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Example research essay topic: Governor Winthrop Massachusetts Bay - 2,744 words

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... in Plymouth were enslaved, [ 95 ] but Hirsch brings together a number of pieces of documentary evidence to show that they were enslaved for life, and some were sent to colonial prisons. [ 96 ] Roger Williams' proposal of late June, 1637, that "such Pequots as fall to them be not enslaved, like those which are taken in warr" was apparently not taken. [ 97 ] While the actions taken were nothing of which to be proud, they are not consistent with genocidal intent. Katz does an effective job of demolishing Francis Jennings' arguments in The Invasion of America that extermination was the intent of the war, pointing out that Jennings "proves" his position by a highly selective reading of the primary documents, leaving out those pieces of evidence that would tend to support the "heat of battle" explanation that seems most justified to this reader. [ 98 ] Examination of Jennings' argument directly, comparing it to the sources quoted, confirms Katz's claim; Jennings clearly misrepresents Mason's account of the events that led up to the burning of Fort Mystic. As one example, Jennings asserts that, "Mason had determined that massacre would be his objective. " No such assertion is to be found in Mason. Similarly, Jennings quotes Mason's remark, "We had formerly concluded to destroy them by the Sword and save the Plunder, " as demonstrating an intention to slaughter all the inhabitants of Fort Mystic, but this position is not supported by the context of Mason's remarks. [ 99 ] Jennings also asserts that Mason lied about the reasons why his Indian allies withdrew from the battle until the victory was assured by use of fire, yet he provides no evidence to prove that claim. [ 100 ] Careful examination of Jennings' claims and use of evidence reveals a consistent policy of misrepresentation of primary sources and selective reading. Another problem with Jennings' argument is that it assumes a level of agreement and organization among the English colonists in preparing to exterminate the Pequots.

At the same time, Jennings argues that attempts to bring Thomas Hooker's Connecticut flock under the political authority of Massachusetts Bay caused Winthrop to provoke a war with the Pequots, so that Massachusetts Bay could claim Connecticut by right of conquest, thus extending their political claims. Either the colonies were working together to wipe out the Pequots, or they were fighting each other over political control -- both claims seem to be made by Jennings, and they appear to be inconsistent. [ 101 ] The lack of agreement among the three colonies of Plymouth, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay is readily shown. At the same time that Massachusetts Bay was starting to negotiate with the Pequots about extradition of Stone's killers, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were not on friendly terms, because of fighting at Kennebunk that led to the death of a Massachusetts Bay man. [ 102 ] Similarly, in May of 1636, Massachusetts Governor Vane's letter to Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr. , found it necessary to emphasize that Massachusetts concerns about the Pequots "concerns not only this state but all the English upon the River... "[ 103 ] If, as Jennings argues, the Pequot War was all some great conspiracy by Massachusetts Bay for commercial ends, in which Governor Winthrop played a major role, it is all the more surprising that his son would need to be persuaded to take part. As late as March 20, 1637, Governor Winthrop's letter to William Bradford acknowledged "you object that we began the warr, without your private, and managed it contrary to your advise. " Even more telling against Jennings' claim of Winthrop intentionally provoking a war with the Pequots is the later admission, "our first Intentions being only against Block Iland, and the Inter price seeming of small difficulties, we did not so much as consider of taking advise, or looking out for aide abroad. "[ 104 ] To acknowledge that the war was, essentially, a mistake, would not have ingratiated Massachusetts Bay to Plymouth; indeed, it would have suggested that Massachusetts Bay didn't quite know what it was doing, at a time when Plymouth's alliance was very important. Thomas Hooker also showed the reluctance of Connecticut settlers to participate in the Pequot War. Hooker and his settlement finally decided to join in the war because their Indian neighbors "were so importunate with us to make warr presently that unless we had attempted some thing we had delivered our persons unto contempt of base fear and cowardice, and caused them to turn enemies against us... " At the same time, once committed to the war, Hooker requested that Winthrop "not to do this work of the Lords revenge slackly... "[ 105 ] The English actions after Fort Mystic seems an entirely understandable response to fear of the Pequot tribe nursing a grudge that might lead to yet another war; reducing their females to an enslaved status was certainly generous compared to the Old Testament model.

Governor Edward Winslow, in spite of the initial reservations expressed by Plymouth about war with the Pequots, finally threw Plymouth's lot in with Massachusetts Bay. He agreed that it was "necessary for you to proceed in the war begun with the Pequots, otherwise the natives we fear will grow into a stronger confederacy to the further prejudice of the whole English. "[ 106 ] Roger Williams warned Governor Winthrop of reports that the surviving Pequots had entered a league with "the Mauquawogs or Mohowawogs [Mohawks? ] which signifies Man Eaters in their language: These Caniballs have bene all the take these 10 days, and the [Narragansetts] are much troubled at them. " Williams went on to express concern that the Pequots would also turn cannibal, and "cut of all hopes of safe residence at Qunnihticut... "[ 107 ] Williams again was reporting Narragansett concerns that would seem certain to provoke the most extreme fear from the English, encouraging the continuing hunt for surviving Pequots, and their enslavement or death. Having established that physical genocide was not accomplished by the English (and it was within their power to have carried it out, had they desired it), what about cultural genocide? First of all, it is important to recognize that this term is vague. The term is often used to describe the intentional destruction of significant cultural identity or elements of a people.

But while physical genocide can be reduced to the question: "Did all members of that people, or nearly all members of that people, die?" cultural genocide is not so easy to measure or define. All populations have culture. All cultures change with time, in response to both internal and external influences. Those external influences may be imposed (e. g. , prohibiting Indian children from using their native language in school), or they may be the result of seduction, as American popular culture has done in many parts of the world today.

An argument could be advanced that the survival of the Pequot gene pool means nothing, if the carriers of those genes were absorbed into other Indian tribes, especially since the absorption was not voluntary. But even acknowledging this, can we find evidence of English intent to destroy the Pequot culture? Before the series of raids that provoked the Pequot War, there is no clear evidence of any intention to destroy the independent existence of the Pequots. As we have seen, the war could have been avoided by the Pequots turning over the suspected murderers for trial; the willingness of the Massachusetts government to negotiate with the Pequots in 1636 makes little sense otherwise. Jennings points out that for the Pequots to turn over the killers (who were apparently of a tributary tribe) would have violated Pequot diplomatic obligations, and he suggests that the demand for the killers was simply a ploy by Massachusetts Bay to justify war. [ 108 ] Why would Winthrop bother with negotiations, if the decision had already been made to exterminate the Pequots? It is possible that a plan was already hatched to wipe out the Pequot tribe, but why negotiate, when such efforts might arouse suspicions of potential hostilities among the Pequots?

Perhaps a secret plan already existed, and negotiations were intended to give the illusion of morality to the population that would, of necessity, have to fight the war, but before we assume such a Machiavellian scheme, some evidence must be provided to support such a claim. After the war was fully under way, of course, the evidence is clear, from the enslavement of the females, and the foreign sale of the surviving males, that the English intended the Pequots to no longer be a threat. But there is one additional problem with the claim of cultural genocide: the continued existence of the tribe. Katz quotes Alden Vaughan that, "Toward the end of 1637 the few remaining [Pequot] sachems begged for an end to the war, promising vassalage in return for their lives... With the Treaty of Hartford, signed on September 21, 1638, the Pequots ceased to exist as an independent polity. "[ 109 ] But did they?

Three different sources, two from the nineteenth century, one from the twentieth century, assert the continued existence of the Pequots as a tribe past the time of the Pequot War. Sometime between the end of the Pequot War in 1638 and the beginning of King Philip's War, four decades later, a Captain George Denison was appointed by the United Colonies of Connecticut to "set aside 8, 000 acres as a home for the scattered remnants of the Pequot tribe, the first Indian reservation in North America. "[ 110 ] Another indicator of the continued existence of the Pequots as a tribe is an biographical note about Lion Gardener, written in July, 1832, by William T. Williams, which describes "a remnant of the Pequots still existing. They live in the town of Groton, and amount to about forty souls" living on a reservation, and still holding a grudge against the remnants of the other tribes. [ 111 ] The most persuasive evidence of Pequot survival as a cultural entity is a book of nineteenth century essays, written by a Pequot. [ 112 ] If the goal was cultural genocide, the English failed to achieve it; the continued presence of Pequots as an independent polity suggests that English enslavement and death was not aimed at all Pequots, but only those Pequots who were not prepared to surrender.

Was land acquisition a goal in warring against the Pequots? Jennings argues that Massachusetts Bay sought warfare with the Pequots in order to consolidate land claims. Yet after describing a nefarious scheme to war against the Pequots, in order to have a better claim to Connecticut than the Connecticut colonists, Jennings admits in a footnote, "All this motivational description must be inferred from the situation. "[ 113 ] Further, there is nothing in the primary sources that suggests real estate was an English goal of the war, or even a beneficial side effect of wiping out the Pequots as an independent tribe -- as even Jennings admits. There are, however, pieces of evidence that suggest the English acquisition of the Pequot land may have been an afterthought. Israel Stoughton's letter of August 9 th to Governor Winthrop described the Pequot lands in glowing terms: "I am confident we have not the like in English possession as yet, and probable 'tis the Dutch will see it if the English do not. "[ 114 ] If the plan from the beginning was to dispossess the Pequots of their land, then Stoughton was apparently not in on the scheme. There are, without question, later conflicts with the Indians in which the charge can be validly made that the war was fought with the goal of acquiring land.

Certainly, by the nineteenth century, there can be no dispute that the goal with respect to some of the Plains Indians tribes was extermination. But we must be careful to distinguish the motives of 1637 from the motives of later periods. In the nineteenth century, Indian raids were a threat to individual lives, but there was no risk of the Indians driving Euro-Americans into the sea; in 1637, the English colonists did, and accurately, could, fear exactly that. In the nineteenth century, motivations were often colored by a hundred years of fear of "savages"; in 1636, while the Virginia colony's Indian problems were known, the willingness of the English colonists to ally themselves with the enemies of the Pequots suggests that race (though not tribe) was a minor issue (if any) in the decision to go to war. [ 115 ] We must not let our anger about atrocities of a later era and against other tribes color our perceptions of the Pequot War. The Pequot fort was not Sand Creek Canyon; Captain Mason was not Colonel Chivington; and 1864 was not 1637. BIBLIOGRAPHY Apess, William, On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, A Pequot, (Amherst, Mass. : University of Massachusetts Press, 1992).

Bradford, William, Of Plymouth Plantation, edited by Harvey Wish, (New York: Capricorn Books, 1962). Caldwell, There C. , and George W. Westcott, "Massachusetts, " Encyclopedia Americana, (Chicago: Americana Corp. , 1963), 18: 399 f- 412. Cave, Alfred A. , "The Pequot Invasion of Southern New England: A Reassessment of the Evidence", in New England Quarterly, 82: 1 [March, 1988 ], 27 - 44. , "Who Killed John Stone? A Note on the Origins of the Pequot War", in William and Mary Quarterly, 48: 3 [July, 1992 ], 509 - 521. Church, Benjamin, The History of Philip's War, 2 nd ed. , edited by Samuel Drake, (Exeter, N.

H... : J. & B. Williams, 1829; reprinted New York: Kraus Reprint Co. , 1969). Denison, E. Glenn, Josephine Middleton Peck, and Donald L. Jacobus, Denison Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Captain George Denison, (Stonington, Conn. : The Pequot Press, Inc. , n. d. ) Forbes, Allyn Bailey, ed. , Winthrop Papers, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1943).

Frost, John, Indian Wars of the United States, (Auburn, Mass. : Derby & Miller, 1852). Herbert, Alan, and Andrew Delbanco, ed. , The Puritans in America, (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985). Hirsch, Adam J. , "The Collision of Military Cultures in Seventeenth-Century New England", in Journal of American History, 74: 4 [March, 1988 ], 1187 - 1212. Hubbard, William, The History of the Indian Wars in New England From the First Settlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip, in 1677, edited by Samuel G. Drake, (Roxbury, Mass. : W. Elliot Woodward, 1865; reprint New York: Kraus Reprint Co. , 1969).

Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest, (Chapel Hill, N. C. : University of North Carolina Press, 1975). Katz, Stanley N. , John M. Martin, and Douglas Greenberg, ed. , Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development, 4 th ed. , (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. , 1993). Katz, Steven T. , "The Pequot War Reconsidered", in New England Quarterly, 64: 2 [June, 1991 ], 206 - 224. Mason, John, A Brief History of the Pequot War, (Cleveland: 1897; reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, Inc. , 1966).

Orr, Charles, History of the Pequot War, (Cleveland: Human-Taylor Co. : 1897 reprinted New York: AMS Press, n. d. ). Palfrey, John Gorham, A Compendious History of New England, (Cambridge, Mass. : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , 1883). Penh allow, Samuel, The History of the Wars of New-England with the Eastern Indians, or, A Narrative of Their Continued Perfidy and Cruelty, (Cincinnati: J. Harper, 1859). Vincent, Philip, A True Relation of the Late Battery Fought in New-England, Between the English, and the Salvages, (London: Nathanael Butter and John Bellamie, 1637; reprinted Norwood, N.

J. : Walter J. Johnson, Inc. , 1974). Winthrop, John, The History of New England From 1630 to 1649, (Boston: Phelps and Farnham, 1825; reprinted Salem, N. H. : Ayer Co. , 1992). Ziff, Larger, Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World, (New York: Viking Press, 1973). Notes [ 1 ] William Hubbard, The History of the Indian Wars in New England From the First Settlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip, in 1677, edited by Samuel G.

Drake, (Roxbury, Mass. : W. Elliot Woodward, 1865; reprint New York: Kraus Reprint Co. , 1969), 2: 116 ff. [ 2 ] Alfred A. Cave, "Who Killed John Stone? A Note


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