been developed through numerous workshops and staged readings in New Orleans, Florida, Los Angeles and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of The Captive By Conrad Reeder Addendum And Bibliography
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New Orleans and is an Associate member of the Dramatists Guild of America and a member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA).
conradreeder@gmail.com
808-442-2615
Conrad Reeder 