NoOneImportant wrote:
> John, while I don't presume to speak of gerald, I perceive his
> comments to pertain to Continental North America, after 1620, the
> founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony. What we see develop over the
> next 140 years was something truly unique in human accounts; that
> something was formalized in the American Declaration of
> Independence, and the US Constitution. The socialist experiment,
> as noted in gerald's comments, was the initial process for the
> growing of food in the Plymouth colony - to their detriment, and
> almost extinction. Only after the futility of their socialist
> "experiment" brought them face to face with starvation did the
> colonists adopt individually tended plots - changing eventually to
> individually owned plots. Only after that change did William
> Bradford note in his history of the Plymouth Colony that the
> company never again wanted for food.
From my book:
The Colonists versus the Indians -- 1675-78
The most devastating war in American history was the Civil War, but
the most devastating war in New England's history occurred about 100
years before independence between the colonists and the local Indian
tribes. This war cast a shadow that lasted until the American
Revolution, and had an enormous influence on events leading all the
way up to the Revolution.
The standard America-centric view of this war is as follows: The
colonists and the Indians got along pretty well until the colonists
started taking too much valuable farming and hunting land. There was
a devastating war in the years 1675-76, just one of many wars that
the colonists, and later the "white man," used to steal land from the
Indians.
That's an interesting political point of view, and it's true in a
sense, but it doesn't provide any real understanding unless we expand
the scope of our vision a little bit.
- New England in 1675. The Pilgrims had landed in 1620 at
Plymouth Rock, in the midst of the Wampanoag tribe.
In the year 1600, throughout what is now the United States, there were
some 2 million Indians within 600 tribes speaking 500 languages. What
happened, starting at that time, was a "clash of civilizations"
between European culture of the colonists and the indigenous culture
of the Indians. These cultures were so different that haven't yet
merged even today, inasmuch as many Indian tribes still live
separately on reservations. It's ironic that the American "melting
pot" has merged so many cultures, but has not yet entirely merged the
preexisting Native American cultures.
Most history books treat "the Indians" as a monolithic group, as if
they spoke with a common voice and common intent, but that's far from
the truth. There were undoubtedly many brutal wars among the 600
tribes of the time. What would have happened if no colonists and no
other outsiders had come and intervened in the life of the Indians?
What would have happened? There's no way to know, of course, but
it's likely that one or two of the tribes would have become dominant,
wiping out all the other tribes in numerous wars. That's the nature
of human societies: As they grow larger and run into each other, they
go to war, and the dominant societies survive.
For the purposes of our story, we're going to focus on just three of
those Indian tribes: The Wampanoag tribe that occupied what is now
southeastern Massachusetts (where Plymouth Rock is) and the
Narragansett tribe that occupied what is now Rhode Island, and the
Mohawk tribe (part of the Iroquois) of upstate New York.
There is some historical evidence that a major war among these tribes
had occurred in the years preceding the colonists' arrival at Plymouth
Rock, probably in the 1590s. The Wampanoag and the Narragansett tribes
were particularly devastated and weakened by that conflict.
So, when the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, in the midst
of the Wampanoag tribe, they had little trouble developing a pleasant
cooperative relationship. The Wampanoag Indians were in an awakening
period, and they taught the colonists how to hunt and fish, and in
autumn of 1621, they all shared a Thanksgiving meal of turkey and
venison.
Most significant was the colonists' early "declaration of
independence." Before the colonists landed in 1620, they signed the
Mayflower Compact, where they agreed that they would be governed by
the will of the majority. This laid the framework for the view that
neither the king nor parliament had any say in colonial government.
And why would they need the King anyway? After all, they could
provide for themselves, and they were friendly with the Indians.
This friendliness extended to trade. Before long, there was a mutually
beneficial financial arrangement between the Indians and the
colonists. The colonists acted as intermediaries through whom the
Indians developed a thriving business selling furs and pelts to the
English and European markets, and they used the considerable money
they earned to purchase imported manufactured goods.
There were two particular Indian chiefs who are important to this
story: one is a father and the other is his son, who took over when
the father died in 1660.
The father's name is Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, the
Indian tribe most familiar to the Massachusetts colonists.
We have no way of knowing Massasoit's history. He was born around
1580, and so he must have been alive during the devastating war with
the Narragansett. In fact, since he became Chief, he may well have
been a hero who fought in the war in his teen years. With his
personal memory of the devastating results of the last all-out war, he
would not want to go through another war again unless absolutely
necessary.
We have no way of knowing the details of what the Indian tribes had
fought over, but chances are it was over what most wars are fought
over -- land. Each tribe wanted the best hunting, fishing and
farmland for its own use. But Massasoit maintained friendly
relationships with the colonists because of the financial benefits,
and because he was a wise, elder leader who didn't want another big
war in his lifetime.
Several dramatic changes occurred in the 1660s, when Massasoit died.
"The relationship between English and Native American had grown
inordinately more complex over forty years," according to Schultz and
Tougias. "Many of the important personal ties forged among men like
Massasoit and Stephen Hopkins, Edward Winslow, and William Bradford
had vanished. The old guard was changing on both sides, and with it a
sense of history and mutual struggle that had helped to keep the
peace."
Massasoit was replaced as Chief by his oldest son, Wamsutta -- who
died under mysterious circumstances that were blamed on the
colonists. The younger brother, Metacomet, nicknamed King Philip by
the colonists, became Chief.
Things <i>really</i> began to turn sour in the 1660s for another
reason: Styles and fashions changed in England and in Europe.
Suddenly, furs and pelts went out of style, and the major source of
revenue for the Indians almost disappeared. This resulted in a
financial crisis for the Indians, and for the colonists as well, since
they were the intermediaries in sales to the Indians.
But that's not all. Roughly 60-70 years had passed since the end of
the last tribal war. The Mohawk War (1663-80) began, and created
pressure from the west. The colonists were establishing ever-larger
colonies in the east. In this pressure cooker atmosphere, the
Wampanoag tribe, led by a young chief anxious to prove himself,
allied with their former enemy, the Narragansett tribe, to fight
their new enemy, the colonists.
One of the most fascinating aspects of history is how two enemies can
carry on a brutal and almost genocidal war, and then, 80 years later,
can be allies against a common enemy. This appears to be the way
things are going today with our old World War II enemies, Germany and
Japan, and it's certainly true of protagonists in the most
destructive war in American history, the Union and the Confederacy in
the Civil War.
In this climate of general war tensions and financial distress, we
see the same pattern for how a major war occurs: There's a
generational change, then a period of financial crisis, then a series
of provocative acts by both sides, each of which is a shock and
surprise to the other side, and calls for retribution and
retaliation.
It's important to understand the role of all three of these elements.
In particular, without the generational change, the provocative acts
are met with compromise and containment, rather than retribution and
retaliation.
This is particularly important in understanding what's going on when
one side is provocative and the other side is compromising. This
often means that the generational change has occurred on the first
side, but not yet on the second.
In our own time, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was a
provocative act by Islamist extremists, but was met by no more than a
criminal trial for the perpetrators; the 9/11/01 attack was met with a
war against Afghanistan.
The actions of the colonists, in the face of provocations by the
Indians, seemed to display a similar range of goals. In the 1660s,
perpetrators were brought to trial, and executed if found guilty of
the most serious crimes.
The trial process was brought to a head in 1671, when King Philip
himself was tried for a series of Indian hostilities, and required by
the court to surrender all of his arms; he complied by surrendering
only a portion of them.
After that, the trial process seems to have fallen apart, as the
colonists began to lose their patience and willingness to compromise.
Trials were still held, but they became mere provocations: they were
kangaroo courts with the results preordained, and the Indian
defendants were always guilty.
These provocations kept escalating, until King Philip's War began
with Philip's attack on the colonists on Cape Cod.
The war was extremely savage and engulfed the Indians and the
colonists from Rhode Island to Maine. There were atrocities on both
sides, and the war ended with King Philip's head displayed on stick.
His wife and child were sold into slavery.
This was the most devastating war in American history on a percentage
basis, with 800 of the 52,000 colonists killed. (It was devastating
for the Indians as well.)
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... #lab100036