This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. Few remember it.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Tue Sep 28, 2021, 05:51 AM - Edit history (1)

Multitasking, 1863 style. The Union Army was just as adept at killing people in the west as it was in the south, and it could do both at the same time.

Retropolis

This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. Few remember it.

The 1863 Bear River Massacre decimated the Northwestern Band of the Shoshones but was overshadowed by the Civil War.



Darren Parry, the former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation overlooks the site of the Bear River Massacre where the soldiers in the U.S. Army killed more than 350 of his ancestors in 1863. (Courtesy)

By Dana Hedgpeth
Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Historians consider it the worst massacre of Native Americans in U.S. history. Yet few have ever heard of it.

The Bear River Massacre of 1863 near what’s now Preston, Idaho, left roughly 350 members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation dead, making it the bloodiest — and most deadly — slaying of Native Americans by the U.S. military, according to historians and tribal leaders. The Indians were slain after soldiers came into a valley where they were camping for the winter and attacked, leaving roughly 90 women and children among the dead.

The death toll, historians say, exceeded some of the country’s most horrific Indian slayings, including the 1864 slaying at Colorado’s Sand Creek, where 130 Cheyennes were killed. And the death count was nearly double the roughly 150 Sioux killed at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, four days after Christmas in 1890.

[Soldiers got Medals of Honor for massacring Native Americans. This bill would take them away.]

Some accounts put the Bear River death toll even higher than 350.

{snip}

By Dana Hedgpeth
Dana Hedgpeth is a Washington Post reporter, working in the early morning to report on traffic, crime and other local issues. She joined The Post in 1999. She's American Indian and an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of N.C. Twitter https://twitter.com/postmetrogirl

[Scrivener7]

1. Estimates of the dead in the massacre of the Pequot in 1637 run as high as 600.

Seems like there is no shortage of these atrocities.

[wnylib]

6. Where the colonial militia, led by John Mason,

slaughtered women, children, and elderly men in an attack on a Pequot village while the young men were away. They set fire to the village, burning people alive and shooting them as they fled the flames. Their Native allies were horrified at the extent of the colonial savagery.

A militia member wrote in his journal about how thrilling it was to hear the screams of the "heathen savages" as they burned alive. Early Puritans believed that they were chosen to conquer the Native inhabitants of North America like the Biblical conquest of Canaan, which, apparently, is why they named a Connecticut town New Canaan.

The concept of "Manifest Destiny" began much earlier than the later conquest of the West, even though it was not called that yet in colonial New England.

[Scrivener7]

9. Also, though we know the first African slaves were brought in in 1619, what is lesser known is

that, between 1619 and about 1700, African slaves were very expensive and very few in number in the New England states. The vast majority of slaves in those northern areas were Native Americans until about 1700.

After the Pequot War, the surviving Pequot men were sold to the sugar plantations and the surviving Pequot women and children were divided among the English, Narragansett, Niantic, Mohicans and Wampanoags as slaves. (Because all those groups were allied together against the Pequot. It was not an English vs. Native thing. The other tribes at that time were more powerful than the English in the local politics, though that situation would not last long.)

The Natives had a very different view of what that slavery meant. The enslaving Native populations had been so reduced that they saw slaves as servants who might one day become part of the family as a spouse, step-mother, in-law, etc. They treated them accordingly.

The English treated their slaves as we think of slavery. Many of their native allies were horrified by that too. But that gave the average English household, for whom African slaves were way too expensive, a taste for slavery.

Forty years later, it was the Narragansett, Niantic and Wampanoags (along with other tribes) who were warring with the English, and now they were the ones who were exported to the sugar islands and/or enslaved in English households.

That period of time, between the landing in Plymouth and the Revolution, is so forgotten, and yet it did so much to create our national behavior.

[wnylib]

10. There was a steady slave trade between

the Connecticut colony and Barbados. Natives captured by the English in New England were difficult to keep in slavery since they knew the land and could escape to relatives or allies. So they were shipped to the sugar plantations in Barbados to trade for "seasoned" enslaved Africans. Africans were far from their homelands and separated from relatives and other members of their native cultures, making them easier to control.

CT farmers sent onions and other produce, along with captured Natives to Barbados and received Africans, sugar, and rum in return. One colonist wrote about looking forward to attacking a Native village in order to get someone to trade for an enslaved African for his farm.

True about the Native concept of slavery. To most Native cultures of Northeastern North America, slavery was temporary servitude on the path to becoming a full member of the tribal nation.

The Tuscarora of North Carolina moved north to become the 6th tribal nation of the Iroquois League because they had been threatened with obliteration by NC colonists if they did not engage in wars with other Natives to obtain captives for the colonists.

The allied union of Native tribes in New England started in 1675, called King Philip's War by the English, but that was their mocking name for Metacom, son of Massasoit (who saved the Pilgrims from starvation). Metacom and his allies attempted to drive the English out of New England, and nearly succeeded by destroying several colonial villages.

[Scrivener7]

11. It is very rare to find another person with this area of interest. I find it so fascinating.

Last edited Tue Sep 28, 2021, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)

And it echoes to the things that go on today in such surprising ways.

I am guessing you have read Margaret Ellen Newell. If not, she's fabulous. I've just started Jill Lapore's book. Her thesis is that King Philip's war was where the American identity originated (that's the subtitle, in fact.) For better or worse, mostly worse. I have thought this forever, so I'm excited to read this.

[wnylib]

12. No, I have not read Margaret Ellen Newell.

Don't know who she is or what she has written.

My interest comes from genealogy. I have both colonial English and Native American ancestry. Some of my English ancestors were killed in Metacom's War. Others were killed in French and Native raids on English colonies.

My Native ancestry is more recent than those colonial wars, though, and comes from the Seneca of western NY who were not involved in those colonial New England battles. However, I am still trying to trace another Native ancestral line that is of Mohawk origin. The Mohawk nation of the Iroquois League are from eastern NY, bordering on New England. A faction of them were converted to Catholicism by French missionaries and participated in French raids on colonial English towns. The Mohawk line in my family might trace back to an English captive taken in a French and Mohawk raid on a colonial English village. The Mohawk ancestry is certain, but I haven't yet verified the English captive, although it looks likely.

So I have read up on the colonies and the relationships between colonists, the Native people, and enslaved Africans in New England. It's part of my family history as well as part of American history.

[sagetea]

2. Just one of many, many places out west.

We must never forget.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAJ8tzHX0AIyrhB?format=jpg&name=medium


sage

[2naSalit]

3. I used to go by there on my...

Back road trips to SLC when I lived in SE Idaho. It's solemn vibes there, kind of eerie. Pretty in the springtime but stills feels off.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. There is so much of US history

that we were never taught, in part because it reflects poorly on the myths that we have perpetuated about the "civilized" white European-origin settlers of North America.

Thank heavens that we are learning more every day about what actually happened and to whom.

The "why" - generally because they could.

[wnylib]

7. I learned the untaught history

through genealogy research, having both European and Native American ancestry.

[BlueMTexpat]

13. I was born and raised in

Montana in the 40s-60s. But during that time most of us lived "apart" from reservation areas, only driving through on our way to "somewhere else."

One of my classmates at Catholic High School in Great Falls was the granddaughter of the Blackfeet Chief in Browning. She was also of mixed heritage: Native American and Puerto Rican. She grew up in both cultures. But we just thought of her as our friend - definitely one of the more intelligent and motivated ones because she was the first girl among us to aspire to a university doctorate.

It wasn't until I taught school in Missoula County in the 1970s that a new state requirement came into effect for public school teacher certification for those of us whose schools were on or near reservation areas. We had to take a course in "Indian Studies."

I am so happy for that requirement. The course was literally eye-opening. As part of the requirements, we had required reading, attendance at lectures from native speakers and attendance at tribal events such as powwows and other ritual celebrations (I took my sons to those with me). Now my younger son spends a good part of his time on or near the Blackfeet Reservation. He actually received his Covid-19 vaccinations there.

I am ashamed to admit that course was the first time that I truly began to understand what WE "Europeans" had done to our native cultures, as opposed to what we had learned had happened and also to appreciate the richness and diversity that I had grown up alongside, but apart from.

Now I have one BIL who is half Eastern Shoshone, raised primarily in Wyoming. We are all the richer for that.

[wnylib]

14. It's good to hear about your personal experience.

Last edited Wed Sep 29, 2021, 05:03 AM - Edit history (1)

That education program sounds very good, one that could be emulated across the country.

I grew up as a white child of mixed ancestry. My grandmother was Seneca, with mixed Seneca, Mohawk, and English ancestry. Her husband, my grandfather, had mixed Algonquian and German ancestry. But they were my father's parents and the Seneca and Mohawk are matrilineal, so I cannot be Seneca or Mohawk. But, I was made aware of my Native ancestry as early as I can remember, and taught to take pride in both the Native and European heritages in my family.

My grandmother died when I was just under 2 years old, so I have no personal memories of her. But my family taught me about her and her family. She descended from a family of Seneca leaders who are well known in this area.

My mother's parents came to the US as German immigrants when they were very young children. My mother's German-born aunt lived with us when I was a child, so I grew up with more direct awareness of of my European heritage. But, I heard stories of my Native ancestors and some of our habits which I thought were just family customs turned out to be Native customs and perspectives passed on from my grandmother, and to some extent, from my grandfather, too.

Growing up in a "white" city and identifying as white, my knowledge and experience of Native culture was always limited to the stories I heard on visits with my father's family who lived in rural areas of the county, but not on Seneca territory. So, as an adult, I set out to learn more about my grandmother's heritage through research and visits to Seneca terrories. The Seneca prefer the term "territory" instead of "reservation" because they still live on their own original land, although greatly reduced in size. They have not moved onto "reserved" land as so many western tribes (and some eastern tribes) were forced to do.

[BlueMTexpat]

15. Thanks for sharing your background.

It is indeed a rich and fascinating one.

Have you ever visited the The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC? If not, it is well worth a visit. https://americanindian.si.edu/

You likely have already seen this article, or something like it, that shows the territories once wholly populated by Native Americans in the US - and how European settlers depopulated those areas until very few "reserved" areas are left today. https://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8618261/america-maps-truths

[wnylib]

16. No, I have not been to the museum in DC yet,

but plan on going when I feel more comfortable about traveling.

Yes, I have seen the map and other maps of Native territories.

I felt like I should give some of my background when discussing Native topics because, although I have a personal interest and am proud of that part of my heritage, I am not an enrolled tribal member and don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am.

[BlueMTexpat]

17. I know that the rules

dealing with tribal enrollment vary among tribes.

For example, my BIL is an enrolled tribal member. But his son and daughter, whose mother (not my sister; it's a second marriage for both) is "Caucasian," are not eligible.

Until he was 15, his son could hunt on tribal lands with his father. But once past that magic age, he no longer could.

[wnylib]

18. The federal government recognizes

the right of each tribe to set its own membership criteria. The Seneca and Mohawk (along with other Iroquoian tribes) have always been matrilineal since long before Columbus.

[3Hotdogs]

5. One theory about that and the Cheyenne massacre was that it was safer to kill Indians

than to be sent to a Civil War battle.


Kill Indians and then report how you prevented an uprising.

[wnylib]

8. "Uprising" being self defense of

one's homeland against invasion by foreigners.