Names matter In addition to Howard Zinn and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, I’m especially inspired by Charles W Mills, the philosopher who recently passed away. His ‘Racial Contract’ is a mindblower and eye-opener. It emancipates our minds in a major way. So I want to start with a short account of the… Read more“1. Turtle Island and Its Peoples”
Month: March 2023
2. Law of Discovery
In movies, books and paintings, we’ve all absorbed the scene of Columbus, or John Cabot or another European ship captain with his armed thugs, sometimes with a priest, planting a flag or banner, and making a proclamation. In many cases, they had little idea about where they were–the northern buffer… Read more“2. Law of Discovery”
3. The Norse, the Basques, and John Cabot
The indigenous peoples along the North Atlantic were familiar with Europeans even before Columbus and John Cabot. These days we all know of the visits of the Norse and Leif Erikson, even their settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the year 1000, and more probable camps down to… Read more“3. The Norse, the Basques, and John Cabot”
4. Enslaving Tainos, Invading Florida
Columbus and a cohort of enslavers and settler-colonialists didn’t visit the Caribbean for sightseeing. They wanted wealth, and lots of it, for themselves and the Spanish Court. Without much immediate gold or spices to be taken, Columbus enslaved and sent back people. First, he sends a few dozen, then a… Read more“4. Enslaving Tainos, Invading Florida”
5. The Apalachee and Spanish Carolina
The Apalachee were Native people who had made their home in the southern woodlands near the eastern edge of what is now called the Gulf of Mexico. They were mound-builders, erecting ceremonial earthworks in their major villages. This means they were also the southeasternmost part of what is now called… Read more“5. The Apalachee and Spanish Carolina”
6. Cortez, Mexican Silver, and the Birth of a Proletariat
The mark left on the New World, or Turtle Island, by Hernan Cortez also left Ponce de Leon in the dust. Born a lesser noble with dim prospects at home, he headed to Hispaniola and then Cuba as a young man. Bogarting and elbowing his way upward, he received an… Read more“6. Cortez, Mexican Silver, and the Birth of a Proletariat”
7. Squanto, Plymouth and King Phillips War
The story of Plymouth Colony in the ‘New England’ sector of ‘Turtle Island’ is an odd case where history really gets weird. Not only does it move in switchbacks and spirals, but some parts also seem like the creations of Hollywood screenwriters of spy yarns, romances, and costumed adventure stories…. Read more“7. Squanto, Plymouth and King Phillips War”
8. Powhattan, Jamestown and Tobacco
The ‘Great Canoes’ on the Chesapeake In 1607, three English ships– Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery—made landfall in a country called Tsenacommacah. They picked a spot on a river, now called the James, that flowed into a bay, now called the Chesapeake. Tsenacommacah was about 100 miles by one hundred… Read more“8. Powhattan, Jamestown and Tobacco”
9. New France and the Fur Trade
It’s time to turn to other European powers, starting with France. We’ve established St Augustine, Florida, and Santa Fe, New Mexico as the first permanent but small European coastal or border settlements in what is now the USAmerican part of ‘Turtle Island’ or North America. Jacques Cartier, the explorer, gets… Read more“9. New France and the Fur Trade”
10. The Mohicans and New Netherland
Around the turn of the millennium, 1600, the ‘Muh-he-ka-neew’ people (Or ‘Mohican’, which translates to ‘people of the continually flowing waters’) lived and thrived along the long river valley flowing into the Atlantic. They had a string of small settlements comprised of small-to-medium-sized longhouses, each with corn, beans, and squash… Read more“10. The Mohicans and New Netherland”
11. New Sweden and a Socialist Experiment
‘Poutaxat’ is what the southernmost Lenape people called the large Mid-Atlantic estuary where they lived, and ‘Lenape Wihittuck’ is the name they gave the large river that flowed into it. They lived much as their northern cousins, the Mohicans. They were a largely settled agricultural and matrilineal society, with longhouses… Read more“11. New Sweden and a Socialist Experiment”
12. Albemarle Democracy in North Carolina
By the last half of the 1600s, The Tuscarora and other native peoples in their region, recently named ‘Carolina’ by a king and ‘lord proprietors’ across an ocean, were having troubles with the newcomers living among them. The ‘Indians’ prized the metal goods and weapons, but they also suspected the… Read more“12. Albemarle Democracy in North Carolina”
13. The Tuscarora and ‘Charles Town’
Long before Europeans and their ‘great canoes’ started to occupy and trade along the seacoast of Turtle Island, the Tuscarora people had migrated southward from the Great Lakes area. They settled in the piedmont region of what was to be called ‘the Carolinas.’ They were ‘Iroquoian’ speakers, related to the… Read more“13. The Tuscarora and ‘Charles Town’”
14. The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose
Jemmy was an enslaved worker in 1739 colonial South Carolina. As best as we know, he was born in the Kingdom of Kongo, or what is now called Angola. Influenced by Portugal traders, Kongo’s royalty spread the Portuguese language among its peoples. In the 1400s, it adopted Catholicism and had… Read more“14. The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose”
15. The Susquehannocks and the Paxton Boys
The Susquehannocks were a native people occupying what is now central Pennsylvania and the river flowing into the Chesapeake Bay that shares their name. They had lived there for hundreds of years before the European arrivals. Captain John Smith of Jamestown, Virginia, encountered them in 1608 as he explored… Read more“15. The Susquehannocks and the Paxton Boys”
16. New York City 1741: A ‘Motley Crew’ Class Revolt
In 1741, dozens of free and enslaved men of modest or no means and a few women, all multiracial and multinational, had gathered many times at John Hughson’s New York City tavern. Among other things, they spent much of their time plotting an insurrection against the worst of the rich…. Read more“16. New York City 1741: A ‘Motley Crew’ Class Revolt”
17. Christian Priber, Communism and the Cherokee
Christian Priber is not a name we’ll likely come across in the standard American histories of Turtle Island after the European entrance. Save for early histories of Georgia and the hinterlands of the Carolinas now known as Tennessee, where he was a minor if fascinating character, he would be far… Read more“17. Christian Priber, Communism and the Cherokee”
18. A ‘Motley Crew’ in the 1747 Knowles Riot in Boston
In November 1747, a large insurgency of Boston-based sailors, slaves, and other workers, of English, African, and other backgrounds arose together, seized the city, and held British naval officers hostage for three days. They demanded the freedom of dozens of their comrades ‘press ganged’ into captivity as would-be sailors on… Read more“18. A ‘Motley Crew’ in the 1747 Knowles Riot in Boston”
19. Logstown and the ‘Ohio Country’
Nearly all of us who grew up here in Aliquippa, Beaver County, Western PA, are familiar with Logstown and Aliquippa, the Native American matriarch who is our town’s namesake. However, most things we think we know about them are either slightly mistaken or entirely wrong. But that doesn’t make them… Read more“19. Logstown and the ‘Ohio Country’”
20. The Shawnee, Lord Dunmore, and the 1776 Western Front
The beginnings of a multi-tribal and multinational conflict over ‘the Ohio Country,’ an area later widened and renamed ‘the Northwest Territories,’ is not widely familiar. Most of the stories we learned of the American Revolution ignore or downplay this dimension in favor of all the battles along the Eastern Seaboard… Read more“20. The Shawnee, Lord Dunmore, and the 1776 Western Front”
21. The ‘Ohio Country’, the Shawnee, and Pontiac’s Revolt
The land south of the Great Lakes, and bordered west of the Alleghenies by the Ohio River has a rich and deep past, reaching back to times before ‘Europe’ even existed, save as the tribal border areas north and west of the Roman Empire. Today the remnants of the Ohio-centered… Read more“21. The ‘Ohio Country’, the Shawnee, and Pontiac’s Revolt”
22. Tecumseh, the Red Nation and the War of 1812
In our ‘Side Story’ on Lord Dunmore and the western front during the War of Independence, we mentioned a battle at Point Pleasant, near Wheeling W VA, that led to the death of Cornstalk, a much-loved Shawnee leader, who was also a veteran of Pontiac’s Revolt. Another Shawnee casualty at… Read more“22. Tecumseh, the Red Nation and the War of 1812”
23. Newt Knight and the ‘Free State of Jones’
‘The Free State of Jones’, and Its Leader Newt Knight in His Own Words Most of us have probably seen the movie, ‘The Free State of Jones,’ starring Matthew McConaughey and directed by Gary Ross. (If not, you can still rent it cheaply from YouTube or Amazon Prime). It’s based… Read more“23. Newt Knight and the ‘Free State of Jones’”