By 1725 the English colonies were firmly established along the Atlantic coast and the interactions between the English and the many tribes of the region had significantly modified the Indian cultures. By this time, disease and warfare had decimated Indian populations and the expanding English populations had reduced Indian lands.
In Massachusetts, Indian communities changed to meet the cultural, religious, and ecological demands of the immigrants. Native communities remained apart from Anglo communities, according to historian Daniel Mandell, in his book Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts. This would later help fuel the myth that “Indians have disappeared.”
English colonial authorities were aware of the great importance of the Indian tribes and individual Indians. In an article in The IndianHistorian, Yasuhide Kawashima reports:
“No matter how valuable and useful the Indians might have been to the colonists as allies, dependent tribes, and servants and slaves, however, they were never considered as equal to the white settlers.”
Indians were not citizens, nor could they become citizens and from the viewpoint of the English colonists, they were aliens. With regard to the legal system, Indians were generally not allowed to testify or be admitted as a witness against any Christian non-Indian.
War had existed in the Americas long before the arrival of the Europeans. The Europeans, however, brought with them a different concept of warfare and their wars were fought under different cultural rules. Unlike Indian nations, the Europeans fought wars to obtain territory, to subjugate people, to prove the validity of their religions, and to exterminate entire populations. Cherokee historian Robert Conley, in his book The Cherokee Nation: A History, writes:
“They brought to America a concept of total war, wherein villages were burned and crops destroyed, so that anyone who might escape instant death during the battle would face death by exposure and starvation.”
Briefly described below are a few of the American Indian events involving English colonists 300 years ago, in 1725.
English authority
The English colonists, under the religious legal concept of the Doctrine of Discovery, assumed that Christians had the right, if not the obligation, to rule all non-Christian nations. In 1725, all Indians in Connecticut were placed under the jurisdiction of the governor and council. Indian tribes were required to submit to the jurisdiction of the colony.
Grey Lock’s War
Grey Lock’s War started in 1722. This was not just an “Indian”War, more importantly it was a religious war: it was a war fought by the Protestant English colonists against the hated, “evil,” and “atheistic”Catholics.
The colonial English were staunchly anti-Catholic and were particularly opposed to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries among the Indians. They were especially upset that Father Sebastian Rasles (also spelled Rale), a French Jesuit priest, was strongly encouraging the Abenaki to defend both their lands and their culture against the English colonists.
The Abenaki (also spelled Abnaki, and Wabenaki) are a group of loosely related Algonquian-speaking people who have lived in the New England area for thousands of years. Grey Lock (also recorded as Gray Lock and Greylock), a Woronoco living in the village of Missisquoi, had led some Abenaki raids against the English settlements.
In retaliation for Grey Lock’s raids, Captain Benjamin, considered an “experienced’ Indian fighter, raised a force of 59 men in 1725 and set out to attack Grey Lock’s hometown of Missisquoi. The force returned after a month without encountering any Indians, only to find that Grey Lock had followed them. Grey Lock spent the summer raiding Massachusetts settlements.
Penobscots
The Algonquian-speaking Penobscots lived in what is now Maine. Their name means “the rocky place” referring to the rocky, river falls on the Penobscot River where they lived. In the summer they would migrate down the river and live along the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1725, the Penobscots created a pirate fleet of 22 vessels which they had liberated from the English. The Penobscot pirates disrupted English shipping along the coast for the entire summer.
In 1725, the Penobscots sent a delegation to Boston to talk about peace with the English. Loron Sagouarrab claimed to be empowered to speak for all tribes from St. Francis on the St. Lawrence to Cape Sable in Nova Scotia. He asked the English to give up their forts in Richmond and St. Georges as a show of peaceful intent. A treaty of peace was concluded, but the issue of the forts remained unsettled.
Cherokees
The Cherokees were a farming people whose homelands included a large portion—over 40,000 square miles—of the American southeast. Their territory included parts of the present-day states of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.
At the time of European contact in the sixteenth century, the Cherokees were divided into three broad groups: (1) the Lower Towns along the rivers in South Carolina, (2) the Upper or Overhill Towns in eastern Tennessee and northwestern North Carolina, (3) the Middle Towns which included the Valley Towns in southwestern North Carolina and northeastern Georgia and the Out Towns. There were some cultural and linguistic differences between these groups.
The primary unit of government among the Cherokees was the town. Traditionally each town was autonomous, and the government of each town was not tied to the government of other towns.
The English colonists in the Carolinas named the head warrior of one Cherokee village as the principal chief of all Cherokees. This warrior had, of course, little influence on the Cherokees outside of his own village, but it was important to the colonists that the Cherokees have an “emperor.”
Micmac
The homeland of the Algonquian-speaking Micmacs was in what is now the Canadian Maritime Provinces. In what is now Nova Scotia, Halifax colonial leaders met with the Micmacs and read to them a proposed peace treaty. The effort did not bring peace.
More American Indian histories
Indians 101: Natchez Indians 300 years ago, 1725
Indians 101: American Indians and the English 300 years ago, 1724
Indians 101: American Indians and the French 300 years ago, 1724
Indians 101: American Indians and Europeans 300 years ago, 1723
Indians 101: Indians and Europeans 300 years ago, 1722
Indians 101: The Indians and the English in 1712
Indians 201: The Tuscaroras join the Iroquois League
Indians 101: Little Turtle's War
