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Christopher Garling Mr. Wimmer AP US History 23 January 2012 Why the English Colonists Committed Genocide on the Native Americans On May 24, 1607, the Virginia Company of London landed on mainland America—it was the first English ship to successfully settle in America after the failure at Roanoke Island. Even so, the English tried to land near the Chesapeake Bay at first, but the settlers were fought away by the Native Americans, and that was the first interaction these English colonists had with the Native Americans. From this beginning, the Native Americans and English were at odds with each other. At first when the English landed at Jamestown, they tried to get along with the Native Americans they called the Powhatans, but after the “starving time”—the winter of 1609-1610—the original colonists set sail from Jamestown with the hopes of returning to England. After the colonists sailed a short way, they ran into the Englishman Lord De La Warr, who ordered them back to Jamestown.

Lord De La Warr, the new governor of Jamestown as decreed by the Virginia Company, carried out what amounted to a declaration of open war against the Indians of the Jamestown area, only ended by the marriage of Native American Pocahontas to Englishman John Rolfe. However, from the time Lord De La Warr arrived in Jamestown in 1610 to the marriage of Pocahontas and Rolfe in 1614, the English, led by their new governor “raided villages, burned houses, confiscated provisions, and torched cornfields” (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey 30). Lord De La Warr said that the Virginia Company of London said to kill and dispose of the Indians so that they could profit more prolifically from their investment—Jamestown. Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “ the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group” (Genocide). When one considers that the English Virginia Company of London ordered the killing of the Indians, selecting their race out singularly, it is evident that the English did commit genocide through their acts of violence against the Native Americans. This is not the last example of English genocidal violence either.

Thanksgiving may, in fact, be based on an event in 1637, when a group of English and Dutch mercenaries torched a village of Indians and shot any who tried to escape (Elliff). The next day, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony said that this day would be remembered as “a day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children” (Elliff). While there was a feast celebrating Indian and English relations earlier in 1621, the feast was not repeated after that year and the date did not become noteworthy until “It was signed into law that, ‘This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,’” (Eliff). With the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony saying that the massacre of 700 Indians was worthy of celebration, it seems as if he and his people enjoyed disposing of the Native Americans. Not only did the English mercenaries kill the Indians, but they did so by setting their village on fire. The burning of a village is as symbolic as it is effective—the act of burning down the homes of hundreds sent a message to the Indians, a message that the English would stop at nothing to take the land from the Indians, a message of hatred. Modern Thanksgiving as we know it, meaning the celebration of all that we are thankful of with a feast, was first proclaimed by the United States of America­­—as its own country—by President George Washington on October 3, 1789 “ naming Thursday, November 26, 1789 as an official holiday of "sincere and humble thanks" (The).

Supporters of the English, proclaiming they didn’t commit genocide, might say this was not what Thanksgiving was based from. All sources found regarding the alleged village burning of the Indians was related in some manner to a Native American organization. Members or supporters of Native American organizations wish to prove that they were wronged during the colonization and expansion of America, so it is conceivable that they would skew facts. However, bias is not uncommon in American history books either—many history books choose to overlook, change, or otherwise falsify historical information in order to make America look better (Loewen). With the repression of accurate information regarding the early colonization of America and the dealings of the English with the Indians, it is often difficult to discern truth from fiction.

Some people would claim that these actions that Native Americans report were not genocidal. They may claim that the only reason the English killed the Indians was because they wanted their land, not because they had a hatred of the Indian race. Perhaps this is true, there is no hard evidence either way. However, the English are infamous for calling the Native Americans “savages” and treating them as such. By extension, a savage isn’t much more valuable or intelligent than an animal. To the English, the Native Americans were little more than animals that lived on land that they wanted, and the English treated them as their name suggests, shooing them from their ancestral homes with fire and lead. If the Indians would have seemed more cultured and intelligent to the English—basically, if they had been more Western in their ways—the English would not have treated the Native Americans the same. They would have been more diplomatic in their dealings with the natives and they would have treated them with more respect. Unfortunately for the Indians, their culture was very different from that of the English. The English mistook the Native Americans’ open, socialistic society for idiocy and naivety, instead of seeing that it helped all the Indians live in a more communal society where people were more conscious of their neighbors’ issues. Of course, the Native Americans still fought wars between the different tribes, and these wars were often bloody and full of cruelty, which contrasts the Indians’ strong sense of community.

Some people would say that the Indians simply lacked the intelligence to come up with a barter system similar to that of the Western world of the same time period, but this is an invalid point. While technologically the Native Americans were not as advanced as the Westerners—they lacked things like large ships such as the English immigrated to America in and black powder weapons—through the things they did have, it was evident they were fairly intelligent. The races of South and Central America in particular were very astrologically advanced and built the giant city Tenochtitlan, which was the largest city in the world at one point in time. The tribes and cultures of South, Central, and Northern American were quite different however, and they had very little contact with each other, so the Indians of North America were different from the Native Americans of South and Central America. The Indians of North America were less technologically advanced than those of Central and South America, but they had a rich culture. Their religious views were unique and differed from tribe to tribe, and their practices and religious ceremonies were a valuable part of the world’s culture. The Indians of North America were also unique in their relations with each other, because of the aforementioned communal trust and their ability to share their possessions and value human life over material wealth. The Native Americans of North America were some of the most communally-trusting people in history, and while they were not the most scientifically-minded people in the world, their understanding of human life and their unheard of ability to trust in the inherent goodness inside everybody was something that showed emotional wisdom lacking amongst the English.

In conclusion, the English settlers committed genocide against the Native Americans because of the way in which they dispersed the Indians and the apparent pleasure they procured from the process. The English took the Indians’ land by killing them and forcing them to flee; very rarely did they actually purchase the land from the Indians, and never was it a truly fair trade. The English additionally seemed to enjoy the suffering and violence they inflicted upon the Indians, proclaiming the day they massacred hundred of Indians was a “day of thanksgiving” (Elliff). The way the English singled out the Indians in their campaigns of murdering the people who occupied the land they wanted suggested that they wished to kill Indians specifically. Instead of planning to kill anyone they found in their way in America, the Virginia Company specifically ordered their settlers and mercenaries to kill the Indians (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey) and drive the natives from the land the English wanted. If the Englishmen would have encountered French or Spanish explorers, it is not hard to believe that the English would have been unsure about how they should deal with them. If the Virginia Company had not ordered its employees to kill the Indians specifically, then perhaps this would not have been genocide. But by singling the Indians out and enjoying the suffering they inflicted upon the Indians, the English committed genocide against the Native Americans. Works Cited Elliff, Laura. "Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre." //Republic of// //Lakotah//. Republic of Lakotah, 22 Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Jan. 2012 "Genocide." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Andrew Bailey. "The Planting of English America." The American Pageant: A History of the Republic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 30. Print. Loewen, James W. //Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History// // Textbook Got Wrong //. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print. "The National Archives Celebrates Thanksgiving." //National Archives and Records// // Administration //. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 25 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Jan. 2012.