book discussion: The Wars of the Lord

[bramblewild]

The Wars of the Lord by Matthew Tuininga.

For the past year, or maybe two, I've been reading history, and a lot of what I've read could even be considered church history. It's often been grim reading. It's not the stuff that often finds its way into school textbooks.

The book The Wars of the Lord isa history book focused on colonial New England in the 1600s, covering the time roughly between the arrival of the Pilgrims to King Philips War, so 1620 to almost 1680.

The idea for this thread is the write a bit about each chapter as I'm reading through the book. I've actually read a few of the first chapters, so I'm actually retracing those chapters to write about them.

The Introduction begins with the Pilgrim's arrival in 1620 and their First Encounter with the Indians. Men from the Mayflower came to land on a smaller boat to explore, and found a few signs of people, but for a few days saw no people. They found stores of corn and some burial sites, and ended up taking food and valuables from them, which may well have upset the native people, so that the event called the First Encounter was actually a small conflict:

The Nausets were defending their home from pillaging Englishmen. But the English saw it differently. To Bradford the attack was proof that the Nausets were the enemies of God’s people.
The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People (p. 2).

The author then given a brief view of the look at the ways the theology of those early English settlers, the Pilgrims and later the Puritans (who while similar were also different) affected the ways they acted, why they came to this new world. their goals, and how it affected the ways they treated the native peoples they encountered.

They believed that bringing Christ’s kingdom to the Natives would liberate them from darkness. But their understanding of Christianity also spurred them to dominate the Natives.
The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People (p. 3).

The phrase "war of the Lord" was used to refer to efforts to evangelize the native, but it was also used to refer to military battles.

The spiritual and military “wars of the Lord” were therefore inseparable. In both, Puritans identified victory with the cause of Christ’s kingdom, and in both, they sought a conquest of America’s first people.
The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People (p. 4)

My impression from this Introduction is that the author is trying to be fair, that he is trying to understand both sides as best he can. He points out that the Puritans tried to treat the Algonquians with fairness and justice.

The problem was that some of their ideals, including the way they understood Christian theology, fostered prejudice, arrogance, greed, violence, and domination.
The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People (p. 5)

I'll close this brief look at the Introduction with a quote from another book, Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, which I think is relevant to what happened and to how I see the history I've read, and how I think I'll see the events related in this book

Now it is very right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals. There is a very real sense in which the Christian is worse than the heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the Roman potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is only one sense in which he is worse; and that is not in being positively worse. The Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better.
The Everlasting Man (pp. 92-93)

 

[bramblewild]

Chapter 1: The Pilgrims

Going back to The First Encounter, the author points out that the Pilgrims were not the first Europeans or the first English the Algonquians had contact with, and many of those earlier encounters were not good ones. He tells of times when Europeans kidnapped Indians. I remember learning that Squanto, the Indian who was help to the Pilgrims, had been kidnapped and taken to Europe then returned to his native land before the Pilgrims arrived.

So, both Pilgrims and Algonquians had a negative view of each other when The First Encounter happened. Perhaps it also makes it more remarkable that the Wampanoags were willing to help the Pilgrims learn to survive.

But the good was no one way. The Wampanoag sachem (leader or chief) Ousamequin helped Plymouth with other neighboring tribes, and the Pilgrims came to his help when some Wampanoags tried to remove him from power. He even helps Plymouth with the Nausets, the tribe that attacked them at The First Encounter, and who were still upset with the newcomers for taking their corn and robbing their graves. Ousamequin helps Plymouth make amends for those early actions.

Later, when Ousamequin becomes seriously ill and near to death, but a man names Winslow is able to help him become better. Many Algonquians who were suspicious of Plymouth viewed them more positively after that.

The events at Wessagusset as described in this book are confusing. Wessagusset was an offshoot colony from Plymouth, and was struggling to survive but able to with help from the Massachusett Indians. But some of the Wessagusset men had stolen from the Massachusetts, and now the Massachusetts were threatening to wipe out Wessagusset. But when a group from Plymouth arrived in Wessagusset, things seemed rather peaceful. But the leaders of the town/fort claimed the Massachusetts were hostile, there was a meeting between the Plymouth men and some local Indians where the Plymouth men killed the Indians.

So, what to think of things at this point?

Seeing that things were difficult at this time, that two very different peoples were trying to learn how to deal with each other, and there were some rocky moments and even some bad decisions, things at this point do seem at least hopeful.

If I understand it right, the Pilgrims were not people from the higher strata of society. They had been away from England for a couple of decades, and had struggled to live in Holland. They had financial backing, but were in a place they had not intended as a destination, and about half of them had died that first winter after their landing.

So, they were making good-faith attempts to get along with the native people, maybe because they had to, but I hope also for other reasons, too.

To play the silly game of "what if", I find I'm wonder how things might have played out if Plymouth had been left alone, or left alone longer. Maybe it's because I see the later Puritan settlers as being more high-minded and even arrogant, but I suspect, and that's all I can call it, that the lowlier Pilgrims might have continued to build a good relationship with the Algonquians.

But the Puritans did come, and they came with their own plans.