american-holocaust

106 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTbegin to murmur becawse the quene and her Children weare spared." Thisseemed a reasonable complaint to Percy, so he called a council togetherand "it was Agreed upon to putt the Children to deathe the which waseffected by Throweinge them overboard shoteinge owtt their Braynes inthe water." Upon his return to Jamestown, however, Percy was informedthat Governor De la Warr was unhappy with him because he had not yetkilled the queen. Advised by his chief lieutenant that it would be best toburn her alive, Percy decided instead to end his day of "so mutche Bloodshedd"with a final act of mercy: instead of burning her, he had the queenquickly killed by stabbing her to death. 35From this point on there would be no peace in Virginia. Indians whocame to the English settlements with food for the British (who seemednever able to feed themselves) were captured, accused of being spies, andexecuted. On other occasions Indians were enticed into visiting the settlementson the pretence of peace and the sharing of entertainment, whereuponthey were attacked by the English and killed. Peace treaties weresigned with every intention to violate them: when the Indians "grow secureuppon the treatie," advised the Council of State in Virginia, "we shallhave the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theireCorne." And when at last the Indians retaliated strongly, killing more thanthree hundred settlers, the attack, writes Edmund S. Morgan, "released allrestraints that the company had hitherto imposed on those who thirstedfor the destruction or enslavement of the Indians." 36 Not that the restraintshad ever been particularly confining, but from now on the onlycontroversy was over whether it was preferable to kill all the native peoplesor to enslave them. Either way, the point was to seize upon the "rightof Warre [and] invade the Country and destroy them who sought to destroyus," wrote a rejoicing Edward Waterhouse at the time, "wherebywee shall enjoy their cultivated places ... [and] theiP- cleared grounds inall their villages (which are situate in the fruitfullest places of the land)shall be inhabited by us." 37Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Otherhundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunteddown by dogs, "blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seazethem." Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages andagricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were acceptedby the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulledthe natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack. It wasthe colonists' expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted"out from being longer a people uppon the face of the earth." In a singleraid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people fora year. Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming thepreferred British approach to dealing with the natives. By the end of the