The History Channel is running a phenomenal series this week that focuses on the
10 moments in United States history that unexpectedly changed America. The concept and the execution have been pretty flawless through the first two days, despite only having an hour per event, spanning from the Gold Rush to the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Opening night was Sunday (and for the TiVo people, they run repeats at 1 and 2 a.m., EST) when they covered Antietem as a turning point for southern support, the Emancipation Proclamation and the bloodiest day of fighting in United States history and followed it with the Mystic Massacre.
While Antietam is one of my favorite battlefields from the Civil War, I had no idea what I was getting in for with the Mystic episode, other than it presumably would occur in Connecticut.
On May 26, 1637, (Yes? No, that won't be on the exam. No dates on the exams, people, let's concentrate on the historical impact and the key players, OK?) English colonists working with other tribes they'd talked into helping with the raid, went to a large Pequot encampment, slipped in through the palisades and slaughtered as many of the tribe as they could. In addition to killing the warriors inside, they mowed down women and children and burned the village to the ground.
This was in direct opposition to promises made to the other tribes, who asked that the women and children be spared. One of the points of the program was to address how Indian warfare to that point had never included the concept of annihilation. People were spared and the tribes, while beaten survived.
Mystic was the first step taken by the Europeans to wipe out entire tribes through violence and it was the end of peaceful interactions between natives and settlers for years upon years. Two years alter, the Pequot War was over, but the pattern had been set by the Europeans on how to forcefully drive the Indians from the land.
What struck me most about the episode was the attention given to the philosophical differences between the two groups and the role that played. Granted, the 1600s were not a time of cultural sensitivity (although asking the Iraqis about the new millennium might get you the same answers) but the Europeans almost went out of their way to antagonize the native peoples in America.
"(The settlers) didn't see any native churches, there was no architecture," said Kevin McBride, Anthropology professor at the University of Connecticut. "What the Europeans really didn't understand was that the native perception of the world was fundamentally different than theirs."
Differences in how property was acquired and held, along with almost polar opposite views in religion and living in and around nature only widened the gap. While the Indians were content to live with the land and work within its framework, European ideals dictated that the land must be beaten into submission, cleared and farmed. Only then did it become "their" land.
While the Indians were at home in the Northeast, the settlers would wander off and get lost easily, having to be returned by well-meaning Indians who found them stumbling about in the woods. This only fueled the English distaste for the unconquered lands.
In these ways, philosophical differences lead to early skirmishing and "good neighbor" issues that exploded that early morning near Mystic. At that point, the Indians were pushed into fighting for the ever cliches "way of life" whether they meant to or realized what the underlying reasons were.
It's an interesting proposition, but one that continually reappears throughout history - when a superior military force invades and pushes its beliefs and ideals upon everyone else. While this is a massive oversimplification of the process, it makes me wonder how far I'd be willing to bend if put in the same position.
Place yourself inside the palisade walls in Mystic a week before the raid and try to get a handle on just how far you'd be willing to give up on everything you knew and you see how tough this would be.
For the sake of this argument, let's pull in some current events with Darren Daulton. I'll refrain from cheap shots at his expense (umm, at least right now),
but he went on SportsCenter Sunday night (after an article in Sports Illustrated) talking about metaphysics and how he now flies about, sans airplane, and can time travel and such. There's a lot going on for Dutch and it all sounds pretty bizarre.
Now, take those claims of time travel and fourth and fifth dimensions and imagine those being imposed upon you as your family is falling ill from mysterious illnesses when they aren't being out and out destroyed by the same people who are advocating metaphysics. That puts you in the ballpark of the Pequots.
On the military side, even now, we've backed away from wholesale exterminations of entire groups of people. While it still happens, I think most of the developed nations would take issue if word broke that their troops had rounded up women, children and the elderly and wiped them all out. What would happen if the United States was slowly being annexed, state by state, by Canada or Mexico?
The United States is trying to put the brakes on it, telling anyone who will listen that we own this land and the Canadians are saying, "Well, not really - in order to 'own' the land you need to have a tire repair shop within five miles."
The US can look and say they're capable of building those, but choose not to, because they have no need to do so and think it's a pretty arbitrary way to show ownership, but the Canadians don't budge.
Next, they're telling US citizens that their belief system is out of whack. They are appalled that men don't stay home to raise children to the age of seven. Men are taking the easy way out and the Canadians are going to change that. The list goes on and on and the Canadian steamroll the upper Midwest and Northeast, converting when convenient, destroying most of what they see and leveraging states against one another until it's no longer convenient.
It's really pretty baffling to me once I get my head moving on it. For groups that left for the New World to avoid religious persecution and supposedly were among the most fervent followers, they were also unendingly violent and merciless when dealing with the people they found here. All of this while it becomes pretty clear that it wasn't entirely a land grab, either.
Secondly, I thought some of the structure of the episode was curious. For instance, the settlers (see, even I'm doing this - they could just as easily be invaders) are always referred to as "the English." While this is historically accurate, I can't remember one of the historians referring to them as "us" or "we" in the hour-long documentary.
Also, the final segment of 15 minutes or more follows a different story arc of the Pequot tribes being killed, sold into slavery, legally banned from speaking the language or the name "Pequot" and told never to return. Say what you will about the Europeans, but they have the subjugation of native peoples down. Years pass and one of the slaves finds himself working in the governor's mansion, befriends his son and secures land for the Pequot tribe.
Flashing ahead to the 1960s and 1970s, three elderly women refuse to give up on their people, hold onto the land and convince their children and grandchildren to come and make a stand as well. Now, they are the owners of the largest casino in the United States and are the major economic engine in the region as they had been in the 1600s.
None of this makes the process right, though. The show was wrapped up in a neat little bow and just because the tribe has made a striking comeback isn't cause for the show to go out on an "all's well that ends well" note.
After an attempted eradication, legal maneuvers to force the extinction of the tribe, repeated land grabs by the government and declaring the Pequots extinct, things are not peachy now that there is a casino with steady revenue involved. Personally, I found the ending a bit insulting.
How much is it worth to you to move on from having your ancestors burned alive as they tried to flee their homes in the middle of the night? How many new cars will it cost to forget that for centuries, the government you answer to legally barred you from celebrating Oktoberfest or making baklava? How much financial security does it take to ease the sting of being told by your grammar school teacher, "Oh, you're Polish? No, honey, the Polish have been extinct for years now. You must be mistaken."
I can't speak from experience, but I'm pretty sure it'll never be enough.
(Photos from: coldspringschool.com / backbaypress.com / encarta.msn.com)
Aside from hoping the rest of the country missed that little puppet show following the selection of Hawk, it was a pretty enjoyable first day of the draft overall. Well, except for the one nickel for a dollar trade of Javon Walker and subsequent two nickels for a nickel, penny and stick of gum trade that followed.
Frank the Tank sent a congratulatory e-mail tonight with regards to the pick, and thinks he'll be an anchor for the Packers D for years to come. I see that potential, but those sentiments were being tossed around Seattle with their pickup of Brian Bosworth years ago, too.
