Ghosts of Thanksgiving

[Gene DeMambro]

I prefer to think of it as The War Where the South Got the A$$ Kicking They So Richly Deserved.

Yankee Gene

[JOHN THURSTON]

I think we had a thread based on information from Philbrick's Book "Mayflower" where it was made perfectly clectly clear that in one decade, Massasoit was personally treted and nursed back to health by members of the Plymouth Colony.

Not so very much later, war broke out that killed 75% of the human population (Amerinds and Whites) in New England.

I will try and bring that thread forward.

Good to see Gene Back.

Fred, if one of your relatives was in that war (as a John Thurston settled in Medfield in 1635 and, by chance, a gentleman of the same name was one of the Anglos killed at the Alamo.) I would not be surprised at all.

.

[f.Channell]

The war came to a close with the killing of King Phillip. Upon the instruction of colonial military Benjamin Church his head was decapitated and his body drawn and quartered and left to rot on the ground.
His head was then taken to Plimoth village where it was displayed for 20 years.
Most children and women of the native people were brought to Boston and sold into slavery being taken to various islands. Large amounts of male natives were killed in Boston and put on public display.
18 months after it began in 1675 in Swansea Mass. it was over. It would be 250 years before some of these tribes would have a PowWow. The soil we live on in Massachusetts was won with a bitter struggle. No one paid more than the native people.

Yes John I am descended from several soldiers in the war. Some who died in it.
The one I know most about is on this link. He would be repaid by the Indians working for the French many years later.
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/vt/county/w ... tml#digory

F.

[JOHN THURSTON]

I had no doubt that you were decended or related to people who fought in the war.

Hugh fuller, a former contributor, was related to a Fuller who was the Surgeon General for the Army that Plymouth colony fielded at many times during the bitter struggle.

In "Mayfolwer" it describes Governor Bradfor, I believe, personnly nersing Massaoit through a cholera epidemic.

Yet This governor's successors and the descendants of the first 'wave" of Plymouth colonists were fighting a vicious was with Metacomet )King Philip) and his brother known as King Alexander (his indian name i do not recall), the two sons of Massasoit.

If I have not noted it before, they tribe under Metacomet persuaded the "Nipmucks" whose home was in the Worcester area,

The hill on which my alma mater is located was the location of a Nipmuck stronghold names mount St. James by the Jesuits who founded the College of the Holy Cross in 1843.

The Nipmucks called mount st. james Mt. "Pakachoag" and the sub group of the H.C. Glee Club were named the "Paks".

So, the ghosts of the past are unknowingly brought forward in innocuous names.

In 1843 the travel to Holy Cross was no mean feat-even from Bost and more especially from New york and Philadelphia for R.C. Students who did not wish to attend the infant IV league schools.

I may well have been that, in those times, Roman Catholic students, were somewhat dicriminated against by Famous Colleges founded earlier, such as harvard.

It was partially in response to that possibility result that the Jesuits founded the College as the Jesuits were a successfull creation of the "counter reformation", Much as the Knights of Columbus were formed as a Catholic Mirror Organization to the much older Society of Freemason.

Like a Freemason I cannot tell you a thing about the K of C, even though a remain a low grade Knight.

John

[f.Channell]

Alexander was killed before the fighting had broken out, he was the older brother of Metacomet (King Phillip). Harvard was first a college to train (in part) Protestant ministers so it's no surprise they wouldn't be too kind to Catholics originally. Although the Indian who allegedly betrayed Metacomet, John Sassamon, a praying indian attended Harvard University. He was killed and drowned by Metacomet's men in a pond in Hanson Mass., allegedly.......

There are no written accounts of the war by indians, although many could read and write. They took to our language better than we took to theirs.
Another mystery held by the ghosts.
F.

[JOHN THURSTON]

yup fred:

You are quite right. It appears from history that if a large numbers of Pilgrims or Mass bay colonist spoke local dialects, we don't know who they are.

a point though, there were many Indian tribes of small to medium size in Massachusetts. All probably spoke different languages or dialects. This, in order to communicate with their neighbors, would require the development of linguitic skill which we, two major languages in a large country, have not been required to develop.

I cannot remeber whther Phibrick in "mayflower" mentioned the time and manner of Alexander's death or his Indian name as rendered by the colonists.

Agian we should emphasize that approximately 75% of all human in Mass. and other parts of southern New England died in this conflict.

Add this to the previously mentioned fact that the Pilgrims found many deserted villages and did not determine for sure whether the deserted areas were a result of diseease contracted initialy from European (Portuguese) fishermen who did occasionally venture ashore.

My bet is on the latter given accounts of Spanish explorers in the southeast and Gulf area and the 4X decimation of the Aztec, Zapotec and other indian tribes in what is now Mexico and central America.

The "Caribs" despite initial intentions of Columbus to retain amicable relations with the Natice populations in the area in which he first made landfall were heavily exploited, but, they did not make "good slaves" and almost all pressed into such hard servitude later in Post Columbian Caribea died of such treatment, much as a Pygmy cannot survive in captivity.

The latter note is anecdotal and not verified.

J

[f.Channell]

Alexander's Indian name was Wamsutta. He ruled after his fathers death.
One of his last acts was a land deed between him and the town of Providence.
Thereafter he was believed to have been poisoned by the Colonists. Around 1662 or so I believe.

And some Indians already spoke English when the Pilgrims arrived, learned from English fisherman and traders. Men were writing adventure books about the New world in New England in at least 1585 that I know of.

f.

[f.Channell]

When King Phillip was killed he was quartered into 4 pieces. His head was taken to Plymouth and hung on a post for 20 years. His hand was given to the Indian (yes Indian) who killed him. He kept the hand in a jug of rum and charged people to look at it.