"The musket and the cross." Topic

I have been reading Edmonds "the musket and the cross" and these accounts certainly do not put the native Indians in a favorable light?

Is this accurate? Partially accurate, totally incorrect?

Thank you

Russ Dunaway

I have been waiting for a month for a copy of that thru interlibrary loan. It has pretty good reviews on-line.

I am finding it a slow read, but interesting.
How accurate I wonder ?

Finished it a ton of information
Very detailed and those North eastern tribes were very brutal to their weaker neighbors and the encroaching Europeans

Indeed. The Iroquois were not very highly thought of by their tribal neighbors

On a personal note, the nice little village of Medfield MA (on the banks of the Charles River about 30 miles outside of Boston), where my wife and I lived for 16 years, was the site of a bloody massacre by the Wampanoag during King Philip's War.

link

….. As usual, no white hats in this drama either.

B

There is a movie that may be of interest, called Black Robe. It is why I've never bought the native American claim they were peace loving matriarchs who loved the earth.

No disrespect intended but they were mostly Stone Age people, in some cases on the edge of entering the metal age, with a relatively narrow view of the land in which they lived, and in virtually all cases, profoundly animist in their belief systems (which isdecidedly not a criticism, just the reality on the ground at the time). Of course, they were also traders and craftspeople with remarkable skills.

Just don't try to sell me that they were any kind of angels. No way. Just like my ancestors were pretty crude at one point – and pretty violent.

Good movie, Black Robe, check it out if you can find it (if you haven't already, of course).

And it was about more than the Iroquois if memory serves, I think more focused on the Huron in modern Canada.

Yes, black Robe is a great movie.
Indeed, the narrative of the "noble red man"
-- or any man for that matter is a bit misleading it seems ?
I was not aware that the American Indian practiced cannibalism to the extent this book suggests?

Russ Dunaway