Wuttasacomponom, - 1676

Wuttasacomponom (Captain Tom) was a Hassanamesit Christian Indian convert who held the position of magistrate at the Praying Town of Wabquissit.  He had a least one grown son, Nehemiah.

During King Philip's War, Wuttasacomponom assured Massachusetts authorities that his men would not join Metacomet.  As part of the Praying Town Christians, he explained that his men "accounted themselves as the English, and they would not fight against themselves." Daniel Gookin called him a good and pious man.  In the summer of 1675, however, when Hassanamesit fell to Philip's Nipmuck allies, Wuttasacomponom and 200 of his men were forced to go along with them or be killed.  He and some of his family were captured in June of 1676 and brought to trial.  Despite Indian testimony supporting him as loyal and John Eliot's direct appeal to the governor, Wuttasacomponom was convicted by settlers' testimonies which placed him at the Sudbury fight and at Medfield, charges he vehemently denied.  On the gallows, Wuttasacomponom declared that he "did never lift up hand against the English, nor was [he] at sudbury, only [he] was willing to goe away with the enemise that surprized [them]."  Louise A. Breen, Transgressing the Bounds, 172.  Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 176, 310.