EVENTS
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT TURNERS FALLS?
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY MAY 6, 2026, 7-8:30pm ET
DAVID BRULE, DAVID NAUMEC AND LIZ COLD WIND SANTANA-KISER
The monument to Captain William Turner proclaims a great colonial victory, 350 years ago on May 19, 1676: this panel discussion tells you the truth, based on a 13-year, National Park Service-funded investigation. David Brule, president of the Nolumbeka Project, archaeologist David Naumec, and Liz Cold Wind Santana-Kiser, tribal historic preservation officer of the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck Indians, all played pivotal roles in this groundbreaking investigation. In this panel, they’ll explain what the evidence tells us, and why and how we need to remember the past differently.
Day of Remembrance at Turners Falls
IN PERSON, SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2026, 12:30-3:30pm ET
NOLUMBEKA PROJECT, PLUS INDIGENOUS MUSICIANS, ARTISTS AND SPEAKERS
Three hundred and fifty years ago on May 19, 1676, a colonial force led by Captain William Turner bypassed an encampment of Indigenous combatants at Turners Falls/Peskeompskut. Instead, they attacked hundreds of Indigenous elders, women and children - refugees fleeing from the fighting in King Philip’s War. An estimated 300 civilians were slaughtered. Join the Nolumbeka Project in honoring the past and finding healing. A day of music, drumming, art, speeches and new memorials. Plenty of parking and seating. Everyone is welcome
THE LONG LEGACY
IN PERSON AND LIVESTREAMED, THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2026, 5:30-7:30pm ET
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, COPLEY SQUARE
CHERYLL TONEY HOLLEY, PAULA PETERS, MACK SCOTT AND KIMBERLY TONEY
Forced displacement, enslavement, land seizures and dispossession, a global diaspora and suppression of languages - the war that bore the name of Metacom, or Philip, left a long and devastating trail of destruction. Join this important panel discussion, live at the Boston Public Library and livestreamed, in asking: what is due to the people of the Eastern Woodlands? How do we reckon with this bloody history and its legacy today? The final event in our Metacom’s Resistance series.
TO VAX OR NOT TO VAX? SMALLPOX IN early BOSTON
WALKING TOUR, SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2026, 2:30-4PM
MICHAEL PROCHILO
Smallpox: the great killer of the 17th century. Europeans brought the disease to New England, causing the deaths of untold numbers of Indigenous people - up to 90% of some tribes. It left villages abandoned across the region in what Puritan colonists thought was a providential sign that they had the right to seize the land. But even the English, with some immunity, suffered terribly from this disease. This brand new PHB walking tour, researched deeply by Michael Prochilo, takes you into the disease-ridden past, with the terrors of sudden, inexplicable death and a dramatic debate: should Bostons vaccinate - or not? Meet at Park Street Station for an amazing walking tour!
1630: from shawmut to boston
WALKING TOUR, THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2026, 5:30-7PM
ROXANNE REDDINGTON-WILDE
Stroll through history with our original walking tour, 1630: From Shawmut to Boston! Meet the people, places and ideas of 1630s Boston - built on the Native land but created in a Puritan English image. Places are limited, so register now! Price: $10/person.
We start in 1630 on the slopes of the Shawmut peninsula. The English Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony looked to create an ideal society as seen through their own – and no one else’s – eyes. Boston, as they renamed the place, became its center. Meet the people, places and ideas that turned Shawmut into Boston.
“You knocked it out of the park with this lecture. Have signed up for them all.”
—attendee, Enslavement & Resistance series