In the pre-dawn stillness of May 19, 1676, 150 Englishmen led by Captain William Turner entered the Indigenous fishing camp at Peskeompskut, beside the falls on the Connecticut River, near Deerfield, Massachusetts. Pocumtuck, Sokoki, and Nipmuc people had taken refuge there, along with Wampanoag and Narragansett people who were escaping fighting in Southern New England. At the time of the massacre, only women, children, and the elderly were in the camp. The English silently surrounded the wigwams and the peaceful dawn exploded into violence. Gunshots, screams, and flames filled the air as soldiers shot into wigwams and set them afire. Terrified people fled through the smoke to the river where many were shot down or drowned. Over 300 people and one English soldier died before Indigenous men hunting nearby rushed to the scene and routed the assailants, killing Turner and 36 others as they retreated.

The assault on Peskeompskut was the first English offensive action against Indigenous peoples in the Connecticut River Valley during Metacom’s (King Philip’s) War (1675-1676). This was, by proportion, the bloodiest war in American history, killing an estimated 40% of Southern New England’s Indigenous population (5,000) and 5% of the English (2,500). In response to widespread losses from European diseases and English encroachments on their homelands, Metacom, a Wampanoag leader, rallied an inter-tribal force against the English settlers. In 1675, attacks in the Connecticut River Valley forced the English to abandon both Northfield and Deerfield in Massachusetts. In May of 1676, having successfully repelled attacks in Hatfield and Northampton, the English went on the offensive, attacking Peskeompskut, killing Metacom at Mount Hope, Rhode Island, and winning the war.