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thePeorian.com
Literarea
Do you like reading about tor-
ture and slaughter and all kinds
of nastiness? Well, I have the
book for you! And since it’s about
American History you can feel
like a patriot as you read it.
Now, America in the 1700s has
its fair share of history books out
there, but there aren’t that many
covering the century before-
hand when there weren’t really
“
American settlers” so much as
a lot of rag-tag groups of Brits,
Finns, Dutch, et al, trying to find
a new place to call home.
The popular myth we hear
about American settlers is that
they were escaping religious
freedom. While that was true for
some, the vast majority were over
here to make a buck, or to make
a buck for someone else. The
ships were, after all, owned by
businesses and those businesses
needed to make money. In order
to do that, they needed as many
people as possible shipped to
the new country and they took
whomever they could throw
on board – including criminals,
homeless and orphaned children,
along with religious clerics and
college graduates.
Once they got here and got into
conflict with the Native Ameri-
cans, who were cool at first but
soon realized these new people
were not just going to USE the
land but planned on OWNING
the land. Then all hell broke
loose.
From indiscriminate slaughter
to stomach-turning torture, the
settlers and Native Americans set
to one-upping one another on the
violence scale. Example: one of
the Native American specialties
was dismembering a settler digit
by digit – starting with individual
finger and toe joints – until all
that was left was a still-living
stump of a human, which could
live up to three days (if taken care
of properly).
There’s also an interesting
story about settlers who decided
to return to England after an
overthrow of power there made
the threat of persecution negli-
gible. Around 12 percent of the
settlers returned – including
one-third of clerics and half of all
college graduates. Many of those
that stayed in North America
did so BECAUSE of the all the
killing. They thought to leave it
now would have just made the
venture seem pointless (of course,
the Native Americans probably
had other ideas).
Obviously, there is a lot of bru-
tality in this book but it’s also an
enlightening look at an era that
is quite often ignored or brushed
over in most history books.
“
THE BARBAROUS YEARS: THE PEOPLING OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA:
THE CONFLICT OF CIVILIZATIONS 1600-1675”
By Bernard Bailyn
CONTINUED ON PAGE 44
