Battle of Falmouth (1703)

The Wabanaki did the most damage to Spurwink and Purpooduck (Cape Elizabeth). In Spurwink, principally inhabited by the Messrs. Jordans and their families, the Wabanaki killed or captured 22.^[10] At Purpooduck, where there were nine families settled at Spring Point, they killed 25 and carried away eight prisoners.^[10]

The garrison of 36 men at Casco (Falmouth) was commanded by Major John March.^[10] The fort was the "most considerable" fort on the eastern coast. On August 10, 1703, under the leadership of Moxus, Wanongonet and Escumbuit, the Wabanaki appeared unarmed and sent him a message under a flag of truce; pretending they had some important matter to communicate. Apprehending no immediate danger, he proceeded with a guard of only two or three men. The Wabanaki ambushed March and shot one of his attendants. A garrison of 10 men under Sargeant Hook rescued March and the others. The Wabanaki killed two of March's companions, Phippenny and Kent, in the altercation.

The Wabanaki withdrew and skulked around the peninsula for a week, setting fire to the houses. The rest of the Wabanaki battalions, arrived at Casco in 200 canoes to continue the destruction of the village. They first took a sloop, two shallops and considerable plunder ; and encouraged by success, they attempted for two days and nights, to undermine the fort from the water side, as was done during King William's War. On 19 August Captain Cyprian Southack arrived on the Province Galley and relieved the siege.^[11] The natives continued to stroll around Casco, they boarded a store ship and killed the captain and three others, while wounding two others.^[12]

On 26 September, Governor Dudley ordered 360 men to march toward Pigwacket, one of the main native villages, located at present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Leading 300 New Englanders, Major March chased the Wabanaki back to Pigwacket. March killed 6 and captured 6. These were the first New England reprisals of the war.^[11]

In the spring of 1704, after the Raid on Deerfield in February, the Wabanaki again attacked Wells, and York.^[12] (In 1712, the Wabanaki conducted another campaign against these villages and towns. They killed or captured twenty-four people in three raids on three villages, one of the villages was Wells.)^[13]

In response to these events and the Raid on Deerfield, the governors of the northern English colonies called for action against the French colonies. Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley wrote that "the destruction of Quebeck and Port Royal [would] put all the Navall stores into Her Majesty's hands, and forever make an end of an Indian War",^[14] the frontier between Deerfield and Wells was fortified by upwards of 2,000 men,^[15] and the bounty for Indian scalps was more than doubled, from £40 to £100.^[16] Dudley promptly organized a retaliatory raid against Acadia. In the summer of 1704, New Englanders under the leadership of Benjamin Church raided Acadian villages at Pentagouet (present-day Castine, Maine), Passamaquoddy Bay (present-day St. Stephen, New Brunswick), Grand Pré, Pisiquid, and Beaubassin (all in present-day Nova Scotia).^[17]

There were also reprisals by the New Englanders against Norridgewock. During the winter of 1705, 275 soldiers under the command of Colonel Winthrop Hilton were sent to Norridgewock to seize Father Rale and sack the village. Father Rale escaped them, but they burned his church.^[18]

John March led an expedition against the Acadian capital of Port Royal in 1707.

The French drew off a great number of Indian families from the Penobscot, Norridgewock, Saco, and Pequaket tribes, and settled them at St. Francis, in Canada, as a protection against the Iroquois Confederacy. These were called the St. Francis Indians.^[19]