Summary, “Sokoki” was a French convention. The native name was probably “Sokwaki.” No early writer placed either Sokokis or Sokwakis on the Saco River, but our best contemporary witness, Druillettes, placed them on the Connecticut River. Both English and Dutch writers knew Soquackicks or Squaktheags on the Connecticut River north of the Pocumtucks. The idea that the Sokokis belonged on the Saco was proposed tentatively by two writers who were a hundred years too late to know the Saco Indians and two or three decades too early to see the crucial documents in print. It seams probable that they were led astray by the superficial similarity of the names Saco and Sokoki and that the true identity of the Sokokis was obscured by the superficial dissimilarity of Sokoki and Squakheag. Somehow, this erroneous opinion became established in our reference literature with two curious results New England historians have known a Sqakheag tribe, which, like many others, simply fled to Canada and disappeared, and Canadian historians have been at a to identify the Sokokis who rc prominent in their early history.   ... more

KING PHILIP’S WAR

…which, returning to Saco, they committed other depredations. In this raid the two Algers, who lived in the vicinity of what is now Scottow’s Hill, a rolling land at the head of the Scarborough Marshes, were killed. From Saco, they returned to Casco, where they put the torch to the cabins of its settlers, among them being the house of Lieutenant Ingersoll. Robert Jordan’s house at Spurwink was burned. It was undoubtedly at this time that Ambrose Boaden, the old Spurwink ferry-man, was killed.

The estimate of the English killed in the Maine province in these forays is given as about fifty, while of the Indians the number was not less than ninety. The Indians engaged in these depredations were of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes, of which the latter were the most to be feared. The Tarratines did not engage in the savageries of this year, but, under the famous Mugg, they took their full share in the atrocities of the following year. These, sup plied with arms and ammunition by the Canadian French, instigated by their Jesuit priests, were soon to become a terror to the English between the Piscataqua and Kennebec Rivers. Summing up this work at Saco, they had killed thirteen of the settlers and burned twenty-seven of their houses and mills.’

‘Willis, History of Portland, p. 213.

An incident said to have taken place at Indian Island has been designated as leading up to the outbreak of the Saco Indians in the summer of 1676. Squando’s squaw, with her…

HISTORY of SACO

…happy cause of offence arose, at the very time when the emissaries of King Philip were striving to excite the eastern Indians to acts of hostility. The wife of Squando, with an infant at her breast, was passing on the river, when some English sailors thoughtlessly overset the canoe, for the purpose, they pretended, of seeing whether the children of Indians were, like brute animals, naturally swimmers. The mother recovered the child, but it soon after fell sick and died. Squando was deeply exasperated by this insulting and afflictive act, and became at once a zealous and powerful promoter of war. Uniting with a band of the Androscoggin savages, he prepared them for an attack on our townsmen. Notice of their approach, and of the presence of a western Indian with them, was fortunately given by a friendly native, and the inhabitants who lived about the falls, retired into the garrison house of Major Phillips. This house was a few rods below the falls, on the western side of the river; the mansion of S. Peirson, Esq. is nearly on the same spot. A few days after, Saturday morning, Sept. 18, the house of Mr. John Bonython, on the eastern side of the river, was discovered at the garrison to be on fire. Bonython bad deserted it only a day or two before, to avoid being exposed to the expected assault. There was just time enough after the alarm thus given, to collect all within the garrison and prepare to receive the enemy; for in half an hour a sentinel placed at an upper window, espied an Indian lurking by the side of a fence near a cornfield. The discovery…  pg. 154      more