After the four were arrested, Cross fled before he could be taken to trial and was never relocated, but Stinnings, Jackson, and Peach were all taken into custody, convicted of murder and robbery, and judicially executed in September 1638.
Jackson, Peach, and Stinnings were the only people of European descent to have been executed for murdering a Native American in the history of Plymouth Colony.
[5] Arthur Peach was 18 to 20 years old and of Irish descent, although he lived in London until 1635, when he arrived aboard the ship Plaine Joan in Virginia.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop described Arthur Peach as "a young man of good parentage and fair condition."
Additionally, Peach did not like the manual labor required of him as an indentured servant, and he accrued mounting debts due to reckless spending habits.
[5] In July 1638, Mixanno, a chief of the Narragansett people located in modern-day southern Rhode Island, prepared a gift to send to English colonists in Plymouth Colony as a gesture and symbol of friendship.
[1][9] Penowanyanquis remained hidden in the marsh for several hours before making his way back to the path, staying in an area where he believed other travelers would find him.
They carried him back to their settlement in Providence, where Penowanyanquis informed Williams that his attackers were white indentured servants shortly before dying due to blood loss and infection.
[2] Williams, recognizing that the attackers were the same men who had approached him for help earlier that day, aided in efforts by the Narragansett to apprehend them in Aquidneck Island.
Williams owned a young enslaved male Native American, whom he named Will, who also played a significant role in apprehending and identifying Peach and his cohorts.
[2][4] Despite helping to place the men into custody, on August 14, 1638, Roger Williams wrote a letter to John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to plead for the lives of the accused to be spared.
[4] According to William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, those who took issue with the notion of a European settler being executed for the murder of a Native American person were considered to be of "the rude and ignorant sorte.
[13] Separately, the Plymouth Court ruled that Stephen Hopkins was financially responsible for Temple and the child she conceived with Peach for the two remaining years she had to serve in indentured servitude.
John Holmes, who had served on the jury that condemned Peach to death, purchased Dorothy for the remaining two years on her contract and agreed to support her and the child.
Some historians view the executions as the Plymouth Colony's attempt to assert their intention to treat the lives and murders of Native Americans fairly and equally to those of white Puritans.
Some historians posited that the harsh punishment exacted against Jackson, Peach, and Stinnings likely prevented a potential war that could have arisen from the tensions between Native Americans and Puritans.