Embedded Files
We have already seen some examples of initial interactions and conflicts between European explorers and settlers and Indigenous Americans. Many colonists and explorers relied on Native knowledge and assistance, but they also viewed Natives as "savages" who did not know how to use the land. Many also saw them as "heathens" who needed to be Christianized. But it is important to note that Natives were not passive and submissive. Not only did they resist European encroachment, but they also used European rivalries to engage in diplomacy and play various powers off one another to advance their own interests. Their resilience and adaptability (take, for example, the Comanche's skillful use of the horse on the Plains) made them powerful allies and deadly enemies. Throughout the colonial period, there are stories of both conflict and cooperation between colonists and Natives. There is no single story that sums up the whole of the experiences of either group. What is certain is that both Indigenous Americans and Euro-Americans lived in a New World that was forever transformed by diseases, animals, technologies, and beliefs. It is also important to note that the Americas continued to be a place of societies and civilizations in flux. Before European arrival, various groups vied for power, and civilizations and empires rose and fell. It is not as though European arrival became this rigid dividing line between pre and post Columbian America. Indigenous American ways of life did not abruptly die, and European cultures did not suddenly become dominant. For hundreds of years, Euro-Americans and Indigenous Americans adapted to one another (and fought one another).
The resources in this section are divided mostly by region and include instances of both conflict and cooperation between roughly 1607 and 1754 (the onset of the French and Indian War). We have already seen some instances of initial interactions in earlier sections, so here we move into the impacts of more prolonged contact and tensions.
European Enslavement of Indigenous Americans (secondary)
European Enslavement of Indigenous Americans (secondary)
This video from PBS includes an overview of the encomienda system and enslavement of Indigenous Americans in the British colonies.
The Coming of the Europeans: Indian and Non-Indian Interactions in the Colonial Era (secondary, scholarly overview)
The Coming of the Europeans: Indian and Non-Indian Interactions in the Colonial Era (secondary, scholarly overview)
Neal Salisbury has been instrumental in progressing early American and Indigenous American history by reorienting Indigenous history at the center of American history. In this excerpt from one of his articles in The William and Mary Quarterly, Salisbury details some of the developments and interactions after the arrival of Europeans. It is a continuation of his excerpts found on the Pre-Columbian page of this site.
The Spanish and Indigenous Americans
The Spanish and Indigenous Americans
When we last left off with the Spanish, they were busy creating an American empire built on lucrative silver mines and large haciendas. After enslaving indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and the southern parts of the Americas to grow crops and mine for gold, silver, and other valuables, the Spanish moved into North America where they concentrated their efforts in what is now the southwestern and southeastern United States. In those areas, there tended to be smaller settlements centered around missions. Disease and enslavement killed many Natives, especially in Mexico and the Caribbean, hastening the transition to the enslavement of Africans. New Spain soon had a complex society of Spaniards, Natives, Africans, and mixed ethnicities (commonly referred to as mestizos and mulattoes). The introduction of Catholicism added another cultural element to the interactions: even Natives who willingly converted kept many of their indigenous beliefs and practices, creating syncretic traditions. Religion could also contribute to conflict, as Spaniards tried to stomp out all "pagan" practices, and as Natives often refused to completely abandon traditions and beliefs that had developed over thousands of years.
The Real First Thanksgiving (secondary)
The Real First Thanksgiving (secondary)
It was in Florida?? On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 800 Spanish settlers founded the city of St. Augustine in Spanish La Florida. As soon as they were ashore, the landing party celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving. Afterward, Menéndez laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied the site.
The Guale Uprising (secondary)
The Guale Uprising (secondary)
In the late fall of 1597, Guale Indians murdered five Franciscan friars stationed in their territory and razed their missions to the ground. The 1597 Guale Uprising, or Juanillo's Revolt as it is often labeled, brought the missionization of Guale to an abrupt end and threatened Florida's new governor with the most significant crisis of his term.
Disease, Depopulation and Culture Change in Northwest New Spain (secondary)
Disease, Depopulation and Culture Change in Northwest New Spain (secondary)
These excerpts come from Dr. Daniel Reff's study of Indian population trends in northwestern New Spain (present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico) from 1500 to 1678 for about twenty Indian groups including the Pueblo, Pima Alto, and Yaqui. Interpreting the data and primary accounts from this region, Reff concludes that "Old World diseases destroyed upwards of ninety percent of the aboriginal population." In addition he explores the "profound changes in aboriginal culture," including the Indians' growing receptivity to Spanish missionaries that resulted from the extreme rates of Indian mortality.
It is doubtful that there was a word or phrase that aroused as much fear among native people in Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the term cocoliztli. This Nahuatl referent for disease took on a new meaning during the Conquest of Mexico, when smallpox, which previously was unknown in Mexico, claimed untold lives, including thousands of defenders of the Mexica capital. During the months preceding and following Cortés’s conquest of Tenochtitlan, smallpox spread to many areas of southern Mexico, Central America, and eventually Inca Peru. Although precise figures are lacking, at least several million Amerindians are believed to have perished during the pandemic. Ironically, because of the speed with which smallpox spread, many died without every having seen a Spaniard.
The smallpox pandemic of 1518-25 is one of the earliest and better known disease episodes that had a profound impact on native Americans. Wherever Europeans went, from New England to the Amazon and from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Old World diseases accompanied and, some believe, preceded the invaders. Because native Americans had not been exposed previously to maladies such as malaria, influenza, and smallpox, they lacked genetic traits that promoted resistance to these diseases. (Dunn 1965; McNeill 1976; Motulsky 1971). Genetics, however, cannot exclusively explain why native peoples perished in large numbers. The unprecedented and inexplicable suffering caused by Old World diseases often left the survivors of epidemics in a state of shock or overcome with panic and fear. These debilitating emotional states often contributed to suicide, starvation, dehydration, or various secondary infections that proved lethal in the absence of basic care.
Population densities in the Greater Southwest [northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest] were comparable to other areas of the New World with largely sedentary, agricultural populations. Like the majority of New World inhabitants, the aboriginal population of northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest lived in village and towns ranging in size from several hundred to several thousand people. . . . . . .
[M]ost native communities [in the Greater Southwest] largely escaped exploitation by encomenderos, miners, or other Spaniards. In 1591, the Jesuits established their first permanent mission in northwestern Mexico, and were given what amounted to a virtual monopoly on the control of the native population, particularly in northern Sinaloa and Sonora. . . By 1678, the Jesuits had established missions throughout northwestern Mexico and had baptized close to 500,000 natives. During the closing decade of the seventeenth century the Jesuits advanced into Baja California and southern Arizona. Missionary efforts continued in both regions as well as in northwestern Mexico until 1767, when Charles II expelled the Jesuits from his overseas empire.
A distillation of the evidence from northwestern Mexico results in a number of general observations regarding the introduction, spread, and consequences of Old World disease that should have relevance for others areas of the Americas. First, it is clear that the rapid and pronounced reductions in population that have been inferred for central Mexico and Inca Peru were not unusual. In northwestern Mexico, as in the two civilizations to the south, Old World diseases destroyed upwards of 90 percent of the aboriginal population. It is further apparent that the precipitous decline and the failure of native populations to rebound was due largely to acute and chronic infectious diseases, rather than slavery, infanticide, or other evils coincident with Europe’s invasion of the Americas. This finding should not obscure the fact, however, that heinous cries were committed by Spaniards such as Nuño de Guzmán [conquistador and early Spanish official in Mexico]—crimes that resulted in the death of tens of thousands of natives and which helped destroy the fabric of Indian society.
Paralleling the precipitous decline in native population were profound changes in aboriginal culture. Before Old World diseases took their toll, native peoples in many areas were integrated into chiefdoms or what Spanish explorers termed kingdoms and provinces (e.g., Señora, Topia, Oera, Batuc, Vacapa). Often these chiefdoms encompassed physiographically discrete river valley segments, and had hierarchical settlement systems with thousands of people divided among rancherías [temporary villages], villages, and towns. Through a variety of agricultural techniques, native peoples realized considerable surpluses that empowered elites and that were channeled into craft production, exchange, and large-scale warfare. All this changed with repeated exposure to smallpox and other maladies.
Infectious diseases with mortality rates in excess of 25 percent had their greatest impact on large, nucleated settlements, resulting in the abandonment of villages and towns and a proliferation of rancherías. Epidemics necessarily undermined productive strategies and long-established work, trade, and marriage alliances. Without surpluses, craft production and trade declined along with the power of native elites, who had been empowered by differential access to and control of surpluses and exchange. Similarly, the power and influence of native priests and shamans were undermined by their inability to adequately explain and halt the unprecedented suffering caused by disease.
It was in the context of a disease environment that native peoples accepted missionization. Contrary to popular belief, Jesuit innovations, with the exception of cattle, which provided a ready source of protein during epidemics, were of little significance during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Native peoples were more interested in baptism and other rituals that might protect them from disease. Although the Black Robes and their ritual cleansing of the soul provided no such protection, the Jesuits did fill a void left by the failure of native priests, shamans, and other elites.
Acknowledging the evidence of disease makes it further possible to account for Jesuit and Indian relations without reference to ethnocentric notions of cultural superiority. The fact that some native groups ceased to exist as distinct cultural entities, while others persisted, also becomes more intelligible in the light of the evidence of disease. It is apparent, for instance, that the majority of native groups that survived the dislocations of the early historic period, did so, at least in part, because their behaviors and beliefs were ideally suited to a disease environment. The Seri, Navajo, and Apache, for instance, all lived in small, mobile bands and had limited contact with Spaniards and more sedentary Indians, who were important disease vectors. Similarly, the Tarahumara and Varohío, while sedentary, withdrew to the virtually inaccessible canyon country of Chihuahua, residing in caves and small rancherías and avoiding contact with outsiders and even themselves.
Native "Rebellions" in New Spain
Native "Rebellions" in New Spain
By 1650 New Spain (Mexico) had conquered and/or assimilated most of the indigenous peoples who had tried to defeat the arriving Spaniards over a century earlier. But the Native Americans in its northern region had not been subdued and its frontier defenses were vulnerable at best, a point driven hard in this 1654 report by a priest and official in the province of Nueva Vizcaya (northern Mexico and part of southwestern United States). Diego de Medrano wrote this report to analyze the friends and foes among the Natives, explain the sources of their power (including the influence of shamans), and recommend decisive action to counter the "riots and ruin wrought by the rebellious Indians" of Nueva Vizcaya. Note how simultaneously praises and derisively upbraids different Natives groups. He also even admits to justified rebellion.
First let me say that there have been many different Indian uprisings in this kingdom during the past fifty-four years. The first was that of the Acaxee during the time of Rodrigo de Vivero. The second was that of the Xixime during the time of Francisco de Urdiñola, and the third was that of the Tepehuan during the time of Gaspar de Alvear. During the years of Mateo de Vezga [1620-1626] and the Marqués de Salinas [1626-1630], the Tobosos and the outlaw Tepetucanes rebelled. The Masames rose up under Gonzalo Gómez de Cervantes Casaus [1631-1633]. During the subsequent administration, that of Luis de Monsalve [1633-1638], a brief spark of discord surfaced among the Tepehuanes of San Pablo, but it was easily extinguished. The Salineros and Conchos rebelled during the government of Luis de Valdés [1641, 1642-1648], as did the Tarahumaras during the latter part of his term. Diego Guajardo Fajardo [1648- 1653], his successor, finding some of the Tarahumaras had risen up, remained in Parral only fifteen days before launching a campaign of reduction and punishment. This occurred early in 1649. The Tarahumaras became increasingly bolder in 1650, 1651, 1652, and through the spring of 1653...
This brings us to the present administration, that of Enrique Dávila y Pacheco. With the exception of the Acaxee, Xixime, Sinaloa, Tepehuan, and Tarahumara, all the other nations, because they have never received any deserved punishment, have continued to rebel and cause further damage. The motives and causes of these rebellions can be reduced to a generality which pertains to them all. Of course there are certain peculiarities which influence particular cases and render the hostilities more bitter. Nonetheless, the causes of rebellion can be found in the instability and inconsistency of the Indian temperament, their thievish and innately cruel nature, and in their great hatred of Spaniards. The Indians are also subject to the influences of shamans, instruments of the devil, who incite their listeners to rebel and commit atrocities. . . .
The Tarahumara . . . are not a troublesome people, nor did they conspire in the Tepehuan uprising in 1616. It was never thought that they were the brave and aggressive warriors they have proven themselves to be in the past few years. Never have they engaged in treachery or ambushed us during war; in fact, they have met us in battle at an appointed time and place. They have never engaged in raids nor have they murdered a single person or stolen a single animal. They are a extremely docile people and are easily reduced [pacified]. Without a doubt the Tarahumaras are the most useful nation in this kingdom, especially to the real of San Joseph del Parral, which they abundantly supply with maize...The excellent qualities of this nation manifested themselves in the way they welcomed instruction in the holy faith when it was introduced gently and without force.
It is a great shame, and enough to bring tears to one’s eyes, that greedy Spaniards buy maize from them and resell it an inflated prices in Parral. Thus bread becomes too expensive for the poor, and this avarice saps the juices and sustenance of the [Spanish] miners. What is even worse is the unquenchable thirst for quick riches that drives men to enslave Tarahumara women and children. The mistreatment the Tarahumaras have received has transformed them from meek lambs unskilled in the use of arms into extremely brave warriors. It cannot be denied that, in making war on this nation which did not first make war on us, royal funds have been wasted and the kingdom as a whole has gone to perdition. It has always been understood and recognized that the Tarahumaras are justified in their wars because they have sought only to defend themselves...
The Indian hostilities of today continue to be the same as those previously referred to. By stealing horses, often on the same day in all corners of the kingdom, they are destroying the mining and stock raising industries while eluding capture. The Indians divide themselves into squadrons and stage ambushes along desolate stretches of road. Placing spies upon hilltops in order to spot travelers, they fall upon them, robbing and killing. Then they use the spoils to attract other remote nations to their cause. Ever since the two Indians were flayed alive in the streets of Parral, the martyrdoms inflicted upon unfortunate travelers who fall into their hands are incredible...
In the introduction to this account, all the Indian rebellions and uprisings in this kingdom during the past fifty-four years were recounted, as well as the punishment which each Indian nation received. If one tried to explain why the Acaxees, Xiximes, and Tepehuanes have not conspired to revolt again, there is no better answer than that they the were restrained and punished, either by a formal army or by squadrons in different places, the method generally observed to be the most practical. From this it can be deduced and inferred that the Salineros, who since 1645 have not been punished or bridled, are the ones responsible for the ravages, thefts, and murders that have been committed in the region between this city [Durango] and Parral. As many accounts and reports show, they are clearly masters of all the land between the two cities. . . .
. . . I propose the method which to my mind will most efficiently and economically remedy the problem and which does not include either a deliberate or haphazard use of bloodshed, mutilation of members, or any other sort of corporal punishment. . . . [Y]our grace will recognize that that the Salinero nation has consumed, laid to waste, and annihilated this entire kingdom and that before 1644 when they began to rebel, not a single domestic animal was lost. It is the Salineros who have stolen livestock and who, under the guise of being at peace, commit murders, assaults, and threaten people along the roads, Their incursions have never been halted, much less punished. Instead, they have been aided and supplied with food and clothing. Barraza, during the last dry season, employed them as scouts and trackers. This policy―which I call a traitorous cancer since it allows the Salineros access to information which furthers their depredations and prevents their capture―has not alleviated, but rather aggravated, the damages which now take place within twelve leagues of this city. The Indians have it in their power to advance even closer since no one can stop them. All this serves to justify my plan, which follows:
Since your grace will soon leave for Parral, on the way you should pass through the villages of Tizonazo, San Cristóbal, and El Navío, all populated by Salineros. You should treat them with honor and kindness and explain that his excellency wishes to show his appreciation for their services. Then they should be told that they are to be divided into different groups to be attached to all the presidios [forts] of the kingdom, where they will aid by exploring the country, protecting the roads, and halting the ravages committed in this kingdom by rebellious [Indian] nations. To accomplish this and to pay them, clothes and supplies will be brought to Cerrogordo or Parral, where a general assembly will be held and the tasks and destination of each Indian squadron determined. After this has been done and your grace has seen and verified in Parral the reports of the grave damages caused by this nation under the guise of peace, you will summon the caciques [Salinero leaders], give them some clothing, and let them see two wagonloads of clothing leave for Cerrogordo, making it appear that provisions are being readied for them there. Then the Salineros will be told what day they are to meet there to receive their assignment and pay. On this day all the soldiers from the presidios, having been previously summoned, will fall upon and shackle all the Indians and their women and children gathered in the patio of the casa real in Parral or in Cerrogordo. Once the Indians are our prisoners, they will be sent to labor in the workshops of Puebla or México [to the south], and they will pay the costs of the trip. At the same time, deprived of their opportunities to rob and kill Spaniards, they will also be instructed in the holy faith while doing a great service to God and king. In this manner the kingdom will be freed of its astute and dangerous enemies just as Spain was when it expelled the Moors...
It is well known that the most effective means to control the Guachichil and Zacateco Indians was to settle Tlaxcaltecans, Tonaltecans, and other pacified people among them This was successfully done in the Villa de Nombre de Dios, Chalchihuites, Mezquitic, Tepic, Santa María, Venado, San Luis de la Paz, and in various other places. Furthermore, the provinces of Sonora and Sinaloa are well populated, at peace, and trouble-free; it is said that more than 40,000 Indians have been converted to the brotherhood of our holy faith. It would be impossible for a presidio of only fifty men to keep these Indians at peace if their natural tendency to be calm and tractable were not encouraged by the doctrine and saintly example of the Jesuit fathers...To better ensure that the Indians do not run away and forget the rudiments of the faith, guards are posted along the roads. Since some priests have been in these missions for twenty or thirty years, most members of their congregations are like godchildren and family to them. All this presents an attractive possibility that his excellency should discuss with the reverend father provincial of the Society of Jesus and other high officials. May their fervor and zeal allow them to release seven experienced missionary fathers for an undertaking which would greatly serve our Lord God, his majesty, and the public good. Each of these Jesuit fathers would solicit 200 families from their missions to be used in settling the seven new missions. . . For several years, the costs of building, moving the Indians, and supplying them with oxen and plows for plantings should be paid with funds previously allocated to the two presidios, that is, after the stipends for the three new missions are subtracted. The Indians of Sinaloa and Sonora should not be prevented from leaving their villages but should be attached to the new missions. Two columns of soldiers from the presidio of Cerrogordo should aid by patrolling the villages each month. . . . In this way, we shall restrain and keep the nations of the interior within their borders. Eventually they too will be pacified and will join the settlements and enjoy the benefits of the holy faith...
The Tarahumara are distinguished by their courtesy and quick intelligence. Since they form a commonwealth and are a people who toil and labor to feed and clothe themselves, we should contact them through zealous and capable persons, proposing that they settle in the villages which are contemplated. These emissaries would promise them land, water, oxen, and whatever implements are needed as well as assure them that they will be free of vexations from Spaniards and free to choose the religious order they prefer for their missionaries. . . The missionaries will receive a sufficient stipend from his majesty to ensure that they will need neither to use Indian lands nor force the sale and distribution of goods upon the Indians, but rather allow them to participate freely in the market. This is important, for the Tarahumaras are a sensitive as well as diligent people. I really can see no reason why this plan would not work with the Tarahumaras. Captain Cristóbal de Nevares, who has made various expeditions into their lands, has told me that the Tarahumaras themselves have proposed that, if they were supplied with land and water and treated well, they would settle in villages. . . Furthermore, if the Indians of the interior were to rebel, these Tarahumaras would, at no cost to the royal treasury, be able to call upon their brothers to take vengeance upon the aggressors and utterly destroy them...
“As They Had Been in Ancient Times”: Pedro Naranjo Relates the Pueblo Revolt, 1680
“As They Had Been in Ancient Times”: Pedro Naranjo Relates the Pueblo Revolt, 1680
In the 17th-century, Spanish soldiers, settlers, and missionaries began to settle in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California. The missionaries resettled the indigenous Pueblo people into peasant communities, building forts and missions to subdue and convert them to Catholicism. The New Mexico Pueblo people resisted Spanish conversion efforts and forced labor demands. Their sporadic resistance became a concerted rebellion in 1680 under the leadership of the charismatic El Pope. The revolt was the most successful of Native American efforts to turn back European colonists, and for over a decade the Pueblos were free from intrusion. But in 1690 the Pueblos were weakened by drought and Apache and Comanche raiders from the north. Spain retook territory and interrogated and punished the rebels in their “reconquest” of the Pueblo. A Keresan Pueblo man called Pedro Naranjo offered his view of the rebellion and its causes.
In the said plaza de armas on the said day, month, and year, for the prosecution of the judicial proceedings of this case his lordship caused to appear before him an Indian prisoner named Pedro Naranjo, a native of the pueblo of San Felipe, of the Queres nation, who was captured in the advance and attack upon the pueblo of La Isleta...
Asked whether he knows the reason or motives which the Indians of this kingdom had for rebelling, forsaking the law of God and obedience to his Majesty, and committing such grave and atrocious crimes, and who were the leaders and principal movers, and by whom and how it was ordered; and why they burned the images, temples, crosses, rosaries, and things of divine worship, committing such atrocities as killing priests, Spaniards, women, and children, and the rest that he might know touching the question, he said that since the government of Señor General Hernando Ugarte y la Concha they have planned to rebel on various occasions through conspiracies of the Indian sorcerers, and that although in some pueblos the messages were accepted, in other parts they would not agree to it; and that it is true that during the government of the said senor general seven or eight Indians were hanged for this same cause, whereupon the unrest subsided. Some time thereafter they [the conspirators] sent from the pueblo of Los Taos through the pueblos of the custodia two deerskins with some pictures on them signifying conspiracy after their manner, in order to convoke the people to a new rebellion, and the said deerskins passed to the province of Moqui, where they refused to accept them. The pact which they had been forming ceased for the time being, but they always kept in their hearts the desire to carry it out, so as to live as they are living today. Finally, in the past years, at the summons of an Indian named Popé who is said to have communication with the devil, it happened that in an estufa of the pueblo of Los Taos there appeared to the said Popé three figures of Indians who never came out of the estufa. They gave the said Popé to understand that they were going underground to the lake of Copala. He saw these figures emit fire from all the extremities of their bodies, and that one of them was called Caudi, another Tilini, and the other Tleume; and these three beings spoke to the said Popé, who was in hiding from the secretary, Francisco Xavier, who wished to punish him as a sorcerer. They told him to make a cord of maguey fiber and tie some knots in it which would signify the number of days that they must wait before the rebellion. He said that the cord was passed through all the pueblos of the kingdom so that the ones which agreed to it [the rebellion] might untie one knot in sign of obedience, and by the other knots they would know the days which were lacking; and this was to be done on pain of death to those who refused to agree to it. As a sign of agreement and notice of having concurred in the treason and perfidy they were to send up smoke signals to that effect in each one of the pueblos singly. The said cord was taken from pueblo to pueblo by the swiftest youths under the penalty of death if they revealed the secret. Everything being thus arranged, two days before the time set for its execution, because his lordship had learned of it and had imprisoned two Indian accomplices from the pueblo of Tesuque, it was carried out prematurely that night, because it seemed to them that they were now discovered; and they killed religious, Spaniards, women, and children. This being done, it was proclaimed in all the pueblos that everyone in common should obey the commands of their father whom they did not know, which would be given through El Caydi or El Popé. This was heard by Alonso Catití, who came to the pueblo of this declarant to say that everyone must unite to go to the villa to kill the governor and the Spaniards who had remained with him, and that he who did not obey would, on their return, be beheaded; and in fear of this they agreed to it. Finally the senor governor and those who were with him escaped from the siege, and later this declarant saw that as soon as the Spaniards had left the kingdom an order came from the said Indian, Popé, in which he commanded all the Indians to break the lands and enlarge their cultivated fields, saying that now they were as they had been in ancient times, free from the labor they had performed for the religious and the Spaniards, who could not now be alive. He said that this is the legitimate cause and the reason they had for rebelling, because they had always desired to live as they had when they came out of the lake of Copala. Thus he replies to the question.
Asked for what reason they so blindly burned the images, temples, crosses, and other things of divine worship, he stated that the said Indian, Popé, came down in person, and with him El Saca and El Chato from the pueblo of Los Taos, and other captains and leaders and many people who were in his train, and he ordered in all the pueblos through which he passed that they instantly break up and burn the images of the holy Christ, the Virgin Mary and the other saints, the crosses, and everything pertaining to Christianity, and that they burn the temples, break up the bells, and separate from the wives whom God had given them in marriage and take those whom they desired. In order to take away their baptismal names, the water, and the holy oils, they were to plunge into the rivers and wash themselves with amole, which is a root native to the country, washing even their clothing, with the understanding that there would thus be taken from them the character of the holy sacraments. They did this, and also many other things which he does not recall, given to understand that this mandate had come from the Caydi and the other two who emitted fire from their extremities in the said estufa of Taos, and that they thereby returned to the state of their antiquity, as when they came from the lake of Copala; that this was the better life and the one they desired, because the God of the Spaniards was worth nothing and theirs was very strong, the Spaniard’s God being rotten wood. These things were observed and obeyed by all except some who, moved by the zeal of Christians, opposed it, and such persons the said Popé caused to be killed immediately. He saw to it that they at once erected and rebuilt their houses of idolatry which they call estufas, and made very ugly masks in imitation of the devil in order to dance the dance of the cacina; and he said likewise that the devil had given them to understand that living thus in accordance with the law of their ancestors, they would harvest a great deal of maize, many beans, a great abundance of cotton, calabashes, and very large watermelons and cantaloupes; and that they could erect their houses and enjoy abundant health and leisure. As he has said, the people were very much pleased, living at their ease in this life of their antiquity, which was the chief cause of their falling into such laxity. Following what has already been stated, in order to terrorize them further and cause them to observe the diabolical commands, there came to them a pronouncement from the three demons already described, and from El Popé, to the effect that he who might still keep in his heart a regard for the priests, the governor, and the Spaniards would be known from his unclean face and clothes, and would be punished. And he stated that the said four persons stopped at nothing to have their commands obeyed. Thus he replies to the question.
Asked what arrangements and plans they had made for the contingency of the Spaniards' return, he said that what he knows concerning the question is that they were always saying they would have to fight to the death, for they do not wish to live in any other way than they are living at present; and the demons in the estufa of Taos had given them to understand that as soon as the Spaniards began to move toward this kingdom they would warn them so that they might unite, and none of them would be caught. He having been questioned further and repeatedly touching the case, he said that he has nothing more to say except that they should be always on the alert, because the said Indians were continually planning to follow the Spaniards and fight with them by night, in order to drive off the horses and catch them afoot, although they might have to follow them for many leagues. What he has said is the truth, and what happened, on the word of a Christian who confesses his guilt. He said that he has come to the pueblos through fear to lead in idolatrous dances, in which he greatly fears in his heart that he may have offended God, and that now having been absolved and returned to the fold of the church, he has spoken the truth in everything he has been asked.
Account of the Pueblo "Revolt" from New Mexico's Governor
Account of the Pueblo "Revolt" from New Mexico's Governor
Letter of the governor and captain-general, Don Antonio de Otermin, from New Mexico, in which he gives him a full account of what has happened to him since the day the Indians surrounded him. [September 8, 1680.]
MY VERY REVEREND FATHER, Sir, and friend, most beloved Fray Francisco de Ayeta: The time has come when, with tears in my eyes and deep sorrow in my heart, I commence to give an account of the lamentable tragedy, such as has never before happened in the world, which has occurred in this miserable kingdom.... After I sent my last letter to your reverence...I received information that a plot for a general uprising of the Christian Indians was being formed and was spreading rapidly. This was wholly contrary to the existing peace and tranquillity in this miserable kingdom, not only among the Spaniards and natives, but even on the part of the heathen enemy, for it had been a long time since they had done us any considerable damage. It was my misfortune that I learned of it on the eve of the day set for the beginning of the said uprising, and though I immediately, at that instant, notified the lieutenant general on the lower river and all the other alcaldes mayores--so that they could take every care and precaution against whatever might occur, and so that they could make every effort to guard and protect the religious ministers and the temples--the cunning and cleverness of the rebels were such, and so great, that my efforts were of little avail. To this was added a certain degree of negligence by reason of the report of the uprising not having been given entire credence, as is apparent from the ease with which they captured and killed both those who were escorting some of the religious, as well as some citizens in their houses, and, particularly, in the efforts that they made to prevent my orders to the lieutenant general passing through. This was the place where most of the forces of the kingdom were, and from which I could expect some help, but of three orders which I sent to the said lieutenant general, not one reached his hands. The first messenger was killed and the others did not pass beyond Santo Domingo, because of their having encountered on the road the certain notice of the deaths of the religious who were in that convent, and of the alcalde mayor, some other guards, and six more Spaniards whom they captured on that road....
Seeing myself with notices of so many and such untimely deaths, and that not having received any word from the lieutenant general was probably due to the fact that he was in the same exigency and confusion, or that the Indians had killed most of those on the lower river....
On Tuesday, the 13th of the said month, at about nine o'clock in the morning, there came in sight of us...all the Indians of the Tanos and Pecos nations and the Queres of San Marcos, armed and giving war whoops. As I learned that one of the Indians who was leading them was from the villa and had gone to join them shortly before, I sent some soldiers to summon him and tell him on my behalf that he could come to see me in entire safety, so that I might ascertain from him the purpose for which they were coming. Upon receiving this message he came to where I was, and, since he was known, as I say, I asked him how it was that he had gone crazy too--being an Indian who spoke our language, was so intelligent, and had lived all his life in the villa among the Spaniards, where I had placed such confidence in him--and was now coming as a leader of the Indian rebels. He replied to me that they had elected him as their captain, and that they were carrying two banners, one white and the other red, and that the white one signified peace and the red one war. Thus if we wished to choose the white it must be upon our agreeing to leave the country, and if we chose the red, we must perish, because the rebels were numerous and we were very few; there was no alternative, inasmuch as they had killed so many religious and Spaniards.
On hearing this reply, I spoke to him very persuasively, to the effect that he and the rest of his followers were Catholic Christians, asking how they expected to live without the religious; and said that even though they had committed so many atrocities, still there was a remedy, for if they would return to obedience to his Majesty they would be pardoned; and that thus he should go back to this people and tell them in my name all that had been said to him, and persuade them to agree to it and to withdraw from where they were; and that he was to advise me of what they might reply. He came back from thee after a short time, saying that his people asked that all classes of Indians who were in our power be given up to them, both those in the service of the Spaniards and those of the Mexican nation of that suburb of Analco. He demanded also that his wife and children be given up to him, and likewise that all the Apache men and women whom the Spaniards had captured in war be turned over to them, inasmuch as some Apaches who were among them were asking for them. If these things were not done they would declare war immediately, and they were unwilling to leave the place where they were because they were awaiting the Taos, Percuries, and Teguas nations, with whose aid they would destroy us.
Seeing his determination, and what they demanded of us, and especially the fact that it was untrue that there were any Apaches among them, because they were at war with all of them, and that these parleys were intended solely to obtain his wife and children and to gain time for the arrival of the other rebellious nations to join them and besiege us, and that during this time they were robbing and sacking what was in the said hermitage and the houses of the Mexicans, I told him (having given him all the preceding admonitions as a Christian and a Catholic) to return to his people and say to them that unless they immediately desisted from sacking the houses and dispersed, I would send to drive them away from there. Whereupon he went back, and his people received him with peals of bells and trumpets, giving loud shouts in sign of war.
With this, seeing after a short time that they not only did not cease the pillage but were advancing toward the villa with shamelessness and mockery, I ordered all the soldiers to go out and attack them until they succeeded in dislodging them from that place. Advancing for this purpose, they joined battle, killing some at the first encounter. Finding themselves repulsed, they took shelter and fortified themselves in the said hermitage and houses of the Mexicans, from which they defended themselves a part of the day with the firearms that they had and with arrows....
On the morning of the following day, Wednesday, I saw the enemy come down all together from the sierra where they had slept, toward the villa. Mounting my horse, I went out with the few forces that I had to meet them, above the convent. The enemy saw me and halted, making ready to resist the attack. They took up a better position, gaining the eminence of some ravines and thick timber, and began to give war whoops, as if daring me to attack them.
I paused thus for a short time, in battle formation, and the enemy turned aside from the eminence and went nearer the sierras, to gain the one which comes down behind the house of the maese de campo, Francisco Gomez. There they took up their position, and this day passed without our having any further engagements or skirmishes than had already occurred, we taking care that they should not throw themselves upon us and burn the church and the houses of the villa.
The next day, Thursday, the enemy obliged us to take the same step as on the day before of mounting on horseback in fighting formation. There were only some light skirmishes to prevent their burning and sacking some of the houses which were at a distance from the main part of the villa. I knew well enough that these dilatory tactics were to give time for the people of the other nations who were missing to join them in order to besiege and attempt to destroy us, but the height of the places in which they were, so favorable to them and on the contrary so unfavorable to us, made it impossible for us to go and drive them out before they should all be joined together.
On the next day, Friday, the nations of the Taos, Pecuries, Jemez, and Queres having assembled during the past night, when dawn came more than 2,500 Indians fell upon us in the villa, fortifying and entrenching themselves in all its houses and at the entrances of all the streets, and cutting off our water, which comes through the arroyo and the irrigation canal in front of the casas reales. They burned the holy temple and many houses in the villa. We had several skirmishes over possession of the water, but, seeing that it was impossible to hold even this against them, and almost all the soldiers of the post being already wounded, I endeavored to fortify myself in the casas reales and to make a defense without leaving their walls. The Indians were so dexterous and so bold that they came to set fire to the doors of the fortified tower of Nuestra Senora de las Casas Reales, and, seeing such audacity and the manifest risk that we ran of having the casas reales set on fire, I resolved to make a sally into the plaza of the said casas reales with all my available force of soldiers, without any protection, to attempt to prevent the fire which the enemy was trying to set. With this endeavor we fought the whole afternoon, and, since the enemy, as I said above, had fortified themselves and made embrasures in all the houses, and had plenty of harquebuses, powder, and balls, they did us much damage. Night overtook us and God was pleased that they should desist somewhat from shooting us with harquebuses and arrows. We passed this night, like the rest, with much care and watchfulness, and suffered greatly from thirst because of the scarcity of water.
On the next day, Saturday, they began at dawn to press us harder and more closely with gunshots, arrows, and stones, saying to us that now we should not escape them, and that, besides their own numbers, they were expecting help from the Apaches whom they had already summoned. They fatigued us greatly on this day, because all was fighting, and above all we suffered from thirst, as we were already oppressed by it. At nightfall, because of the evident peril in which we found ourselves by their gaining the two stations where the cannon were mounted, which we had at the doors of the casas reales, aimed at the entrances of the streets, in order to bring them inside it was necessary to assemble all the forces that I had with me, because we realized that this was their [the Indians'] intention. Instantly all the said Indian rebels began a chant of victory and raised war whoops, burning all the houses of the villa, and they kept us in this position the entire night, which I assure your reverence was the most horrible that could be thought of or imagined, because the whole villa was a torch and everywhere were war chants and shouts. What grieved us most were the dreadful flames from the church and the scoffing and ridicule which the wretched and miserable Indian rebels made of the sacred things, intoning the alabado and the other prayers of the church with jeers.
Finding myself in this state, with the church and the villa burned, and with the few horses, sheep, goats, and cattle which we had without feed or water for so long that many had already died, and the rest were about to do so, and with such a multitude of people, most of them children and women, so that our numbers in all came to about a thousand persons, perishing with thirst--for we had nothing to drink during these two days except what had been kept in some jars and pitchers that were in the casas reales-surrounded by such a wailing of women and children, with confusion everywhere, I determined to take the resolution of going out in the morning to fight with the enemy until dying or conquering. Considering that the best strength and armor were prayers to appease the divine wrath, though on the preceding days the poor women had made them with such fervor, that night I charged them to do so increasingly, and told the father guardian and the other two religious to say mass for us at dawn, and exhort all alike to repentance for their sins and to conformance with the divine will, and to absolve us from guilt and punishment. These things being done, all of us who could mounted our horses, and the rest went on foot with their harquebuses, and some Indians who were in our service with their bows and arrows.... On coming out of the entrance to the street it was seen that there was a great number of Indians. They were attacked in force, and though they resisted the first charge bravely, finally they were put to flight, many of them being overtaken and killed....
Finding myself a little relieved by this miraculous event, although I had lost much blood from two arrow wounds which I had received in the face and from a remarkable gunshot wound in the chest on the day before, I immediately had water given to the cattle, the horses, and the people. Because we now found ourselves with very few provisions for so many people, and without hope of human aid, considering that our not having heard in so many days from the people on the lower river would be because of their all having been killed, like the others in the kingdom, or at least of their being or having been in dire straits, with the view of aiding them and joining with them into one body, so as to make the decisions most conducive to his Majesty's service, on the morning of the next day, Monday, I set out for La Isleta, where I judged the said comrades on the lower river would be. I trusted in divine providence, for I left without a crust of bread or a grain of wheat or maize, and with no other provision for the convoy of so many people except four hundred animals and two carts belonging to private persons, and, for food, a few sheep, goats, and cows....
Natives, Horses, and Guns on the Great Plains (secondary)
Natives, Horses, and Guns on the Great Plains (secondary)
Excerpted from Alan Taylor's American Revolutions
During the early 18th century, Plains peoples first acquired horses by trading with or stealing from Spanish New Mexico to the southwest. On horseback, they could cover far more ground in less time to find and overtake herds of bison. By killing more bison, the Great Plains peoples became better fed, clothes, and housed. Enriched by meaty protein, they raised the tallest children on the continent, taller even than the relatively well-fed people of the United States at the time. A Crow woman later recalled, "Ah, I came into a happy world. There was always fat meat, glad singing, and much dancing in our villages."
But that happiness did not last. The alluring combination of horses and bison drew more Native nations to relocate onto the Great Plains. Coming from either the Rocky Mountains to the west or the Mississippi Valley to the east, the newcomers included Osages, Comanches, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Blackfeet, and Lakotas (known to their foes as the Sioux). They competed with one another over access to horses and bison. A Cheyenne tradition insisted that their supreme being had provided a warning: "If you have horses everything will be changed for you forever...You will have to have fights with other tribes, who will want your pasture land or the places where you hunt." He concluded, "think before you decide."
Escalating warfare took a heavy toll. Many young men died competing for honor and status by displaying courage in combat. Because women outnumbered men, the most successful chiefs accumulated several wives as markers of their high status. They also acquired large horse herds. As trade in buffalo hides expanded, the women had to work harder, feeding and tending horses, scraping and tanning more hides, drying meat, and making pemmican: a combination of dried meat and berries that provided portable meals. Targeted by raids, women especially suffered from warfare. And the horse-centered way of life was environmentally unstable, as Natives killed too many buffalo and depleted the grasslands by acquiring too many horses.
The wars became more deadly as Natives procured arms and ammunition from traders who ventured up the Missouri River from St. Louis or from British posts to the north in Canada. By combining guns and horses, some Natives preyed on more distant Indian nations that fell behind in the arms race. The strong became stronger by taking horses, women, and children, and hunting territory from their defeated rivals. No primeval land of scant change, the Great Plains was a vast, dynamic zone of shifting peoples, adopting new ways of life and adapting tribal identities.
The swirling movement of peoples onto the Great Plains set off shock waves that hit colonists as well as Natives. Moving southeastward out of the Rocky Mountains, Comanches obtained firearms and horses. They then drove out, killed, or captured peoples known to outsiders as Apaches. Fleeing westward into New Mexico or southward into Texas, the Apaches raided Hispanic ranches and missions and Pueblo villages. New Mexico's governor reported that Apache attacks had reduced his province "to the most deplorable state and greatest poverty." In 1786, a new governor drew the Comanches into an alliance by offering generous presents of guns and ammunition. In return, their warriors helped Hispanics attach Apaches, capturing hundreds for sale as slaves to distant Cuba. The bloody alliance reduced Apache pressure on New Mexico, which began to revive.
Far to the north, the Mandans and other earth-lodge villagers initially held their own because they outnumbered the newcomers, primarily the Lakotas from the Mississippi Valley. During the late 1770s, however, an epidemic of smallpox altered the balance of power...After losing so many defenders to disease, the smaller villages succumbed to attacks. Of the Lakotas, a French trader remarked, "Their very name causes terror, they having so often ravaged and carried off the wives and children of the [A]ricaras." The survivors crowded into fewer, larger, and heavily fortified towns. But that crowding increased their vulnerability to epidemics.
While the Comanches controlled the southern plains and Lakotas dominated the north, Osages prevailed between them on the middle plains. Originally from the Mississippi Valley, they moved southwestward to claim the region between the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers. Well armed with trade guns, Osages drove Caddos and Wichitas southward into Texas and raided the weak Spanish posts and settlements along along the Arkansas River.
The Spanish, Horses, & the Comanche (secondary)
The Spanish, Horses, & the Comanche (secondary)
from the Texas State Historical Association
The Comanches, exceptional horsemen who dominated the Southern Plains, played a prominent role in Texas frontier history throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Anthropological evidence indicates that they were originally a mountain tribe, a branch of the Northern Shoshones, who roamed the Great Basin region of the western United States as crudely equipped hunters and gatherers. Both cultural and linguistic similarities confirm the Comanches' Shoshone origins. The Comanche language is derived from the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family and is virtually identical to the language of the Northern Shoshones. Sometime during the late seventeenth century, the Comanches acquired horses, and that acquisition drastically altered their culture. The life of the pedestrian tribe was revolutionized as they rapidly evolved into a mounted, well-equipped, and powerful people. Their new mobility allowed them to leave their mountain home and their Shoshone neighbors and move onto the plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas, where game was plentiful.
After their arrival on the Great Plains, the Comanches began a southern migration that was encouraged by a combination of factors. By moving south, they had greater access to the mustangs of the Southwest. The warm climate and abundant buffalo were additional incentives for the southern migration. The move also facilitated the acquisition of French trade goods, including firearms, through barter with the Wichita Indians on the Red River. Pressure from more powerful and better-armed tribes to their north and east, principally the Blackfoot and Crow Indians, also encouraged their migration. A vast area of the South Plains, including much of North, Central, and West Texas, soon became Comanche country, or Comanchería. Only after their arrival on the Southern Plains did the tribe come to be known as Comanches, a name derived from the Ute word Komántcia, meaning "enemy," or, literally, "anyone who wants to fight me all the time." The Spaniards in New Mexico, who came into contact with the Comanches in the early eighteenth century, gave the tribe the name by which they were later known to Spaniards and Americans alike. Although the tribe came to be known historically as Comanches, they called themselves Nermernuh, or "the People."
The Comanches did not arrive on the South Plains as a unified body but rather in numerous family groups or bands. The band structure of Comanche society was not rigid, and bands coalesced and broke apart, depending on the needs and goals of their members. As many as thirteen different Comanche bands were identified during the historic period, and most probably there were others that were never identified. However, five major bands played important roles in recorded Comanche history. The southernmost band was called Penateka, or "Honey Eaters." Their range extended from the Edwards Plateau to the headwaters of the Central Texas rivers. Because of their location, the Penatekas played the most prominent role in Texas history. North of Penateka country was the habitat of the band called Nokoni, or "Those Who Turn Back." The Nokonis roamed from the Cross Timbers region of North Texas to the mountains of New Mexico. Two smaller bands, the Tanima ("Liver-Eaters") and the Tenawa ("Those Who Stay Downstream"), shared the range of the Nokonis. These three divisions are sometimes referred to collectively as Middle Comanches. Still farther north was the range of the Kotsotekas, or "Buffalo-Eaters." Their territory covered what is now western Oklahoma, where they often camped along the Canadian River. The northernmost band was known as the Yamparikas, or "Yap-Eaters," a name derived from that of an edible root. Their range extended north to the Arkansas River. The fifth major band, known as Quahadis ("Antelopes"), roamed the high plains of the Llano Estacado.
The Comanches remained a nomadic people throughout their free existence. Buffalo, their lifeblood, provided food, clothing, and shelter. Their predominantly meat diet was supplemented with wild roots, fruits, and nuts, or with produce obtained by trade with neighboring agricultural tribes, principally the Wichita and Caddo groups to the east and the Pueblo tribes to the west. Because of their skills as traders, the Comanches controlled much of the commerce of the Southern Plains. They bartered buffalo products, horses, and captives for manufactured items and foodstuffs. The familiar Plains-type tepee constructed of tanned buffalo hide stretched over sixteen to eighteen lodge poles provided portable shelter for the Comanches. Their clothing, made of bison hide or buckskin, consisted of breechclout, leggings, and moccasins for men, and fringed skirt, poncho-style blouse, leggings, and moccasins for women. Buffalo robes provided protection from cold weather.
But it was the horse that most clearly defined the Comanche way of life. It gave them mobility to follow the buffalo herds and the advantage of hunting and conducting warfare from horseback. Horses also became a measure of Comanche wealth and a valuable trade commodity. In horsemanship the Comanches had no equal. Children learned to ride at an early age, and both men and women developed exceptional equestrian skills.
Democratic principle was strongly implanted in Comanche political organization. Each tribal division had both civil or peace chiefs and war chiefs, but traditionally the head civil chief was most influential. Leaders gained their positions through special abilities or prowess, and retained their power only so long as they maintained the confidence of band members, who chose their leaders by common consent. Tribal decisions were made by a council of chiefs presided over by the head civil chief, but individuals were not bound to accept council decisions. Comanche society permitted great individual freedom, and that autonomy greatly complicated relations with European cultures.
By the early eighteenth century, Comanche bands had migrated into what is now North Texas. In 1706 Spanish officials in New Mexico documented the presence of numerous Comanches on the northeastern frontier of that province. As the Comanches moved south, they came into conflict with tribes already living on the South Plains, particularly the Apaches, who had dominated the region before the arrival of the Comanches. The Apaches were forced south by the Comanche onslaught and became their mortal enemies. The first documented evidence of Comanches in Texas occurred in 1743, when a small band, probably a scouting party, appeared at the Spanish settlement of San Antonio seeking their enemies, the Lipan Apaches. No hostilities occurred, but it was obvious that the Comanches believed that the Spanish and Apaches were allies. However, fifteen years passed before the Spanish learned the true strength of Comanche presence in Texas. In 1758 a force of some 2,000 Comanches and allied tribes attacked a Spanish mission built for the Apaches on the San Saba River near present Menard. Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission was sacked and burned, and eight of its inhabitants, including two priests, were killed. A year later, a Spanish punitive expedition led by Col. Diego Ortiz Parrilla also met defeat at the hands of the Comanches and their allies in a daylong battle on the Red River near the site of present Spanish Fort.
By the mid-eighteenth century, the armed and mounted Comanches had become a formidable force in Texas. Spanish officials, lacking the resources to defeat them militarily, decided to pursue peace with the Comanches. A peace policy that utilized trade and gifts to promote friendship and authorized military force only to punish specific acts of aggression was inaugurated and remained in effect, with varying degrees of success, for the remainder of Spanish rule in Texas. The first success of the new Spanish policy came in 1762, when Fray José Calahorra y Saenz negotiated a treaty with the Comanches, who agreed not to make war on missionized Apaches. Continued Apache aggression made it impossible for the Comanches to keep their promise, and ultimately led Spanish officials to advocate a Spanish-Comanche alliance aimed at exterminating the Apaches. That policy was officially implemented in 1772, and with the help of Athanase de Mézières, a French trader serving as Spanish diplomat, a second treaty was signed with the Comanches. The Comanche chief Povea signed the treaty in 1772 at San Antonio, thereby committing his band to peace with the Spaniards. Other bands, however, continued to raid Spanish settlements.
The Arrival of Horses
The Arrival of Horses
The horse originated in the Americas more than 40 million years ago. After spreading to Asia and Europe, it became extinct in its homeland. In 1493, the horse returned to the Western Hemisphere when Columbus brought a herd of 25 on his second voyage. Back in the Americas, its native environment, the horse flourished.
The Spanish used the horse as an instrument of warfare and control. But as soon as horses came into Indian hands, Native peoples began to weave a close relationship with the Horse Nation. By the late 1700s, virtually every tribe in the West was mounted. Horses strengthened Native communities and helped in the fight for Indian lands.
In 1680, after a century of Spanish domination, the Pueblo Indians rose up against their colonial rulers in the region now known as New Mexico. Led by Popé, a Tewa religious leader, they attacked Santa Fe, killing some 400 Spaniards and forcing many more to flee. Hundreds of horses—perhaps more than 1,500—were left behind, the largest number to pass into Native hands at one time.
These horses became the ancestors of many tribal herds. The Pueblo people traded horses to neighboring tribes, and the horse population expanded rapidly across North America. Europeans no longer held a monopoly on horses, and the horse would change almost every aspect of life for many Natives.
As each tribe encountered the horse, they coined a name for it.
A number of tribes used names that likened it to the dog.
He put us in mind of a stag that had lost his horns, and we did not know what name to give him.
But as he was a slave to man, like the dog, which carried our things, he was named the Big Dog.
—Saukamaupee (Piegan), 1787
Assiniboine: thongatch-shonga or sho-a-thin-ga (“big dog”)
A’aninin (Gros Ventre): it-shuma-shunga (“red dog”)
Lakota (Sioux): Sunkakhan (“holy dog” or “mystery dog”)
Siksika (Blackfoot): ponoka-mita (“elk dog”)
Cree: mistatim (“big dog”)
The carousel below details some of the impacts of and developments in horse culture.
The Horse Trade
The Horse Trade
What Was a Horse Worth?
What Was a Horse Worth?
In the early 1800s, on Native trade routes, the going rates for horses were:
1 ordinary riding horse = 8 buffalo robes
1 fine racing horse = 10 guns
1 fine hunting horse = several pack animals
OR 1 gun and 100 loads of ammunition
OR 3 pounds of tobacco
OR 15 eagle feathers
OR 10 weasel skins
OR 5 tipi poles
OR 1 buffalo-hide tipi cover
OR 1 skin shirt and leggings, decorated with human hair and quills
The French and Indigenous Americans
The French and Indigenous Americans
One must one careful about generalizations in history, but for the most part, the French tended to have better relationships with Natives, in part because the French relied heavily on Natives for access to the fur trade. That said, these relationships were not without conflict, especially since entering into certain alliances could make enemies out of other groups. And, like their Spanish and English counterparts, the French took to enslaving Indigenous Americans.
Champlain's Battle with the Iroquois, 1609
Champlain's Battle with the Iroquois, 1609
Samuel de Champlain was a trader, soldier, explorer, diplomat, and author. The critical figure in French efforts to establish the colony of New France along the St. Lawrence river, he set up a small trading post at Quebec, the capital of the colony, in 1608. Given the small numbers of French colonists and their primary interest in the fur trade, Champlain recognized that success depended on alliances with the native peoples of the northern region. In June 1609, Champlain and nine French soldiers joined a war party of Montganais, Algonkaian, and Hurons to fight their enemies, the Iroquois. They met their foe, probably about 200 Mohawks, along the lake later named Lake Champlain. The French firearms caused death and consternation among the Indians and introduced such weapons to native conflicts. Over the next decades, Champlain chronicled his explorations and observations of New France in several volumes, providing important information on life and warfare in seventeenth-century North America.
Continuing our way along this lake in a westerly direction and viewing the country, I saw towards the east very high mountains on the tops of which there was snow. I enquired of the natives whether these parts were inhabited. They said they were, and by the Iroquois, and that in those parts there were beautiful valleys and fields rich in corn such as I have eaten in that country, along with other products in abundance. And they said that the lake went close to the mountains, which, as I judged, might be some twenty-five leagues away from us. Towards the south I saw others which were not less lofty than the first-mentioned, but there was no snow on these. The Indians told me that it was there that we were to meet their enemies, that the mountains were thickly populated, and that we had to pass a rapid which I saw afterwards. Thence they said we had to enter another lake which is some nine or ten leagues in length, and that on reaching the end of it we had to go by land some two leagues and cross a river which descends to the coast of Norumbega, adjoining that of Florida. They could go there in their canoes in two days, as I learned afterwards from some prisoners we took, who conversed with me very particularly regarding all they knew, with the help of some Algonquin interpreters who knew the Iroquois language.
Now as we began to get within two or three days' journey of the home of their enemy, we proceeded only by night, and during the day we rested. Nevertheless, they kept up their usual superstitious ceremonies in order to know what was to happen to them in their undertakings, and often would come and ask me whether I had had dreams and had seen their enemies. I would tell them that I had not, but nevertheless continued to inspire them with courage and good hope. When night came on, we set off on our way until the next morning. Then we retired into the thick woods where we spent the rest of the day. Towards ten or eleven o’clock, after walking around our camp, I went to take a rest, and while asleep I dreamed that I saw in the lake near a mountain our enemies, the Iroquois, drowning before our eyes. I wanted to succour them, but our Indian allies said to me that we should let them all perish; for they were bad men. When I awoke they did not fail to ask me as usual whether I had dreamed anything. I told them what I had seen in my dream. This gave them such confidence that they no longer had any doubt as to the good fortune awaiting them.
Evening having come, we embarked in our canoes in order to proceed on our way, and as we were paddling along very quietly, and without making any noise, about ten o’clock at night on the twenty-ninth of the month, at the extremity of a cape which projects into the lake on the west side, we met the Iroquois on the warpath. Both they and we began to utter loud shouts and each got his arms ready. We drew out into the lake and the Iroquois landed and arranged all their canoes near one another. Then they began to fell trees with the poor axes which they sometimes win in war, or with stone axes; and they barricaded themselves well.
Our Indians all night long also kept their canoes close to one another and tied to poles in order not to get separated, but to fight all together in case of need. We were on the water within bowshot of their barricades. And when they were armed, and everything in order, they sent two canoes which they had separated from the rest, to learn from their enemies whether they wished to fight, and these replied that they had no other desire, but that for the moment nothing could be seen and that it was necessary to wait for daylight in order to distinguish one another. They said that as soon as the sun should rise, they would attack us, and to this our Indians agreed. Meanwhile the whole night was spent in dances and songs on both sides, with many insults and other remarks, such as the lack of courage of our side, how little we could resist or do against them, and that when daylight came our people would learn all this to their ruin. Our side too was not lacking in retort, telling the enemy that they would see such deeds of arms as they had never seen, and a great deal of other talk, such as is usual at the siege of a city. Having sung, danced, and flung words at one another for some time, when daylight came, my companions and I were still hidden, lest the enemy should see us, getting our firearms ready as best we could, being however still separated, each in a canoe of the Montagnais Indians. After we were armed with light weapons, we took, each of us, an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy come out of their barricade to the number of two hundred, in appearance strong, robust men. They came slowly to meet us with a gravity and calm which I admired; and at their head were three chiefs. Our Indians likewise advanced in similar order, and told me that those who had the three big plumes were the chiefs, and that there were only these three, whom you could recognize by these plumes, which were larger than those of their companions; and I was to do what I could to kill them. I promised them to do all in my power, and told them that I was very sorry they could not understand me, so that I might direct their method of attacking the enemy, all of whom undoubtedly we should thus defeat; but that there was no help for it, and that I was very glad to show them, as soon as the engagement began, the courage and readiness which were in me.
As soon as we landed, our Indians began to run some two hundred yards towards their enemies, who stood firm and had not yet noticed my white companions who went off into the woods with some Indians. Our Indians began to call to me with loud cries; and to make way for me they divided into two groups, and put me ahead some twenty yards, and I marched on until I was within some thirty yards of the enemy, who as soon as they caught sight of me halted and gazed at me and I at them. When I saw them make a move to draw their bows upon us, I took aim with my arquebus and shot straight at one of the three chiefs, and with this shot two fell to the ground and one of their companions was wounded who died thereof a little later. I had put four bullets into my arquebus. As soon as our people saw this shot so favourable for them, they began to shout so loudly that one could not have heard it thunder, and meanwhile the arrows flew thick on both sides. The Iroquois were much astonished that two men should have been killed so quickly, although they were provided with shields made of cotton thread woven together and wood, which were proof against their arrows. This frightened them greatly. As I was reloading my arquebus, one of my companions fired a shot from within the woods, which astonished them again so much that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage and took to flight, abandoning the field and their fort, and fleeing into the depth of the forest, whither I pursued them and laid low still more of them. Our Indians also killed several and took ten or twelve prisoners. The remainder fled with the wounded. Of our Indians fifteen or sixteen were wounded with arrows, but these were quickly healed.
After we had gained the victory, our Indians wasted time in taking a large quantity of Indian corn and meal belonging to the enemy, as well as their shields, which they had left behind, the better to run. Having feasted, danced, and sung, we three hours later set off for home with the prisoners.
Peace with the Iroquois
Peace with the Iroquois
After chronic and devastating warfare with the Iroquois since the early 1600s, the French negotiated a peace treaty in 1673, summarized in a 1684 letter by Baron de Lahonton, a French official in New France. (A final peace was not achieved until 1701.)
There has been an Alliance of long standing between these Nations and the English, and by trading in Furs to New-York, they are supplied by the English with Arms, Ammunition, and all other Necessaries, at a cheaper rate than the French can afford them at. They have no other consideration for England or France, than what depends upon the occasion they have for the Commodities of these two Nations; though after all they give an over-purchase; and they pay for them four times more than they are worth. They laugh at the Menaces of our Kings and Governors, for they have no notion of dependence, nay, the very word is to them insupportable. They look upon themselves as Sovereigns, accountable to none but God alone, whom they call The Great Spirit.
They waged War with us almost always, from the first settlement of our Colonies in Canada [early 1600s] to the first years of the Count of Frontenac’s Government [1672]...The Governor Count Frontenac had three things in view; The first was to encourage the greatest part of the French Inhabitants, who would have abdicated the Colony and returned to France, if the [Indian] War had continued. His second Topic was that the conclusion of a Peace would dispose an infinity of People to marry and to grub up the Trees, upon which the Colony would be better Peopled and enlarged. The third Argument that dissuaded him from carrying on the War was a design of pursuing the discovery of the [Great] Lakes, and of the Savages that live upon their banks, in order to settle a Commerce with them, and at the same time to engage them in our interests, by good Alliances, in case of a Rupture with the Iroquois.
Upon the consideration of these Reasons, he sent some Canadans by way of a formal embassy to the Iroquois Villages, in order to acquaint them that the King, being informed that a groundless War was carried on against them, had sent him from France to make peace with them. . . The Iroquois heard this Proposal with a great deal of Satisfaction; for Charles II, King of England, had ordered his Governor in New-York [Thomas Dongan] to represent to them that if they continued to wage War with the French, they were ruined, and that they would find themselves crushed by the numerous Forces that were ready to sail from France. In effect, the promised to the Ambassadors that four hundred of their number should meet Count Frontenac, attended by an equal number of his Men, at the place where Fort Frontenac now stands. Accordingly, some Months after, both the one and the other met at the place appointed, and so a Peace was concluded.
A French Fort at Niagara
A French Fort at Niagara
In preparation for his first expedition to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, explorer Sieur de La Salle planned to build a fort on the Niagara River. This account of the “embassy” to the Iroquois to explain the planned fort is from Louis Hennepin, a Recollect (Franciscan) missionary who accompanied the expedition. You can see here how the French engaged in diplomacy with the Iroquois and tried to play to their interests, contradicting the common assumption that Europeans simply just ran roughshod over Natives, guns a-blazing, taking whatever they wanted.
Whosoever considers our Map will easily see that this New Enterprise of building a Fort and some Houses on the River Niagara, besides the Fort of Frontenac, was like to give Jealousy to the Iroquois and even to the English, who live in this Neighborhood and have a great Commerce with them. Therefore to prevent the ill Consequences of it, it was thought fit to send an Embassy to the Iroquois . . .
. [A]fter five Days Journey, we came to Tagarondies, a great Village of the Iroquois Tsonnontouans [Seneca], and were immediately carried to the Cabin of their Principal Chief, where Women and Children flocked to see us, our Men being very well dressed and armed. An old Man, having according to Custom made public Cries to give Notice of our arrival to their Village; the younger Savages washed our Feet, which afterwards they rubbed over with the Grease of Deers, wild Goats, and other Beasts, and the Oil of Bears.
These Savages are for the most part tall and very well shaped, covered with a sort of Robe made of Beavers and Wolves-Skins, or of black Squirrels, holding a Pipe or Calumet [decorated ceremonial pipe] in their Hands. The Senators of Venice do not appear with a graver Countenance and perhaps don’t speak with more Majesty and Solidity than those ancient Iroquois. This Nation is the most cruel and barbarous of all America, especially to their Slaves, whom they take above two or three hundred Leagues (600-900 miles) from their Country, as I shall show in my Second Volume; however, I must do them the Justice to observe that they have many good Qualities; and that they love the Europeans to whom they sell their Commodities at very reasonable Rates. They have a mortal Hatred for those who, being too self-interested and covetous, are always endeavoring to enrich themselves to the Prejudice of others. Their chief Commodities are Beavers-Skins, which they bring from above a hundred and fifty Leagues [450 miles] off their Habitations, to exchange them with the English and Dutch, whom they affect [like] more than the Inhabitants of Canada because they are more affable and sell them their Commodities cheaper.
One of our own Men named Anthony Brossard, who understood very well the Language of the Iroquois and therefore was Interpreter to M. de la Motte, told their Assembly,
First, That we were come to pay them a Visit, and smoke with them in their Pipes, a Ceremony which I shall describe anon: And then we delivered our Presents, consisting of Axes, Knives, a great Collar of white and blue Porcelain,5 with some Gowns. ..
Secondly, We desired them, in the next place to give Notice to the five Cantons of their Nation that we were about to build a Ship, or great wooden Canoe, above the great Fall of the River Niagara, to go and fetch European Commodities by a more convenient passage than the ordinary one, by the River St. Lawrence, whose rapid Currents make it dangerous and long; and that by these means we should afford them our Commodities cheaper than the English and Dutch of Boston and New-York...
Thirdly, We told them farther that we should provide them at the River Niagara with a Black-Smith and a Gun-Smith to mend their Guns, Axes, etc., having nobody among them that understood that Trade, and that for the convenience of their whole Nation, we would settle those Workmen on the Lake of Ontario at the Mouth of the River Niagara. We threw again among them seven or eight Gowns and some Pieces of fine Cloth which they cover themselves with from the Waist to the Knees. This was in order to engage them on our side and prevent their giving ear to any who might suggest ill things of us ...
We added many other Reasons which we thought proper to persuade them to favor our Design [plan]. The Presents we made unto them, either in Cloth or Iron, were worth above 400 Livres,6 besides some other European Commodities very scarce in that Country...
The next Day the Iroquois answered our Discourse and Presents Article by Article, having laid upon the Ground several little pieces of Wood to put them in mind of what had been said the Day before in the Council; their Speaker, or President, held in his Hand one of these Pieces of Wood, and when he had answered on Article of our Proposal, he laid it down with some Presents of black and white Porcelain which they use to string upon the smallest Sinews of Beasts; and then took up another Piece of Wood, and so of all the rest till he had fully answered our Speech, of which those Pieces of Wood and our Presents put them in mind. When his Discourse was ended, the oldest Man of their Assembly cried aloud for three times, Niaoua; that is to say, It is well, I thank thee; which was repeated with a full Voice and in a tuneful manner by all the other Senators.
'Tis to be observed here that the Savages, though some are more cunning than others, are generally all addicted to their own Interests; and therefore though the Iroquois seemed to be pleased with our Proposals, they were not really so; for the English and Dutch affording them the European Commodities at cheaper Rates than the French of Canada, they had a greater Inclination for them than for us. That People, tho' so barbarous and rude in their Manners, have however a Piece of Civility peculiar to themselves; for a Man would be accounted very impertinent if he contradicted anything that is said in their Council...
Danger of War in New France, 1687
Danger of War in New France, 1687
In New France, says historian Alan Taylor, "trade, alliance, and war entangled colonizers and natives in ways that they could not have predicted, could rarely control, and might not have chosen—had they that luxury." From its earliest ventures in North America, sparsely settled New France was defined by, not just dependent on, its relations with the Indians (Algonquin and Huron allies and its fierce enemies, the Iroquois). In the 1680s, as the English aggressively challenged the French fur trading dominance, they urged the Iroquois to attack French settlements and join them in defeating New France. In this 1687 memorandum, a French official is warned that New France faces "the extirpation of our Colony" if it does not attack and defeat the English-supplied Iroquois. When war broke out between France and England in Europe two years later, the New France-New England-Indian conflicts also exploded into warfare. The tangles alliances and rivalries between the French and British and their Native allies also contributed to the French and Indian War in the mid-18th century. Read the full text here.
Canada is encompassed by many powerful Colonies of English who labor incessantly to ruin it by exciting all our Indians, and drawing them away with their peltries for which said English give them a great deal more merchandise than the French, because the former pay no duty to the King of England. That profit attracts towards them, also, all our Coureurs de bois and French libertines who carry their peltries to them, deserting our Colony and establishing themselves among the English who take great pains to encourage them.They employ these French deserters to advantage in bringing the Far Indians to them who formerly brought their peltries into our Colony, whereby our trade is wholly destroyed.
The English have begun by the most powerful and best disciplined Indians of all America, whom they have excited entirely against us by their avowed protection and manifest usurpation of the sovereignty they claim over the country of those Indians which appertains beyond contradiction to the King for nearly a century without the English having, up to this present time, had any pretence thereto.
They also employ the Iroquois to excite all our other Indians against us. They sent those last year to attack the Hurons and the Outawas, our most ancient subjects; from whom they swept by surprise more than 75 prisoners, including some of their principal Chiefs; killed several others, and finally offered peace and the restitution of their prisoners, if they would quit the French and acknowledge the English.
They sent those Iroquois to attack the Illinois and the Miamis, our allies, who are in the neighborhood of Fort Saint Louis; those Iroquois massacred and burnt a great number of them, and carried off many prisoners with threats of entire extermination if they would not unite with them against the French.
Colonel Dongan, Governor of New-York, has pushed this usurpation to the point of sending Englishmen to take possession, in the King of England's name, of the post of Mislimakinac which is a Strait communicating between Lake Huron and the Lake of the Illinois [Lake Michigan], and has even declared that all those lakes, including the River Saint Lawrence which serves as an outlet to them, and on which our Colony is settled, belong to the English.
The Reverend Father Lamberville, a French Jesuit who, with one of his brothers, also a Jesuit, has been 18 years a Missionary among the Iroquois, wrote on the first of November to Chevalier de Callieres, Governor of Montreal, who informed the Governor-General thereof, that Colonel Dongan has assembled the Five Iroquois Nations at Manatte where he resides, and declared to them as follows:
1st, That he forbids them to go to Cataracouy or Fort Frontenac and to have any more intercourse with French.
2d, That he orders them to restore the prisoners they, took from the Hurons and Outawacs, in order to attract these to him.
3d, That he is sending thirty Englishmen to take possession of Missilimakinak and the lakes, rivers and adjoining lands and orders the Iroquois to escort them thither and to afford them physical assistance.
4th, That he has sent to recall the Iroquois Christians belonging to the Mohawks who reside since a long time at the Saut Saint Louis, in the vicinity of the Island of Montreal, where they have been established by us, and converted by the care of our Reverend Jesuit Fathers, and that he would give them other land and an English Jesuit, to govern them.
5th, That he wishes that there should not be any Missionaries except his throughout the whole of the Five Nations of Iroquois, and that the latter send away our French Jesuits who have been so long established there.
6th, That if they are attacked by Monsieur de Denonville the latter will have to do with him.
7th, That he orders them to plunder all the French who will visit them; to bind them and bring them to him, and what they'll take from them shall be good prize.
The Iroquois plunder our Frenchmen every where they meet them, and threaten to fire their settlements which are much exposed and without any fortifications.
These measures, and the discredit we are in among all the Indians for having abandoned our allies, for having suffered [allowed] them to be exterminated by the Iroquois and borne the insults of the latter, render war again absolutely necessary to avert from us a general Indian Rebellion which would bring down ruin on our trade and cause eventually even the extirpation of our Colony.
War is likewise necessary for the establishment of the Religion, which will never spread itself there except by the destruction of the Iroquois: so that on the success of hostilities, which the Governor-General of Canada proposes to commence against the Iroquois on the 15th of May next, depends either the ruin of the Country and of the Religion if he be not assisted, or the Establishment of the Religion, of Commerce and the King's Power over all North America, if granted the required aid.
If men consider the Merit in the eyes of God, and the Glory and utility which the King will derive from that succor, it is easy to conclude that expense was never better employed since, independent of the salvation of the quantity of souls in that vast County to which His Majesty will contribute by establishing the faith there, he will secure to himself an Empire of more than a thousand leagues in extent, from the Mouth of the River Saint Lawrence to that of the River Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico; a country discovered by the French alone, to which other Nations have no right, and from which great Commercial advantages, and a considerable augmentation of His Majesty's Revenues will eventually be derived...
The Iroquois must be attacked in two directions. The first and principal attack must be on the Seneca Nation on the borders of Lake Ontario, the second, by the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain in the direction of she Mohawks.
Three thousand French will be required for that purpose. Of these there are sixteen companies which make 800 men and 800 drafted from the militia, 100 of the best of whom the Governor-General destines to conduct 50 canoes which will come and go incessantly to convey provisions. Of the 3,000 French he has only one-half, though he boasts of more for reputation's sake, for the rest of the militia are necessary to protect and cultivate the farms of the Colony, and a part of the force must be employed in guarding the posts of Fort - Frontenac, Niagara, Tarento Missilimakinak so as to secure the aid he expects from the Illinois and from the other Indians, on whom, however, he cannot-rely unless he will be able alone to defeat the Five Iroquois Nations.
The Iroquois force consists of two thousand picked Warriors (d'elite) brave, active, more skilful in the use of the gun than our Europeans and all well armed; besides twelve hundred Mohegans (Loups), another tribe in alliance with them as brave as they, not including the English who will supply them with officers to lead them, and to intrench them in their villages.
If they be not attacked all at once at the two points indicated, it is impossible to destroy them or to drive them from their retreat, but if encompassed on both sides, all their plantations of Indian corn will be destroyed, their villages burnt, their women, children and old men captured and their warriors driven into the woods where they will be pursued and annihilated by the other Indians.
After having defeated and dispersed them, the winter must be spent in fortifying the post of Niagara, the most important in America, by means of which all the other Nations will be excluded from the lakes whence all the peltries are obtained; it will be necessary to winter troops at that and some other posts, to prevent the Iroquois returning and reestablishing themselves there, and to people those beautiful countries with other Indians who will have served under us during this war.
The Difference Between British & French Relations with Natives
The Difference Between British & French Relations with Natives
Charles Thomson, An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British Interest, And into the Measures Taken for Recovering their Friendship, 1759 . Thompson was a Pennsylvanian who compiled evidence about the fraudulent terms of the 1737 Walking Purchase in Pennsylvania (which tricked the Delaware into ceding more land). Here he compares what he considers the important differences between the ways the British and the French interact with Natives.
It may not be amiss to observe here the different Manner in which the English and French treat the Indians. The English, in order to get their Lands, drive them as far from them as possible, nor seem to care what becomes of them, provided they can get them removed out of the Way of their present Settlement ; whereas the French, considering that they can never want [lack] Land in America, who enjoy the Friendship of the Indians, use all the Means in their Power to draw as many into their Alliance as possible; and, to secure their Affections, invite as many as can to come and live near them, to make their Towns as near the French Settlements as they can. By this Means they have drawn off a great Number of the Mohocks [Mohawks] and other Six Nation Tribes [referring to the Iroquois Confederacy], and having settled them in Towns along the Banks of the River St. Lawrence, have so secured them to their Interest, that, even of these, they can command above six or seven Hundred fighting Men, which is more than Colonel Johnson has, with all his Interest, been able to raise in all the northern District [of British America].
The "Fox Indian Massacre"
The "Fox Indian Massacre"
The Meskwaki were called the Fox by the French but identified as Meskwaki, Algonquin in origin. They fought in what was called the Fox Wars against the French from 1712 until around 1730. The Meskwaki opposed French expansion, especially once the French began arming the Sioux with firearms. When some members of the Iroquois confederacy invited them to trade with the English in New York, the French came to view the Meskwaki as disloyal customers, worsening relations. When the French temporarily moved their trading headquarters to Detroit, Meskwaki warriors laid siege to the garrison stationed there. The French only defeated them with the help of Indians from other tribes, who killed nearly all the Meskwaki that participated in the uprising. The surviving Meskwaki rejoined their communities in northeastern Wisconsin, where they again began to intercept French traders along the Fox River. They exacted a toll from passing boats and canoes and attempted to prevent guns and ammunition from reaching their Sioux adversaries. This marker, erected by the Michigan History Division, marks the fighting between the French and Meskwaki in 1712. Historical markers can be interesting (and not always accurate) sources. How might the Meskwaki feel about this marker? If they had erected the marker, would it perhaps say something different about the event?
"Encouraged by a potential alliance with the English, the Fox Indians besieged Fort Pontchartrain, Detroit, in 1712. Repulsed by the French and their Huron and Ottawa Indian allies, the Fox retreated and entrenched themselves in this area known as Presque Isle. The French pursued and defeated the Fox in the only battle fought in the Grosse Pointes. More than a thousand Fox Indians were killed in a fierce five-day struggle. Soon afterward French settlers began to develop the Grosse Pointes."
The English & Indigenous Americans
The English & Indigenous Americans
The English seemed to have the most tense relations with Indigenous Americans almost from the start. These tensions in part arose from the fact that the English intended to settle the land rather than just trade, like the French. Indeed, conflict over land and resources was at the heart of many conflicts between the English colonists and Natives. The English, like the Spanish and French, also enslaved many Natives, often shipping captured Natives to Caribbean colonies. In the previous section on Native-European interactions, we already saw some of the initial conflicts and interactions between the first colonists and Indigenous Americans (stories like John Rolfe's run in with the Powhatans and Pocahontas and the "first Thanksgiving.") In this section, we see how these relations often continued to deteriorate, mostly at the expense of Natives.
A 1628 woodcut by Matthaeus Merian of the March 22, 1622 massacre when Powhatan Indians attacked Jamestown and outlying Virginia settlements. He based his engraving on Theodore de Bry's earlier engraving of the event. Neither was actually present for it.
The Anglo-Powhatan Wars
The Anglo-Powhatan Wars
Virginia colonists, led by John Rolfe, vastly underestimated the power of the local Algonquian tribes. Once tobacco cultivation took off, colonists started demanding (and taking) more land. But when the Jamestown colonists arrived, they were intruding on a tribute empire built by Chief Wahunsenacawh. At first the Powhatans provided the colonists with food, but the colonists soon resorted to stealing food from the Powhatans. When Lord de La Warr arrived to take control of the colony in 1610, tensions deteriorated further as colonists took more land for cultivation without compensation. The war was actually a series of three wars that ultimately ended in 1646 with the capture of the Powhatan chief Opechancanough. The resulting peace treaty established a boundary between the Virginia Colony and the Powhatan territory that lasted until Bacon's Rebellion, which resulted in the establishment of reservations.
Powhatan's Speech to John Smith, 1609
Powhatan's Speech to John Smith, 1609
Responding to rumors that the English were intent on destroying his confederacy, Powhatan, Virginia's leading chief, asked the English to cease threatening to use force against the Indians. Otherwise, Powhatan threatened to cut off the food supply that the English depended on for subsistence.
Captain Smith, you may understand that I, having seen the death of all my people thrice, and not one living of those 3 generations but my self, I know the difference of peace and war better then any in my Country. But now I am old, and ere long must die. My brethren, namely Opichapam, Opechankanough, and Kekataugh, my two sisters, and their two daughters, are distinctly each others successors. I wish their experience no less then mine, and your love to them, no less then mine to you: but this brute [rumor] from Nansamund, that you are come to destroy my Country, so much affrighted all my people, as they dare not visit you. What will it avail you to take that perforce, you may quietly have with love, or to destroy them that provide you food? What can you get by war, when we can hide our provision and flie to the woods, whereby you must famish, by wronging us your friends? And why are you thus jealous of our loves, seeing us unarmed, and both doe, and are willing still to feed you with that you cannot get but by our labors? Think you I am so simple not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children, laugh, and be merry with you, have copper, hatchets, or what I want being your friend; then bee forced to fly from all, to lie cold in the woods, feed upon acorns roots and such trash, and be so hunted by you that I can neither rest eat nor sleep, but my tired men must watch, and if a twig but break, every one cry, there comes Captain Smith: then must I fly I know not whether and thus with miserable fear end my miserable life, leaving my pleasures to such youths as you, which, through your rash unadvisedness, may quickly as miserably end, for want of that you never know how to find? Let this therefore assure you of our loves, and every year our friendly trade shall furnish you with corn; and now also if you would come in friendly manner to us, and not thus with your guns and swords, as to invade your foes.
A Virginian's Account of the Powhatan Wars
A Virginian's Account of the Powhatan Wars
In 1622, Powhatan's successor, Opechancanough, tried to wipe out the English in a surprise attack. Two Indian converts to Christianity warned the English; still, 347 settlers, or about a third of the English colonists, died in the attack. Warfare persisted for ten years, followed by an uneasy peace. In 1644, Opechancanough launched a last, desperate attack. After about two years of warfare, in which some 500 colonists were killed, Opechancanough was captured and shot and the survivors of Powhatan's confederacy, now reduced to just 2,000, agreed to submit to English rule.
Edward Waterhouse, a prominent Virginia official, offers a first-hand account of Opechancanough's attack, and suggests how the attack removed all restraints on the Virginians' quest for revenge.
And such was the conceit of firm peace and amity as that there was seldom or never a sword worn and a piece seldomer, except for a deer or fowl.... The houses generally sat open to the savages, who were always friendly entertained at the tables of the English, and commonly lodged in their bed-chambers...to open a fair gate for their conversion to Christianity....
Yea, such was the treacherous dissimulation of that people who then had contrived our destruction, that even two days before the massacre some of our men were guided through the woods by them in safety.... Yea, they borrowed our own boats to convey themselves across the river (on the banks of both sides whereof all our plantations were) to consult of the devilish murder that ensued, and of our utter extirpation, which God of his mercy (by the means of some of themselves converted to Christianity) prevented....
On the Friday morning (the fatal day) the 22nd of March, as also in the evening, as in other days before, they came unarmed into our houses, without bows or arrows, or other weapons, with deer, turkeys, fish, furs, and other provisions to sell and truck with us for glass, beads, and other trifles; yea, in some places, sat down at breakfast with out people at their tables, whom immediately with their own tools and weapons either laid down, or standing in their houses, they basely and barbarously murdered, not sparing either age or sex, man, women or child; so sudden in their cruel execution that few or none discerned the weapon or blow that brought them to destruction....
And by this means that fatal Friday morning, there fell under the bloody and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhumane people, contrary to the laws of God and man, and nature and nations, 347 men, women, and children, most by their own weapons. And not being content with taking away life alone, they fell after again upon the dead, making, as well as they could, a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling the dead carcasses into many pieces, and carrying away some parts in derision....
Our hands, which before were tied with gentleness and fair usage, are now set at liberty by the treacherous violence of the savages...so that we, who hitherto have had possession of no more ground than their waste and our purchase at a valuable consideration to their contentment gained, may now by right of war, and law of nations, invade the country, and destroy them who sought to destroy us; whereby we shall enjoy their cultivated places.... Now their cleared grounds in all their villages (which are situate in the fruitfulest places of the land) shall be inhabited by us, whereas heretofore the grubbing of woods was the greatest labor.
Natives in Bacon's Rebellion
Natives in Bacon's Rebellion
Virginian Robert Beverley wrote an account (1704) of Bacon's Rebellion that included the grievances over "Indian affairs" that were included in Bacon's demands.
Four things may be reckoned to have been the main ingredients towards this intestine commotion, viz., First, The extreme low price of tobacco, and the ill usage of the planters in the exchange of goods for it, which the country, with all their earnest endeavors, could not remedy. Secondly, The splitting the colony into proprieties, contrary to the original charters; and the extravagant taxes they were forced to undergo, to relieve themselves from those grants. Thirdly, The heavy restraints and burdens laid upon their trade by act of Parliament in England. Fourthly, The disturbance given by the Indians. Of all which in their order...
These were the afflictions that country labored under when the fourth accident happened, viz., the disturbance offered by the Indians to the frontiers. . . .
This addition of mischief to minds already full of discontent, made people ready to vent all their resentment against the poor Indians. There was nothing to be got by tobacco; neither could they turn any other manufacture to advantage; so that most of the poorer sort were willing to quit their unprofitable employments, and go volunteers against the Indians.
At first they flocked together tumultuously, running in troops from one plantation to another without a head, till at last the seditious humor of Colonel Nathaniel Bacon led him to be of the party. This gentleman had been brought up at one of the Inns of court in England, and had a moderate fortune. He was young, bold, active, of an inviting aspect, and powerful elocution. In a word, he was every way qualified to head a giddy and unthinking multitude. Before he had been three years in the country, he was, for his extraordinary qualifications, made one of the council, and in great honor and esteem among the people. For this reason he no sooner gave countenance to this riotous mob, but they all presently fixed their eyes upon him for their general, and accordingly made their addresses to him. As soon as he found this, he harangued them publicly. He aggravated the Indian mischiefs, complaining that they were occasioned for want of a due regulation of their trade. He recounted particularly the other grievances and pressures they lay under, and pretended that he accepted of their command with no other intention but to do them and the country service, in which he was willing to encounter the greatest difficulties and dangers. He farther assured them he would never lay down his arms till he had revenged their sufferings upon the Indians, and redressed all their other grievances.
Colonel Bacon still insisted upon a commission to be general of the volunteers, and to go out against the Indians; from which the governor endeavored to dissuade him, but to no purpose, because he had some secret project in view. He had the luck to be countenanced in his importunities, by the news of fresh murder and robberies committed by the Indians. However, not being able to accomplish his ends by fair means, he stole privately out of town; and having put himself at the head of six hundred volunteers, marched directly to Jamestown, where the assembly was then sitting. He presented himself before the assembly, and drew up his men in battalia before the house wherein they sat. He urged to them his preparations; and alledged that if the commission had not been delayed so long, the war against the Indians might have been finished.
The governor resented this insolent usage worst of all, and now obstinately refused to grant him anything, offering his naked breast against the presented arms of his followers. But the assembly, fearing the fatal consequences of provoking a discontented multitude ready armed, who had the governor, council and assembly entirely in their power, addressed the governor to grant Bacon his request. They prepared themselves the commission, constituting him general of the forces of Virginia, and brought it to the governor to be signed.
With much reluctancy the governor signed it, and thereby put the power of war and peace into Bacon's hands. Upon this he marched away immediately, having gained his end, which was in effect a power to secure a monopoly of the Indian trade to himself and his friends.
The Story of Squanto (primary and secondary)
The Story of Squanto (primary and secondary)
The story of Squanto us complicated, and historians do not agree on all the details. In general, the story goes that Squanto was captured by English explorers around 1614 and sold into slavery in England, where he learned English, which of course came in handy when the Pilgrims later arrived in Massachusetts (by this point, Squanto had found his way back to the Americas). The enslavement of Natives was widespread and would continue throughout the colonial period. Squanto was sent back to New England as an interpreter for the English. When Squanto made it back to Patuxet in 1619, he found his tribe wiped out by an epidemic brought over by the Europeans. William Bradford left an account of the meeting of the Pilgrims and Squanto.
All this while the Indians came skulking about them, and would sometimes show themselves aloof off, but when any approached near them, they would run away; and once they stole away their tools where they had been at work and were gone to dinner.
But about the 16th of March, a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand but marveled at it. At length they understood by discourse with him, that he was not of these parts, but belonged to the eastern parts where some English ships came to fish, with whom he was acquainted and could name sundry of them by their names, amongst whom he had got his language. He became profitable to them in acquainting them with many things concerning the state of the country in the east parts where he lived, which was afterwards profitable unto them; as also of the people here, of their names, number and strength, of their situation and distance from this place, and who was chief amongst them. His name was Samoset. He told them also of another Indian whose name was Squanto, a native of this place, who had been in England and could speak better English than himself.
Being after some time of entertainment and gifts dismissed, a while after he came again, and five more with him, and they brought again all the tools that were stolen away before, and made way for the coming of their great Sachem, called Massasoit. Who, about four or five days after, came with the chief of his friends and other attendance, with the aforesaid Squanto. With whom, after friendly entertainment and some gifts given him, they made a peace with him (which hath now continued this 24 years) in these terms:
1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him.
3. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should do the like to his.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; if any did war against them, he should aid them.
5. He should send to his neighbors confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.
6. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them.
He [Squanto] was a native of this place, & scarce any left alive beside himself. He was carried away with diverce others by one Hunt, a master of a ship, who thought to sell them for slaves in Spain. But he got away for England, and was entertained by a merchant in London, employed to Newfoundland and other parts, and lastly brought into these parts by a Captain Dermer, a gentlemen employed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others for discovery and other designs in these parts.
A Pequot View of the Pilgrims, 1636
A Pequot View of the Pilgrims, 1636
William Apes, a Pequot, offers an Indian perspective on the early history of relations between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England.
December 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and without asking liberty from anyone, they possessed themselves of a portion of the country, and built themselves houses, and then made a treaty and commanded them [the Indians] to accede to it.... And yet for their kindness and resignation towards the whites, they were called savages, and made by God on purpose for them to destroy....
The next we present before you are things very appalling. We turn our attention to dates, 1623, January and March, when Mr. Weston Colony, came very near to starving to death; some of them were obliged to hire themselves to the Indians, to become their servants in order that they might live. Their principal work was to bring wood and water; but not being contented with this, many of the white sought to steal the Indians' corn; and because the Indians complained of it, and through their complaint, some one of their number being punished, as they say, to appease the savages. Now let us see who the greatest savages were; the person that stole the corn was a stout athletic man, and because of this, they wished to spare him, and take an old man who was lame and sickly...and because they thought he would not be of so much use to them, he was, although innocent of any crime, hung in his stead....Another act of humanity for Christians, as they call themselves, that one Capt. Standish, gathering some fruit and provisions, goes forward with a black and hypocritical heart, and pretends to prepare a feast for the Indians; and when they sit down to eat, they seize the Indians' knives hanging around their necks, and stab them in the heart....
The Pilgrims promised to deliver up every transgressor of the Indian treaty, to them, to be punished according to their laws, and the Indians were to do likewise. Now it appears that an Indian had committed treason, by conspiring against the king's [Massasoit's] life, which is punishable with death...and the Pilgrims refused to give him, although by their oath of alliance they had promised to do so....
In this history of Massasoit we find that his own head men were not satisfied with the Pilgrims; that they looked upon them to be intruders, and had a wish to expel those intruders out of their coast. A false report was made respecting one Tisquantum, that he was murdered by an Indian.... Upon this news, one Standish, a vile and malicious fellow, took fourteen of his lewd Pilgrims with him...at midnight....At that late hour of the night, meeting at house in the wilderness, whose inmates heard--Move not, upon the peril of your life. At the same time some of the females were so frightened, that some of them undertook to make their escape, upon which they were fired upon.... These Indians had not done one single wrong act to the whites, but were as innocent of any crime, as any beings in the world. But if the real suffers say one word, they are denounced, as being wild and savage beasts....
We might suppose that meek Christians had better gods and weapons than cannon. But let us again review their weapons to civilize the nations of this soil. What were they: rum and powder, and ball, together with all the diseases, such as the small pox, and every other disease imaginable; and in this way sweep of thousands and tens of thousands.
Natives with Agency
Natives with Agency
In 1679, Colonel William Kendall traveled to New York to discuss "Indian policy." What follows here is an account of the exchange between Kendall and the Oneida.
Kendall: I am come from Virginia being as all these countries under our great King Charles, to speak to you, upon occasion of some of yours having entered our houses, taken away and destroyed our goods and People, and brought some of our women and Children Captives in your Castles contrary to your faith and promises, and is also a breach of your Peace made with Colonel Coursey without any Provocation or Injury in the Least done by us, or disturbing you in your hunting trade, or Passing until you were found taking our Corn, out of our fields and Plundering and burning our houses.
Though your Actions already done, are Sufficient Reasons to Induce us to a Violent war against you which might Engage all our Confederated English neighbours, subjects to our great king Charles, yet upon the Information the governor here hath given us, that you have quietly and Peaceably, delivered to him, the Prisoners you had taken from us, Who are also Returned in Safety to our Country, and your excusing [th]e Same, We are therefore willing and have and do forgive all ye Damages you have done our People (though very great) Provided you nor any Living amongst you or coming from you, for the future do not offend or molest our People or Indians Living amongst us, Which if it shall appear that you do not truly Perform, then we Expect full Satisfaction for all the Injuries that you have already done us to the utmost farthing. And one of your Squaws being taken alive in our Country, and now Returned here, being freed, I Return her to you. And whereas you have still a Christian Girl of our Parts with you, doe expect, that you likeways free & Return ye Same.
We have a Law in our Country, that all Indians coming near a Christian any where, must Stand Still, and lay down there Arms, as a token of there being friends, otherwise are Looked upon and taken or destroyed as Enemies, and having many of our People in the woods abroad every way, we doe acquaint you (therewith) that if your People shall go to war towards our Parts against any Indians not in friendship with us that you forbear to come near our Plantations.
Oneida Response: ...It is Represented to us yesterday the damage that we have done in Virginia, in destroying your goods and People, & in taking of your women and children Captives &c. we Confess to have done so But there is a Covenant made 2 Year ago with Colonel Coursey in the Presence of his honor the governor that we might freely come towards your Plantations, when we went out a fighting to our Indian Enemies to Refresh our selves if we were hungry, & we came there, & got nothing, then we took Indian Corn and Tobacco, whereupon the English coming out shot some of our People dead, and afterwards wee defended ourselves out of which these disasters are Proceeded, You say that it is our faults, and we think that the firing upon us is the Occasion....
Yesterday it was told us, that which is already Past is forgiven, for which we do thank you, Yea we thank you heartily, and Confess that the Pole or Stake of unity hath been fallen, but now Reared up again; Let all that which is Past not only be forgotten but be Buried in a Pit of oblivion, yea I say in a Bottomless Pitt where a Strong Currunt of a River Runs through, that which is now thrown in it, may never appear more.... 2.
We have understood Yesterday, that if wee come nigh any Christians in your Country, that we must Stand Still, and lay down our armes. Tis good, we accept of it. But let it not be of so bad a Consequences as Colonel Coursey saying was, for he said Likeways, that we might come there as friends, when we went out fighting against our Indian Enemies, But our going thither did bring these disasters. Let us have Victuals when we go fighting against our foresaid Enemys....
Warnings from the Seneca to New York, 1685
Warnings from the Seneca to New York, 1685
The Senecas explained that they have heard rumors of Canada's plans to attack them, and ask the English for their protection. The English respond and ask the Senecas to ignore the rumors, and also to resist fighting with their Indian enemies. In rejecting the exaggerated and distorted view that casts Native Americans in the role of passive victims, it is also important to recognize the realities that limited Indians' freedom of action. Even in the late seventeenth century Indian peoples such as the Five Nations who lived in what is now New York felt intense pressure to forge alliances with Europeans, in order to obtain arms, manufactured goods, and protection from enemy peoples, especially the French and their Huron allies.
1. There is news Brought us in our Country by 4 Indians...& they tell us that the Governor of Canada is Intended to Destroy us....
2. The government of Canada's design is kept very Secret, & as it were Smothered in a Pot that is covered, but nevertheless tis broke out as far as our Country & wee are acquainted with it.... We Desire that you would be Pleased to order that our Young Soldiers do not go out a fighting; but Stay at home to Defend there Country; if it should happen that the French should Come & fall upon our Country, for wee are Informed that he Design to be there about 3 months hence....
Answer to the aforesaid Propositions--
We have heard your Propositions and Perceive that you are fearful of the French, which you ought not to be, nor give any Credit to Such Stories, for you having Submitted your Selves under this government and obeying the governor. Last year in not making a Peace with the French without his Consent...you need not doubt but the governor will take all fitting care to Preserve you and your Country. In the mean Time you must Tell your young men from the governor, That they are not to goe out a fighting against their Indian Enemies but stay at home till the time of the Beaver hunting approaches, which will be in the fall, and then you are to Pursue & follow your hunting as formerly, & Bring your Beaver hither where you will fine you are Civilly Treated, and have all Sorts of goods very cheap.
Native Captives in the Pequot War (secondary)
Native Captives in the Pequot War (secondary)
"They Could Not Endure That Yoke": The Captivity of Pequot Women and Children after the War of 1637, New England Quarterly, Michael L. Fickes
After the Pequot War (1637), New England colonists enslaved many Pequots. The Pequot were effectively eliminated as an impediment to English expansion in the region. The war also changed the nature of enslavement in New England. Read the full text here.
Accounts of American Indians abducting white New Englanders have captured the attention of scholars for over three centuries, yet little interest has been shown in a much more common phenomenon-Indians' captivity among whites.' In the first major military engagement of the Pequot War, white New Englanders and their Algonquian allies launched a surprise, pre-dawn assault on a Pequot community near the Mystic River. In the end, they had stabbed, shot, and burned to death between 300 and 700 Pequot men, women, and children. Throughout the years, historians have vigorously debated the attack from a variety of angles; its aftermath, however, has been reported but not carefully investigated. As the war wound to a close and prisoners were taken, they were sent into the custody of their enemies, both Algonquian and white. The fates of hundreds of Pequot women and children who were forcibly seized by New England colonists during that war in 1637 tell us a great deal about the differing cultures of Native Americans and white settlers in seventeenth-century New England.
Following the attack at Mystic, the colonists' Indian allies revealed their repugnance for English tactics when they exclaimed, "mach it, mach it; that is, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slays too many men."' Among the settlers, too, could be heard protestations of the "Great and doleful" proceedings at the fort.3 While the colonial soldiers made a concerted effort to return to a policy of mercy after Mystic, they applied it only to women and children and held firmly to their belief that the Pequot men deserved "severe justice."' In late June, Captain Israel Stoughton and his company captured a group of refugee Pequots about twelve miles from the Pequot River. Immediately executing twenty-two of the Pequot men, they spared the lives of two male sachems and eighty-one women and children...The English allotted thirty-three of the captive women and children to their Indian allies and retained forty-eight to fifty for themselves...
In mid-July, in a swamp near the Indian village of Quinnipiac, the English cornered the main body of surviving free Pequots. A minor skirmish offered portents of what was to come. When a scouting party of 21 English soldiers encountered 7 "scouting pecotts," they slew 5 (gender unspecified) and spared 2 women.7 Before mounting their main offensive, the English sent a messenger to the besieged Pequots, and he negotiated the peaceful surrender of 18o women and children and 1 or 2 old men. Most of the remaining 80 Indian men attempted to flee or fight their way out of the swamp. While a few managed to escape, the majority were slain by the English forces.
During and shortly after the Pequot War, English forces delivered approximately 300 Pequot captives to colonial settlements at Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut. In addition to the 48 sent by Stoughton in June and the 18o who had surrendered during the swamp fight, another 80 were seized and taken to Boston by Captain Patrick and his troops...
Counting various small-scale seizures throughout the war, all told the English captured 319 Pequots." This figure does not include those captives immediately handed over to Indian allies but may include those who were transferred later...The colonists quickly transported 1 captive to England and 17 more to Providence Island...
A scant few of the captives who were pressed into service were male...The colonists likely believed that the acquisition of female Pequot captives would ease some of the problems arising from the scarcity of female laborers in early New England. While New England's gender ratio was considerably more balanced than Virginia's during the early seventeenth century, it was far from even...
The intensive demand for "husbanding mens time in this country"-that is for performing the traditional male tasks of clearing the land, building fences, fashioning tools, constructing houses and barns, fishing, planting and harvesting crops-would have discouraged men from assisting with "housewifery" in the early years of settlement. The preponderance of male servants taxed colonial mistresses, who were obligated to help provide "all things nee[d]ful for the maintainance and sustenance" of servants, which, in the case of Edmund Edward, included "meate, drinke, lodging, & washing." And they performed these tasks with considerably fewer female servants to assist them than was customary in England.
The colonists apparently believed that Pequot women and their children could be trained to provide excellent service to help spare the overtaxed Puritan wife. Throughout the early seventeenth century, English commentators repeatedly characterized New England Indian women as hard working and submissive. While Indian men "for the most part live idly," engaging in activities like hunting and fishing, "their wives set their Come and doe all their other worke," wrote Reverend Francis Higginson of Salem...
Like most parents across boundaries of time and space, New England Algonquians were devoted to their children. "They are great lovers of their children," John Pory observed during his visit to New England in 1622.46 Roger Williams noted that "[t]heir affections, especially to their children, are very strong; so that I have knowne a Father take so grievously the losse of his childe, that he cut and stob'd himselfe with griefe and rage."47 Miantonomo, head sachem of the Narragansetts, showed his respect for those affectionate bonds when he suggested that the Pequot captives not be kept as slaves amongst the colonists or themselves "because they were most of them families." Disregarding Miantonomo's recommendation, the colonists proceeded to split apart numerous Pequot families after the war...The Pequots discovered during the war of 1637 that the English were capable of inflicting harm on Indians of all ages and both sexes. During the years immediately following the war, their education continued. Pequot captives who attempted to escape immediately after their capture were branded." One Pequot runaway reported to Roger Williams that she had been raped and subsequently punished, a branding administered by a local magistrate, for her unwilling involvement. She had also been "beaten with firesticks" by some of the servants of her master, Mr. Cole. She made it clear that the branding and the sexual abuse she had suffered were major factors in her decision to flee the colonial settlement...
Most of the Pequot captives, young and old, successfully escaped from their colonial captors before they could be made "serviceable to God and man. " As John Mason reported, "The Captives we took . . we divided, intending to keep them as Servants, but they could not endure that Yoke; few of them continuing any considerable time with their masters." During the next major Anglo-Indian conflict, King Philip's War, Rhode Islander William Harris expressed his fear that recently secured Indian captives "will run all away againe as ye captives formerly did after ye pequot war forty years since." In future wars, English colonists would increasingly sell Indian captives into slavery in places like Barbados, opting instead for enslaved Africans who would find running away much more difficult.
Wampanoag Grievances before Metacom's War (King Philip's War), 1675
Wampanoag Grievances before Metacom's War (King Philip's War), 1675
A Relation of the Indian War, By Mr. Easton, of Rhode Island, 1675. Read the full text here.
The most devastating Indian war in New England's history was Metacom's War of 1675-1676, named for the Wampanoag leader Metacom (given the English name Philip). The instigating event was the execution of three Wampanoag men for murdering an Indian informant, but war had been considered inevitable by both Indians and colonists as the English settlements pushed farther west. The war ended with the near-complete destruction of the Wampanoag people—only four hundred survived—and the end of Native American power in New England. In this selection, a colonist records the Wampanoag grievances against New England settlers before the outbreak of war.
. . . for 40 years time [since the Pequot War], reports and jealousies [suspicions] of war had been so very frequent that we did not think that now a war was breaking forth; but about a week before it did we had cause to think it would. Then to endeavor to prevent it, we sent a man to Philip [Metacom, leader of the Wampanoag] to say that if he would come to the ferry, we would come over to speak with him. About four miles we had to come thither. . . Philip called his council and agreed to come to us; he came himself unarmed and about 40 of his men armed. Then 53 of us went over; three were magistrates.
We sat very friendly together.
We told him our business was to endeavor that they might not receive or do wrong. They said that was well they had done no wrong, the English wronged them. We said we knew the English said the Indians wronged them and the Indians said the English wronged them, but our desire was the quarrel might rightly be decided in the best way, and not as dogs decided their quarrels. The Indians owned [agreed] that fighting was the worst way; then they propounded how right might take place, we said by arbitration. They said all English agreed against them, and so by arbitration [the Indians had received] much wrong, many miles square of land so taken from them...
We did endeavor not to hear their complaints, and said it was not convenient for us now to consider of; but to endeavor to prevent war, we said to them when in war against the English blood was spilt that engaged all Englishmen, for we were to be all under one king. We knew what their complaints would be, and in our colony had removed some of them . . . but Philip charged it to be dishonesty in us to put off the hearing of their complaints, and therefore we consented to hear them.
They said they had been the first in doing good to the English, and the English the first in doing wrong; they said when the English first came, their king’s father [Massasoit] was as a great man and the English as a little child. He constrained other Indians from wronging the English and gave them corn and showed them how to plant and was free to do them any good and had let them have a 100 times more land than now the king had for his own people. But their king’s brother, when he was king, came miserably to die by being forced into court and, as they [the Indians] judged, poisoned. And another grievance was if 20 of their honest Indians testified that a Englishman had done them wrong, it was as nothing; and if but one of their worst Indians testified against any Indian or their king when it pleased the English, that was sufficient.
Another grievance was when their kings sold land the English would say it was more than they agreed to and a writing must be proof against all them, and some of their [Indian] kings had done wrong to sell so much that he left his people none, and some being given to drunkenness, the English made them drunk and then cheated them in bargains...
Another grievance was that the English cattle and horses still increased so that when they removed [the animals wandered] 30 miles from where the English had anything to do [owned land], they [Indians] could not keep their corn from being spoiled, they never being used to fence, and thought that when the English bought land of them they would have kept their cattle upon their own land. Another grievance was that the English were so eager to sell the Indians liquors that most of the Indians spent all in drunkenness and then ravened upon the sober Indians and, they did believe, often did hurt the English cattle, and their kings could not prevent it. We knew beforehand that these were their grand complaints, but then we only endeavored to persuade them that all complaints might be righted without war...We endeavored however that they should lay down their arms, for the English were too strong for them. They said, then the English should do to them as they [Indians] did when they were too strong for the English. So we departed without any discourteousness, and suddenly had a letter from Plymouth’s Governor saying that they intended in arms to conform [subdue] Philip...
Increase Mather's History of Metacom's War
Increase Mather's History of Metacom's War
From A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH THE INDIANS IN NEWENGLAND 1676 by Increase Mather. Read the full text here.
That the Heathen people amongst whom we live, and whose Land the Lord God of our Fathers hath given to us for a rightfull Possession, have at sundry times been plotting mischievous devices against that part of the English Israel which is seated in these goings down of the Sun, no man that is an Inhabitant of any considerable standing can be ignorant. Especially that there have been jealousies concerning the Narragansets and Wompanoags, is notoriously known to all men. And whereas they have been quiet until the last year, that must be ascribed to the wonderful Providence of God, who did (as with Jacob of old, and after that with the Children of Israel) lay the fear of the English [colonists] and the dread of them upon all the Indians. The terror of God was upon them round about. Nor indeed had they such advantages in former years as now they have in respect of Arms and Ammunition, their bows and arrows not being comparably such weapons of death and destruction as our guns and swords are, with which they have been unhappily furnished...
It is known to everyone that the War began not amongst us in Mattachusets Colony; nor do the Indians (so far as I am informed) pretend that we have done them wrong. And therefore the cause on our part is most clear and unquestionable: For if we should have suffered our Confederates and those that were ready to be slain to be drawn to death, & not have endeavored to deliver them, when they sent unto us for that end, the Lord would have been displeased...
And as for our Brethren in that Colony where their tumults first happened, It is evident that the Indians did most unrighteously begin a Quarrel and take up the Sword against them. . . . [I]t seems very manifest to impartial Judges that the Government in that Colony [Plymouth] is innocent as to any wrongs that have been done to the Heathen by those where the War began...
Colonists See King Philip's (Metacom's) War as "Just & Necessary"
Colonists See King Philip's (Metacom's) War as "Just & Necessary"
A letter from General Winslow of the Plymouth Colony to Increase Mather. Mather used this letter as a justification for war. From A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH THE INDIANS IN NEWENGLAND 1676 by Increase Mather
I think I can clearly say that before all these present troubles broke out, the English did not possess one foot of Land in this Colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian Proprietors: Nay, because some of our people are of a covetous disposition and the Indians are, in their Straits, easily prevailed with to part with their Lands, we first made a Law that none should purchase or receive of gift any Land of the Indians without the knowledge and allowance of our Court, and penalty of a fine, five pound per Acre, for all that should be so bought or obtained. And lest yet they should be straightened, we ordered that Mount Hope, Pocasset & several other Necks of the best Land in the Colony (because most suitable and convenient for them) should never be bought out of their hands or else they would have sold them long since. And our neighbors at Rehoboth and Swanzy, although they bought their lands fairly of this Philip [Metacom, Wampanoag leader] and his Father [Massasoit] and Brother, yet because of their vicinity, that they might not trespass upon the Indians, did at their own cost set up a very substantial fence quite cross that great Neck between the English and the Indians and paid due damage if at any time any unruly horse or other beasts broke in and trespassed . . . And if at any time they have brought complaints before us, they had had justice impartial and speedily, so that our own people have frequently complained that we erred on the other hand in showing them overmuch favor.
An Alleged Covenant between Metacom and Plymouth
An Alleged Covenant between Metacom and Plymouth
Taunton, Apr. 10th. 1671. Increase Mather presented this covenant allegedly signed by colonists and Metacom (King Philip). From A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH THE INDIANS IN NEWENGLAND 1676 by Increase Mather
Whereas my Father, my Brother and my self have formerly submitted our selves and our people unto the King’s Majesty of England, and to this Colony of New-Plymouth, by solemn Covenant under our Hand;2 but I having of late through my indiscretion and the naughtiness of my heart violated and broken this my Covenant with my friends by taking up Arms with evil intent against them, and that groundlessly; I being now deeply sensible of my unfaithfulness and folly do desire at this time to renew my Covenant with my ancient Friends and my Father’s friends above mentioned; and do desire this may testify to the world against me, if ever I shall again fail in my faithfulness towards them (that I have now and at all times found so kind to me) or any other of the English Colonies; and as a real Pledge of my true Intentions, for the future to be faithful and friendly, I do freely engage to resign up unto the Government of New-Plymouth all my English Arms to be kept by them for their security, so long as they shall see reason. For true performance of the Premises I have hereunto set my hand together with the rest of my Council.
The Mark of P. Philip chief Sachem of Pocanoket
Increase Mather then added his own commentary on how this document justified the war:
"By all these things it is evident that we may truly say of Philip, and the Indians, who have sought to dispossess us of the Land which the Lord our God hath given to us...
Even so, when Philip was in the hands of the English in former years, & disarmed by them, they could easily but would not destroy him and his men. The Governors of that Colony have been as careful to prevent injuries to him as unto any others; yea, they kept his Land not from him but for him, who otherwise would have sold himself out of all; and the Gospel was freely offered to him and to his Subjects, but they despised it: And now behold how they reward us! will not our God Judge them? yea he hath and will do so."
Indigenous American Viewpoints of Euro-Americans
Indigenous American Viewpoints of Euro-Americans
Europeans quite often expressed their viewpoints of Indigenous Americans, both positive and negative. But Indigenous Americans also expressed their impressions of the new arrivals, and, unsurprisingly, they were not too positive.
The Pilgrims from the Indian Perspective, William Apes, 1636
The Pilgrims from the Indian Perspective, William Apes, 1636
In his autobiography, William Apes, a Pequot, offers an Indian perspective on the early history of relations between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England.
December 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and without asking liberty from anyone, they possessed themselves of a portion of the country, and built themselves houses, and then made a treaty and commanded them [the Indians] to accede to it.... And yet for their kindness and resignation towards the whites, they were called savages, and made by God on purpose for them to destroy....
In this history of Massasoit we find that his own head men were not satisfied with the Pilgrims; that they looked upon them to be intruders, and had a wish to expel those intruders out of their coast…These Indians had not done one single wrong act to the whites, but were as innocent of any crime, as any beings in the world. But if the real suffers say one word, they are denounced, as being wild and savage beasts....
We might suppose that meek Christians had better gods and weapons than cannon. But let us again review their weapons to civilize the nations of this soil. What were they: rum and powder, and ball, together with all the diseases, such as the small pox, and every other disease imaginable; and in this way sweep of thousands and tens of thousands.
An Iroquois Leader Addresses Colonial Officials
An Iroquois Leader Addresses Colonial Officials
Gachradodow, a leader of the Iroquois, addressed colonial officials during negotiations for the Lancaster Treaty of 1744 between the Iroquois and the colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.
Gachradodow in a strong voice, and with a proper action, spoke as follows: Great Assaragoa, The World at the first was made on the other Side of the Great Water, different from what it is on this Side, as may be known from the different Colors of our Skin and of our Flesh, and that which you call Justice may not be so amongst us. You have your Laws and Customs, and so have we. The Great King might send you over to conquer the Indians, but it looks to us that God did not approve of it. If he had, he would not have placed the Sea where it is, as the Limits between us and you. . . .
Brother Assaragoa, . . You know very well when the white people came first here, they were poor; but now they have got lands and are by them become rich, and we are now poor: what little we have had for the land goes soon away, but the land lasts forever.
An Oneida Leader Expresses His Viewpoints of Christian Missionaries
An Oneida Leader Expresses His Viewpoints of Christian Missionaries
New York, 1745. An Oneida leader, Shickellamy, expressed his opinion of Christians’ attempts to convert the Indians, as recounted by a Moravian missionary.
We were told that two ministers and an Indian had been lately here ⎯ probably it was the Presbyterian [David] Brainerd and his interpreter Tatami. He had assembled the Delawares in Shikellmy’s house, and (as Shikellmy’s people told us) informed that that on Sundays they should assemble as the whites do and pray as they do. Hence he would build a house for that purpose, and stay with them two years. . .
To this Shikellmy said: “We are Indians, and don’t wish to be transformed into white men. The English are our Brethren, but we never promised to become what they are. As little as we desire the preacher to become Indian, so little ought he to desire the Indians to become preachers. He should not build a house here, they don’t want one.” They departed for Philadelphia the next day.
An Abenaki Leader Explains the Decision to Leave British Territory for New France, 1752
An Abenaki Leader Explains the Decision to Leave British Territory for New France, 1752
The Abenaki leader Atiwaneto explained to a colonial official the Indians’ decision to leave British territory in New England and settle in French Canada.
Brother, We speak to you as if we spoke to your Governor of Boston. We hear on all sides that this Governor and the Bostonians say that the Abenakis are bad people. ’Tis in vain that we are taxed [accused] with having a bad heart. It is you, brother, that always attack us. Your mouth is of sugar but your heart of gall. In truth, the moment you begin we are on our guard.
Brothers, We tell you that we seek not war. We ask nothing better than to be quiet, and it depends, brothers, only on you English to have peace with us. . . We acknowledge no other boundaries of yours than your settlements whereon you have built, and we will not, under any pretext whatsoever, that you pass beyond them. The lands we possess have been given us by the Master of Life. We acknowledge to hold only from him.
The Lenni Lenape Petition the Return of their Land, 1740
The Lenni Lenape Petition the Return of their Land, 1740
The Lenape (Delaware) Indians of Pennsylvania signed a treaty in 1736 later known as the “Walking Purchase,” since the western boundary of ceded lands was set “as far as a Man can go in one day and a half.” The Indians assumed go to mean walk, but the colonial surveyors were ordered to run as fast as possible, and they claimed far more land than the Indians anticipated. In 1740 the Lenape submitted the first of several formal complaints, but they never regained the land.
To Mr. Jeremiah Langhorne & all Magistrates of Pennsilvania We pray that You You would take Notice of the Great Wrong We Receive in Our Lands, here are about 100 families Settled On it for what Reason they Cant tell. They tell them that Thomas Penn has sold them the Land Which We think must be Very Strange that T. Penn Should Sell him that which was never his for We never Sold him this land. The Case was this. That When We Were With Penn to treat as usual with his Father, He keep begging us to Give him some Land...We never had any thing from him but honest Dealings & Civility. If he lets us alone We will let him alone. The Lands we do Own to be Ours, Begin, at the Mouth of Tohickon Runs up along the said Branch to the Head Springs thence up With a strait line [to] Patquating thence with a strait Line to the Blew Mountain thence to a Place called Mohaining thence along a Mountain called Neshameek thence along the Great Swamp to a Branch of Delaware River So along Delaware River to the Place where it first began. All this is Our own Land Except Some tracts We have disposed of. The Tract of Durham The tract of Nicholas Depuis The Tract of Old Weiser We have Sold But for the Rest We have Never sold & We Desire Thomas Penn Would take these People off from their Land in Peace that we May not be at the trouble to drive them off for the Land...
An Oneida Leader Explains Differences in Warfare
An Oneida Leader Explains Differences in Warfare
Saghughsuniunt, an Oneida leader whose English name was Thomas King, explained the different concepts of war prisoner held by Indians and Europeans. (He also mentions the difficulties caused by the need to translate multiple languages in Indian-European meetings.)
Brother . . . When I used to go to War with the Southern Indians and brought Prisoners Home, I thought they were mine and that nobody had any Right to meddle with them. Now since I joined with you, I went to War again and I brought French People Home with me, as Prisoners, and you took them from me. This makes me think it was owing to the Evil Spirit.
Brother, I desire you to be strong. I have heard you often say you would be very glad if I would bring you the Captives, and you would make me Satisfaction because you know I am not as you are. I am of a quite different Nature from you. Sometimes I think you are not in Earnest with me, in telling me you will make me Satisfaction. . . .
Brother, You know we are different Nations and have different Ways. We could not immediately perform what you required of us in returning your Flesh and Blood, because every one of these Nations have different Ways. That is the Reason why we could not so soon perform it.
Brother, I am sorry it is so difficult for us to understand each other. If we could understand one another, we would put one another in Mind of the Friendship that subsisted between us and our Forefathers, but as we do not easily understand one another, we are obliged to deliver you the Substance in short of what we have to say, which makes it tedious. ⎯⎯ (Meaning that they are obliged to interpret in two or three Languages before it is told to us.) . . .
Brother Onas, You have been requiring your Flesh and Blood these three Years. I promise you I will give you them, and now I will deliver all I have brought. Brother Onas, I am sorry we cannot speak to one another any faster, because we cannot understand one another without so many Interpreters, and this takes up much Time, so that we must be slow in telling our Business.
Europeans Living Among Natives
Europeans Living Among Natives
As much as Europeans and Euro-Americans claimed that Indigenous Americans were "inferior" or "barbaric," they also seemed to be incredibly fascinated and at times in awe of them. Ben Franklin applauded aspects of Native government. Early colonists relied on Natives to help them grow food. Natives were the ones who introduced Europeans to tobacco, which helped make the latter prosperous (and riddled with lung cancer). Many accounts of Native life also come from captives who lived with Natives. Often these were captives taken in war, but was is interesting is that some seemed to prefer Native life and even refused to return when set free.
Cadwallader Colden, Surveyor General of New York, Commenting on the Albany Peace Treaty between the Iroquois and French, 1747
Cadwallader Colden, Surveyor General of New York, Commenting on the Albany Peace Treaty between the Iroquois and French, 1747
The treaty stipulated the return of French captives taken during the war, but both the English and French had difficulty persuading the captives to return to colonial life.
James Adair Lives Among the Chickasaw
James Adair Lives Among the Chickasaw
Aldair was an Irish immigrant who became a trader with Indians in the southern colonies and lived with the Chickasaw in the Mississippi River valley for six years.
They are all equal ⎯ the only precedence any gain is by superior virtue, oratory, or prowess; and they esteem themselves bound to live and die in defense of their country. . . . The head-men reward the worthy with titles of honor, according to their merit in speaking or the number of enemies’ scalps they bring home. Their hearts are fully satisfied if they have revenged crying blood, enobled themselves by war actions, given cheerfulness to their mourning country, and fired the breasts of the youth with a spirit of emulation to guard the beloved people from danger, and revenge the wrongs of their country. Warriors are to protect all, but not to molest or injure the meanest. If they attempted it, they would pay dear for their folly. . . .
The equality among the Indians, and the just rewards they always confer on merit, are the great and leading ⎯ the only motives that warm their hearts with a strong and permanent love to the country. Governed by the plain and honest law of nature, their whole constitution breathes nothing but liberty.
Ben Franklin Writes to Peter Collinson on Europeans Who Live with Natives, 1753
Ben Franklin Writes to Peter Collinson on Europeans Who Live with Natives, 1753
Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, 1682
Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, 1682
Metacom, or King Philip as he was called by the English, led a confederation of Indian groups in 1675 in a military effort to roll back the encroaching English settlements of southern New England. For several months the Indians led raids and secured victories against the English, who found it difficult to combat the Indian style of warfare. Mary Rowlandson, a minister’s wife, was captured along with several of her children in one of those raids on the frontier outpost of Lancaster, Massachusetts. For eleven weeks she traveled with the Wampanoags and Nipmucs in central Massachusetts. Her account provided great insight into the relationship of English and Indian cultures at this critical point. While Rowlandson relied heavily upon her faith to see her through her troubles, she also came to understand some of the workings of Indian society, as in her account of Weetamoo. Mary was ransomed in 1676, the same year that the English, with their greater numbers and the support of their Indian allies, achieved Philip’s defeat and the scattering of the region’s remaining Indian settlements.
They said, when we went out, that we must travel to Wachusett this day. But a bitter weary day I had of it, traveling now three days together, without resting any day between. At last, after many weary steps, I saw Wachusett hills, but many miles off. Then we came to a great swamp, through which we traveled, up to the knees in mud and water, which was heavy going to one tired before. Being almost spent, I thought I should have sunk down at last, and never got out; but I may say, as in Psalm 94.18, “When my foot slipped, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” Going along, having indeed my life, but little spirit, Philip, who was in the company, came up and took me by the hand, and said, two weeks more and you shall be mistress again. I asked him, if he spake true? He answered, “Yes, and quickly you shall come to your master again; who had been gone from us three weeks.” After many weary steps we came to Wachusett, where he was: and glad I was to see him. He asked me, when I washed me? I told him not this month. Then he fetched me some water himself, and bid me wash, and gave me the glass to see how I looked; and bid his squaw give me something to eat. So she gave me a mess of beans and meat, and a little ground nut cake. I was wonderfully revived with this favor showed me: “He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives” (Psalm 106.46).
My master had three squaws [a derogatory term for Native American women], living sometimes with one, and sometimes with another one, this old squaw, at whose wigwam I was, and with whom my master had been those three weeks. Another was Wattimore [Weetamoo] with whom I had lived and served all this while. A severe and proud dame she was, bestowing every day in dressing herself neat as much time as any of the gentry of the land: powdering her hair, and painting her face, going with necklaces, with jewels in her ears, and bracelets upon her hands. When she had dressed herself, her work was to make girdles of wampum and beads. The third squaw was a younger one, by whom he had two papooses. By the time I was refreshed by the old squaw, with whom my master was, Weetamoo’s maid came to call me home, at which I fell aweeping. Then the old squaw told me, to encourage me, that if I wanted victuals, I should come to her, and that I should lie there in her wigwam. Then I went with the maid, and quickly came again and lodged there. The squaw laid a mat under me, and a good rug over me; the first time I had any such kindness showed me. I understood that Weetamoo thought that if she should let me go and serve with the old squaw, she would be in danger to lose not only my service, but the redemption pay also. And I was not a little glad to hear this; being by it raised in my hopes, that in God’s due time there would be an end of this sorrowful hour. Then came an Indian, and asked me to knit him three pair of stockings, for which I had a hat, and a silk handkerchief. Then another asked me to make her a shift, for which she gave me an apron. Then came Tom and Peter, with the second letter from the council, about the captives. Though they were Indians, I got them by the hand, and burst out into tears. My heart was so full that I could not speak to them; but recovering myself, I asked them how my husband did, and all my friends and acquaintance? They said, “They are all very well but melancholy.” They brought me two biscuits, and a pound of tobacco. The tobacco I quickly gave away. When it was all gone, one asked me to give him a pipe of tobacco. I told him it was all gone. Then began he to rant and threaten. I told him when my husband came I would give him some. Hang him rogue (says he) I will knock out his brains, if he comes here. And then again, in the same breath they would say that if there should come an hundred without guns, they would do them no hurt. So unstable and like madmen they were. So that fearing the worst, I durst not send to my husband, though there were some thoughts of his coming to redeem and fetch me, not knowing what might follow. For there was little more trust to them than to the master they served.
When the letter was come, the Sagamores met to consult about the captives, and called me to them to inquire how much my husband would give to redeem me. When I came I sat down among them, as I was wont to do, as their manner is. Then they bade me stand up, and said they were the General Court. They bid me speak what I thought he would give. Now knowing that all we had was destroyed by the Indians, I was in a great strait. I thought if I should speak of but a little it would be slighted, and hinder the matter; if of a great sum, I knew not where it would be procured. Yet at a venture I said “Twenty pounds,” yet desired them to take less. But they would not hear of that, but sent that message to Boston, that for twenty pounds I should be redeemed. It was a Praying Indian that wrote their letter for them. There was another Praying Indian, who told me, that he had a brother, that would not eat horse; his conscience was so tender and scrupulous (though as large as hell, for the destruction of poor Christians). Then he said, he read that Scripture to him,“There was a famine in Samaria, and behold they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for four-score pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver” (2 Kings 6.25). He expounded this place to his brother, and showed him that it was lawful to eat that in a famine which is not at another time. And now, says he, he will eat horse with any Indian of them all.
There was another Praying Indian, who when he had done all the mischief that he could, betrayed his own father into the English hands, thereby to purchase his own life. Another Praying Indian was at Sudbury fight, though, as he deserved, he was afterward hanged for it. There was another Praying Indian, so wicked and cruel, as to wear a string about his neck, strung with Christians' fingers. Another Praying Indian, when they went to Sudbury fight, went with them, and his squaw also with him, with her papoose at her back. Before they went to that fight they got a company together to pow-wow. The manner was as followeth: there was one that kneeled upon a deerskin, with the company round him in a ring who kneeled, and striking upon the ground with their hands, and with sticks, and muttering or humming with their mouths. Besides him who kneeled in the ring, there also stood one with a gun in his hand. Then he on the deerskin made a speech, and all manifested assent to it; and so they did many times together. Then they bade him with the gun go out of the ring, which he did. But when he was out, they called him in again; but he seemed to make a stand; then they called the more earnestly, till he returned again. Then they all sang. Then they gave him two guns, in either hand one. And so he on the deerskin began again; and at the end of every sentence in his speaking, they all assented, humming or muttering with their mouths, and striking upon the ground with their hands. Then they bade him with the two guns go out of the ring again; which he did, a little way. Then they called him in again, but he made a stand. So they called him with greater earnestness; but he stood reeling and wavering as if he knew not whither he should stand or fall, or which way to go. Then they called him with exceeding great vehemency, all of them, one and another.
After a little while he turned in, staggering as he went, with his arms stretched out, in either hand a gun. As soon as he came in they all sang and rejoiced exceedingly a while. And then he upon the deerskin, made another speech unto which they all assented in a rejoicing manner. And so they ended their business, and forthwith went to Sudbury fight. To my thinking they went without any scruple, but that they should prosper, and gain the victory. And they went out not so rejoicing, but they came home with as great a victory. For they said they had killed two captains and almost an hundred men. One Englishman they brought along with them: and he said, it was too true, for they had made sad work at Sudbury, as indeed it proved. Yet they came home without that rejoicing and triumphing over their victory which they were wont to show at other times; but rather like dogs (as they say) which have lost their ears. Yet I could not perceive that it was for their own loss of men. They said they had not lost above five or six; and I missed none, except in one wigwam. When they went, they acted as if the devil had told them that they should gain the victory; and now they acted as if the devil had told them they should have a fall. Whither it were so or no, I cannot tell, but so it proved, for quickly they began to fall, and so held on that summer, till they came to utter ruin. They came home on a Sabbath day, and the Powaw that kneeled upon the deer-skin came home (I may say, without abuse) as black as the devil. When my master came home, he came to me and bid me make a shirt for his papoose, of a holland- laced pillowbere. About that time there came an Indian to me and bid me come to his wigwam at night, and he would give me some pork and ground nuts. Which I did, and as I was eating, another Indian said to me, he seems to be your good friend, but he killed two Englishmen at Sudbury, and there lie their clothes behind you: I looked behind me, and there I saw bloody clothes, with bullet-holes in them. Yet the Lord suffered not this wretch to do me any hurt. Yea, instead of that, he many times refreshed me; five or six times did he and his squaw refresh my feeble carcass. If I went to their wigwam at any time, they would always give me something, and yet they were strangers that I never saw before. Another squaw gave me a piece of fresh pork, and a little salt with it, and lent me her pan to fry it in; and I cannot but remember what a sweet, pleasant and delightful relish that bit had to me, to this day. So little do we prize common mercies when we have them to the full.
Edward Winslow Describes How the Wampanoag Helped the Pilgrims, 1621
Edward Winslow Describes How the Wampanoag Helped the Pilgrims, 1621
Winslow was among the group of Pilgrims at what has come to be called the “first Thanksgiving.” In a letter to a friend, he described the event and the improved conditions of the colony after initial hardships.
We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown, they came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom; our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others.
And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us; very loving and ready to pleasure us: we often go to them, and they come to us; some of us have been fifty miles by land in the country with them; the occasions and relations whereof you shall understand by our general and more full declaration of such things as are worth the noting, yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us, and love unto us, that not only the greatest king amongst them called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have either made suit unto us, or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us, so that seven of them at once have sent their messengers to us to that end, yea, an Fle at sea, which we never saw hath also together with the former yielded willingly to be under the protection, and subjects to our sovereign Lord King James, so that there is now great peace amongst the Indians themselves, which was not formerly, neither would have been but for us; and we for our parts walk as peaceably and safely in the wood, as in the highways in England, we entertain them familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us. They are a people without any religion, or knowledge of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted, just, the men and women go naked, only a skin about their middles; for the temper of the air, here it agreeth well with that in England, and if there be any difference at all, this is somewhat hotter in summer, some think it to be colder in winter, but I cannot out of experience so say; the air is very clear and not foggy, as hath been reported…
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