Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

Mon Petit Coin   by   Norm Léveillée

The Native American Saga

I am subscribed to several mailist. I received the following message:

From: "Lisa Lepore" llepore@comcast.net
To: NA-ABENAKI-L@rootsweb.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: [NA-ABENAKI] praying towns

The praying towns were started by John Eliot, a Puritan Missionary from England. As the Native people of the different areas where he preached converted to Christianity, they could live in the town. The towns then became known as praying towns. target="_new">http://nativetech.nativeweb.org/Nipmuc/praytown.html

and this article about Deer Island in Boston Harbor by Jill Lepore [she's not my relative as far as I know]
www.millermicro.com/NPI-Bostonia.html

this one names 7 towns in MA
www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0840025.html

Eliot published the first Christian bible in North America and the complete Algonquian Bible, Mamvsse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1663)
www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1409

Lisa llepore@comcast.net

This was followed by a message from Edward Gould:

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 18:08:23 -0800
From: Edward Gould Burton genealogyted@cableone.net
To: NA-ABENAKI-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [NA-ABENAKI] praying towns

At 1:16 AM -0500 on 2/8/05, Lisa Lepore spoke about Re: [NA-ABENAKI] praying towns thusly:

The praying towns were started by John Eliot, a Puritan Missionary from England. As the Native people of the different areas where he preached converted to Christianity, they could live in the town. The towns then becameknown as praying towns.

However, when the Second Puritan War (a/k/a King Phillip's War) came about, most of the 'praying Indians' (at least those who couldn't run fast enough) were taken from their towns, many to an island in Massachusetts Bay, interned like the Japanese-Americans in 1942; and on the island at least most died during the winter. It was a case of do not trust the Indians. And of course for some relatives not interned it became a self-fulfilling prophecy as they joined the Indian side. Similar disgraceful settler conduct repeated itself later in the Ohio Valley.

I would like to add my comments. The following statement will not endear me to the descendants of the Pilgrims. However, it will endear me to the descendants of the Native American and the Metis. I am a Metis. My 8th great-grandmother, Mite8ameg8k8e, was an Algonquin.

When the patriotic song "America, the Beautiful" is sung, I always remain silent and inactive in the singing of the second verse. Read deeply into the meaning of:

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness..

The pilgrims' feet beat a thoroughfare across the wilderness ... In actuality, the pilgrims feet did beat and did trod a path across America, but on whose bodies, on whose land did they trod, did they beat? The Native Americans welcomed the Pilgrims, assisted them in learning about the fruits of this country. And what did the Pilgrims do in thanksgiving?

Please read the following story:

When Deer Island Was Turned Into Devil's Island
by Jill Lepore

The following are excerpts from this story to encourage the reader to read the entire article on the above website.

The cruel irony of the colonists' interning at least 500 Indians on Deer Island during King Philip's War (1675-76) was that the victims were pro-English Christian converts - occupying a concentration camp in Boston Harbor

Yet the Indians on Deer Island in Boston Harbor, the people Abram Hill so wanted to kill and Thomas Shepard sought to save, were not Philip's allies. They were Christian Indians loyal to the English, Algonquians who had been converted to Christianity by a zealous minister from Roxbury named John Eliot. In the decades before King Philip's War, Eliot had translated the Bible into the Algonquian tongue, Massachusett; had taught hundreds of Indians to read and write; and had established fourteen "praying towns," Indian settlements built as Christian communities. (The first and largest was Natick, Massachusetts.) To Eliot, Christianizing Indians had prompted the English to come to New England in the first place, answering the plea mouthed by the stylized Indian on the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal: "Come Over and Help Us."

This is just one story of thousands, where the white Europeans destroyed the Native Americans in their quest to dominate in the new country. Until the last 25 years or so, the history books and films depicted the Indian as "wild, savage, uncivilized". And it was the work of the civilized white European to "tame" him. Now, history books have been re-written. Films depict the real life and the destruction of the Native American.

Chief Dan George, born as Geswanouth Tslaholt in the Tse-lall-watt Band, Coast Salish, spoke these words:

Let no one forget it. We are a people with special rights guaranted us by promises and treaties. We do not beg for these rights, nor do we thank you. We do not thank you for them because we paid for them, and Gold help us, the price we paid was exorbitant. We paid for them with our culture, our dignity, our pride and self-respect. We paid, we paid, and we paid until we became a beaten race, poverty stricken, and conquered.

Dan George was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film Little Big Man. (1)

So when you sing "America, the Beautiful", especially around our Independence Day, please remember the millions of Native Americans on whose bodies and lands the "pilgrims' feet beat a thoroughfare across the wilderness" for freedom. And ask yourself, "whose freedom"?

And perhaps like I do, you can stand silent out of respect for the millions of Native Americans who were "beaten" and "trodded upon" as the American continent was being discovered and supposedly civilized by the White European.

There is a quote that I would like to share with you. Francis Parkman, a 19th century historian, wrote:

Spanish civilization crushed the Indian;
English civilization scorned and neglected him;
French civilization embraced and cherished him.

The French embraced the Native American through its soldiers and farmers who married Indian women. However, subsequent generations in Québec looked down upon the Métis - children of French and Indian parents. They were to assimilate the white European way of life.

(1) Jim & Rick's REAL REEL INDIANS, Richard Aubrey Payne, pp. 30-31.

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Created 1 Feb 2003