In 1636 ninety armed settlers went to raid Block Island, off the coast, because a white man had been found killed on his boat nearby Whet the armed party landed, they found that the Indians of Block Island had gone into hiding; they burned the villages and crops and returned to the mainland, where for good measure they burned down some Pequot villages. The English went after these Pequots and told them that they were held responsible for the murder. The Pequots had to hand over the remaining murderers and provide assurances about future behavior. The Pequots obstinately refused (in the words of an English eyewitness) and in the resulting fight several Pequots were killed and wounded, and their belongings destroyed or carried off. Thus started the Pequot War... But the incident that might have begun our Thanksgiving festivities was much less a war than a massacre. The historian Francis Jennings writes: Mason proposed to avoid attacking Pequot warriors which would have overtaxed his unseasoned, unreliable troops. Battle, as such, was not his purpose. Battle is only one of the ways to destroy an enemys will to fight. Massacre can accomplish the same end with less risk, and Mason had determined that massacre would be his objective. The colonist army surrounded a fortified Pequot village on the Mystic River. At sunrise, as the inhabitants slept, the Puritan soldiers set the village on fire. We must burn them! Mason is reported as having shouted, running around with a firebrand and lighting the wigwams. Such a dreadful terror let the Almighty fall upon their spirits that they would flee from us and run into the very flames. Thus did the Lord judge the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies, he reported afterward: The surviving Pequots were hunted but could make little haste because of their children, Mason wrote, They were literally-run to ground...tramped into the mud and buried in the swamp. The last of them were shipped to the West Indies as slaves...John Winthrop.. .governor once more, ...[offered] ...forty pounds sterling for the scalp of an Indian man, twenty for the scalps of women and children. The name Pequot was officially erased from the map. The Pequot River became the Thames and their town became New London. (7 History Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, (1876), Heckewelder, John, p. 53.) William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth, wrote: Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them. (thepeoplespaths.net/history/ThanksgivingDayMassacre.htm) Mason himself wrote: It may be demanded...Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion? But...sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents.... We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings. The next day, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children. It was signed into law that, This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots. dailykos/story/2006/11/23/273864/-The-Thanksgiving-Day-Massacre-Or-would-you-like-Turkey-with-your-genocide#
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 01:28:37 +0000
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