Monoco

Monoco was a 17th-century Nashaway sachem (chief), known among the New England Puritans as “One-eyed John”.

After decades of peaceful coexistence, tensions arose between settlers and natives. The Nashaway attacked the neighboring English settlement of Lancaster, Massachusetts, in August 1675 and again in February 1676 as part of the more general native-settler conflict known as King Philip’s War. During the latter action, Monoco kidnapped a villager, Mary Rowlandson, and took her and her children with him and his party for many weeks.

Rowlandson later wrote and published what became a best-selling narrative about her captivity with the Indians and release.

Additional reading

 * Lepore, Jill, The Name of War: King Phillip's War and the Origins of American Identity, New York: Alfred A. Knopf & Co., 1998