The story of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in New
England is
dominated by a series of Indian wars that made life for the
settlers on
the Massachusetts frontier perilous in the extreme. prominent
among the
native peoples that took special vengeance on this region
were the
children and grandchildren of the Nipmucks and other southern
peoples
that had been forced to flee to northern new England and Canada
following King Philip's War. They, along with the Abnaki and
other
northern proples -- encouraged and aided, sometimes even
accompanied by the french from Canada, repeatedly raided the
frontier
settlements.
The Worcester Plantation had been resettled in
1686, after __ years
of abandonment. Only a few grantees had actually takenb up residence,
however, before the outbreak of King William's War (1689-___).
Feeble and isolated, the Worcester settlers' position was untenable, and
the town was abandonned a secone time in 169__.
A hearty band of Huguenot refugees -- French
Peotestants who had
fled to England, and under the auspices of the Earl of Oxford, were
granted a plantation in Massachusetts, settled Oxford in 1692. For a
few years, they huddled precariously about their fort on ____ Hill. But,
it was a miserable and unhgappy plantation. Alarms and rumors of
marauding Indian war parties kept the settlers in a constant state of
apprehension and insecurity. In 1797, the reality finally fell upon them,
when __ outlying farms were burned, and ___ men killed. Still, it was
not until 1701, that the Oxford planters were forced to concede the
untenability of their position, and abandonned their homes for shelter
in
Boston and the more settled parts of the colony.