Amerika's Thanksgiving, Chapter 2

The native Americans have lived in America for 10,000 years or more.

White apologists...

Syphilis and Gonorrhea …

correction: Plymouth Colony ended in 1691; so it did ultimately fail, but it lasted longer than 30 years as I had previously supposed;

xxx

1621 was when the first Thanksgiving was said to have happened, but by 1676, just 55 years later, the settlers of New England wiped out the original Thanksgiving Indians.

Massasoit Ousamequin never permitted the Pokanoket to convert to Christianity, and with great diplomatic skill, managed to stay such efforts.

The Pokanoket tribe was the headship tribe of the many tribes that make up the Wampanoag Nation, which was at times referred to as the Pokanoket Nation or the Pokanoket Confederacy.

When the Italian captain Giovanni de Verrazano sailed into Narragansett Bay in 1524, natives, most likely Pokanokets, appeared on the shores. The navigator’s recorded latitude of 41°40′ north corresponds to Mount Hope Bay, where the seat of the Pokanoket is located. Verrazano wrote of these Rhode Island natives whom he encountered: “These people are the most beautiful and have the most civil customs we have found on this voyage.”

Wampanoag means "Easterners" or literally "People of the Dawn."

a matrilineal system, in which women controlled property (in this case, the home and its belongings, as well as some rights to plots within communal land), and hereditary status was passed through the maternal line. They were also matrifocal: when a young couple married, they lived with the woman's family. Women elders could approve selection of chiefs or sachems, although males had most of the political roles for relations with other bands and tribes, as well as warfare. Women with claims to specific plots of land used for farming or hunting passed those claims to their female descendants, regardless of their marital status

Roger Williams (1603–1683), stated that "single fornication they count no sin, but after Marriage, (which they solemnize by consent of Parents and publique approbation...) then they count it heinous for either of them to be false."

The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length of deerskin looped over a belt in back and in front. Women wore deerskin wrap-around skirts. Deerskin leggings and fur capes made from deer, beaver, otter, and bear skins gave protection during the colder seasons, and deerskin moccasins were worn on the feet. Both men and women usually braided their hair and a single feather was often worn in the back of the hair by men.

Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa TUK et) and a member of the Pokanoket Nation. Patuxet once stood on the exact site where the Pilgrims built Plymouth

William Bradford died in 1657. Massasoit died around 1660 and was succeeded by his son Wamsutta. The uneasy peace that the first generation of Indians and Pilgrims had achieved quickly deterioted after Bradford and Massasoit Ousamequin died.

Massasoit Ousamequin's children:

During this politically promising time, Massasoit Ousamequin had five children:

"Mo-a-nam", or Wamsutta, also known as "Alexander", who was born around 1621 shortly after the pilgrims arrived in the Mayflower;

Pometacomet, Metacomet, or Metacom, also known as "Philip";

a third son, Sonkanuchoo;

and two daughters, one named Amie and one whose name the English failed to record.

Massasoit Ousamequin's eldest son, Wamsutta (Alexander), became the Great Leader of the Pokanoket on the death of his father. After the death of Massasoit Wamsutta, Metacomet succeeded him in 1662.

Meet stuck-up aristocrat Josiah Winslow,

Josiah Winslow was the first native born governor of an American Colony. Josiah Winslow was the son of Mayflower passengers Edward and Susanna (White) Winslow. Edward Winslow was the man who wrote about that first so-called Thanksgiving Dinner.

Josiah Winslow was wealthy and Harvard-educated, a distinguished member of the "second generation." Josiah Winslow did not continue his father's good relationship with the Natives. Josiah Winslow acquired lands by dubious methods. Josiah Winslow's high-handed treatment of Wamsutta (King Alexander) earned him the hatred of Pokanoket/Wampanoag leader Metacom (King Philip).

In 1660, Massasoit dies. In 1662, just two years later, his son, King Alexander, also dies, most likely poisoned to death.

In 1660, after Massasoit dies, King Alexander became the sachem of the Wampanoag. The English were not happy about this, because they felt he was too self-confident

After Massasoit's death, Wamsutta assumed leadership of the Wampanoag, becoming leader of all the Native American tribes between the Charles River in Massachusetts andNarraganset Bay in Rhode Island, including the tribes in eastern Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. As a result of a collapse of the fur trade, he substantially increased the power of the Wampanoag by selling land to colonists.

Wamsutta, whom the English named Alexander, agreed to adhere to the peace established by his father.

Wampsutta, in order to make some money, didn't primarily only deal with the Plymouth colony anymore. HE started to sell Wampanoag lands to the Connecticut Colony.

His sale of Wampanoag lands to colonists other than those of the Plymouth Colony brought the Wampanoag considerable power, but made the Plymouth colonists jealous.

Massasoit Wamsutta began to form an alliance with Connecticut Colony in response to increasing depredations into Pokanoket territory by Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1662 the English accused Wamsutta of independently negotiating land sales. They marched him to Plymouth at gunpoint. He was imprisoned for 3 days.

Within a year of his succession, and almost immediately after appearing in front of the Plymouth court, in front of Josiah Winslow, in 1662, Massasoit Wamsutta died suddenly.

He died of a "sudden illness", after being imprisoned for 3 days, and arrested by the Plymouth colonists at gunpoint.

Wamsutta's murder was one of the factors that would eventually lead to the 1675 King Philip's War, also known as Metacom's Rebellion.

Wamsutta tortured or poisoned to death by Governor Josiah Winslow, who saw him as a threat.

13 years later, after Metacomet becomes Chief, aka King Philip, the English arrested many of Metacomet's men on dubious charges, after a trial by a jury of twelve Englishmen and six Christian Indians, the Wampanoag men were hanged in June 1675. This execution, combined with the rumors that the English wanted to capture Philip, was enough to start a war. When Philip called together a council of war on Mount Hope, most Wampanoags wanted to follow him, with the exception of the Nauset on Cape Cod and the small groups on the offshore islands. Further allies were the Nipmucks, Pocomtucs and some Pennacooks and Eastern Abenakis from farther north. The Narragansett remained neutral at the beginning of the war.

Philip gained the Nipmuck, Pocomtuc and Narragansett as allies

Metacomet becomes chief. They cut off his head, displaying it for twenty years on a pike in Plymouth.

ENDING

death of Philip and most of their leaders, the Wampanoags were nearly exterminated; only about 400 survived the war. The Narragansett and Nipmuck suffered similar rates of losses, and many small tribes in southern New England were, for all intents and purposes, finished. In addition, many Wampanoag were sold into slavery. Male captives were generally sold to slave traders and transported to the West Indies, Bermuda, Virginia, or the Iberian Peninsula. The colonists used the women and children as slaves in New England. Of those Indians not sold into slavery, the colony forced them to move into Natick, Wamesit, Punkapoag, and Hassanamesit, four of the original fourteen praying towns. These were the only ones to be resettled after the war.[32] Overall, approximately five thousand Native Americans (forty percent of their population) and twenty-five hundred English colonists (five percent) were killed in King Philip's War. By this time, the English population had increased so much that, while significant, the losses were less important for their overall society.

After Metacomet was killed:
June 29^th, 1676; another day of Thanksgiving Declaration given: Edward Rawson, unanimously voted by the council, to declare Thanksgiving.

“The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present Warr with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgements he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions:

The Council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God’s Afflictions, have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being perswaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer up our bodies and soulds as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ.”