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Susanna Cole

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Susanna Cole

Susanna Cole (née Hutchinson; 1633 – before 14 December 1713) was the lone survivor of a Native American attack in which many of her siblings were killed, as well as her famed mother Anne Hutchinson. She was taken captive following the attack and held for several years before her release.

Susanna Hutchinson was born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England and was less than a year old when her family sailed from England to New England in 1634. She was less than five when her family settled on Aquidneck Island (later Rhode Island) in the Narragansett Bay following her mother's banishment from Massachusetts during the Antinomian Controversy. Her father died when she was about eight years old, and she, her mother, and six of her siblings left Rhode Island to live in New Netherland. They settled in an area that became the far northeastern section of The Bronx in New York City, near the Westchester County line. The family found themselves caught in the middle of Kieft's War between the local Siwanoy Indians and the colony of New Netherland, and they were all massacred in August 1643, except for Susanna. She was taken captive by the Native Americans, and was traded back to the English three years later.

When Susanna was released from her Native American captivity, she was taken to Boston where her oldest brother and an older sister lived, was re-introduced into English society, and married Edward Cole at the age of 18, the son of Boston innkeeper Samuel Cole. They lived in Boston for a few years, but moved by 1663 to the Narragansett country of Rhode Island (later North Kingstown) to look after the lands of her oldest brother Edward Hutchinson. Here the couple remained and raised a large family. Susanna was still alive in 1707 when given administration of her husband's estate, but was deceased by December 1713 when her son William took receipts concerning his parents' estate.

Susanna Hutchinson was baptized in Alford, Lincolnshire on 15 November 1633. She was the youngest child of William and Anne Hutchinson to accompany her parents on the voyage from England to New England in 1634. She was the couple's 14th child, of whom 11 survived to make the trip to the New World; a 15th child was born in New England. The family settled in Boston and lived across the street from magistrate John Winthrop, who was a judge during the civil trial in 1637 that led to her mother's banishment from the Massachusetts colony. While Hutchinson was still very young, her mother hosted popular religious discussions at their home. Her mother's religious views were at odds with the orthodoxy of the Puritan ministers; she helped to create a major division in the Boston church and an untenable situation for the colony's leaders. The family was forced to leave Massachusetts; they settled with many of her mother's supporters on Rhode Island in the Narragansett Bay, establishing the settlement of Portsmouth which soon became a part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Susanna was less than five years old when the family left Boston, and she was about eight when her father died in Portsmouth.

Susanna's widowed mother was frightened at the prospect of Massachusetts gaining influence or control over Rhode Island. Consequently, she moved to the part of New Netherland that later became The Bronx in New York City, along with her six youngest children, an older son, a son-in-law, and some servants. The Dutch were engaged in Kieft's War against the Siwanoy Indians during the family's tenure there. In August 1643, Siwanoy attacked the emigrant household and killed all members of the family, except for nine-year-old Susanna. According to one story, Susanna's red hair spared her from the slaughter, while another account claimed that the girl was out picking blueberries some distance from the house and hid in the crevice of Split Rock. In any event, the attackers took her captive and held her for several years.

Massachusetts governor John Winthrop provides an account of Susanna in his journal, under the date of July 1646:

A daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson was carried away by the Indians near the Dutch, when her mother and others were killed by them; and upon the peace concluded between the Dutch and the same Indians, she was returned to the Dutch governor, who restored her to her friends here. She was about eight years old, when she was taken, and continued with them about four years, and she had forgot her own language, and all her friends, and was loath to have come from the Indians.

Sources indicate that during her time with the Siwanoys, Susanna bore a son to Siwanoy sachem Wampage I - Ninham-Wampage, who would later become Wampage II.

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