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This article is about the Colonial Assassins' purge. You may be looking for the global purge.
"Sometime during the Seven Years' War the Templars made their move and destroyed the Colonial Brotherhood during the Assassin witch hunt."
―Shaun Hastings on the purge, 2012.[src]-[m]

The Great Purge[1] (1757–1763) was a full-scale assault by the Colonial Templars under their Grand Master Haytham Kenway against the Colonial Assassins in the Thirteen Colonies. With the Templars greatly aided by the Assassin turncoat Shay Cormac, the Colonial Brotherhood was effectively destroyed, reduced to its Mentor Achilles Davenport and a mere handful of members, and would not return to its former strength until almost two decades later during the American Revolutionary War.

History[]

Haytham's arrival[]

Following their founding in 1746,[2] the Colonial Brotherhood under their Mentor Achilles Davenport rapidly expanded their influence. By 1752, they controlled a number of forts and settlements along North America's Atlantic coast and maintained their hold through the use of gangs as enforcers. The Assassins also possessed an established network of spies and allies. As such, they were more powerful than the Templars in the area.[3]

From 1752 to 1754, the high-ranking Templars Lawrence Washington,[4] Samuel Smith,[5] and James Wardrop[6] were assassinated by the young Assassin Shay Cormac after they stole the Precursor box and Voynich manuscript from the local Assassins in Saint-Domingue following the 1751 Port-au-Prince earthquake.[7]

ACIII-BraddockExpedition 3

The newly-formed Colonial Rite

In 1754, Haytham arrived in the Americas[8] and established a Colonial Rite independent from the British Templars as its first Grand Master.[9] The nascent Templars quickly came into conflict with the well-established Assassins. Beginning as a proxy war between the Templars and mercenaries recruited by the Assassins, the conflict escalated when the two factions sided with opposing European powers during the Seven Years' War.[3]

Turning the tide[]

Bravado 7

Shay killing Adéwalé

From 1757 onward, the disillusioned former Assassin Shay Cormac helped the Templars track down and kill several of his former comrades, including the high-ranking Assassins Kesegowaase,[10] Hope Jensen,[11] and Chevalier de la Vérendrye.[12] In addition to his former brethren, Shay also eliminated Adéwalé, a legendary member of the Caribbean Brotherhood.[13]

Shay also used his ship Morrigan, a heavily modified sloop-of-war, to cripple the Assassin navy. Among the ships which fell victim to his actions were Adéwalé's vessel the Experto Crede,[13] the Man O' War Gerfaut captained by Chevalier de la Vérendrye,[12] and the Assassins' flagship Storm Fortress.[14] Shay also eliminated seven Assassin-allied gangs within New York City, liberated many forts in the River Valley and along the Atlantic coast, intercepted a number of assassination contracts, and killed any stalkers sent after him personally, weakening the Assassin presence further.[3]

Non Nobis Domine 18

Haytham and Shay sparing Achilles' life

In 1760, in a battle at the Arctic Temple in the Arctic, the Brotherhood's leadership was broken. The Assassin Liam O'Brien was killed and Haytham crippled Achilles. Thereafter, the Brotherhood's influence in the Colonies was severely diminished and they were left on the brink of destruction, while the Templars' power continued to grow. Confident that he was no longer a threat, the Templars spared Achilles' life on the condition that the Assassins stop searching for more Isu Temples.[15]

Final assault[]

In 1763,[16] three years after the Assassins' defeat at the Arctic, the Templars launched their final attack on the Davenport Homestead, killing all of the remaining Assassins save for Achilles[17] and Robert Faulkner.[18] Convinced that the lone Mentor no longer posed any threat, the Templars spared Achilles' life again, this time on the condition that he give up life as an Assassin.

However, some Assassins like Benjamin Tallmadge, Sr. survived by going into hiding.[19] The French Assassin Pierre Bellec, who was training in the colonies at the time, left for France before the Templars could claim his life.[20] Nevertheless, the ruthless acts ordered by Haytham during the purge had a lasting effect on Bellec, who later claimed to his apprentice Arno Dorian that he had seen Templars "put entire villages to the sword, just for the chance of killing one Assassin".[21] These experiences deepened his hatred for the Templars and made him resistant to the very idea of truces proposed by Mentor Mirabeau[22] or Arno.[23]

ACIII-BoorishMan 3

Achilles in self-imposed exile

A depressed and embittered Achilles spent the next six years in isolation at his manor, allowing it to fall into disrepair. It was not until the arrival of Haytham's son Ratonhnhaké:ton that the Colonial Brotherhood would rise from the ashes.[24] Under Achilles' training, Ratonhnhaké:ton would go on to exterminate most of the Colonial Templars and rebuild the Colonial Brotherhood during the American Revolutionary War.[25]

Behind the scenes[]

The Great Purge is an event that was first indirectly mentioned in the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed III, occurring off-screen during the time skip from players controlling Haytham in 1755 to playing as a young Ratonhnhaké:ton in 1769. Further vague details are provided by the Assassin historian Shaun Hastings in some of the database entries, but the purge would not be depicted until the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed: Rogue, where it serves as the main focus for the latter half of the story. Even then, the purge's final stages are not shown due to Shay leaving for Europe in 1760, and it would not be named until the release of the 2017 French artbook Assassin's Creed: Infographics, which reuses the name of the 2000 global Assassin purge depicted in the 2010–2011 Ubiworkshop comic Assassin's Creed: The Fall.

Appearances[]

References[]

  1. Assassin's Creed: Infographics
  2. Assassin's Creed: RogueWar Letters: "All Over the World"
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Assassin's Creed: Rogue
  4. Assassin's Creed: RogueBy Invitation Only
  5. Assassin's Creed: RogueOne Little Victory
  6. Assassin's Creed: RogueWe the People
  7. Assassin's Creed: RogueLessons and Revelations
  8. Assassin's Creed IIIJourney to the New World
  9. Assassin's Creed IIIThe Braddock Expedition (memory)
  10. Assassin's Creed: RogueScars
  11. Assassin's Creed: RogueCaress of Steel
  12. 12.0 12.1 Assassin's Creed: RogueCold Fire
  13. 13.0 13.1 Assassin's Creed: RogueBravado
  14. Assassin's Creed: RogueThe Storm Fortress
  15. Assassin's Creed: RogueNon Nobis Domine
  16. Assassin's Creed IIIDatabase: Achilles Davenport
  17. Assassin's Creed IIIDatabase: Davenport Homestead
  18. Assassin's Creed IIIDatabase: Robert Faulkner
  19. Assassin's Creed IIISomething on the Side
  20. Assassin's Creed: UnityDatabase: Pierre Bellec
  21. Assassin's Creed: UnityConfrontation
  22. Assassin's Creed: UnityGraduation
  23. Assassin's Creed: UnityA Cautious Alliance
  24. Assassin's Creed IIIA Boorish Man
  25. Assassin's Creed III

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