Moral Cretinism Part V

God Bless Genocide

Cultural areas in North America in 1492

On February 9, 2011 a column appeared by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association in which Bryan Fischer stated his opinion that the dispossession of the American Indians from the great majority of the U.S.A. was moral and ethical;1 the piece is an excellent example of moral idiocy. Below I will give the article in italics with my comments plain characters.

Native Americans morally disqualified themselves from the land

In all the discussions about the European settlement of the New World, one feature has been conspicuously absent: the role that the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality of Native Americans played in making them morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil.

This is from a man who believes in a literal six day creation and in miracles like the parting of the Red Sea, the flood and in demons tempting us every day. Pot calling kettle black comes to mind. Of course Mr. Fischer is merely repeating early settler propaganda that justified the dispossession of the Native Americans on grounds of “idolatry” “superstition” and because frequently their sexual morals differed from Europeans alleged sexual morality. Of course what they wanted was native land.2

International legal scholars have always recognized that sovereign control of land is legitimately transferred in at least three ways: settlement, purchase, and conquest. Europeans have to this day a legitimate claim on American soil for all three of those reasons.

Mr. Fischer seems to forget that in the present day possession of land by right of conquest is NOT recognized internationally. Also the United States specifically rejected the doctrine of conquest early on to justify the possession of land and instead relies on properly negotiated and ratified treaties.3

They established permanent settlements on the land, moving gradually from east to west, while Indian tribes remained relentlessly nomadic.

Mr. Fischer repeats a tired old myth used to justify the dispossession of the Native Americans, that they didn’t use the land “properly”. This is nonsense. Most of the inhabitants of what was to become the U.S.A. in 1492 lived in permanent villages and practiced agriculture. I suspect Mr. Fischer doesn’t know who the Moundbuilders were. This comment indicates a profound level of ignorance. However it appears that Mr. Fischer wants to repeat a hoary old piece of nonsense.4

Much of the early territory in North American that came into possession of the Europeans came into their possession when the land was purchased from local tribes, Peter Minuit's purchase of Manhattan being merely the first.

And the Europeans proved superior in battle, taking possession of contested lands through right of conquest. So in all respects, Europeans gained rightful and legal sovereign control of American soil.

As said above Mr. Fischer “forgets” or never knew, that the U.S.A. rejected the doctrine of conquest also so did the British government, (hence Canada also), relying instead on treaties to procure legal title. Of course war and conquest were a common means to obtain such treaties but the legal basis was not conquest but the treaties themselves. I should point out that Dutch settlement at New York was also characterized by atrocities and treachery by the Dutch along with the question of whether or not an actual sale of Manhattan ever took place.5

But another factor rarely discussed, and that is the moral factor. In the ancient tradition of the Hebrews, God made it clear to Abraham that the land of Canaan was promised to his descendants. But he told Abraham the transfer of land to his heirs could not happen for 400 years, for simple reason:

"[T]he iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (Gen. 15:16).

The Amorites, or Canaanite peoples, practiced moral abomination after another, whether it was incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality or child sacrifice, and God finally said "Enough!"

By the time he brought the nascent nation of Israel to the borders of the land flowing with milk and honey, he had already patient with the tribes for 400 years, waiting for them to come to the place of repentance for their socially and spiritually degrading practices. His patience was not rewarded, and finally the day came when the sin had reached its full measure. The slop bucket was full, and it was time to empty it out. Israel under Joshua was God's custodian to empty the bucket and start over.

Now we get to the real reason why Mr. Fischer seeks to justify conquest and dispossession. Mr. Fischer believes in American exceptionalism. Americans are the new “Chosen People” who have been given America for their very own by God. Of course this God knew the inhabitants would continue to sin and was waiting for the sins to pile up so they could be conquered and destroyed. Now the conquest narratives in the Torah and in The Book of Joshua are among the most disturbing passages in any religious literature. What they describe and justify is genocide. After all again and again we read about how the Israelites killed “all that breathed” and “left none alive”. Even the animals were butchered.6 In this scenario the Indian tribes of the Americas are the evil Canaanites who therefore deserved to be destroyed. In effect Mr. Fischer is saying it was right to commit genocide against the American Indians. Of course what Mr. Fischer seems to not know is that the conquest narratives are dubious history and it is more than likely that the massacres described never happened. In fact it appears that the brutal nature of the “Holy war” in these parts of Bible owes much to the polemic against other religious traditions and to the impact of Assyrian practices of making war.7 Has for the characterization of the Canaanites given the polemical nature of the account why should we accept it at face value? It is also ironic given that it appears Israel emerged within Canaan and thus the Israelites were Canaanites. Of course what Mr. Fischer is saying is that sexual immorality, and different belief systems from his are so wicked that murdering every last man women and child, including the old, the sick the helpless the pregnant and not excluding even their animals is a moral act. No doubt Mr. Fischer could have spoken a justification at the ravine at Babi Yar.8 The moral obscenity is obvious.

The American tribes at the time of the European settlement and founding of the United States were, virtually without exception, steeped in the basest forms of superstition, had guilty of savagery in warfare for hundreds of years, and practiced the most debased forms of sexuality.

Well since Mr. Fischer is totally unaware that the majority of the Indians in, what was to become the USA in 1492, lived in permanent villages and practiced agriculture his opinion about them being “steeped” in barbarism need not be taken seriously at all, given his invincible ignorance. However a few thoughts intrude. As mentioned above Mr. Fischer is a fundamentalist who believes in a 6 day creation and a man becoming God along with demon possession and sundry other dubiousness should be careful about condemning other “superstitions”. As for savagery in warfare; even the most cursory look at the history of European warfare indicates, mass slaughter, the killing of non-combatants, torture etc., existed in European warfare in abundance. Rape and slaughter of the defenceless were all too routine in European warfare. Need I mention the chevauchees of The Hundred Years War? And we get the obligatory mention of sexual sin. Genocide doesn’t bother Mr. Fischer much in fact he approves of it in cases when it involves the destruction of people who won’t accept his religion and way of life, but any deviation from our sexual moral codes should be punishable by death. In fact Mr. Fischer seems to think that believing different from him and his fundamentalist friends is a crime worthy of being punished by death. It is obvious that Mr. Fischer views religious pluralism as evil.9

One of the complaints listed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence was that King George "endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

Aside from the fact that the American revolutionaries also had Indian allies, Mr. Fischer steadfastly remains ignorant of historical facts. Jefferson was engaged in a polemic not a studied presentation of the facts. Of course it could also be mentioned that the American colonialists also waged war against the natives with great brutality and viciousness. In other words the sheer hypocrisy of the statement seems to have escaped Mr. Fischer.10

Native Americans morally disqualified themselves from the land The Lewis and Clark journals record the constant warfare between the nomadic Indian tribes on the frontier, and the implacable hostility of the Sioux Indians in particular.

The journals record the morally abhorrent practice of many Native American chiefs, who offered their own wives to the Corps of Discovery for their twisted sexual pleasure. (Regrettably, many members of the Corps, Lewis and Clark excepted, took advantage of these offers and contracted numerous and debilitating sexually transmitted diseases as a result.)

So the Indians are morally disqualified from because they fought each other. Well la-de-da. So I suppose because America and various European countries have fought each other they are morally disqualified from owning any land at all! As for the hostility of the Sioux considering what was going to happen to them not a surprise. I wonder what Mr. Fischer has to say about the “implacable” hostility of Americans for Britain in the 19th century? Does that morally disqualify the USA? People like Mr. Fischer seem to have sex on the brain. Watching him clutch his pearls is funny though. He seems to forget where the Indians got the venereal diseases from. Hint-it was from Europeans mainly. Once again we read about how dare the Natives have moral conventions different from our own. Also of course once again sexual sin is punishable by death.11

The native American tribes ultimately resisted the appeal of Christian Europeans to leave behind their superstition and occult practices for the light of Christianity and civilization. They in the end resisted every attempt to "Christianize the Savages of the Wilderness," to use George Washington's phrase.

They rejected Washington's direct counsel to the Delaware chiefs in 1779, "You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ." Thomas Jefferson three times signed legislation appropriating federal tax dollars for the evangelizing of the Native American tribes. It all came to nought, as one tribe after another rejected the offer of spiritual light and advanced civilization.

Mr. Fischer’s arrogance is rather annoying. Here he shrieks about how dare the natives have a religion different from mine. Once again he is oblivious to the superstitious, occult aspects of Christianity. (People rising from the dead by the laying of hands for example.) And of course he is utterly oblivious to the fact that the natives had their own culture which they were generally satisfied with. I further doubt that Mr. Fischer would be happy with Washington's real religious opinions.

Mr. Fischer’s deep ignorance of history is here apparent. Many natives did adopt Christianity, which did not in the end help them very much in avoiding massacre, dispossession and theft of their land. The Indians were very quick to adopt aspects of the culture of the Europeans. One thinks of the Iroquois Confederacy and Cherokee among many others. However they wanted to do it on their own terms as much as possible. The extraordinary success of the Cherokee in adopting European ways did not prevent them from being brutally uprooted in the 1830’s. Mr. Fischer quite simply doesn’t know what he is talking about; instead he mouths old style lying justifications for dispossession and genocide.12

Missionaries were murdered in cold blood, including Marcus Whitman, who was tomahawked to death in his own house in 1848 by the Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in what became the Oregon Territory.

The Indians murdered in cold blood of course deserved it after all they were heathens and “rejected” European civilization and those are crimes worthy of death. Of course it is true that native Americans did on occasion murder missionaries and that the butchering of helpless individuals is indeed an atrocity worthy of condemnation. Just how these acts abrogate Indian title to land is beyond me however. Also just why are these atrocities so damaging to Indian rights and yet similar atrocities by Europeans and those of European descent not damaging to European claims? And of course the context is missed. Mr. Fischer seems to not know that the Missionaries all too often interfered in native customs and beliefs in a way that was profoundly disturbing to the natives or that Missionaries were often used as a means to get the Indians to part with their land. The result was sometimes a volatile situation in which Missionaries got killed. None of this justifies this atrocity of course. Mr. Fischer might perhaps contemplate the thought experiment of Muslim Missionaries spreading Islam in a similar manner among modern day Americans and such preaching causing similar disruption. But of course such empathy is beyond Mr. Fischer given that in his mind the Indian is the pagan / immoral “other” deserving of death unless he converts and adopts European civilization.13

God explained to the nation of Israel that because of the "abomination(s)" of the indigenous Canaanite tribes, the land had become unclean and "vomited out its inhabitants (Lev. 18:25)."

Is this to say the same holds true for native American tribes today? In many respects, the answer is of course no. But in some senses, the answer is yes. Many of the tribal reservations today remain mired in poverty and alcoholism because many native Americans continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture.

The continued presence of native American superstition was on full display at the memorial service for the victims of the Tucson shooter, when the "invocation" (such as it was) was offered by a native American who sought inspiration from the "Seven Directions," including "Father Sky" and "Mother Earth," rather than the God of the Bible.

Mr. Fischer’s belief that genocide is the deserved faith of those who have the audacity of thinking differently from him and his fellow cultists is clear. Of course claiming that the natives by clinging to native religion and culture are responsible for serious problems is classic blame the victim. Mr. Fischer of course forgets about centuries of oppression, dispossession etc. But then Mr. Fischer forgets that what the Europeans wanted was the land and the natives were in the way and that was the reason the natives were crushed. Mr. Fischer of course also forgets that many, probably most native Americans are Christians or that they have adopted European civilization in large measure. What infuriates Mr. Fischer however is that Native Americans have not disappeared. The very existence of native Americans today infuriates him. What Mr. Fischer wants is the complete disappearance of Native Americans in other words a “Final Solution”. In other words the completion of at least cultural genocide. And Mr. Fischer wants this process of destruction to be lauded as a good, holy and wonderful series of events; just like the destruction of the Canaanites in the Bible.

I’ve already explained why Mr. Fischer’s complaints about “superstition” are arrogant and blind but this passage indicates that Mr. Fischer hates / despises and regards as evil Religious pluralism. Freedom is evil and wicked. This is Theocrat talk and Mr. Fischer quoting Jefferson, a great believer in Religious freedom earlier, is grotesque.14

Sadly, this column will likely generate a firestorm of nuclear proportions among wingers on the left rather than the thoughtful reflection the thesis deserves.

Even worse, the reaction will likely obscure the sobering lesson for today. America in 2011 is as guilty of "abominations" as the native American tribes we replaced. We have the blood of 53 million babies on our hands through abortion. We have normalized sexual immorality, adultery, and homosexuality, all horrors in the eyes of God, and are witnessing a surge in incest, pedophilia and even bestiality in our midst.

God warned the ancient nation of Israel not to lapse into the abominable practices of the native peoples "lest the land vomit you out...as it vomited out the nation that was before you" (Lev. 18:28).Time eventually ran out for the Canaanites, because they filled up the full measure of their iniquity. Time ran out for the native American tribes for the same reason.

The only question that matters today is this one: how much time does America have left to repent of its superstition, its savagery and its sexual immorality before it is too late, before we will have filled up our own slop bucket and will have morally disqualified ourselves from sovereign control of our own land?

Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time of the Founding, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." It is long past time for us once again to tremble for our country.

Regarding “thoughtful reflection”; well Mr. Fischer’s collection of bigoted, ignorant and hateful comments deserve no “thoughtful reflection”. The man is obviously deeply ignorant of American history and of the American Indian. His thoughts are the result of no-nothing malice. It is also nice to know that Mr. Fischer seems to hate freedom.

Mr. Fischer’s thesis is that the American Indians like the ancient Canaanites were destroyed because of spiritual and moral sins, (especially sexual). “Little” facts like the massive superiority of Europeans in weapons etc., or the fact the Indians were susceptible to European diseases are seemingly unknown to Mr. Fischer. Of course the greatest moral failing was not becoming Christians a crime in his eyes worthy of death. Of course given that the destruction of the Canaanites likely never happened for real at all, Mr. Fischer’s reliance on this comparison is rather ill advised. And of course Mr. Fischer “forgets” that it was not God who disposed the Indians but men who acted mainly on the motive of getting Indian land. But then saying God did it is a nice way of avoiding human responsibility.

The rant about abortion is especially risible from a man who has just said that dispossession, and genocide is in certain cases moral and good and ordered / blessed by God.

Of course Mr. Fischer finally gets to the real reason of his tirade. America is corrupt it allows all sorts of wickedness, including religions other than fundamentalist Christianity no doubt. And we get the usual dollop of sex in the whine along with abortion. Mr. Fischer is concerned that Americans will be so wicked that God will allow, nay decree that Americans must be wiped out. In order for this not happen America must adopt fundamentalist Christianity and ruthlessly suppress all “superstition”, (All non-Christian and non-fundamentalist religions), and establish a brutal theocracy and the rule of saints. Mr. Fischer hates at a fundamental level American freedom.

His last quote from Jefferson is once again risible, given that Jefferson was a secularist and not a Christian and Mr. Fischer fails to mention that Jefferson’s comment was concerning slavery a system that Fischer's Bible has very little problem with.15

Of course a firestorm did happen when Mr. Fischer published his piece of nonsense and a few days later, (February 11, 2011), he pulled the column.16 Mr. Fischer does not forget to whine though.

In the piece Mr. Fischer erects a straw man argument that if the displacement of the Native Americans was wrong then there is nothing to be proud of in American history.

If Americans believe that the entire history of our nation rests on a horribly evil foundation, then there is nothing to be proud of in American history, and our president is correct to identify America as the source of all evil in the world and to make a career out of apologizing for her very existence.

…

But saying that America was wrong here, or there, is certainly a different thing than saying that the entire American experiment is rooted in evil.17

This is nonsense. Of course his comment about President Obama can best be described as a lie. Further Mr. Fischer admits that the purpose of justifying the dispossession of the Native Americans is too make Americans feel good about their history.

If, however, there is a moral and ethical basis for our displacement of native American tribes, and if our westward expansion and settlement are in fact consistent with the laws of nature, nature’s God, and the law of nations, then Americans have much to be proud of.18

So of course the truth be damned. Given the many indications of Mr. Fischer’s ignorance it is obvious that what Mr. Fischer wants is create a mythohistory and wants disagreeable obstacles like the dispossession of the Native Americans dismissed or justified. What is remarkable is given the tenor of his argument what he wants to glorify as good and worth being “proud” of is genocide and dispossession of others. There is a word for this and it ain’t pretty.

So this is a conversation that needs to take place. But based on the reaction to my column of Tuesday, America is not mature enough right now for that robust dialogue to occur. Until it is..19.

Since Mr. Fischer is so abysmally ignorant of both early American History and American Indians and given his all too evident bigotry along with his excuse mongering for genocidal destruction it is not a surprise he got the reaction he did. A robust dialogue over an issue requires that both sides have an argument worth hearing. Mr. Fischer has said nothing worth hearing and as for maturity the hateful, intolerant ignorance of his comments shows no maturity at all.

Subsequently Mr. Fischer tried to get out from his inane comments20 but in the end he joins the ranks of the morally cretinous.

1. The column as been removed from the website and was at Here but it was in Google cache Here. It is no longer there. I have a copy which I can send to any one who requests it. For more about Bryan Fischer’s paleo-conservative views see Bryan Fischer at Wikipedia Here.

2. See Dickason, Olive P., The Myth of the Savage, The University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, 1997, pp. 5-25, Drinnon, Richard, Facing West, Schocken Books, New York, pp. 9-61, Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1975, pp. 3-57.

3. Churchill, Ward, Fantasies of the Master Race, Common Courage Press, Monroe Maine, 1992, pp. 176, Banner, Stuart, How the Indians Lost Their Land, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 2005, pp. 129-149.

4. See Nabokev, Peter, Snow, Dean, Farmers of the Woodlands, in Josephy, Alvin M., America in 1492, Vintage Books, New York, 1991, pp. 119-145, Mann, Charles C., 1491, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005, pp. 243-279, Kennedy, Roger G., Hidden Cities, Penguin Books, London, 1994, Milner, George R., The Moundbuilders, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004.

5. Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide, Arbeiter Ring Pub., Winnipeg, 1998, pp. 196-199, Jennings, Francis, The Founders of America, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1993, p. 211, Brown, Dee., Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Bantam Books, 1970, p. 4. For a good overview of the process of dispossession see Stuart. For a good overview of the Indian wars see Utley, Robert M., & Washburn, Wilcomb E., Indian Wars, Mariner Books, Boston, 2002, (Original Edition 1977). Unfortunately the book is marred by whiny introduction, (pp. v-vii), that although it doesn't use the words "politically correct" whines about it. In particular Utley whines about such "extreme" fare as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and Custer Died For Your Sins. (Many writers / Historians etc., to this day have quite a bit of animosity to both books. It is quite childish.) Such books are characterized as extreme and Utley whines about the "penduleum" swinging from one extreme to the other. And Utley isn't to happy that Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee "continues to dominate public perception". The Introduction further complains about Indian Activist Russell Means "corrupting history" and so forth. it is obvious that Utley wants the history of this time period to be dominated by even handed historians like himself. The blindness is obvious along with a dislike of activism. The idea that the "Indian" perception of the "loss" / "settling" might just be different from his simply doesn't occur to Utley. Utley also seems to miss that Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is clearly subtitled "An Indian History of the American West", it is explicitly a different point of view. Utley does of course mention that previous points of view from a "White" point of view were biased also but he neglects how his "even handed" point of view can be characterized as distorted in trying to be even handed about cultural destruction and dispossession, i.e., theft is biased by definition and from a "Indian" point of view definitely biased in favour of the settlers. Interestingly despite Utley's whiny protests the fact is his and Washburn's "evenhanded" view of the Indian Wars supports the general thrust of books like Bury My Heart of Wounded Knee because that is what any half decently objective overview of the subject would indicate anyway. I should note that Utley is a fine historian who has written excellent books including a first rate biography of Sitting Bull, The Lance and the Shield, Ballantine Books, New York, 1994. So frankly I'm a little puzzled at this little screed of an introduction.

6. See Book of Joshua, ch. 11 v. 11, for example:

And they put to the sword every living creature there, because of the ban. Not a soul was left there, and lastly Hazor was burned. (From The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday & Co. Inc., Garden City NY, 1969, p. 289).

7. Assyrian practices of war making could be very brutal and did include indiscriminate slaughter.

8. See Dever, William G., Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?, William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids MI, 2003. Babi Yar is a ravine where in September 1941 30,000+ men, women and children where butchered by German troops and the S.S.

9. Footnote 4, Churchill, 1998, pp. 129-288, Stannard, David E., American Holocaust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992, pp. 97-148, Jennings, 1975, pp. 146-170, McGlynn, Sean, By Sword and Fire, Phoenix, London, 2008.

10. IBID, See Graymont, Barbara, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY, 1972.

11. See Jennings 1993, Wilson, James, The Earth Shall Weep, Grove Press, New York, 1998.

12. IBID, Wilson, pp. 132-171, Churchill 1998, pp. 206-207, Van Every, Dale, Disinherited, Discus Books, New York, 1966, Farb, Peter, Man’s Rise to Civilization, Bantam Books, New York, 1968, pp. 267-273, Banner, pp. 190-227.

13. Wilson, pp. 93-97, Stannard, pp. 238-246, Trigger, Bruce G., The Children of Aataentsic, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 1976, pp. 665-724. Trigger's book gives an in-depth view of how one mission effort seriously disrupted one native society.

14. See Wilson, Jennings 1993, Brown, Churchill 1998, pp. 289-362 – for a specific example of present day abuse.

15. For the reasons why the Natives were vulnerable see Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1998, Stannard.

16. From Rightly Concerned Here.

17. IBID.

18. IBID.

19. IBID.

20 See Right Wing Watch Here. Fischer tries to weasel out of his comments.

In a later column Mr. Fischer talks about Pocahontas and about how wonderful it would have been if all the Indians had done as she did. (Convert and assimilate fully into English culture). See Rightly Concerned Here.

The article is one sided and distorted and shows no awareness of any modern scholarship. It ignores that in the early years of Jamestown, the settlers committed many atrocities against the natives and were in fact stealing native land also. So relations were very poor with the natives. Both sides committed atrocities but bluntly the Europeans were invading. It ignores that the Chief Powhatan made many efforts to obtain peace being sorely tested by the Europeans. His daughter’s Pocahontas’ marriage to an Englishman being one of the attempts. Mr. Fischer further forgets that the Europeans forcibly took food from the locals. All in all it is amazing that things did not go real bad right then. Mr. Fischer neglects to tell us Pocahontas died of disease in England. He also neglects to tell us that as part of the settlement involving Pocahontas the Europeans got Native Land, which was the real aim.

But of course he neglects to tell us that Pocahontas did not fully assimilate although she did convert. He further neglects to tell us that Pocahontas had been kidnapped by English Colonialists from her father and held for over a year. Mr. Fischer also neglects to mention that the English at Jamestown made little effort to convert the Indians at all. But still once again the abiding sin of the Native Americans was refusing to convert and not becoming cultural Europeans immediately. The Native Americans dared to resist the Europeans in Fischer’s eyes a crime worthy of death.

There is in Fischer’s piece the usual complaint that the Native Americans were thieves and of course the usual complaint that the Natives had different ideas about property than Europeans. Horrors! They didn’t have fences like Europeans around their fields! Of course the Natives did have ideas of property after all they were understandably infuriated that Europeans were taking their land. Of course the thievery of some natives was blamed on them all. I note that the considerable stealing from the Natives especially of food goes un-recorded by Mr. Fischer. Of course despite the 8th commandment Europeans still often stole from each other.

Of course Mr. Fischer mentions the surprise attack of 1622 which resulted in at least 347 deaths, in an attack organized by the new Indian leader Opechancanough, (Mr. Fischer does not even give us his name in his rant), who was thoroughly infuriated by the murder, without punishment by an Englishman, of the prominent Indian leader Nemattanew. This was only the last in a whole series of provocations by the colonialists. This massacre, which is what it was, has to be seen in the background of continued expansion of the settlement in contravention of treaties and in a situation of continual settler pressure on the Indians, disease epidemics, and including several outrages. The situation was deteriorating before the attack. The Indian leaders were both desperate and afraid. The surprise attack resulted from their desperation to drive the settlers out. Mr. Fischer ignores the subsequent examples of English treachery and atrocity including several horrible massacres that quite dwarfed the original one by the Indians.

The crime was of course the Indians resisting. Once again Mr. Fischer displays his ignorance and lack of knowledge. (References - Wilson, pp. 64-71, Stannard, pp. 103-110, Jennings 1975, pp. 52-55, Churchill 1998, pp. 162-168, Utley et al, pp. 13-21, Pocahontas at Wikipedia, Here.)

Pierre Cloutier