STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED DURING COLONIAL TIMES

Here is what they didn’t teach you about colonial America in school. (Part - II)

The Pequot massacre

In the 1630s, Puritan settlers were fighting the local Pequot people over a patch of land in what's now southern Connecticut. The war lasted three years, and until May 26, 1637, it looked like the Puritans were going to be driven off the land. But that was the day they swarmed the Mystic Fort and killed around 500 men, women and children. Reports say there's no question this particular episode in history can be called a massacre, adding it was the first of three similar incidents that would go on to shape relations between Puritan settlers and native peoples. Despite having 70 well-armed English soldiers and 250 others on their side, the Puritans almost lost. Until, that is, they trapped the Pequot inside their fort and set the whole thing on fire. Two more villages were completely destroyed, and it helped set the tone for decades of future conflict.


The Phips Proclamation

They are not just a sports team, let’s see where the term ‘Redskins’ has come from. In 1755, the Massachusetts government issued something called the Phips Proclamation, promising enterprising, bloodthirsty individuals they would be paid well for anyone from tribe Penobscot brought to them, either in chains or in pieces. The highest bounties were paid for men taken to Boston alive, but they'd also pay for scalps, of any age. Those scalps were called redskins. It represents a trophy of war – the bloodied scalp of a murdered Native American, slaughtered for money, the amount dependent on whether it was a man, woman, or child.



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