Jemison's Savagery

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

Natives were humiliated and dehumanized. Spaniards did not see the huge genocide that was going on , they just saw the land they was stealing from the natives and the money they were getting out of it. Time past and more and more settled in what now is called the United States. The Englishmen have settled near the east coast when coming to the Americas. English settlements kept growing so they needed to wipe out the natives out to have the land. “Not able to enslave the Indians, and not able to live with them, the English decided to exterminate them” (page, 19). The Indians learned that Europeans were and will always be stronger than them. They learned that European weapons will always be more powerful then whatever they made. Europeans had guns, Indians had spares. Europeans were devious and trick Indians to turn to each other. Tribes were tricked by these masterminds and started conflicted with each other and battles. The Europeans had mass murdered the native Americans with no sympathy. The native Americans could not do anything about it so they had to listen to the European due to the fact they were more powerful. As for the Englishmen they used any type of excuse to get into war. Europeans called native Americans Indians because when Columbus arrived in America he believed that he was in India so he thought they were Indians, its in politically incorrect but calling them Indians is okay because they truly traveled from Asia to America

John Smith, from book 3, chapter 2 of his book, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, wrote about his adventures in the new land of the Indians where he experienced new people, a new governance system and a new culture (Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles 43). Smith, who was an English soldier, explorer and author, ventured into a new and unfamiliar territory where he experienced many unknown and unusual conditions and his writings depict his initial experience with the natives of this new and hostile land. He referred to the indigenous people as “savages” based on their hostile nature and brutal behavior towards him and his men. Initially the native chief, Powhatan, wanted to torture and Kill Captain Smith but he

It held many struggles and disagreements, which lead to many retaliations, from both the Indians and the settlers. The Indians had been alliances with the white men until the massacre, which stated the settlers betrayal to all tribes.

In the first text, he talks about how the Indians pretty much saved the colonist from death because they supplied the colonist with goods need for their first winter. They were then attacked in 1622 by the colonist for the land to declare the government. (Muzzey) Bailey doesn’t give praise to the Indian’s like Muzzey did for saving the colonist. He discusses how the settlers find the new land and push the Indians aside. The Spaniards were not as successful as the English settlers at killing off the Indians. Many Indians died from the Indian Massacre, diseases, and starvation. Due to Pocahontas marrying John Rolfe in 1613, the colonist started peace with the Indians. (Bailey) For the third text, the author was a little more specific with the Indian tribe name. The tribe was the Tsenacomoco, and their weroance was Powhatan. Powhatan brother watched the colonist try to expand and convert Indians to Christianity. The war leader set up attacks all along the James River leading to 347 colonist dead on March 22, 1622. (Norton)

The atrocities the English committed against the Powhatans were comparable of those of the Spanish. One instance in 1610, a Powhatan chief was convicted for being rude. An English officer and his men invaded the Native American town, “seized some of the natives, ‘putt some fiftene or sixtene to the Sworde’ and cut off their heads. Then he ordered his men to burn homes and crops. When the expedition returned to its boats, his men complained that Percy had spared an Indian ‘quene and her Children.’ Percy relented, and threw the children overboard ‘shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water.’ His men insisted that he burn the queen alive, but Percy less cruel, stabbed her to death.” The English saw themselves superior and considered the Native Americans as savages.

As shown in document one, William Smith, a British soldier states, ¨They delivered up their beloved captives with utmost reluctance… they visited them from day to day; and brought them what corn, skins, horses, and other matters they had bestowed on them while in their families...¨ Smith indirectly states that while the Indians were thought to be savages, they too showed compassion and loyalty, which showed the British that the Indians weren't quite as different from them as they

Even though the U.S. got more land from the Indian Removal Act and gave the Indians a new home with covered expenses it was a downcast for many Native tribes and a miserable event throughout history. In the writing of John G. Burnett’s Story of the Cherokees, he discusses how terrible and sad the removal of the Indians were and how it negatively affected the Indians. Specifically, “Woman were dragged from their homes”(2),”Children were often separated from parents, with the sky for a blanket and the earth as a pillow.”(2) In general, all of the Indians and even the women and kids were treated horrible as if they were seen as savages, and as if they were animals. Although, when being treated like savages, were the Indians the true savages or

Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland were settled in the early 17th century. It was a difficult life for the first colonist; they had limited labor and were constantly raided by Native Americans. Colonist tried to use the Native Americans as a source of slavery. Most of the colonist’s farms were by forest areas so Native Americans would just leave in to the woods. Colonists were afraid of pressuring them because they feared getting ambushed by gangs of Native Americans.

This book adds a different take on the colonial period in America that I was never taught in school. I was always taught that the settlers in America were the ones that killed and berated the Indians. I never learned that the Indians in Canada had attacked the colonial settlers and brought them to Canada. The French and the English fighting is not a surprise, as everyone wants the best land they can find and will fight over it. I would not have thought that the French would go so far as to captivate New England citizens and ransom them off. With this piece of information it makes much more sense that the colonists would be mean to the Indians, as the Indians had caused their families to die and they had to pay large amounts of money to get their family back. Some may not have been able to get family members back, or even see them. If you were to be kidnapped, your family taken, and ransomed off

it was declared in Virginia that it would not be a crime to kill a disobedient slave while punishing him/her. Moreover in 1669, slave masters were banned from emancipating slaves. Slaves that were given their freedom could not stay in the colony. Furthermore, Virginia voted to banish Europeans who marry a black, mulatto, or Indian person. It can be concluded that these laws fashioned the chattel slavery in the United States

Reading Assignment #2 The topic of this excerpt, Haunted America, by Patricia Nelson Limerick, is about how brutal the Indian-White war was and the various patterns that she found that started this prolonged war. Limerick conveys the chain of events that led to the Indian-White war to let the readers be more knowledgeable about this cruel war that occurred to create the United States of America. The author uses the story of the Modocs that corresponds to the patterns that she writes about. For example she writes, “The Modoc’s War’s most distressing examples of the breakdown of white solidarity came in a few episodes in which uninjured soldiers refused to help the wounded during retreats” (P.49).

Shortly after British colonists created the first Virginian settlements in 1607, a shipment of convicted felons arrived, shipped by British entrepreneurs to be used as indentured labor, a condition of their pardon. A process often used by private entrepreneurs, this, in turn, lowered prison costs to the respective government.

The limitation of this book is that this book could only dedicate about 10 pages in the slavery in Virginia. Since it covered so much time period, some details were overlooked.

During American colonial times, the native peoples of the new world clashed often with the English settlers who encroached upon their lifestyle. Many horror stories and clichés arose about the natives from the settlers. As one might read in Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative, often these disputes would turn to violence. To maintain the process of the extermination of the natives alongside Christian moral beliefs, one of the main tenets of colonial life was the belief that the natives were “savages”; that they were morally and mentally inferior to the English that settled there. As is the case with many societies, certain voices of dissent began to spin. These voices questioned the assertions