Read on Twitter
1/ Inspired by @bobplain, here is an #OTD in #RhodeIsland history: On this day, December 19th, in 1675, a major battle in #KingPhilipsWar took place known as the #GreatSwampMassacre. This fight topped any previous brutality by English soldiers in colonial wars...
2/ ...prior like #PequotWar & #KieftsWar. Formally neutral in the war in early 1675, the #NarragansettIndians' territory had served as a safe haven 4 wounded #NativeAmerican, mostly #Wampanoag, soldiers fighting in the conflict. The #UnitedColonies...
3/ ...(aka #MassachusettsBay, @Plimoth, #Connecticut & #NewHaven) demanded the #NarragansettIndians turn over these combatants, but the natives delayed any formal response. John Easton, in his "A Relation of the Indian Warr" wrote that soon after this refusal...
4/ ...the #UnitedColonies sent a letter 2 #RhodeIsland that resolved “2 reduce the Narragansetts 2 conformity, so as not 2 be troubled with them anymore,” & on September 9th, 1675, they formally declared war on the #NarragansettIndians.
5/ (Here is a digital version of that text.) digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience…
6/ @IncreafeMather wrote in his "A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England" that a month later, the English received intelligence that “the Narragansets were resolved (if they could) to destroy the English : but they were [loat
7/ he] to begin to fall upon them before winter, but in the Spring when they should have the leaves of trees and Swamps to befriend them, they would doe it.”
8/ (& here is a digital version of that text, again.) digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience…
9/ The English quickly gathered their forces at #BostonMA, and marched 2 @smithscastle, the trading post of #RichardSmith in modern-day #NorthKingstownRI, 2 wait 4 Connecticut forces 2 attack what they believed to be a #NarragansettIndian...
10/ ...stronghold. @IncreafeMather's relation of the attack on #GreatSwamp mirrored earlier battles like the #MysticMassacre & the #PoundRidgeMassacre, where soldiers stormed the fort & resolved 2 burn it down, w its inhabitants captured inside.
11/ @IncreafeMather wrote: “The Indians ... fought stoutly, but were at last beat out of their Fort, which was taken by the English. There were 100s of #Wigwams (or Indian houses) within the Fort, which our Souldiers set on fire, in the which...
12/ ...men, women & Children (no man knoweth how many 100s of them) were burnt to death.” @IncreafeMather continued on, speculating at the true level of destruction caused by the English soldiers, “many men, women & children were burned in...
13/ ...their #Wigwams, but they neither knew, nor could conjecture how many : it is supposed that not less then a 1000 #Indian Souls perished at that time.”
14/ Not all were killed: several prisoners were taken 2 be enslaved. Along w land gained by conquest, monetary benefits of selling these captives was a lucrative reason 4 English colonists’ conflicts w the #NativeAmericans of #NarragansettBay.
15/ These 3 conflicts, the #PequotWar, #KieftsWar & #KingPhilipsWar, represented 3 attempts by #NativeAmerican peoples 2 resist European colonies in #NewEngland & #NewNetherland. Indeed, all 3 shared military tactics, even military leaders.
16/ These bloody conflicts were all part of a system of empire perpetrated by these European settlers, working 2 extend their conquest as far as they could into the lands of the #NativeAmericans.
17/ Distinct from the #NativeAmericans of #NarragansettBay's way of war, which refused to kill women, children & elderly, the English way was a broad war of #genocide, that served as a mechanism for the colonists to attempt to eradicate #Native American...
18/ ...peoples not only fm the record but also fm the very ground they stood on. They continued 2 #resist, & remained in the record, however, regardless of the tenacity of the bias of past #historians.
19/ No matter the brutality, the #NativeAmericans of Narragansett Bay remained steadfast, & worked 2 fight the softer, slower attempts at extinction through #PaperGenocide that continued throughout the centuries after these wars.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
