The Name Of War King Phillip's War by Jill Lepore
Our history books continue to present our country's story in conventional patriotic terms. America being settled by courageous, white colonists who tamed a wilderness and the savages in it. With very few exceptions our society depicts these people who actually first discovered America and without whose help the colonists would not have survived, as immoral, despicable savages who needed to be removed by killing and shipping out of the country into slavery. In her book, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, Jill Lepore tells us there was another side to the story of King Philip's War. She goes beyond the actual effects of the war to discuss how language, literacy, and privilege have had lasting effects on the legacy that followed it.In 1675, tensions between Native Americans and colonists residing in New England erupted into the brutal conflict that has come to be known as King Philip's War, the bloodiest battle in America history, in proportion to population it was also the deadliest war in American history. The English colonists wished to rid the country of the Indians in order to seize their land. They believed the Indians were savages and therefore were not worthy of equal rights.
Lepore suggests that a significant cause of the war was the fear and ignorance the two groups had for one another. The Algonquin Indians worried that they were becoming like the Europeans because they had taken to wearing Western clothes, living in houses, and reading the bible. On the contrary, the English, far from home, had adopted Native American customs and cuisine, had stopped attending church, and had moved farther and farther inland and away from European settlement. The colonists' principal fear was being mistaken for Indians; so called "savages". The tensions between these two groups were primarily based on a fear of their changing identities. Lepore describes how the colonists attempted to cover up their malicious behavior by blaming their wrong-doings on their allies, the Mohegans. Records of a decapitation of a Narragansett specifically describes that the Mohegans "delighted" at watching the killing. Their actions are described as "savage", "uncivilized," and "the perfect children of the devil." In fact, both the Indians and English colonists participated in creating the same horrific levels of violence. In June of 1675, King Philip, called Metacom by the Indians, led the Wampanoag, Algonquin, Nipmunk, and Narragansett Indians in massive attacks against the English in P
Some common words found in the essay are:
Philip's War, Name War, Native American, , Indians English, King Philip, Algonquin Indians, Christian Indians, Indians Indians, Americans English, king philip's, philip's war, king philip's war, english colonists, algonquin indians, king philip, native americans, name war,
Approximate Word count = 876
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
