Private John Chewen*
Private John Chewen (unknown- 1821) was of Indigenous heritage. Prior to his military service in the Revolutionary War, little is known about Chewen. In various documents his last name is recorded alternately as Chorus, Cheuin, Choar, Chore and Chowen. Since he served as a Minuteman, it is reasonable to assume that Chewen was free (not enslaved or indentured) in 1775. Records indicate that he marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775 to Lexington and Concord under the command of Captain Benjamin Houghton in Colonel John Whitcomb’s Regiment out of Lancaster.
Chewen signed up for eight months service, also out of Lancaster, on April 26, 1775, in Captain Benjamin Hastings Company and Colonel Asa Whitcomb’s Regiment. In January 1776, The Essex Gazette reported that he had deserted. The printed wanted notice read in part
“Deserted from Prospect Hill, late of Bolton, in the county of Worcester… John Chewen of Capt. Hill’s company in Col. Phinney’s regiment… John Chewen is a molatto, but calls himself Indian, about 5 feet 5 inches high, had on a dark coloured- coat, and a pair of breeches, something lighter, has a wife at Holden, a proper Indian squaw, he loves a good deal of rum.”
Chewen did not desert for long. He later transferred into the Continental Army for a term of three years, in the company of Captain Moses Brewer in Colonel Samuel Brewer’s Regiment. In July of 1780, John Chewen served in Captain Joshua Fisk’s Company, Colonel Perry’s Regiment, mustering out of Natick.
John Chewen’s movements throughout Nipmuc homelands during the war point to the “regional Indian Community” that shaped his life. At a time when many of his non-Indigenous neighbors began to think that Indians had become extinct, his movements helped to document the robust presence of Nipmuc peoples in the region.
In 1777, Natick’s Reverend Stephen Badger married John Chewen to Hannah Speen, daughter of Lydia Speen, in Natick. They had at least three children together: Lydia, John, and Ambrose. Chewen applied for a Revolutionary War Pension, but the application was unsuccessful. He died in 1821.
Deeper Analysis: The desertion notice quoted above is a compelling example of how a person’s background can be misidentified by an official for a written record. Although Chewen calls himself “Indian,” the official insists he is “molatto.” Such distinctions were politically important. In Massachusetts, for example, Indians held a unique political status with limited benefits like not paying taxes. The erasure of a person’s status as an Indian on paper shaped the harmful myth that Indigenous peoples were “extinct” by the middle of the 1800s. It also meant the loss of any political standing until 1869 when Indigenous people became citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Note: More often than not, service, vital, and/or other historical records were created and kept by men of English and European backgrounds. They employed a wide range of descriptive terms, such as "mulatto," “negro," and "dark complexion." These terms cannot fully capture any soldier's identity, but they do offer clues. In some cases, the surname of a soldier of color connects him to a Natick family that is well documented. Often, these soldiers are Indigenous men. The biographies in this project make it possible to say more not only about a soldier's identity or background, but also about the life he led in Natick and beyond.