american-holocaust

118 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTing more than "kennels." 82 And Mather's views, on this at least, werewidely shared among the colonists. The once-proud native peoples, whohad shown the English how to plant and live in the difficult environs ofNew England, were now regarded as animals, or at most, to quote oneEnglishwoman who traveled from Boston to New York in 1704, as "themost salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I have ever Seen." 83It had started with the English plagues and ended with the sword andmusket. The culmination, throughout the larger region, has been called theGreat Dispersal. Before the arrival of the English-to choose an examplefurther north from the area we have been discussing-the population ofthe western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had stood atabout 12,000. Less than half a century later approximately 250 of thesepeople remained alive, a destruction rate of 98 percent. Other examplesfrom this area tell the same dreary tale: by the middle of the seventeenthcentury, the Mahican people-92 percent destroyed; the Mohawk people-75percent destroyed; the eastern Abenaki people-78 percent destroyed;the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy people-67 percent destroyed. Andon, and on. Prior to European contact the Pocumtuck people had numberedmore than 18,000; fifty years later they were down to 920-95 percentdestroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000;fifty years later they were down to 1500-95 percent destroyed. The Massachusettpeople had numbered at least 44,000; fifty years later they weredown to barely 6000-81 percent destroyed. 84This was by mid-century. King Philip's War had not yet begun. Neitherhad the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 occurred yet. The devastationhad only started. Other wars and other scourges followed. By 1690,according to one count, the population of Norridgewock men was downto about 100; by 1726 it was down to 25. The same count showed thenumber of Androscoggin men in 1690 reduced to 160; by 1726 they weredown to 10. And finally, the Pigwacket people: by 1690 only 100 menwere left; by 1726 there were 7. These were the last ones, those who hadfled to Canada to escape the English terrors. Once hostilities died downthey were allowed to return to the fragments of their homelands that theystill could say were theirs. But they hesitated "and expressed concern,"reports a recent history of the region, "lest the English fall upon themwhile they were hunting near the Connecticut and Kennebec Rivers." 85The English-who earlier had decorated the seal of the Massachusetts BayColony with an image of a naked Indian plaintively urging the coloniststo "Come over and help us"-had taught the natives well.IIIThe European habit of indiscriminately killing women and children whenengaged in hostilities with the natives of the Americas was more than an