By the middle of the 17^th Century the fires of the Counter-Reformation had begun to cool.  New ways of thinking emphasized skepticism and tolerance and not fighting over religious issues.  Father Sebastien Rale (1657-1724) belonged to another era than the one in which he lived.  He grew up on the eastern fringe of France, then joined the Jesuits when young.  He taught for a stretch in southern France, but reciting “amo, amas, amat” to blubbering school-boys didn’t hold his attention.  So he volunteered for the New World and the Jesuits shipped him off to a place better suited to his commitments.  In 1689 he went to Canada.  The Jesuit Superior in New France sent him to an Abenaki village near Quebec to learn the language, then to a mission in Kaskaskia in the Illinois country for two years, and then (1694) to Norridgewock on the Kennebec River.  Today, that’s in central Maine; then it was the frontier between Catholic New France and Protestant New England.

In Norridgewock, Father Rale both served the spiritual needs of his parishioners and wound-up the local Indians against the English-speaking Protestants moving up relentlessly from the southwest.  When Queen Anne’s War (1703-1713) broke out Father Rale’s parishioners joined in a Fall 1703 raid that killed 150 English settlers.  This raid fell within a larger pattern.  For example a raid on York, Maine in 1692 had left 100 people—men, women, and children—dead and many others taken captive.  Among the captives carried off to Canada and later ransomed, was Jeremiah Moulton (1688-1765).  English settlers—understandably—became obsessed about the danger.[1]  The governor of Massachusetts put a price on Rale’s head and New England militia were inclined to a literal interpretation.  Ten years of unsuccessful man-hunting and border war followed.  In 1713 “peace” broke out.

It wasn’t much of a peace in Maine, whatever it was in Europe.  The exact border between New England and “Acadia” hadn’t been defined in the peace treaty.  The French said it ran along the Kennebec.  The Indians—the Wabanaki Confederation—didn’t agree that they were under British authority.  The government of Massachusetts (which then owned Maine) built some forts on Wabanaki land and settlers moved north and east.  Father Rale urged the Indians to attack the English settlers, although they didn’t need any encouragement to defend their lands from outsiders.  Small raids went on until, in January 1722, the governor of Massachusetts launched an Indian war on the frontier of the province.

Massachusetts militia troops just missed capturing Father Rale, but did get a strong-box full of papers that seemed to show that he acted on behalf of France.  “Father Rale’s War” then began in earnest.  The Wabanaki retaliated with attacks on the frontier forts and settlements.

During 1723, Indian attacks had a devastating effect.  Spring 1724 began as 1723 had ended.  Wabanaki raiders killed farmers and loggers, fishermen (they captured a bunch of fishing boats), and soldiers sent to fight them.  The governor of Massachusetts ordered all settlers to move to the forts or to fortified houses.[2]

In August 1724, a group of militia—now much experienced at Indian fighting–surprised the Indians at Norridgewock.  Afterwards, a scalped Father Rale lay among the dead.  The English burned the village and the crops in the field.  The Indians then moved north out of reach of the English.[3]  The commander of the English attack was Jeremiah Moulton, who had been kidnapped in York many years before.  There is something Biblical in that.

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wgkpfa5HMw  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV2JPv1EFww

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison_(architecture) for the architectural style.

[3] British colonists settled the now-empty site of the village only in 1773.