The Pocumtuck were much reduced in number by the time the settlers arrived, as they had been victims of infectious diseases and war with the more powerful Mohawk. The settlers forcibly expelled the few Pocumtuck who remained; the Pocumtuck in turn sought French protection in Canada from the English colonists. At the Battle of Bloody Brook, on September 18, 1675 during King Philip's War, the dispossessed Indians destroyed a small force under the command of Captain Thomas Lathrop before being driven off by reinforcements. Colonial casualties numbered about 60. At dawn on May 19, 1676, Captain William Turner led an army of settlers in a surprise retaliatory attack on Peskeompskut, in present-day Montague, then a traditional native gathering place. Turner and his men killed 200 natives, mostly women and children. When the men of the tribe returned, they routed Turner's forces; Turner died of a mortal wound at Green River.