Interview with Benjamin Shallop on his book The Founding of Salem, City of Peace

 Congratulations to Benjamin Shallop on his book The Founding of Salem: City of Peace (2022) about the founding of his home city and East Budleigh-born Roger Conant’s part in it. Below is a series of questions and answers with dates, put together as an online interview that I conducted with the author.

 

 

13 February 2023

Q: No book has been written about Roger since 1945. Why do you think that is?

I think there are several reasons for that. First and foremost he is not an easy guy to research! It took me nearly ten years to piece together what little I could of his story in my book, and that is because sadly not much has survived and what has survived is not very accessible.

The people who recorded much of the history of the 1620s in New England were mostly religious leaders with their own agendas, and often were more interested in making themselves look good to people back in England rather than acknowledging the actual work of people who they regarded as ‘Strangers’ (a label created by the Pilgrims at Plymouth to describe anyone who was not a separatist from the Church of England) such as Roger Conant.

 

The statue of William Bradford (c.1590-1657) in Plymouth, Massachusetts Image credit: Wikipedia

Case in point is the First Governor of the Plymouth Colony William Bradford. Bradford wrote a history of the Plymouth Colony in 1651 (called ‘Of Plymouth Plantation’) that has become the primary source for much of America's understanding of the early settlement of New England, and in that history Bradford very intentionally left Roger Conant's name out of it. He only refers to Roger Conant derisively as ‘a Salter’ and makes several disparaging and dismissive remarks about how some nameless salter knew nothing of salt. Given the timeframe, that Salter could only be Roger Conant who was a member of the Salters’ Company of London and was more working class than the Pilgrim leadership.

‘Pilgrims Going to Church’, an 1867 portrait by the Anglo-American artist George Henry Boughton (1833-1905). 

Image credit: Wikipedia

Part of the animosity that Bradford had towards Conant seems to have stemmed from Conant's support of a minister of the Church of England who performed the sacraments at Plymouth for ‘Strangers’, but I also think part of that animosity also stemmed from simple classism. Roger Conant was a worker and he was a leader of people who did the work that supported the early New England Colonies financially, not one of the educated religious radicals that we remember today as ‘The Pilgrims’.  Working people like Roger Conant of that era were all too often left out of the history books by the elites like Governor Bradford. I honestly think that the fact that ANYTHING survived of Roger Conant's efforts in New England is the greatest testament to how remarkable of a man he was.

The other reason I think not much is written about him is that he was not the normal sort of hero that people write about. Roger Conant never fought any wars, made any lasting speeches, or ever owned very much of anything. Roger's legacy is using the art of Compromise to settle disputes (which he excelled at), of stopping unnecessary conflict before it began, and of laying the foundations of our government in New England (New England Town Meetings, checks on the power of the governor, even the right to vote all owe a debt to Roger Conant). Roger Conant was always the one who did the real grunt work of building a community, and he was essential to the success of early New England, but he never was considered a ‘Great Man’ by the political and religious leadership of his time (despite being a leader himself.)

21 February 2023

Q: What do we know of Roger Conant’s relationship with Native Americans?

The Indian village of Secoton; bird's-eye view of village with huts, lake or river, fire, fields and ceremony. Watercolour by the Elizabethan artist John White (c.1539-c.1593)  © The Trustees of the British Museum

Roger Conant developed a very close relationship with the Massachusett People at Naumkeag (the Algonquin name for what would become Salem) and the woman who led them.

Sadly, that woman’s name has been lost to history. She is only recorded as ‘Squaw Sachem’. ‘Squaw’ is a derogatory term for native women that is either derived from a French corruption of an Iroquoian word for women’s genitalia, or a French corruption of an Algonquin word for ‘women’s work’.  Either way, it was a term that by the 17th century was being used broadly by the English and the French to refer to native women, and was not really a term native women would have used for themselves. ‘Sachem’ is Algonquin for chief.

It’s unfortunate that her name has been lost. She was undoubtedly a remarkable woman who led her people through an incredibly difficult time, and we should at least know her name.

When Roger Conant moved the settlement from Cape Ann to Naumkeag, he worked very closely with the Massachusett People there. They even shared fields together in common, and sheltered together when the Massachusett feared raids from a people they called the Tarrantines (Algonquin for ‘Eastern Men’ and likely referred to the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia).

In 1614 John Smith visited Naumkeag and estimated that the population of Massachusett people there was around 4,000. By 1626, when Conant arrived, there were only a few dozen survivors left. A plague had killed more than 90% of them, some time between 1614-1620, and then raids from the Tarrantines killed more (including the husband of the woman Sachem whom I mentioned earlier), and then they got embroiled in a brief war with the Plymouth Colony.

Given all of those hardships, it is likely that the Massachusett at Naumkeag were looking for new allies in the area. They definitely welcomed Roger Conant and his party with open arms.

 

Monument to Miles Standish (c.1584-1656), Pilgrim and founder of Duxbury, Massachusetts. Image credit: Wikipedia

It’s also my belief that at least part of the reason the Massachusett were so welcoming of Conant was that they must have witnessed him standing up to Miles Standish and his armed musketeers at Cape Ann a year earlier. Miles Standish was the military commander of the Plymouth Colony (and by all accounts a bit of a brash bully) and had fought with the Massachusett before at what is now Weymouth, Massachusetts, and possibly Ipswich, Massachusetts. Seeing Roger stand up to him, and seeing Miles back down rather than picking a fight must have greatly impressed the Massachusett.

I should also mention for clarification that Algonquin is the language spoken by the First Nation’s Peoples of New England. Iroquoian is the language spoken by the Huadenosuanee and Huran peoples of the Saint Lawrence valley and Great Lakes

The Massachusett were a nation whose territory roughly extended from just north of Salem to just south of Boston. They fished and farmed on the coastal areas in the summer, and then moved inland in the winter to avoid the awful coastal storms that often hit this region during that time. That nation is gone today, but some descendants are now members of other First Nations that survive today.

Naumkeag is Algonquin for ‘Good Fishing Place’.  Roger Conant always preferred that name to Salem as he thought it more descriptive and respectful of the Massachusett people than renaming it Salem. We still have excellent seafood here today!

 

10 March 2023:

Q: You work indirectly with the film industry. Would the subject of Roger Conant make a good film? Which plot elements would you include? For example the unproven meeting between Roger Conant and Sir Walter Raleigh – who may have been on a return visit to East Budleigh – with artistic licence, would make for an interesting moment.

 

I do work in film, but I’m a Union Rep for SAG-AFTRA and not really involved in the creative process beyond the contracts of actors and the financial aspects of filming in New England. That said, I do have my opinions like any other history fanatic….though my favorite movies nearly always flop.

‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’ by Budleigh artist John Washington. The painting, which depicts the 1625 confrontation between Roger Conant and Myles Standish, is on display in All Saints Church, East Budleigh © John Washington

I think it would be hard to contain the story of Roger Conant in a movie, but I think a good series might work well. I think the most captivating part to his story is the stand off with Miles Standish at Cape Ann. 

To really understand the friction between Roger Conant and the Plymouth Colony, you would have to go all the way back to the expulsion of Rev Lyford and John Oldham from the Plymouth Colony. To understand that then a series would need to explore the relationship between the ‘Strangers’ (settlers at Plymouth who were working class adherents to the Church of England) and the ‘Pilgrims’ (religious zealots and separatists from the Church of England who were the political, economic, and social elite of the Plymouth Colony). 

The time Roger Conant spent in Plymouth could be one season, his time at Cape Ann could be another, and his move to Naumkeag/Salem and the arrival of the Puritans under Endecott (where again Roger Conant handled friction between the working fishermen he led and the religious authorities of the Puritans admirably) could be a third season.

Q: What about the tragic episode of King Philip's War - the savage conflict between indigenous peoples and the European settlers in New England? Perhaps you've read Jeff Conant's vividly written 'longish piece of fiction' inspired by the events - see https://jeffconant.com/2023/01/05/1466/     Roger Conant lived long enough to have perhaps played a part in the events.

‘Indians Attacking a Garrison House’, from an old wood engraving. This is probably a depiction of the attack on the Haynes Garrison, Sudbury, Massachusetts on 21 April, 1676. Image credit: Wikipedia

Roger Conant was in his 80s when King Phillip’s War broke out (and it was an awful war and truly a tragedy) so I doubt he took much part in it. While Salem and Beverly did send troops to fight in that conflict, the battles of that war all took place far from Salem. However, Roger Conant was only in his mid 40s when the Pequot War broke out in the 1630s and may have taken part in it.

However, if he did I don't know of any record. As a salter and leader of the working class fishermen he may have been considered essential for the fishing industry and exempted from serving in the militia away from Salem. In 1636 the first muster of militia in America took place on Salem Common before going off to fight in the Pequot War.

Today the Massachusetts National Guard consider that First Muster to be their founding event.

It must be noted though that the Pequot War did result in the first true act of genocide by English colonists against native peoples when the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonial forces and their Narragansett allies surrounded the Pequot settlement at what's now Mystic Connecticut and burned it to the ground, killing every Pequot man woman and child there. Shortly after that, the remaining Pequot were either sold into slavery to English colonists in Barbados (where most died horribly) or forced to renounce their nation and language and submit themselves to the Narragansett. Remarkably however, there are still people alive today who can trace their ancestry to the Pequot Nation.

15 March 2023

Q: The word ‘stern’ has been used by historians to describe both the statue of Roger Conant in Salem, above left, and the 19th century statue ‘The Puritan’ in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Augustus St Gaudens. It’s an echo of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s imagining of his Puritan ancestors as ‘stern and blackbrowed’. Hawthorne describes them as members of ‘the most intolerant brood that ever lived’. In the light of those comments how do you feel about Roger Conant’s statue in Salem?

 

I have a lot of love for the statue of Roger Conant on Salem Common, but I don't think it's a very accurate depiction of him nor do I think it really does a good job of either teaching his history or honoring the man. The prologue of my book, The Founding of Salem: City of Peace, discusses common misconceptions that arise about Roger Conant because of that statue.

Statues are always more about the people who erected them than they are about the people they depict. When Roger Conant's statue was first erected in the early 20th Century it was a time when America was really trying to emerge as a real world power and people of that time were looking to their history as inspiration for the development of an American Origin Story that was often not quite accurate. In some ways many Americans of the turn of the 19th-20th century were beginning to look upon their ancestors more like pseudo mythic Arthurian heroes doing great noble deeds than actual historical humans who had the fortune (or misfortune) of living through ‘Interesting Times’ and doing the best they could.

The statue of Roger Conant in Salem. Image credit: Kate Fox  

Roger Conant's statue reflects that early 20th Century America's idealized Puritan quite well: stern faced, lots of buckles, pointy hat, stepping forward and gazing upon the Town Common of the city he founded. The problem with that depiction though is that Roger Conant was probably not a Puritan, there's no reason to think he was stern faced, he probably had few buckles (buckles could get expensive in the 17th century and he was not a wealthy man), and probably had a markedly less pointy hat.

The First Church in Salem 

Image credit: www.firstchurchinsalem.org 

While Roger Conant did later join the thoroughly Puritan First Church of Salem (now a Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and I am a member) and founded First Parish in Beverly, there is no real indication that he was a Puritan. During his time in Plymouth he became pretty closely associated with Rev Lyford who was quite clearly not a Puritan.

He was also a leader among the ‘Strangers’ in the Plymouth Colony (those working class settlers who were not members of the Leyden Congregation that became the Pilgrims), and later in life he sent his son to England to be trained as clergy at a time when the Puritans were out of favor.

He also stayed out of the religious quarrelling so common among Puritans at that time. For example: his argument for founding First Parish in Beverly was that it was difficult to cross the North River in winter to attend services at the First Church of Salem and had nothing to do with theology.

Roger Conant seems to be someone who was a church goer, and valued the church, but didn't have strong opinions on doctrine or dogma like the Puritans and Pilgrims that were his contemporaries and valued the more traditional aspects of Church of England services rather than having more radical Protestant views on the subject.... which is in keeping with how most early fishermen and working class ‘strangers’ in New England at this time practiced their faith.

 

Image credit: Kate Fox

The other issue with the statue is that the old church that it was originally erected in front of is now the Salem Witch Museum. So there is a big yellow sign that says "SALEM WITCH MUSEUM" right behind him. The result is that most tourists who visit Salem assume that Roger Conant had something to do with the Salem Witch Trials, which of course is nonsense (thankfully Roger Conant passed away decades before that tragic year).

If I rolled my eyes every time I heard a tourist proclaim "ooooh, that must be the Head Witch! Or maybe a Witch Hunter!" I'd have a detached cornea by now.

For the record: The Salem Witch Museum is a really wonderful site and really does a remarkable job of teaching that history.

All that being said, while I think it does a horrible job of teaching history and gives all sorts of false impressions, I do like the statue. I walk by it a few times a week at least and always say hi to old Roger when I pass. It's a part of my community and in many ways it has become one of the iconic symbols of the community I love so dearly and I cherish it for that reason.

18 March 2023

Q: Here in Roger Conant’s homeland, some individuals have questioned the ethics of praising this Devonian for his achievements. They tell us that they are unwilling to celebrate such pioneers, and that institutions throughout the UK ‘are reevaluating their associations with the colonial past’. For example, Oxfam, the British-founded charity for alleviating global poverty has just issued a guide which describes English as ‘the language of a colonizing nation’. What is your view on this vexed issue?

As a New Englander, I must admit to being a tad out of the loop when it comes to the debate around re-evaluating the UK’s history. That said, I do have some strong thoughts on what is going on in the United States these days on re-evaluating our own history, and if that perspective can be insightful or helpful to you I’m happy to share it.

Overall I have a lot of sympathy for those who seek to re-examine and re-evaluate what we as a society choose to celebrate with monuments and memorials. The History of History is a fascinating subject, and the sad and harsh reality is that for most of the history of the United States from about 1878 (the election of Rutherford B Hayes) until the 1990s a mythic American Exceptionalism was actively promoted alongside of what’s come to be known as ‘The Lost Cause’ myth that sought to square perceived American ideals of Liberty and Equality while embracing the legacy of the Confederacy.

The Confederacy was a truly awful institution, and its successor terrorist spin offs (like the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Councils, etc) that flourished through much of the 20th Century were arguably worse.

The early 20th century was for many Americans (most notably African Americans, but also immigrants and white Trade Unionists like me) a time of lynchings and other extreme violence perpetrated by those who wanted to maintain the old racial and class order that existed under slavery, while an organization called ‘The United Daughters of the Confederacy’ (basically the civic arm of the KKK for all intents and purposes) went to great efforts to both erect monuments to the Confederacy and make sure that the official histories taught in American schools and universities were sympathetic to the Confederate cause by actively engaging in politics around education and local school boards (our local governing body for local schools).

The result was a very cherry picked narrative rather than an actual history that often left out whole populations of Americans.

For example: During the time period of the American Revolution, if you were a person of color in New England, chances were you sided with the Revolutionaries. 20% of the New England forces that besieged the British Army in Boston in 1775 were free people of color, and the first person to die for American Independence was a black man named Crispus Attucks. Conversely, if you were a person of color in Virginia you probably flocked to British forces for freedom, enlisted in the Ethiopian Regiment (a unit of liberated slaves who fought with the British Army) and waged a very righteous war for your own Liberty against these American Revolutionaries.

None of this nuanced history made it into American popular history or monuments or classrooms due to a concerted effort by the United Daughter of the Confederacy, because the notion that slaves were not content to be slaves and would fight for their freedom was just as problematic to the myth they were trying to foster as was the notion that black people in New England were actively engaged as citizens in the fight for independence.

So, with all that said, I am a firm believer that often it is not only appropriate to challenge the established narrative, but that it is also respectful to the actual history to do so.

So what’s this all have to do with First Nations Peoples and Roger Conant?

Throughout the American South and Mississippi Valley there exists truly massive and astonishing mounds built by the civilizations that came before us here. Most Americans have no idea they exist, but many are just as remarkable as Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Giza (one such mound is actually larger than the Pyramids of Giza in square footage).

Archaeologists today refer to these people as the Mississippian and Hopewell Cultures and they were nearly completely wiped out in the 15th-16th Century (mostly due to disease introduced by Europeans…but also due to the conscious efforts of Ponce De Leon). It’s hard to fathom the extent of the genocide that occurred in North America during the colonial era without seeing these sites for yourself.

What’s worse is that many Europeans after encountering the shattered remains of these First Nations peoples concluded that it was impossible for Native Americans to have constructed such monuments and concocted all sorts of nonsense tales of biblical giants, lost European pre-Columbus contact, and (more recently) ancient Aliens being responsible for it. Thus a cultural genocide actively compounded a physical one here in America…and that is doubly awful.

Roger Conant did play a role in all of this. His efforts did lead to the establishment of a successful colony here in America and a political body that is still with us today: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. However Roger Conant himself does appear to be that rare colonial figure who isn’t very problematic: he maintained good relationships with the Native People he encountered, he was a leader of marginalized people within the Plymouth and later Massachusetts Bay Colonies (namely the working folks who were not necessarily puritans), he succeeded through peaceful means and compromise, and more. He is a man that I think any generation can celebrate for all of that.

But, that said, it must be remembered that the other person who was so essential to the success of the founding of Naumkeag/Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony is someone whose name has been completely lost to history: the woman who led the Massachusett People at Naumkeag, who was recorded by the English chroniclers of her time as just ‘Squaw Sachem’.

‘Sachem’ is an Algonquin word for leader or chief, but ‘Squaw’ is either a French corruption of an Iroquoian word for women’s genitalia or a French corruption of a derogatory Algonquin word for ‘women’s work’. Squaw was certainly not a name she used for herself or her people referred to her as…but it was what the English of the 17th century (following the practice of French Fur trappers) used to label all native women.

I mention all of this, and especially the woman known as ‘Squaw Sachem’, to point out that there is a huge blank void in our history when it comes to the experiences of people of color. I cannot deny that my own early fascination with history developed because as a white man I saw myself reflected in the history that was popularly taught.

We need to do a lot more to promote the contributions and stories of women and people of color if we want history to be valued in the future. That’s something I actively try and promote here in Salem, and soon we will be erecting a monument here to a remarkable black woman named Charlotte Forten who was our first black school teacher and a devoted Abolitionist, and recently we commissioned a painting in city hall to depict the woman described above who led the Massachusett during Conant’s time.

So yes, I am sympathetic to those that question whether figures like Roger Conant should be honored and celebrated. But after thoroughly researching and exploring the history I also think that it’s totally right and appropriate to celebrate Roger Conant in his home town so long as we make a conscious effort to elevate the stories of people like the woman recorded as ‘Squaw Sachem’ who’s actual name has been lost to us (and acknowledge that it’s pretty messed up that no one of that time bothered to record her actual name)

And if upon learning more we discover that maybe something we once cherished is something that perhaps we need to have a more frank discussion about how we honor it then we should embrace that conversation and any potential consequences of it.  (…)

Thank you Michael Downes for asking such a sensitive question. I think these conversations are extremely important to have and ones we shouldn’t shy away from if we truly value history and want to understand our ancestors, their legacy, our children’s future, and our current place in the never ending story of humanity.

 

Benjamin’s book, The Founding of Salem, City of Peace, was published in 2022 by The History Press 

ISBN:  9781467152136