‘Horrific’ legacy: ‘Ghost River’ a ‘story of resilience’ of tribe after massacre

(Albuquerque Journal) Lee Francis and writing are a match made in heaven.
The Albuquerque-based writer was chosen to work on the graphic novel “Ghost River: The Fall & Rise of the Conestoga.”
It’s a project has kept him busy for the better part of a year.
The novel is a reinterpretation of the Paxton Boys massacre of 1763 and Pamphlet War of 1764. Continued

Gnadenhütten Massacre

The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing on March 8, 1782, of ninety-six Christian Lenape (Delaware) by colonial American militia from Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War. The incident took place at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhütten, Ohio, near present-day Gnadenhutten. The site of the village was preserved. A reconstructed cabin and cooper's house were built there, and a monument to the dead was erected. The village site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In an unrelated event in 1755, during the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years War), Native Americans allied with the French massacred 11 missionaries and converted Munsee Lenape at another Moravian mission village which however bore the same name; this event took place at Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania, in the English colony. The term Gnadenhutten massacre is usually only used to refer to the 1782 event in Ohio. Continued 

Photo by Bwsmith84, some rights reserved.

 

Treaty of Paris (1763)

 

(Wikipedia) The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. The treaty marked the beginning of an extensive period of British dominance outside Europe. Continued

Samuel Argall

 

(Encyclopedia Virginia) Samuel Argall was a longtime resident of Jamestown and the deputy governor of Virginia (1617–1619). He pioneered a faster means of traveling to Virginia by following the 30th parallel, north of the traditional Caribbean route, and he first arrived in June 1610, just after the "Starving Time" when the surviving colonists were ready to quit for Newfoundland. Although he joined in the war against the Virginia Indians, Argall also engaged in diplomacy, negotiating provisions from Iopassus (Japazaws) of the Patawomeck tribe. Argall explored the Potomac River region in the winter of 1612 and spring of 1613, and there, with Iopassus's complicity, kidnapped Pocahontas, a move that helped establish an alliance between the Patawomecks and the Virginians. In 1613 and 1614, Argall explored as far north as present-day Maine and Nova Scotia, and made hostile contact with the Dutch colony at Manhattan. He also helped negotiate peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy tribes. As deputy governor, Argall improved military preparedness but did not enforce martial law in the same way as Sir Thomas Dale had, making his administration a bridge between the old politics and a new more democratic era. Knighted by James I in 1622, Argall led an English fleet against the Spanish in 1625 and died at sea in 1626. Continued

 

Pictured: The Abduction of Pocahontas, copper engraving by Johann Theodore de Bry, 1618

 

 

The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete

 

(Slate) As we feast on succulent turkey, moist stuffing, and glistening cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving, the furthest thing from our minds is probably rat urine.
Yet it’s quite possible that America as we know it would not exist without rat urine and leptospirosis, the disease it spreads. The disease conveniently cleared coastal New England of Native Americans just prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival and later killed the helpful Squanto. It still lurks among us, underdiagnosed, an emerging menace. Continued

Treaty of Fort Stanwix

 

(Wikipedia) The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was an important treaty between North American Indians and the British Empire. It was signed in 1768 at Fort Stanwix, located in present-day Rome, New York. It was negotiated between Sir William Johnson and representatives of the Six Nations (the Iroquois).
The purpose of the conference was to adjust the boundary line between Indian lands and British colonial settlements set forth in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The British government hoped a new boundary line might bring an end to the rampant frontier violence which had become costly and troublesome. Indians hoped a new, permanent line might hold back British colonial expansion.
The final treaty was signed on November 5 with one signatory for each of the Six Nations and in the presence of representatives from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as Johnson. The Native American nations present received gifts and cash totaling £10,460 7s. 3d. sterling, the highest payment ever made from colonists to American Indians.[1] The treaty established a Line of Property which extended the earlier proclamation line of the Alleghenies (the divide between the Ohio and coastal watersheds), much farther to the west. The line ran near Fort Pitt and followed the Ohio River as far as the Tennessee River, effectively ceding the Kentucky portion of the Colony of Virginia to the British, as well as most of what is now West Virginia. Continued

Virginia Dare

(Wikipedia) Virginia Dare (born August 18, 1587, date of death unknown) was the first child born in the Americas to English parents, Eleanor (or Ellinor/Elyonor) and Ananias Dare. She was born into the short-lived Roanoke Colony in what is now North Carolina, USA. What became of Virginia and the other colonists has become an enduring mystery. The fact of her birth is known because the leader of the colony, Eleanor Dare's father, John White, returned to England to seek assistance for the colony. When White returned three years later, the colonists were gone. Continued

O'Malley formally recognizes Piscataway tribe

(Baltimore Sun) For Mervin Savoy, recognition was sweet — even if it came more than two centuries too late.
Savoy was one of hundreds of Piscataways who gathered beneath the State House dome in Annapolis Monday as Gov. Martin O'Malley issued executive orders formally recognizing the Native American tribe as a distinct people.
... In the past, the drive for recognition has been thwarted in part by internal divisions between the rival Piscataway-Conoy Confederacy and the Piscataway Indian Nation. O'Malley's executive orders recognize both groups, as well as the Cedarville Band of the Piscataways. Continued

Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul - Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty

(NYTBR) Should you find yourself in front of the Rhode Island Statehouse in Providence, look up and east, and tip your hat — real or imagined — to Roger Williams. A 35-foot statue of the Protestant theologian (1603?-1683) stands high in Prospect Terrace Park, with right hand extended, as if blessing the city he founded. The beatific image does not quite resemble its cantankerous model, for reasons that John M. Barry explores, if only partly, in his new biography, “Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul.” Continued

Photo: Engraved print depicting Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, meeting with the Narragansett Indians (NYPL via Wikipedia).

Native American Heritage Day

(Wikipedia) President George W. Bush signed into law legislation introduced by Congressman Joe Baca (D-Rialto), to designate the Friday after Thanksgiving as Native American Heritage Day. ... Some individual states have also taken legislative action to recognize this day. For example, Maryland established this day in 2008 under the name American Indian Heritage Day. Continued

America's REAL First Thanksgiving

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (USA Today) - What does REAL mean? Well, she's not talking turkey and cranberry sauce. She's talking a Spanish explorer who landed here on Sept. 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with Timucua Indians. They dined on bean soup. Continued

Governor Richard Bennett

(Wikipedia) Richard Bennett (6 August 1609 – 12 April 1675) was an English Governor of the Colony of Virginia.
Born in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, Bennett served as governor from 30 April 1652, until 2 March 1655. His uncle, Edward Bennett, was a wealthy merchant from London and one of the few Puritan members of the Virginia Company, who had travelled to Virginia Colony in 1621 and settled in Warrascoyack.
Richard Bennett followed his uncle there as a representative of his business interests, and quickly rose to prominence, serving in the House of Burgesses in 1629 and 1631 and becoming a leader of the small Puritan community south of the James River, taking them from Warrasquyoake to Nansemond beginning in 1635. He was a member of the Governor Francis Wyatt's Council in 1639-42. In 1648, he fled to Anne Arundel, Maryland. Continued

Conrad Weiser

(Wikipedia) Conrad Weiser (November 2, 1696 – July 13, 1760), born Johann Conrad Weiser, Jr., was a Pennsylvania German (a.k.a., Pennsylvania Dutch) pioneer, interpreter and effective diplomat between the Pennsylvania Colony and Native Americans. He was a farmer, soldier, monk, tanner, and judge as well. He contributed as an emissary in councils between Native Americans and the colonies, especially Pennsylvania, during the 18th century's tensions of the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War). Continued

1664: Maryland declares war on the Senecas

"At a council held June 27th, 1664, the Council taking into consideration the protection of the province against the Senecas who lately killed some English in Ann Arundel county and entered St. Mary's and ordered war there. Now war is to be proclaimed against the Senecas and a reward of a hundred arm's length of Roan Oke to be given to any one who kills a Seneca. That all the Kings of Friend Indians be sent word and all to get ready to go against the Senecas—that all officers are to send intelligence from time to time to the Governor and Council that they keep in correspondence; and whereas there is a Seneca prisoner in Patapsco who alleges he came to seek peace and brought a present intended for us and the Susquehannocks.
It is ordered that the Indian be sent down to St. Mary's and kept in irons and a letter be written to Stuyvesant to give notice to the Senecas trading at Fort Orange that we have such a prisoner, whom we shall keep alive till we see if they want peace or war and if they do not desire peace we will put him to death; and that Col Clawson gave notice to the Susquehannocks of our intentions and to ask them if they will join us or not." Vol. 3, Maryland Archives, p. 502.

1683: William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians

(Wikipedia) The Lenape ( /ˈlɛnəpiː/ or /ləˈnɑːpi/) are a group of several organized bands of Native American people with shared cultural and linguistic characteristics. Their name for themselves (autonym), sometimes spelled Lennape or Lenapi, means "the people." They are also known as the Lenni Lenape (the "true people") or as the Delaware Indians. English settlers named the Delaware River after Lord De La Warr, the governor of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. They used the exonym above for almost all the Lenape people living along this river and its tributaries. Continued

Photo: The Treaty of Penn with the Indians, Benjamin West, 1771.

1782: Gnadenhütten massacre

The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing on March 8, 1782, of ninety-six Christian Lenape (Delaware) by colonial American militia from Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War. The incident took place at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhütten, Ohio, near present-day Gnadenhutten. The site of the village was preserved. A reconstructed cabin and cooper's house were built there, and a monument to the dead was erected. The village site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In an unrelated event in 1755, during the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years War), Native Americans allied with the French massacred 11 missionaries and converted Munsee Lenape at another Moravian mission village which however bore the same name; this event took place at Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania, in the English colony. The term Gnadenhutten massacre is usually only used to refer to the 1782 event in Ohio. Continued

Photo by Bwsmith84, some rights reserved.

Who Invented the Corn Cob Pipe?

(Firecured) I recently read an article in Pipes Magazine titled Corn Cob Pipes - Almost 150 Years Old and 3,000 Produced per Day. It's a pretty good article and the video is not to be missed, but the title got me to wondering: Just how old are corn cob pipes? While it's true that the Missouri Meerschaum company has been making an improved version of the corn cob pipe since 1869, they must have been around before that. A quick walk around Google Books confirms this. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Custer's 'Last Flag' sells for $2.2 million

(AP) The only U.S. flag not captured or lost during George Armstrong Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana sold at auction Friday for $2.2 million.
The buyer was identified by the auction house Sotheby's in New York as an American private collector. Frayed, torn, and with possible bloodstains, the flag had been valued before its sale at up to $5 million.
The 7th U.S. Cavalry flag — known as a "guidon" for its swallow-tailed shape — had been the property of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which paid just $54 for it in 1895. Continued

Pictured: "Custer's Last Charge (Library of Congress).

Samuel Argall

(Encyclopedia Virginia) Samuel Argall was a longtime resident of Jamestown and the deputy governor of Virginia (1617–1619). He pioneered a faster means of traveling to Virginia by following the 30th parallel, north of the traditional Caribbean route, and he first arrived in June 1610, just after the "Starving Time" when the surviving colonists were ready to quit for Newfoundland. Although he joined in the war against the Virginia Indians, Argall also engaged in diplomacy, negotiating provisions from Iopassus (Japazaws) of the Patawomeck tribe. Argall explored the Potomac River region in the winter of 1612 and spring of 1613, and there, with Iopassus's complicity, kidnapped Pocahontas, a move that helped establish an alliance between the Patawomecks and the Virginians. In 1613 and 1614, Argall explored as far north as present-day Maine and Nova Scotia, and made hostile contact with the Dutch colony at Manhattan. He also helped negotiate peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy tribes. As deputy governor, Argall improved military preparedness but did not enforce martial law in the same way as Sir Thomas Dale had, making his administration a bridge between the old politics and a new more democratic era. Knighted by James I in 1622, Argall led an English fleet against the Spanish in 1625 and died at sea in 1626. Continued

Pictured: The Abduction of Pocahontas, copper engraving by Johann Theodore de Bry, 1618

Native Americans focus of two November lectures

(Lancaster Online) William Penn had a grand vision for peaceful interaction between European settlers and the indigenous natives of Pennsylvania.
It didn't really work out that way. ... A panel of local Native Americans and researchers will present "Native Americans of Lancaster County" at Lititz Moravian Church, 8 Church Square, Lititz, at 7 p.m. Monday.
And, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, author John Ruth will describe Penn's "Dream & Disappointment" at Weaverland Mennonite Church, 210 Weaverland Valley Road, East Earl. Continued

Image: William Penn's Treaty with the Indians by Benjamin West.