Indigenous People in the Colonial Melrose Imagination
Indigenous People in the Colonial Melrose Imagination with Jim Bennett
Wednesday, November 18, 2026
7:00 – 8:30 PM, Lower Level Meeting Room
Register online to reserve your seat!
For thousands of years, the land that would one day be called Melrose was home to indigenous people, who in the 17th century were known as the Massachusett. Despite conquest, colonization, and disease, the Massachusett survive, but the dominant culture here for nearly 400 years has been that of the colonists. How can we make sense of that historical experience when nearly all of the documentation that has come down to us was written by the victors in that struggle? How have we as a community of colonists reconciled with that legacy and imagined our relationship with indigenous people in the past and present?
Join local historian Jim Bennett for a wide-ranging and informative survey that will take in the full sweep of Melrose history.
Jim Bennett is the former chair of the Melrose Historical Commission. While serving on the MHC he wrote over 100 online articles on Melrose history. He has worked for many years as a museum educator and tour guide on Boston’s Freedom Trail.
Sponsored by Historic Melrose.
