Alton S. Tobey

Revolutionary Changes

Contact between Native Americans and Europeans between the founding of Jamestown (1607) and the outbreak of the American Revolution (1776) constituted a continuous cultural revolution for native people. The sources used in the writing of this essay were Native Tech.org, The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson, Wikipedia.com, Pilgrim Hall.org, Sparknotes. com, Merriam Websters Online Dictionary, and Google Images.

Once the Europeans and the French had set foot upon the Native American soil, life for the natives took a turn for the worst. It would be safe to say that it was a revolutionary time period. Nothing in their lives stayed the same. Their religions began to slowly change, their trade was overtaken, and all out war ensued on more than one occasion. Each side had a different reason for entering the wars. For the Europeans and Frenchmen for the most part they were fighting for ownership, whereas the Native Americans were almost always fighting to maintain their freedoms.

In 1620 the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth. They were not the first settlers to come to the area. No, that title belonged to the settlers of Jamestown who arrived in 1607. The Pilgrims had fled from their homeland for several reason but one of the biggest of the few was religion. They were seeking freedom from the laws of England so that they could practice under their own religions without being persecuted. In 1630 another group of people sailed over from England. These were the Puritans and this movement was called the Great Migration. They had all had the same motives in mind when they had left England. They left solely to practice their religion. Unlike the Pilgrims the Puritans still held out hope to return to England someday. They hoped that the country would mend its evil ways.

By 1630 when the Puritans arrived it would be safe to state that the Native Americans were completely surrounded by a new religion and new ideas. These people soon began to force their ideas upon the natives. The Europeans had brought many diseases over with them from England and the natives were especially susceptible. They began to fall like flys and the remaining few saw it as a sign from heaven that they had not been worshipping properly. However, these Europeans just seemed to continue coming over on boats being replenished by an invisible source. The Native Americans attributed this to their religion and soon some began to consider conversion into Christianity.

By 1650 new establishments were founded. These were called Praying Towns. These were places where Christian Indians could reside. The Native Americans that resided here were often referred to as "Praying Indians". In a Praying Town the natives were forced to renounce their native language, ceremonies, beliefs, traditional dress and customs. In short they were converted into mini Europeans. These were the rules of the Praying Towns: "If any man shall be idle a week, or at most a fortnight, he shall be fined five shillings. If any unmarried man shall lie with a young woman unmarried, he shall be fined five shillings. If any man shall beat his wife, his hands shall be tied behind him, and he shall be carried to the place of justice to be punished severely. Every young man, if not anothers servant, and if unmarried, shall be compelled to set up a wigwam, and plant for himself, and not shift up and down in other wigwams. If any woman shall not have her hair tied up, but hang loose, or be cut as a man's hair, she shall pay five shillings. If any woman shall go with naked breasts, she shall pay two shillings. All men that shall wear long locks, shall pay five shillings. If any shall crack lice between their teeth, they shall pay five shillings." In short it does not seem that Praying Towns were such an awful place to live if you did not mind remaining clothed and keeping lice out of your mouth.

Throughout the entire ordeal between the natives and the Europeans and Frenchmen people were always trading. After the Great Migration the natives were able to trade some with the Puritans. However, for the most part the Puritans saw the native peoples as heathens and unworthy of the ground that they walked on. Perhaps, fur was the most highly traded object. The Pilgrims traded with the Indians more than any other culture. They would trade back and forth for corn and fishing privileges as well.

The worst outcome of trade would have to be seen as the Compulsory Purchase. This took place in Jamestown. The Compulsory Purchase was a system developed under the leadership of John Smith. If the Indians refused to sell their corn then the men of Jamestown would take it by force. This was a reasonably easy task because the Indians used the skill of archery and the Europeans had firearms. At this John Smith wrote "I durst undertake to have corne enough from the Salvages for 300 men, for a few trifles. And if they should be untoward (as it is most certaine they are) thirty or forty good men should be enough to bring them all in." Often times because of this the Native Americans had to go hungry themselves and could not plant for the next year because they did not have enough seed. Thus wrecking trade forever in the eyes of the Native Americans.

There were three major wars between the Europeans and Frenchmen with the Indians. The Pequot War, King Philips War, and the French and Indian War. The Pequot War took place between 1637 and 1638 with the Native Americans versus the Pilgrims. Of course the Pilgrims used their superior pieces of technology to win. Many Pequots were harmed in this time of war. The Pequot people who had survived the war were distributed as slaves. This was the first armed war between the Europeans and the Native Americans in history.

King Philips War was one of the bloodiest wars in history. It ran from 1675-1676. One in ten soldiers on both sides was injured or killed. It took several years for Plymouth and several of the other colonies to recover from the amounts of damage done to their property. Once again the colonists won. Hundreds of the Native people who had fought with Philip were sold into slavery and the women and children were forced to become servants locally. Several of the Native communities had to begin to adapt to the new ways to survive.

The French and Indian War ran from 1754-1763. This war took more lives than the American Revolution. It involved people on three continents including the Caribbean. It was the direct result of a clash between the French and English over colonies and land and other such matters. It is often considered as a war between the British and the French. This war was eventually the end of the French's political and cultural influence in North America. England gained tons of land and tightened its hold on the continent. This was not a good thing for the Native Americans. Though at this point they had just been stuck between the English and French anyway.

According to Merriam Websters Online Dictionary, the term "revolution" means: "a sudden, radical or complete change; a fundamental change in political organization; the overthrow or renunciation of one government and the substitution of another." This was definitely a revolutionary time period for the Native Americans. However, it was not one that worked at all in their favor. It was one that nearly drove their entire culture into extinction. They completely lost who they were as a culture in the midst of it all. They no longer were all united together under one religion, they could no longer trade properly, and several of them had been made into slaves by the English and Frenchmen. It was a complete cultural revolution for all of them and those who survived it did not fair so well in the end. However, without those awful Englishmen what is known as New England would not currently exist today.

-Ashley Nichols

The Reality of Jamestown vs. the Illusion of Plymouth

The story of Thanksgiving in America is for all intensive purposes a lie. It began as a way to justify what was done to the Native Americans culture. It is crucial for people to know the truth about this piece of history so that some justice is brought to all of those who lost their lives simply because they were not English or Frenchmen. This essay will explain the truth about the Native Americans and how they interacted with the pilgrims and will include the details of Jamestown which was actually a place of settlement before Plymouth. The sources used in the creation of this essay were Top Ten Myths About Thanksgiving posted on the History News Network website, Deconstructing the Myths of the First Thanksgiving posted on the Oyate website, Lectures given in class by Daniel Viles, Google Images, The Earth Shall Weep written by James Wilson, and Merriam Websters Online Dictionary.

Every year Thanksgiving is celebrated as an American holiday. In schools children are taught of the pilgrims and the Indians and of the feast that they shared together including turkey and various other traditional foods. Pictures are passed out to the children, in which the pilgrim men and women are completely covered and dressed in all black. They had arrived on their gigantic boat, the Mayflower. The Mayflower landed on Plymouth rock. These pilgrims wear big buckles and tall hats. The Indians are nearly naked and wear tall hats with feathers stuck into the backs of them and have paint smeared on their faces. These two groups clash and combine together for this one feast. This is the perfect image of Thanksgiving. It is 100% historically accurate, is it not?

Actually, this image that has been so vividly painted for us for hundreds of years, is not even close to correct. The pilgrims were not the first English settlers. They did not solely wear all black or have large obscene buckles. In fact, the Mayflower didn't even land on Plymouth rock! That was a myth that was added on to the story as an extra detail by a 95 year old man named Thomas Faunce. The legend rests entirely within his testimony which he did not even begin to tell until almost a century after the Mayflower had landed. The Mayflower actually landed in Province-town The first Thanksgiving may not have even taken place in Plymouth at all! According to the Berkley Plantation in Virginia, the first Thanksgiving in America was held there. Every year they celebrate this event and try to reenact it as precisely as possible. There legend tells them that 38 English settlers were brought to the plantation in 1619 by means of their ship the Margret.

So how is it that this story came to be so jumbled? Is any of the story accurate and why do we so willingly accept the inaccurate pieces? James Wilson answers all of these questions in his book The Earth Shall Weep. There had actually been English settlers and traders in the area for two years before the Mayflower even landed. During that time the mortality rates for the Native Americans increased drastically. There were two main sites that Englishmen and women settled on. These are known as Jamestown and Plymouth. Jamestown is often overlooked historically today as school children are taught about only Plymouth and the good natured pilgrims. The pilgrims were of a small Protestant sect. under John Calvin. They had fled England to gain independence and the right to practice under their own religion. This is what is often told as the main story today. What is commonly overlooked is the near complete extinction of another race that this move caused.

"Many Native American communities lost 75 per cent or more of their members within just a few weeks, the kind of losses predicted for a nuclear holocaust, and certainly greater than those suffered at Hiroshima." Diseases had been brought over to the Native Americans by the tradesmen and settlers. It entirely annihilated their population. It was a blow that they would never be able to recover from. Even World War One only killed two percent of the British population in four years. Death on this large of a scale would be enough to permanently scar if not destroy any culture. Eventually the Native Americans began to deal with starvation and famine as well. Due to all of the disease the crops were not able to be planted and harvested as had previously been the way. There were very few farm hands that were still willing and able to help.

The Pilgrims new that the land that they were about to settle on was not uninhabited. By 1920 hundreds of tradesmen and English/Frenchmen of different sorts had been to the land. None of the people that had gone out in search of the land were ignorant to the fact that Native Americans were already present in the territory and had a claim on it. The culture that the Englishmen had come from had taught them that land that had not been "tamed" and was not under constant improvement and was wild. So this meant that it was theirs for the taking. In other words, they did not recognize Native Americans as farmers nor did they respect their culture and way of life. Though they did not believe that the land was properly taken they did try to live off of the supplies that seemed to appear from the culture that did not farm. The Englishmen demanded that the Native Americans give them their surpluses of corn so that they could survive. All the while still denying that the culture had any real value whatsoever.

It is told in the Americans traditional version of the Thanksgiving story that the Pilgrims provided the food for their "Indian friends". This is not so. It was actually the Native Americans of the Wampanoag tribe that supplied the food for the event. They brought five deer with them and allowed the Englishmen to join them in the feast. Part of the myth that is currently believed today is that at the feast there was turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pie, and pop-corn. This is also not so. In truth they only had deer, possibly some wild fowl (most likely not turkey), mashed pumpkin, and possibly "nasaump" (dried corn pounded and boiled into a thick porridge). Potatoes did not end up in New England until the 18th century during trade and cranberries were to bitter for the people to eat and they had no sugars at the time to sweeten them with.

Though Thanksgiving is a joyful holiday time to get together for many American families it is simply nothing more than a time of mourning for others. It is a time that represents roughly 500 years of betrayal, much death, and famine. In truth Thanksgiving is really nothing to celebrate. It should be a time of mourning for all of the lives that were lost and a beautiful culture and its traditions. The depictions that still circle today do not do this culture any justice whatsoever with the exception of a few intelligent people such as James Wilson. Many people merely do not care enough to search to find the truth that resides behind the many lies. In a school in Seattle it has actually been banned that Thanksgiving should be celebrated. The local board of education declared that it was "insensitive" to their Native American population. The teachers have been required to teach the true story of Thanksgiving. Many people view it as robbing our culture of tradition but perhaps it is merely righting a wrong that has long be ensued on a culture that is nearly lost.

Pilgrims and Puritans are all too often mixed up in modern society. Neither of the two groups were alike other than that they both fled from England. Though they both left, only one of the two groups actually gave up on England entirely and that was the pilgrims. All along the Puritans held out hope that one day England would change and come to its senses. The Puritans did not even land in Plymouth until nearly a decade after the pilgrims. Some pilgrims came for religious reasons and others because they had heard tales of riches to be made and found but all of the Puritans came simply for religious freedom. The puritans viewed the pilgrims as a people whose actions were driven by a misguided hope for perfection rather than by a real view of the world.

The Pilgrims that came over on the Mayflower believed that their God had created and cleared this land for them. They refused to acknowledge that the Native Americans had any part of it or that they had any rights to the land. In fact some of the pilgrims even tried to convert the Native tribes over to their religion and many did follow. The Native Americans resolve towards the beliefs began to falter as they saw all of the people that they loved begin to slowly die off around them. They began to believe that perhaps they had done something to offend their gods and so perhaps it might be best to take on the religion of these strange Englishmen. Obviously whatever the Englishmen were doing had to be working for them because they just kept coming in by the boat load so perhaps there was more to their religion and belief system after all.

Often the people of Jamestown are left out of the traditional story's and the pilgrims are made out to be something that they are not. Pilgrims did not dress in all black with funny belt buckles and they did not come to the new land simply for religious purposes. Native Americans were not simply half naked people that spoke with trees. Both were very distinct cultures and one nearly drove the other into extinction. Perhaps the pilgrims and tradesmen did not intend to bring the diseases over to the Native tribes but regardless, they did. Then the people of Jamestown and the people of Plymouth all took of the Native Americans corn unfairly claiming that they had "found" it and they dug up Indian graves and stole from them. They terrorized a culture that was different from theirs and because it did not operate identically to their own they decided that it was not worthy of "their" ground. It was a truly awful time period. Yet though this was a time period of nothing more than death and lack of justice it is celebrated yearly in America and the children are brought up believing lies about the entire ordeal. In truth, it was horribly tragic and all America should acknowledge the truth of the matter. It is easy to see why people would want to believe that the forefathers of the country were simply acting upon their faithfulness to their high moral standards and that their cooperation with the Indians brought the nation to what it is today, but this is simply untrue. It is beyond time to recognize the matter for what it truly was. Any culture that bases its traditions around lies and prides itself on the make believes, is no culture at all.