The volume of the trade fell from a 1654 high of 3,723 pelts to a mere 191 a decade later, which resulted in the tribes forcibly ceding land which they had put up for security.

[4] As the conflict grew in its initial months, the leaders of Springfield were deeply concerned with maintaining peaceful relations with the tribes around them.

While John Pynchon and his soldiers were fighting their kin in Hadley, hundreds of Indian tribesmen prepared to attack Springfield and escape from the area.

They likely passed through Windsor, Connecticut, where an Indian named Toto - a laborer for the wealthy Wolcott family - may have learned about the impending action against Springfield.

[10] Despite the advance warning, the Agawam burned 45 of Springfield's 60 houses to the ground, as well as its grist and saw mills, which belonged to John Pynchon.

[13] The Indians burned colonial mills throughout New England during King Philip's War, which affected the colonists' food supplies in some areas.

[15] John Pynchon and his troops arrived only after the Springfield was burnt, with the incident possibly being the reason behind his replacement as chief commander by Samuel Appleton.

[17] Some histories mark the end of the war with the death of Metacom in the summer of 1676, although the conflict extended into Maine, where the Wabanaki Confederacy fought the colonists to a standstill and a truce.

Indian warriors returned to Western Massachusetts alongside the French during the Seven Years' War, and Abenaki descendants visiting Deerfield are recorded in the 1830s and beyond.