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Example research essay topic: Women And Children Governor Winthrop - 2,741 words

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... sation dates from several months after the war, it obviously did not play a part in motivating the war. ) Who killed John Oldham? The bulk of the evidence suggests what most of the participants on the English side had claimed: the Block Islanders, a tribe tributary to the Narragansetts. The question may be legitimately asked why punitive efforts were not made against the Narragansetts for the killers of John Oldham, similar to the actions taken against the Pequots for the death of Stone. Church held that "[t]he Narraganset[t]s, who had some hand in the murder, now submitted to the terms offered by the English. " It appears that the Narragansetts accepted without retaliation a punitive expedition in 1636 against their Block Island tributaries by Captains Endicott, Underhill, and Turner. [ 27 ] Jennings, on the other hand, tells us that one of the Narragansett chiefs "took two hundred warriors in seventeen canoes to Block Island to deal out revenge in Massachusetts's behalf for Oldham's death. "[ 28 ] Winthrop recorded that Miantonomo, a chief sachem of the Narragansetts, informed the Massachusetts Bay government that two of Oldham's killers were being held captive by him, and that they would be turned over to the English for punishment. (One was turned over; the other died in Narragansett custody. ) [ 29 ] Jennings, however, uses the conflicting reports of Oldham's death as evidence of some grand conspiracy by Massachusetts Bay officials to justify war with the Pequots, [ 30 ] as if every eyewitness to a traffic accident can be relied upon to give identical accounts. Larger Ziff advances the theory that Stone's death led to the Pequot War because the fur trade "led to the unhesitating need to kill Indians to assure the security of the trader, " and explains that the lack of a similar bloody war against the Narragansetts was because they were a more important military ally than the Pequots.

However, Ziff provides no supporting evidence for this theory of motivation. Moreover, Ziff's assertion that, "The fur trade corrupted the Indians by introducing artificial demands into their culture, " suggests that Ziff has an ax to grind against the Puritans. [ 31 ] In 1637, there was certainly no awareness of the extent to which Indian culture was changing in response to English trade, and to call this change "corrupt" is one that would have doubtless caused an indignant response from any Pequot who had exchanged furs for a musket. While extant letters from Massachusetts Bay officials fail to make any assertions about trade and its relationship to the Pequot War, Plymouth Governor Edward Winslow's letter of February 17, 1637, seems to argue against such a motivation: Yet let me commend one thing to your consideration how dangerous a thing it may prove if the Dutch (who seek it) and they should close by reason of the Pequots necessity: I speak not this as desiring the benefit of their trade, for we are weary of the worke as we are dealt withal. [ 32 ] Ziff also seeks to explain the reluctance of Massachusetts Governor Henry Vane to take action against the Pequots as reflecting the emerging Antinomian division in Boston, which culminated in Anne Hutchinson's trial and banishment. Ziff argues that Winthrop and his followers were primarily interested in production of goods, and regarded trade as a necessary evil, while Vane, Hutchinson, and other Antinomians were proto-free marketeers[ 33 ] uninterested in the fur trade, for, "their worldly interests lay elsewhere. " Ziff flatly denies that the Antinomian reluctance to pursue the Pequot War showed any real concern for the Pequots, and insists on the most negative interpretation of their actions: [I]t indicates the negative fact that they were unwilling to join in a communal enterprise with those with whom they had so profound a disagreement in other matters and who had so rudely turned their representatives out of elective office. [ 34 ] Ziff provides no source for his belief about the nature of Antinomian opposition to the Pequot War.

Since he also asserts that Vane as governor had "dragged his feet" in sending an expedition against the Pequots, revenge for turning Vane out of office could not have been a motivation for actions taken by Vane while he was still governor! [ 35 ] Jennings sees the two year delay between Stone's death and Endecott's punitive expedition as an indication that Massachusetts Bay was deciding whether "profitable trade" was possible with the Pequots, and that Stone's death was just an excuse for a war motivated by the pursuit of land and trade opportunities. At the same time, Jennings finds it hard to believe that Stone's death would have motivated action by any of the New Englanders at all, because of Stone's criminal history. Jennings' position seems to be that they should have been immediately driven to action by Stone's death -- and yet he acknowledges that there were reasons why both colonies might only have regarded Stone's death as the regrettable end of a troublemaker. [ 36 ] Rather than focusing attention on the long interval between Stone's death and the start of the war, it is more important to recognize that Stone's death was only one of the provocations that led to the Pequot War. It was probably not the most emotionally affecting incident for the colonists, especially in light of Stone's reputation. The actions which took place in the period between Governor Winthrop's meeting with the Pequot ambassadors in 1634, and the decision to make war upon the Pequots in 1637, played a far more inflammatory part than the death of Stone. The punitive expedition by Captain Endecott against the Block Islanders in 1636 also included an attack on the Pequots on the mainland, with the goal of forcing Sassacus, chief sachem of the Pequots, to turn over the killers of Stone. "The movement, instead of intimidating, did but irritate that warlike nation. " Sassacus attempted to ally with the Narragansetts against the English, but they declined the invitation. [ 37 ] In response to the punitive expedition, the Pequots launched a series of kidnappings, murders, and tortures of prisoners from the frontier communities then being established in Connecticut, which, not surprisingly, inflamed the colonial attitude towards the Pequots.

The tortures inflicted are described in gruesome detail in several sources, both primary and secondary; to read them is to get some grasp of the reactions provoked: A few days after, they took two men out of a boat, and murdered them with ingenious barbarity, cutting off first the hands of one of them, then his feet... Soon after, two men sailing down the river were stopped and horribly mutilated and mangled; their bodies were cut in two, lengthwise, and the parts hung up by the river's bank. A man who had been carried off from Wethersfield was roasted alive. All doubt as to the necessity of vigorous action was over, when a band of a hundred Pequots attacked that place, killed seven men, a woman, and a child, and carried off two girls. [ 38 ] Gardener's account tells us something of the tortures inflicted by the Pequots: "some flayed alive, others cut in pieces, and some roasted alive... " Gardener identifies "the brother of Mr. Michell, who is the minister of Cambridge" as one who was "roasted alive. " Gardener also informs us that: I would fain die in the field, with honor, and not to have a sharp stake set in the ground, and thrust into my fundament, and to have my skin flayed off by piece-meal, and cut in pieces and bits, and my flesh roasted and thrust down my throat, as these people have done, and I know will be done to the chiefest in the country by hundreds, if God should deliver us into their hands... [ 39 ] Mason adds to the list of tortures performed by the Pequots: "their Flesh being first slashed with Knives, and then filled with burning Embers. "[ 40 ] Torture of captives was part of the tradition of Indian warfare among many Eastern Woodland Indian tribes, perhaps as emotional compensation for the more limited scale on which the warfare was usually conducted. [ 41 ] The Puritan reaction, however, was self-righteous anger (despite the retaliatory torture of Pequots by Mason's men at Saybrook). [ 42 ] It is important to recognize the major part that the Indian allies of the English played in encouraging the war, even though they hesitated once the battle of Fort Mystic began. Plymouth (and indirectly, Massachusetts Bay) had been informed in 1636 by Uncas, a Mohegan sachem, that the Pequots had planned to attack and take one of the Plymouth trading vessels the previous year. (The attack was never carried out, however. ) [ 43 ] Jennings suggests that the report may have "originated in Uncas's malicious imagination... " Jennings argues that because the Mohegans were an offshoot of the Pequots, Uncas might have perceived a potential benefit from provoking war between English and Pequots; Uncas had an interest in becoming grand sachem of both Mohegans and Pequots. [ 44 ] It would be entirely credible for Uncas to believe that a major defeat of the Pequots would cause Sassacus to fall from power as grand sachem, opening up an opportunity for himself.

Roger Williams informed Governor Winthrop of the great willingness of the Narragansetts to assist in making war on the Pequots, providing intelligence about Pequot positions, and the best locations from which to attack Fort Mystic. Indeed, Williams describes the Narragansett sachems as anxious for the English to start the war as soon as possible. According to Williams, the Narragansetts had the goal of stealing Pequot canoes, killing all the men, and most of the women and children. [ 45 ] But two days later Williams asserted, "That it would be pleasing to all natives, that women and children be spared, etc. "[ 46 ] By "all natives, " it would appear that Williams was referring to tribes other than the Narragansett. After the Fort Mystic massacre, the Narragansetts expressed their desire "for some small interest and priveledg in Pequot Country... "[ 47 ] This desire, however, might have been only an after-the-fact attempt to gain from the Pequot loss. A few weeks later, Daniel Patrick was informing Increase Nowell that, "The Narragansetts would be the only lords of Indians; the English if god will, may, I doubt not, receive tribute of all but Narragansetts... "[ 48 ] Israel Stoughton complained to Governor Winthrop the same day that the Narragansetts "are so eagerly sett upon their owne ends, to gett booty etc. and to augment their owne Kingdom etc. , that upon the matter they use us as their stalking horse... " Stoughton, in the same letter, described a "Sun-Sachem" of Long Island who was apparently a Pequot tributary, who sought peace with the English, yet from Stoughton's description, Miantonomo, one of the two chief sachems of the Narragansett, attempted "to prejudice us against her...

that we might fall foule with her, albeit he can shew in truth no cause. " Was the destruction of Pequot power the Narragansett goal before the battle of Fort Mystic, or merely a logical outcome, once their major rival for power had been removed as a military force? Stoughton reported that Pequot captives "told it... plainly, That were it not for the English the Pequots would not yet fear the Narrow: but would take their Country... "[ 49 ] Were the Narragansetts the major instigators of the Pequot War, for their own advantage? The Narragansetts by themselves could not have achieved the decisive victory over the Pequots that English arms and organization made possible. Even after the destruction of Fort Mystic, Roger Williams reported that a council of surviving Pequots, including Sassacus, debated whether to continue fighting, first against the Narragansetts (not the English), or to remove to the west. [ 50 ] This suggests the Pequots regarded the Narragansetts as their principal enemies, not the English.

We must consider the possibility, however, that the Pequots regarded the English as too dangerous an enemy to attack. In examining evidence about the supposedly recent arrival of the Pequot tribe in New England, Alfred Cave observes that: Both Winthrop and Bradford recorded in the early 1630 s that several "River Indian" sachems had invited the English to settle in the Connecticut Valley, but both concluded that the sachems' motive was to use the Puritans to regain the power they had lost to the Pequots. Neither Winthrop nor Bradford regarded the River Sachems as victims of an external aggressor but rather viewed them as "treacherous" connivers who hoped to manipulate the English. [ 51 ] While Cave argues in "The Pequot Invasion" against the Pequots as recent arrivals in their 1630 s location, based on archaeological evidence, oral tradition, and the lack of any evidence from the earliest accounts to establish that they were not long indigenous, he does agree that the Pequots had, shortly "after their first contact with the Dutch in 1622, " fought and beaten these "River Indians. " These tribes, as well as the Narragansetts to the east, resented Pequot hegemony. [ 52 ] Did Winthrop forget his earlier perceptions of why other tribes sought English assistance against the Pequots, or did the attacks on Stone, Oldham, and the frontier settlements put him in too much fear to remain neutral any longer? The English colonists, rather than being regarded as the prime villians in the Pequot War, should perhaps be regarded as pawns in intertribal power politics.

In summary, a variety of motivations existed for the English to make war on the Pequots, all consistent with their claimed goal of forcing the Pequots to turn over suspected murderers. But in addition to the English motivations, there are other motivations as well on the part of Uncas, and the Narragansetts. We must consider this as evidence that the Narragansetts manipulated the English into war against the Pequots. An accelerant is an incendiary that turns a small fire into a large one. When fire investigators try to determine the cause of a structure fire, they look for char marks that show that gasoline, kerosene, or some other hot-burning liquid may have been used. In a similar way, we can find accelerant's at work in the Pequot War -- actions and fears on both sides that made it into a much more deadly confrontation than might otherwise have been necessary, for Indian tribal conflicts rarely turned into such bloody wars.

Captain Endicott's expedition against the Block Islanders and the Pequots was both punitive, and an attempt to extort extradition of Stone's killers from the Pequots. As many sources agree, including all of the primary sources, the goal was to punish the Block Islanders for the death of John Oldham, and to encourage the Pequots to give up the killers of Stone and Oldham to colonial justice. [ 53 ] There is agreement from the primary sources that only one Pequot was killed, many wigwams were burned, and a considerable quantity of corn taken. [ 54 ] Secondary sources are less certain about the number of Pequots killed, but otherwise agree about the damage done. [ 55 ] There is some disagreement, however, about the effectiveness of this effort. Church claims, "It was Endicott's first trust of such a kind, and he did not execute it with good judgment. " Palfrey appears to suggest that Endicott's effort was unsuccessful because he "could get no audience of [the Pequot's] chief men. "[ 56 ] This would be consistent with the instructions given by Governor Henry Vane of Massachusetts Bay Colony May 4, 1636 to Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr. , which appears to be the basis on which Endicott's expedition was dispatched. [ 57 ] While the damage sounds minor, it appears that it exceeded Pequot notions of acceptable warfare, provoking a more dramatic response (in the form of the attacks on the frontier English settlements) than was the norm for Indian warfare. [ 58 ] Another accelerant to the bloody confrontation was Pequot blasphemy. The Pequots, like many Indian tribes when engaged in warfare, taunted their enemies. Edward Johnson recorded the Pequot insult that, "Englishman's God was all one Free" and boasted of power that "Puritans read... as literal pledges of allegiance to the devil. "[ 59 ] Underhill r...


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