Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Village

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Village of Pomeiooc  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Native Peoples from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware to 1680

1590 North American Atlantic Coast Natives by John White (c1540 – c1593). The village of Pomeiooc (Pomeiock) was a Native America settlement, designated on de Bry’s map of Virginia, Americae Pars Nunc Virginia Dicta, between today’s Wyesocking Bay & Lake Landing, North Carolina. John White designates the settlement as Pomeyoo.

Native Peoples from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware to 1680

By Jean R. Soderlund For The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia & Rutgers University

Native Americans lived in what became southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, & northern Delaware for more than 10,000 years before the arrival of Europeans in the early seventeenth century. By emphasizing peace & trade, the Lenapes retained their sovereignty & power through 1680, unlike native peoples in New England & Virginia who suffered disastrous conflicts with the colonists. Before William Penn founded Pennsylvania, the Lenapes & their allies among the Swedish, Finnish, & Dutch settlers created a society based on the ideals of peace, individual freedom, & inclusion of people of different beliefs & backgrounds.

The first Americans settled in the region as glaciers gradually receded in North America at the end of the last ice age. Because of the accumulation of ice, the Atlantic seashore was located more than sixty miles to the east of its present location. As the glaciers melted, the ocean level rose, submerging evidence of early communities along the coast. Archaeological data about the people inhabiting the lower Delaware Valley from this early era through the Woodland Period (c. 1000 B.C. to 1600 A.D.) indicate significant continuity over thousands of years. The Lenapes, like their ancestors, relied upon hunting, fishing, gathering, and—in the later years—small-scale agriculture. They lived in small autonomous towns without palisades, suggesting they kept mostly at peace with their neighbors & more-distant nations.

Isolation of the Lower Delaware Valley

For centuries the natives of the lower Delaware Valley remained isolated from other parts of the Americas, including the peoples of the Ohio & Mississippi Valleys who built agricultural civilizations based on the “three sisters”: corn, beans, & squash. These crops complemented one another in cultivation & providing humans a nutritious diet. The geography of Pennsylvania, particularly the north-south orientation of the Susquehanna & Delaware Rivers, limited interaction of Delaware Valley natives with the Mississippians who built cities, tall burial mounds, & stratified societies in the interior of the continent. Though the Lenapes raised corn, beans, & squash by the time the Europeans came, the natives took advantage of the abundance of game animals, fish, shellfish, berries, wild rice, & other foods rather than engage in large-scale agriculture.

The Lenape people included groups such as the Armewamese, Cohanseys, Mantes, & Sickoneysincks, who built towns along tributaries of the Delaware River & on the Atlantic seacoast near Delaware Bay. They spoke Unami, an Algonquian language similar to the dialects of their allies the Munsees, who controlled the region to the north up into southern New York, & the Nanticokes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The Lenapes’ neighbors to the west were the Susquehannocks, an Iroquoian people of the Susquehanna Valley.

The size of the precontact Delaware Valley population is unknown because European sailors & fishermen brought pathogens even before the Dutch arrived. Colonization of Europeans in North America had a devastating impact on the Lenapes & other natives because they lacked immunity to smallpox, influenza, measles, & other diseases. In 1600 the Lenapes numbered an estimated 7,500; by the 1650s their population decreased to about 4,000, & to about 3,000 by 1670. The Lenapes’ population decline was not as severe in the 1600s as among some other groups whose numbers dropped by ninety percent or more. The Lenapes’ success in avoiding war during most of the 17C contributed to their strength & continued sovereignty over their land.

Lenape Gender Roles

The Lenapes divided work on the basis of gender: Women raised crops, gathered nuts & fruit, built houses, made clothing & furniture, took care of the children, & prepared meals, while men cleared land, hunted, fished, & protected the town from enemies.  Native women held an equivalent status with men in their families & society; parents extended freedom to their children as well, practicing flexible, affectionate child-rearing.

During the 17C, the Lenapes’ sociopolitical structure appears to have been democratic, egalitarian, & based on matrilineal kinship groups, with descent through the mother’s line. The heads of kinship groups chose the group’s leader, or sachem, who held authority by following the people’s will. With advice, the sachem assigned fields for planting & made decisions on hunting, trade, diplomacy, & war.

In religion, existing evidence suggests that the Lenapes believed the earth & sky formed a spiritual realm of which they were a part, not the masters. Spirits inhabited the natural world & could be found in plants, animals, rocks, or clouds. Natives could obtain a personal relationship with a spirit, or manitou, who would provide help & counsel to the individual throughout his or her life. Lenapes also believed in a Master Spirit or Creator, who was all-powerful & all-knowing, but whose presence was rarely felt.

When Dutch explorers entered the Delaware River about 1615, the Lenapes welcomed their trade. In 1624, they granted permission for a short-lived settlement on Burlington Island & in 1626 allowed construction of Fort Nassau across the river from the future site of Philadelphia. The natives & colonists developed a trade jargon based on Unami that became standard trade language throughout the region.

Keeping Old Ways, Adopting New

The Lenapes retained their autonomy & traditional ways of life while selectively adopting new technology from the Europeans.  Native women & men appreciated the convenience of woolen cloth, firearms, & metal tools, incorporating them into their culture but not abandoning their traditional economic cycle of hunting, fishing, gathering, & agriculture.

The Dutch trade precipitated war between the Lenapes & Susquehannocks from 1626 to 1636 because the Susquehannocks sought to control the Delaware River. They killed many Lenapes & pushed them from the west to east bank, burning towns & crops. The Lenapes fought back, eager to trade for European cloth, guns, & metal goods in exchange for beaver, otter, & other furs. While these local pelts were thinner because of milder mid-Atlantic winters than those the Susquehannocks obtained from central Canada through the continental fur trade, the Lenapes had a successful market with the Dutch. The war ended by about 1636 when a truce, which developed into an alliance, permitted both the Lenapes & Susquehannocks to trade in the region.

In 1631, violence flared when wealthy Dutch investors started a plantation called Swanendael near present-day Lewes, Delaware, at the mouth of Delaware Bay. It seemed to Lenapes that the Dutch were shifting their priorities from trade to plantation agriculture similar to the English colonists in Virginia who murdered natives & expropriated land. The Sickoneysincks, the Lenape group near Cape Henlopen, destroyed Swanendael, killing its thirty-two residents. When Dutch captain David de Vries (1593-1655) arrived in early 1632, he made peace & reestablished trade with the Sickoneysincks.

Over the next half century, Lenapes controlled the lower Delaware Valley, accepting European trade goods in exchange for small parcels of land for forts & farms, but not plantation colonies. With the attack on Swanendael & its memory, the Lenapes restricted European settlement. In 1670, just 850 Europeans lived in the lower Delaware Valley compared with 52,000 in New England, 41,000 in Virginia & Maryland, & 6,700 in New York & eastern New Jersey. With an estimated population of 3,000 in 1670, the Lenapes remained more numerous & powerful than the Europeans.

New Sweden Established

A color painting of a man wearing black clothing with a white undershirt. The man has long hair & is looking off to the right side of the image.
Johan Printz, the third governor of New Sweden, almost lost his colony due to his governing style & the colony’s limited ability to trade gods with the Lenapes.(Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

Seven years after Swanendael, in 1638, the Lenapes permitted a small group of Swedish, Finnish, & Dutch colonists to establish New Sweden at the location of current Wilmington, Delaware. Lenapes & Susquehannocks traded with New Sweden & the Dutch mariners who continued to frequent the river. While the Europeans fought each other over trade & land, the Lenapes dominated the region. In the mid-1640s they nearly evicted the Swedes because of their lack of trade goods & the bellicose posturing of their governor Johan Printz (1592-1663). Relations improved by 1654 when Naaman & other sachems concluded a treaty with the new Swedish governor, Johan Risingh (c. 1617-72), in which each side promised to warn the other if they heard of impending attack by another nation. They also pledged to discuss problems such as assaults & murders, stray livestock, & land theft before going to war.

By the 1650s, many of the Armewamese group of Lenapes lived adjacent to the Swedes & Finns in the area that became Philadelphia, a locale the Swedish engineer Peter Lindeström (d. 1691) praised for its beauty, freshwater springs, multitude of fruit trees, & many kinds of animals. Lindeström identified six towns from the Delaware to the falls of the Schuylkill that the Armewamese built to be near the terminus of the Susquehannock trade. The Lenapes also sold corn as a cash crop to New Sweden when its supplies ran short.

After the Dutch conquered New Sweden in 1655, the Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns solidified their alliance to resist heavy-handed Dutch authority. The Lenapes warned the Swedes of the Dutch assault; their Susquehannock & Munsee allies attacked Manhattan, forcing Director Peter Stuyvesant (d. 1672) & his troops to withdraw from the Delaware Valley.  While the Dutch claimed the region, the Lenapes ruled their country in alliance with the Munsees, Susquehannocks, Swedes, & Finns.

With the English conquest of the Dutch colony in 1664, the alliance of Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns remained firm as together they resisted English efforts, under the Duke of York, to impose their power & expropriate land. In the late 1660s, the Armewamese left their towns where Philadelphia now stands, migrating to join the Mantes & Cohansey communities in New Jersey. Though it is unclear whether settlers forced out the Armewamese or they left voluntarily, their relocation moved the center of Lenape population & power across the river.

In 1675-76, the alliance of Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns helped Lenape country escape the horrors of war similar to Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia & King Philip’s War in New England. Through shared economic goals & common values of peace, individual freedom, & openness to people of different cultures, the Lenapes & their European allies established the ideals of Delaware Valley society before William Penn received his land grant for Pennsylvania in 1681.

Jean R. Soderlund is a Professor of History at Lehigh University & author of Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn.

See:
Dahlgren, Stellan, & Hans Norman. The Rise & Fall of New Sweden: Governor Johan Risingh’s Journal 1654-1655 in Its Historical Context. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1988.

Fur, Gunlög. Colonialism in the Margins: Cultural Encounters in New Sweden & Lapland. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Grumet, Robert S. The Munsee Indians: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.

Jennings, Francis. “Glory, Death, & Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 112 (February 15, 1968): 15-53.

Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage: 10,000 B.C. – A.D. 2000. Lenape Books, 2001.

Lindeström, Peter. Geographia Americae with an Account of the Delaware Indians Based on Surveys & Notes Made in 1654-1656. Translated & edited by Amandus Johnson. Philadelphia: Swedish Colonial Society, 1925.

Richter, Daniel K. “The First Pennsylvanians.” In Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, edited by Randall M. Miller & William Pencak, 3-46. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press & the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, 2002.

Schutt, Amy C. Peoples of the River Valleys: The Odyssey of the Delaware Indians. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

Soderlund, Jean R. Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Stewart, R. Michael. “American Indian Archaeology of the Historic Period in the Delaware Valley.” In Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600-1850, edited by Richard Veit & David Orr, 1-48. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Elders or Chiefs

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Elder or Chief  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1492 Native Americans Treaties before The American Revolution

Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820) Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (detail), 1771–1772.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

Before Europeans came to North America, Native people governed themselves and maintained diplomatic relations with one another. Native Americans usually were members of independent, or sovereign, nations that negotiated government-to-government agreements—like treaties—with one another over trade, hunting, and other issues of mutual concern.  Tribes practiced diplomacy with one another to settle conflicts or permit entry into their homelands. Diplomatic relations were accompanied by strict protocols and thorough negotiations. In songs, dances, feasts, and speeches, past wrongs were set aside and hopes for future goodwill were expressed. Only then would discussions begin. Agreements were sometimes sanctified by ceremonies that created family connections. Some treaty-making failed & warfare could ensue.

When Europeans arrived in America, they made alliances with the Native American nations they encountered. To acquire land and establish peace and friendship, French and British colonial officials negotiated written agreements with leaders of tribal nations. For American Indians, the spoken word was sacred. People were expected to honor agreements, the details of which were passed down over generations through mnemonic (memory) devices such as birch bark scrolls and wampum belts. After the American Revolution, the law of the land was “All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby. “  — United States Constitution, article VI, clause 2

Native Americans Treaties were the means that Europeans & Americans used to secure alliances with, & most often acquire land from, Native Americans. Historians disagree about the number of treaties negotiated between European powers & the United States between 1492 & the end of the formal treaty-making period in 1871. Because municipalities, companies, & state & national governments all made treaties, the number may well be in the thousands.

After Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for Spain in 1492, Spanish explorers & conquistadors used the Caribbean as a base from which to explore North & South America. At first, conquistadors ruthlessly took land from Native Americans, whom they considered heathen or subhuman. By the 1540s, however, Spanish cleric Francisco de Vitoria was already trying to convince the Spanish Crown & its explorers that Indians were indeed human, & thus Spain should treat them with respect rather than take land by conquest. Vitoria succeeded. As friars began to supersede conquistadors on the frontier of New Spain in an attempt to Christianize Native Americans, they introduced a treaty system.

Other nations followed suit. France, less interested in planting permanent colonies but eager to establish a footing in North America, negotiated agreements with native groups that enabled them to fish & trade in peace. Over time, French colonial officials & priests used treaties to secure an extensive web of relationships that guarded the western borders of their North American domain & ensured access to the rich fur trade of the Great Lakes region.

The Dutch used treaties. Like the French, Dutch traders forged agreements with local tribes to gain access to the western fur trade. Settlers in the lower Hudson valley also purchased land & the rights to certain hunting areas with trade goods.

English settlers tried warfare & brutality to cow Native Americans. The English at Jamestown, Virginia, tried to negotiate treaties with local tribes, even attempting at one point to "crown" Powhatan, the leader of a Chesapeake Confederacy, "king" of the Indians (Powhatan Confederacy). Powhatan's own ambitions & the Englishmen's ongoing desire for new farmlands under-mined these efforts, however. The parties maintained a fragile peace during Powhatan's lifetime (a peace sealed with the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas to an English planter), but after his death the chief's brother, Opechancanugh, reignited warfare with the English.

In New England, Pilgrim settlers on Cape Cod negotiated informal agreements with local Wampanoags that allowed them to settle at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Their Puritan brethren followed a similar path when they settled in Boston in 1630. Eventually, however, the English crowded members of the Nipmuck, Narragansett, & Wampanoag tribes onto reservations in Massachusetts. In 1675 the Wampanoag leader Metacomet, known to the English as King Philip, launched a war against the Puritans. Metacomet led warriors from all three groups against the English in the two-year struggle. Puritans won, but only after losing one-sixth of their male population. Ironically, while the English victory meant the end of an era of peaceful treaty making, it was made possible by the assistance of Hudson valley groups who refused to come to Philip's assistance because of their treaty commitments to the British.

During the eighteenth century, the strength of Native American confederacies, imperial threats from other nations, & a renewed interest in empire & mercantilism by the Crown (joint-stock companies had arranged early English settlements with little or no interest from the Crown) convinced England to rely more on diplomacy & treaties in relations with Native Americans. King George's War (1744–1748), which saw England & France vying for control of the Ohio River valley (and subsequently North America), was an example.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended King George's War, but in truth it decided nothing. Both France & England jockeyed for position in preparation for renewed warfare. Native Americans, however, did not understand military truces, for once they proclaimed themselves enemies of another they intended to stay that way. French colonists capitalized on that confusion in an attempt to draw some of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, & Mohawks who had earlier laid claim to the Ohio valley) away from their ally, England. To the south, at the mouth of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, French agents scored treaties with Creeks, Chickasaws, & some Cherokees.

Pennsylvania traders, led by George Croghan, realized that the British Navy had so devastated French trade routes that French Native American allies could not get the trade goods they wanted. In August 1748, Croghan & fellow traders signed the Treaty of Logstown with leaders of the Delawares, Shawnees, Iroquois, & Wyandotte Native Americans. It established a perpetual trade & defensive alliance between England & the Native Americans.

In the French & Native American War (1754–1763), the last of the great wars for the British Empire, the Iroquois Confederacy remained allied with England but did little in the way of fighting against France. The confederacy did not want to be enemies with France if France won the war. British victory in 1763 saw a deterioration in relations with the confederacy, which itself became plagued with infighting.

Upon taking control of all of North America to the Mississippi River, England encountered more trouble with former French-allied Native Americans. In 1763 on the upper Ohio, an Ottawa chief named Pontiac & an alliance of Native Americans attacked Americans (still British subjects) headed west. British soldiers put down Pontiac's rebellion, but England realized it had to conduct aggressive diplomacy with western Native Americans to make the region safe for settlement.

Parliament passed the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited Americans from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. The proclamation would enable Parliament to both control land dispersal & establish treaties with Native Americans before Americans took the land.

The spread of Americans to the West scared Native Americans. In an attempt to create a permanent boundary between whites & Native Americans, William Johnson, the English Native American commissioner for the North, & John Stuart, an agent in the South, treated with the Iroquois Nations in 1768. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix negotiated such a line, but failed to halt the westward white movement.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Charnel House

 1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Charnel House

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Massacres between Native Americans & Spanish Colonizers

Christopher Columbus' Soldiers Chopping the Hands off of Arawak Indians who Failed to Meet the Mining Quota in Bartolomé de Las Casas's

Hispaniola Pacification Campaign
In March 1495, in Hispaniola Christopher Columbus led first organized slaughter of native Americans to “pacify” them in order to enact his hand-amputating, gold-acquiring “tribute system.”

Xaraguá Massacre
In 1503 in Xaraguá, Hispaniola, the governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, led expedition to “improve relations” with remaining unconquered Native Americans of the island and, in a surprise attack on their hosts, they slaughtered hundreds of leaders of southwestern Hispaniola.

Cuba Expedition under Diego Velázquez
In 1511, as gold & slaves ran low on Hispaniola, a Spanish expedition to Cuba pursued the Native American survivors of the 1503 Xaraguá Massacre & slaughtered native Cubans along the way.

Pacra Massacre
In 1513, in Pacra, Panama, during a Spanish expedition to discover Pacific Ocean, Native Americans staged a night attack on sleeping village.  Forty men fed to the Spaniards’ dogs for the crime of “dressing like women.”

Tlaxcalan Massacre
In 1519, on way to Tenochtitlán, Cortes’s invasion encounters Tlaxcala Native Americans, who fiercely resist the Spaniards.  After Cortex's men burned ten towns & slaughtered thousands of Native Americans, the Tlaxcalans surrendered & became Cortes’s most significant ally against the Aztecs.

Cholula Massacre
In 1519, on way to Aztec capital, Hernan Cortes reported in his Second Letter to King Charles of Spain, Letters from Mexico, that he visited religious center of Cholula, Mexico & slaughtered the Native Americans of the city whom he accused of “plotting” against him.

Huitzilopochtli Festival Massacre
In 1520, in Tenochtitlan, Mexico, while Cortes was away battling other Spaniards, Pedro Alvarado led massacre during a Native American Huitzilopochtli festival, justifying it by accusing the Native Americans of “plotting” against the Spaniards.

Post-siege Massacre of Tenochtitlan
In 1521, After the successful siege & destruction of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, the Aztec capital city, most of the city’s Native Americans were put to death.

Cajas Massacre
In 1532, after raping several hundred nuns of the Temple of the Sun, Hernando de Soto’s men slaughtered the angry Native American residents of Cajas.

Cajamarca, Massacre
In 1532, in Cajamarca, Ecuador, in surprise attack, killing 3,000 unarmed Native Americans, Pizarro’s expedition captured the Incan sovereign, Atahualpa.

Napituca Massacre
In 1539, in Napituca, Florida, after defeating resisting Timucuan Native American warriors, Hernando de Soto had 200 of them executed, in the first large-scale massacre by Europeans on what became American soil.

Mabila Massacre
In 1540, The Choctaw retaliated against Hernando de Soto's expedition, killing 200 soldiers, as well as many of their horses and pigs, for their having burned down Mabila compound and killed c. 2,500 warriors who had hidden in houses of a fake village.

Tiguex Massacres
Between 1540-1541, after the invading Spaniards seized the houses, food & clothing of the Tiguex Native Americans in Mexico, & raped their women, the Tiguex resisted, which led to a Spanish attack that burned 50 Native Americans at the stake who had surrendered.  Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s men then laid siege to the Moho Pueblo, & after a months-long siege, they slaughtered 200 fleeing Native American warriors.

Mabila Massacre
In 1540, in Mabila, Alabama, Hernando de Soto’s expedition burned palisaded Native American town of Mabila.

Acoma Massacre
In 1598, in retaliation for the killing of 11 Spanish soldiers, Juan de Oñate led punitive expedition to slaughter the Native Americans at the Acoma mesa.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Two Women

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Woman  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1300s Crow Creek Massacre in the South Dakota area

The Crow Creek Massacre occurred around the mid 1300s AD between Native American groups at a site along the Missouri River in the South Dakota area; it is now within the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. Two groups occupied the site in prehistoric times. The Siouan-speaking Middle Missouri people, ancestral to the historic Mandan people, 1st occupied the site sometime after about 900 AD. They built numerous earth lodges on the lower portion of the site. Caddoan-speaking Central Plains people (Initial Coalescent variant) moved into the area from southern areas (present-day Nebraska) sometime around 1150 AD. (The historic Arikara are a Caddoan people.) Whether they displaced the earlier group or moved onto an abandoned site is unknown. The Central Plains (Initial Coalescent) people built at least 55 lodges, mostly on the upper part of the site.

There is evidence that the Central Plains/Initial Coalescent villagers built well-planned defensive works for their village. They were replacing an earlier dry moat fortification with a new fortification ditch around the expanded village when an attack occurred that resulted in the massacre. The attacking group killed all the villagers. In 1978 state archaeologists found the remains of at least 486 people killed during the attack. Most of these remains showed signs of ritual mutilation, particularly scalping. Other examples were tongues being removed, teeth broken, beheading, hands & feet being cut off, & other forms of dismemberment. In addition to the severity of the attack, most of the people showed signs of malnutrition & many had evidence of being wounded in other attacks. Scholars have theorized that the people were attacked by another group or several groups of the Initial Coalescent culture in the area in competition for arable land & resources.

Scalping & Mutilation
Many of the bodies are missing limbs; the attackers may have taken them as trophies, scavenger animals or birds may have carried them away, or some limbs may have been left unburied in the Crow Creek village. Investigators state that "they had been killed, mutilated, & scavenged before being buried." Tongue removal, decapitation, & dismemberment of the Crow Creek victims occured, In addition, scalping was performed, bodies were burned, & there is evidence of limbs being removed by various means. A conservative estimate of villagers who suffered scalping is 90%, but it could have been as high as 100%. This is based on skeletal remains that exhibit cuts on their skulls indicative of scalping. Men, women, & children were scalped.

Nutritional deficiencies
The villagers' skeletal remains provide evidence of extensive nutritional deficiencies of a chronic nature. The Crow Creek villagers were measured as being shorter than their Arikara descendants, with the females being significantly shorter; this could have been another effect of nutritional deficiencies & illness. The severe conditions faced by the Crow Creek villagers were not short term. Based on the evidence of "active & organizing subperiostial hematomas along with the other bony alterations" found while examining remains, the villagers had long suffered malnutrition, in repeated episodes thought due to the unstable climate & drought reducing crops & food supplies. The presence of animal bones within the fortification ditch suggests that villagers ate their dogs because of hunger.

Signs of previous warfare
The skeletal remains of the villagers also showed evidence of earlier wounds. Evidence of previous warfare is present in the skeletal remains of victims found in the mass burial. Two individuals had survived previous scalping incidents, & were in the process of healing, which was indicated by the bony re-growth of their skulls; a third individual had survived a head injury as indicated by "a healed depressed fracture in the frontal." Others showed evidence of being wounded by arrows, the points of which remained in the legs & were overgrown by bone.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Cooking Fish

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Cooking Fish  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - A Conjurer

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Conjurer  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1599 Acoma Tribe Massacre

In 1599, as retaliation for the killing of 11 Spanish soldiers, Juan de Oñate led punitive expedition to slaughter the natives at the Acoma mesa.

1599 Acoma Tribe Massacre

In the late 1500s, the Spanish began their conquest of the Pueblo people in northern New Spain & in 1595 the conquistador Don Juan de Oñate was granted permission from King Philip II to colonize Santa Fe de Nuevo México, the present-day New Mexico. Relations between the Spanish & the Acoma people had been mostly peaceful for several decades after the 2 groups first came into contact around 1540.

In 1598, the Acoma leader, Zutacapan, learned that the Spanish intended to conquer Acoma Pueblo. Initially, the natives planned to defend themselves; however, their belief that the Spanish were immortal & their knowledge of Spanish atrocities committed in the past led the Acoma to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict. Accordingly, Don Oñate sent his nephew, Captain Juan de Zaldívar, to the pueblo to consult with Zutacapan. When Zaldivar arrived on December 4, 1598, one of the first things he did was to take 15 of his men up the mesa on which the pueblo was located to demand food from the natives. After being denied the food they had demanded, the Spaniards allegedly attacked some Acoma women. A fight ensued, leaving Zaldivar & eleven of his men dead.

When Oñate learned of the incident, he ordered Juan de Zaldivar's brother, Vicente de Zaldívar, to lead an expedition to punish the Acoma & set an example for other pueblos. Taking about 70 men, Vincente de Zaldivar left San Juan Pueblo in late December or early January & arrived at Acoma Pueblo on January 21, 1599.

The battle began the following morning, January 22. For the first 2 days the Spanish & Acoma skirmished inconclusively until Zaldívar developed a plan to breach the pueblo using a small cannon. On the third day, Zaldívar & 12 of his men ascended the mesa & opened fire on the pueblo with the cannon. After some time, several Acoma homes caught on fire & were destroyed while the conquistadors stormed through the settlement. There were an estimated 6,000 natives living at or around the Acoma Pueblo in 1599, at least 2,000 of whom were warriors. Of the 2,000, about 500 were killed in the battle, along with about 300 women & children. Some 500 prisoners were taken & later sentenced to a variety of punishments. Don Oñate ordered that every male above the age of 25 would have his right foot cut off & be enslaved for a period of 20 years. However, only 24 men actually received amputations. Males between the age of 12 & 25 were also enslaved for 20 years along with all of the females above the age of 12. Many of these natives were dispersed among the residences of government officials or at Franciscan missions. Sixty of the youngest women were deemed not guilty & sent to Mexico City where they were "parceled out among Catholic convents". Two Hopi men were taken prisoner at the pueblo; after each had one of his hands cut off, they were released to spread the word of Spain's resolve.

When King Philip heard the news of the massacre, & the punishments, Don Oñate was banished from New Mexico for his cruelty towards the natives & later returned to Spain to live out the remainder of his life. Several Acomas escaped capture by the Spanish in 1599 & by 1601 they had rebuilt their pueblo, which still stands.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Aged Man

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Aged Native American Man  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1100 The Acoma Nation & its Mesa-Top Pueblo

1846 Print of the Acoma Pueblo

The Acoma Nation & its Mesa-Top Pueblo
US National Park Service 

Set within the vast desert of northern New Mexico, a massive, 357-foot tall mesa stands proud. Known as Acoma Rock, the craggy, flat-topped mountain is home to Acoma, a National Historic Landmark, & one of the oldest continuously occupied communities in what is now the United States. The pueblo’s lofty, isolated location made it virtually impenetrable throughout the precontact period, which allowed the village & its people to flourish & develop distinct cultural traditions.

Founded as early as 1100 A.D & evolving throughout the centuries, Acoma illustrates the significance of early native peoples in New Mexico & the profound influence of Spanish culture in the Southwest beginning in the 16th century. The pueblo is home to the San Esteban del Rey Mission Church, which the Spanish Franciscan friars built in the early 1600s. The mission is the oldest surviving European church in New Mexico & an impressively large, stately presence among Acoma Pueblo’s adobe homes. The pueblo illustrates the amalgamation of European & Native cultures in New Mexico & helps illuminate the history of Spanish contact & interaction with the ancient peoples of the United States.

Opinions differ on the age of the Acoma Nation & its mesa-top pueblo. Traditional Acoma oral history tells of an ancient city far older than our imaginations & current calendars can comprehend. “Acoma” itself translates in local dialects to a “place that always was” & legend tells that the Acoma people have lived on the mesa forever. 

Scientific, historical & archeological evidence dates the Pueblo’s oldest extant remains to around 1100 A.D. & suggests that the Acoma people likely lived in the desert surrounding the mesa during earlier times & at some point decided to scale the massive rock & move their village to the top. An extensive archeological survey of the pueblo in the 1950s revealed the ancient people to be prolific potters, & skilled artisans & architects.

In the early 1500s, Viceroy of New Spain Antonio de Mendoza called for the first explorations into the lands north of Spain’s holdings at the time, which are now in modern-day Mexico. Rumors flew of vast cities of gold & incredible riches waiting for the Spanish Crown to claim them. Throughout the 16th & 17th centuries, many expeditions traveled into present-day Arizona & New Mexico. Even though Acoma sat isolated on its mesa, several Spanish explorers visited it, including Hernando de Alvarado in 1540 (a member of the Francisco Vásquez de Coronado mission), the Chamuscado-Rodriguez expedition in 1581, Antonio de Espejo in 1583, & Juan de Oñate in 1598.

Early Spanish reports indicate that the pueblo was a village of roughly 500 three or four stories tall adobe houses. Windows were small & limited & doors at the ground level did not exist. Instead, residents entered buildings via ladders placed through holes in the roof. At the time, the only way to the mesa’s top was a series of hand & toeholds carved into the steep rock. The people had to carry all of the materials used to construct the original community up the cliffs on their backs.

Because of its location, Acoma was one of the most resistant pueblos to Spanish rule. During early Spanish contact, reports indicate that the Acoma were friendly, often meeting expedition parties at the bottom of the mesa to greet & assist them. As time moved on & the Spanish presence became more & more persistent, however, the Acoma retaliated. In December 1598, residents lured Captain Juan de Zaldívar, one of Oñate's officers, into the pueblo & murdered him & 14 of his men. This had dire consequences for the village two months later when Zaldívar’s brother arrived with a force of 70 Spanish soldiers to avenge the deaths. A bitter battle resulted in the sacking & burning of much of the pueblo & the death of approximately 1,500 residents. The Spanish forced those who remained to surrender the pueblo to the Spanish. Oñate himself demanded sentencing survivors to indentured servitude & bodily mutilation. Oñate’s harsh & unfair treatment of the Acoma people would later lead to his legal expulsion from New Mexico & Mexico City.

With the rebuilding of the pueblo under Spanish rule in the early 1600s, missionary efforts began to convert the Acoma to Catholicism & Spanish ways of life. Still, strong resistance remained among the natives, & the Spanish did not have a mission church constructed until the late 1620s.  Although earlier priests visited the pueblo, Father Juan Ramirez is noteworthy as the first permanent Franciscan father to live in Acoma. It is likely that he began the building of San Esteban del Rey Mission Church upon his arrival in 1629, but the exact dates of its construction are unknown. The huge church, which still stands today, is an impressive work of architecture – especially considering that native workers had to carry all of its materials up the mountain. These materials included the church’s 40-foot long roof beams, originally hewn in the San Mateo Mountains, 30 miles away.

The church is simple in plan, with a long nave & a polygonal sanctuary at its western end. Its exterior is impressively tall due to battered walls that are up to seven-feet high from the base, tapering up to a mere 30 inches at their peak. Two square bell towers flank the main façade & contain bells brought from Mexico during the 1800s. A one-story convento sits along the north side of the church & once housed living space, workrooms, & storage for the father & friars who were in residence. A large cemetery surrounded by a low wall sits in front of the church & contains the remains of both native & Spanish residents from throughout the centuries.

During the 1600s, tensions remained high between the Spanish & native peoples throughout the Southwest. Most of the conflict centered on religious disagreements, & in 1680, many villages, including Acoma, took part in a large pueblo rebellion. The rebellion resulted in the death of several hundred Franciscan fathers, the destruction of many churches, & the death or banishment from pueblo towns of many Spanish residents. Acoma’s priest, Fray Lucas Maldonado, & the other Spaniards living in the pueblo did not survive the rebellion, but San Esteban del Rey Mission Church remained largely unharmed. It has continued to serve Acoma’s Catholic residents since Spanish re-conquest of Acoma Pueblo in 1699.  

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Man & Woman Cooking in a Pot

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598  Cooking in a Pot  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1590 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1598 Native American Hopi Nation

Juan de Oñate (c 1550–1626)

On November 15, 1598, Juan de Oñate declared possession of Hopi land (in what is now northern Arizona) in the name of the Spanish crown. Four hundred years later, the Hopi have still never signed any treaty with any non-Indian nation.

Juan de Oñate
By Gerald F. Kozlowski for the Texas State Historical Association

Juan de Oñate (ca. 1550–1626), explorer & founder of the first European settlements in the upper Rio Grande valley of New Mexico, son of Cristóbal de Oñate & Catalina de Salazar, was born around 1550, most likely in the frontier settlement of Zacatecas, Mexico. His father was a prominent Zacatecas mine owner & encomendero. In his early twenties Oñate was leading campaigns against the unsubdued Chichimec Indians along the turbulent northern frontier around Zacatecas & prospecting for silver. He aided the establishment of missions in the newly conquered territory. He married Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Moctezuma, a descendant of the famous conquistador Hernán Cortés & the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. They had a son & a daughter.

On September 21, 1595, Oñate was awarded a contract by King Philip II of Spain to settle New Mexico. Spreading Catholicism was a primary objective, but many colonists enlisted in hopes of finding a new silver strike. After many delays Oñate began the entrada in early 1598. He forded the Rio Grande at the famous crossing point of El Paso del Norte, which he discovered in May 1598, after making a formal declaration of possession of New Mexico on April 30 of that year. By late May he had made contact with the first of the many pueblos of the northern Rio Grande valley. In July 1598 he established the headquarters of the New Mexico colony at San Juan pueblo, thus effectively extending the Camino Real by more than 600 miles. It was the longest road in North America for several subsequent centuries. While awaiting the slow-moving main caravan of colonists, Oñate explored the surrounding area & solidified his position. Construction of the mission at San Francisco & a mission for the Indians of San Juan soon began. Mutiny, desertion, & dissent plagued the new colony when riches were not instantly found. Oñate dealt with these problems with a firm hand. Some of his men explored east beyond Pecos pueblo towards the Texas border in search of buffalo; they probably reached the headwaters of the Canadian River, twenty-five miles northwest of the site of present Amarillo. Oñate visited Acoma pueblos as well as the Hopi & Zuni pueblos far to the west; one party in his group went as far as the San Francisco mountains in Arizona, finding silver ore & staking claims. Upon Oñate's return to Acoma he put down a revolt that left 11 colonists dead. He severely punished the rebellious Indians.

Prospecting expeditions continued in an attempt to bring prosperity to the colony. The colony was reinforced in late 1600, but hardships, including cold weather & short food supplies, continued. On June 23, 1601, Oñate began an expedition to Quivira in search of wealth & an outlet to the sea. He followed the Canadian River across the Texas Panhandle & near the Oklahoma border headed northeast. Probably in the central part of what is now Kansas, Oñate's expedition arrived at the first of the Quivira villages. The great settlements of Quivira proved to be a disappointment to men who had come looking for easy wealth, however, & they soon turned back. While Oñate was on this expedition, conditions deteriorated in the New Mexico colony because the land was poor, the Indians were troublesome, & there were no silver strikes. The colony was subsequently abandoned except for some of Oñate's most devoted followers. The deserters spread the news of conditions in the colony when they returned to New Spain, & the government soon initiated an inquiry into the situation in New Mexico & Oñate's treatment of the Indians. At the same time Oñate launched his last major expedition, from the Zuni pueblos to the Colorado River & down it to the Gulf of California.

In 1606 King Philip III ordered Oñate to Mexico City until allegations against him could be investigated. Unaware of the order, Oñate resigned his office in 1607 because of the condition of the colony & financial problems. He remained in New Mexico to see the town of Santa Fe established. King Philip III decided to continue supporting the colony. A new governor was appointed, & Oñate was summoned to Mexico City in 1608. In 1613 he finally faced charges of using excessive force during the Acoma rebellion, hanging two Indians, executing mutineers & deserters, & adultery. He was fined, banished from New Mexico permanently, & banished from Mexico City for four years. He spent much of the rest of his life trying to clear his name, with some evident success. Eventually he went to Spain, where the king gave him the position of mining inspector. He died in Spain on or around June 3, 1626.

See
Herbert Eugene Bolton, ed., Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542–1706 (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New York: Barnes & Noble, 1959).
Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936–58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976).
George P. Hammond & Agapito Rey, eds., Don Juan de Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628 (Santa Fe: Patalacio, 1927; rpt., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953).
Marc Simmons, The Last Conquistador: Juan de Oñate & the Settling of the Far Southwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Old Man

Watercolor drawing Old Indian Man by John White (created 1585-1586)

The man is standing to the front, his face half-left, with feet apart. His greying hair is drawn flat at the sides and caught up in a knot at the back, leaving a roach down the middle of his head. Some facial hair is visible on his chin, cheeks, and upper hp. He wears a large fringed deerskin mantle thrown over his left shoulder and reaching below the knee, leaving the right shoulder bare, with the top edge turned down to reveal the hairy side. A neat seam is visible down the left side. His right hand lies across his body clasping his mantle, his left is extended at the side and points down with the index finger. He is perhaps wearing an ear ornament.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The aged man in his wynter garment. "

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

The 16C Native American work force of the Spanish colonials - The 1542 New Laws & Slavery

Bartolome de Las Casa, the first priest ordained in the Western hemisphere & chief architect of the now-defunct "New Laws" against Indian enslavement, wrote in 1542 & published in 1552 Brief Relations of the Destruction of the Indies, which provided many gruesome examples of the Spanish colonists' treatment of Indians.

The New Laws (Leyes Nuevas), also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment & Preservation of the Native Americans were issued on November 20, 1542, by King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (Charles I of Spain) about Spanish colonization of the Americas.  The New Laws were the results of the failure of the less effective, Laws of Burgos issued by King Ferdinand II of Aragon on December 27, 1512. These new laws were the first set of rules created to regulate relations between the Spaniards & the recently conquered indigenous people. While some encomenderos opposed the restrictions imposed by the new laws as against their interests, others were opposed because they regarded the laws as legalizing the system of forced Indian labor. During the reign of King Charles I, the reformers gained strength, with a number of Spanish missionaries making the case for stricter rules, including Bartolomé de las Casas & Francisco de Vitoria. The goal was to protect the Native Americans against forced labor & expropriation & to preserve their lifestyle.

The new laws included the prohibition of the enslavement of the Native Americans & provisions for the gradual abolition of the encomienda system in America. The New Laws stated that the Native Americans would be considered free persons, & the encomenderos could no longer demand their labor. Actually, the enslavement of Native Americans had been illegal in Castile since 1501, when Isabella I declared native Americans subjects of the Castilian crown.

The encomienda system, however, was abused in America to create conditions akin slavery assigning to Native Americans the most unpleasant or dangerous jobs. As a result, the New Laws required the Native Americans to pay the encomenderos tribute; and, if they worked, they would be paid wages in exchange for their labor. The laws also prohibited the sending of indigenous people to work in the mines unless it was absolutely necessary & under the same conditions than Spanish mine workers, & required that they be taxed fairly & treated well. It ordered public officials or clergy with encomienda grants to return them immediately to the Crown, & stated that encomienda grants would not passed on via inheritance, but would be cancelled at the death of the individual encomenderos.

Blasco Núñez Vela, the first Viceroy of Peru, enforced the New Laws, resulting in a revolt of some encomenderos in which he was killed in 1546 by the landowning faction wishing to maintain a political structure.  Although in New Spain (Mexico), the initial reaction of encomenderos was noncompliance, there was no outright rebellion as in Peru. New Spain's first viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza prudently refrained from enforcing the parts of the New Laws most objectionable to the encomenderos & avoided rebellion. Over time, there was compliance with most aspects of them. With the Native population loss due to epidemic disease, encomenderos' incomes dropped. Finally, in 1545, the rule stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked, & the place of the encomienda system was again secure. Although the New Laws were only partly successful, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers.  A weaker issue of the New Laws was issued in 1552. The Spanish began importing salves from Africa.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Women already on the Atlantic coast of America when the English arrived

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman and Baby of Pomeiooc

The woman is standing to the left, her back to the observer, her head turned towards the front, looking over her left shoulder. She carries a naked child on her back who grips her shoulders with both arms and whose left leg is tucked under and through her left arm, while the right leg hangs down. Her hair forms what now appears to be a grey cap and from it some straggling hairs emerge in a fringe at the front and loosely at the neck. Her upper arms are decorated with bands of zigzag and other patterns, either painted or tattooed. She wears a double apron-skirt of fringed skin which reaches half-way down her thighs.

Inscribed in brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Pomeiooc."

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative eyewitness illustrations of an early Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.

1542 Spanish Slavery of Native Americans - Bartolomé de las Casas A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies written 1542, published 1552
Excerpted by the National Humanities Center, 2006

PRESENTATION by Bishop don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas or Casaus, to the most high and potent lord Prince of all the Spains don Felipe, our lord_________Most high and potent lord: Because divine providence has ordered in this world that for the direction and common utility of the human lineage the world be constituted by Kingdoms and peoples, with their kings like fathers and shepherds (as Homer has called them) and therefore the most noble and generous members of the republics, for that reason no doubt of the rectitude of the royal spirits of those kings may be held, or with right reason might be held. And if any wrongs, failings, defects, or evils should be suffered in those kingdoms, the only reason for that is that the kings have no notice of them. For these wrongs &c, if they be present and reported, it is the duty of the king, with  greatest study and vigilant industry, to root  them out. . . .  Considering, then, most potent lord, the evils and harm, the perditions and ruin the equals or likes of which,  ever were men imagined capable of doing considering, as I say, those evils which as a man of fifty years’ and more experience, being in those lands  present, I have seen committed upon those so many and such great kingdoms, or better said, that entire vast and new world of the Indies lands conceded and given in trust by God and His Church to the king and queen of Castile, to rule and govern them, convert them to belief in Christ and the Holy Catholic Church, and give them to prosper temporally and spiritually, this subject was not able to contain himself from supplicating with Your Majesty, most importunely, that Your Majesty not concede such licence nor allow those terrible things that the tyrants did invent, pursue, and have committed against those peaceable, humble, and meek Indian peoples, who offend no person. . . .

INTRODUCTION
. . . Into and among these gentle sheep, endowed by their Maker and Creator with all the qualities aforesaid, did creep the Spaniards, who no sooner had knowledge of these people than they became like fierce wolves and tigers and lions who have gone many days without food or nourishment. And no other thing have they done for forty years until this day,1 and still today see fit to do, but dismember, slay, perturb, afflict, torment, and destroy the Indians by all manner of cruelty new and divers and most singular manners such as never before seen or read of heard of some few of which shall be recounted below, and they do this to such a degree that on the Island of Hispaniola, of the above three millions souls that we once saw, today there be no more than two hundred of those native people remaining. The island of Cuba is almost as long as from Valladolid to Rome; today it is almost devoid of population. The island of San Juan [Puerto Rico] and that of Jamaica, large and wellfavoured and lovely islands both, have been laid waste. On the Isles of the Lucayos [Bahamas] . . . where there were once above five hundred thousand souls, today there is not a living creature. All were killed while being brought, and because of being brought, to the Island of Hispaniola where the Spaniards saw that their stock of the natives of that latter island had come to an end. . . . Two principal and general customs have been employed by those, calling themselves Christians, who have passed this way, in extirpating and striking from the face of the earth those suffering nations. The first being unjust, cruel, bloody, and tyrannical warfare. The other after having slain all those who might yearn toward or suspire after or think of freedom, or consider escaping from the torments that they are made to suffer, by which I mean all the native-born lords and adult males, for it is the Spaniards’ custom in their wars to allow only young boys and females to live being to oppress them with the hardest, harshest, and most heinous bondage to which men or beasts might ever be bound into. . . . The cause for which the Christians have slain and destroyed so many and such infinite numbers of souls, has been simply to get, as their ultimate end, the Indians’ gold of them, and to stuff themselves with riches in a very few days, and to raise themselves to high estates without proportion to their birth or breeding, it should be noted owing to the insatiable greed and ambition that they have had, which has been greater than any the world has ever seen before. . . [A]ll the Indians of all the Indies never once did aught hurt or wrong to Christians, but rather held them to be descended from heaven, from the sky, until many times they or their neighbours received from the Christians many acts of wrongful harm, theft, murder, violence, and vexation. . . .

TESTAMENT
I, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, or Casaus, friar of the order of Saint Dominic, who by the mercy of God am here today in this court of Spain, was persuaded by the same notable persons resident in this Court . . . to set down an accounting of the hell that is the Indies, so that those infinite masses of souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ may not die for all eternity without any help for it, but rather know their Creator and be saved. And by the compassion that I have for my native land, which is Castile, I pray that God not destroy it for the great sins committed against its faith and honour. . . .  I have great hope that the emperor and king of Spain, our lord Don Carlos, the  ifth of that name, may come to understand (for until now the truth has always been most industriously covered over) the acts of malice and treachery which have been and still are being done upon those nations and lands, against the will of God and his own, and that he may bring an end to so many evils and bring relief to that New World which God has given

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Chief

 Watercolor drawing Indian Elder or Chief by John White (created 1585-1586)

An elderly man stands facing half-left, his feet somewhat apart and his arms folded. He is wearing a single apron skirt of fringed deerskin edged with blue (or black) beads or pearls. His hair is thin at the sides and caught up at the back, leaving a roach down the middle of his head. He wears an ear ornament consisting of at least nine dark blue beads or pearls hanging by a loop of skin from the lobe. Around his neck is a short single-string necklace of bluish white pearls or beads and a string suspending, through a hole, a rectangular gorget of yellowish metal, some 6 inches square, which hangs on his chest. He also wears a single bracelet of pearls on the right wrist.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, "A cheife Herowan."

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

Native American Mound Builders & Pueblos

The first Indian group to build mounds in what is now the United States are often called the Adenans. They began constructing earthen burial sites & fortifications around 600 B.C. Some mounds from that era are in the shape of birds or serpents, andprobably served religious purposes not yet fully understood.

The Adenans appear to have been absorbed or displaced by various groups collectively known as Hopewellians. One of the most important centers of their culture was found in southern Ohio, where the remains of several thousand of these mounds still remain. Believed to be great traders, the Hopewellians used & exchanged tools & materials across a wide region of hundreds of kilometers.

By around 500 A.D., the Hopewellians, too, disappeared, gradually giving way to a broad group of tribes generally known as the Mississippians or Temple Mound culture. One city, Cahokia, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, is thought to have had a population of about 20,000 at its peak in the early 12th century. At the center of the city stood a huge earthen mound, flatted at the top, which was 30 meters high & 37 hectares at the base. Eighty other mounds have been found nearby.

Cities such as Cahokia depended on a combination of hunting, foraging, trading & agriculture for their food & supplies. Influenced by the thriving societies to the south, they evolved into complex hierarchical societies which took slaves & practiced human sacrifice.

In what is now the southwest United States, the Anasazi, ancestors of the modern Hopi Indians, began building stone & adobe pueblos around the year 900. These unique & amazing apartment-like structures were often built along cliff faces; the most famous, the "cliff palace" of Mesa Verde, Colorado, had over 200 rooms. Another site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along New Mexico's Chaco River, once contained more than 800 rooms.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Women already on the Atlantic coast of America when the English arrived

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman of Secoton

The woman is standing, facing half-right with arms folded. Her hair is fringed in front and hangs in wisps at the side and back and is secured by a headband of twisted material. There is a suggestion of an ear ornament. She is wearing a double apron-skirt of fringed skin, ornamented with a double row of beads or pearls. The tassels of the fringe below the waist are heightened, as they are on the lower fringe, with white (oxidized) and show traces of gold. The skirt reaches nearly half-way down the thighs. She is elaborately painted or tattooed with bluish lines on her cheeks, forehead and chin, a simulated necklace ending at a point between her breasts, and patterns on the upper and lower arms and on the calves and instep.


Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Secotan." 

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.

Native American Mound Builders. Homer, & The Illiad

Mound-Builders around the World. 

The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XIX, 1881

 by E. L. & W. J. Youmans, p 614

The term mound-builder is distinctively applied to the race that constructed the remarkable earthworks of the valley of the Ohio, and of the interior of the United States in general, but it is true that in nearly all parts of the world the practice of mound-building has prevailed, sometimes among nations that come within historical epochs. Mounds are found among the Celts and the Scythians, in the Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in Japan and India, and throughout the central parts of the Eastern Continent, as well as in both Americas, from the country of the Esquimaux to Chili and Fuegia. The earliest of human records refer distinctly to this method of honoring the dead. The heroic age of Greece, as sung by Homer, abounded with ceremonies and curious details relating to the tumulus erected over the bones of the slain hero. The burial of Patroclus, as related in the 23rd book of the “Iliad,” is an illustration of the practice of mound-building by the ancient Greeks:

“The sacred relics to the tent they bore, 
The urn a veil of line covered o'er. 
That done they bid the sepulchre aspire, 
And cast the deep foundations round the pyre; 
High in the midst they heap the selling bed 
Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.”

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Indian Village of Pomeiooc

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Village of Pomeiooc 

A bird's-eye view of an Indian village enclosed by a circular palisade of quite irregular light poles, with two entrances, one in the foreground and one in the background at bottom and top left.  The path leading to the front entrance is bordered with hooped sticks. The village consists of eighteen buildings of pole and mat (and perhaps bark) construction, many of them with open ends or sides or both, and some with door openings at the ends, usually off-centre. Most are rectangular in ground-plan, but some may have rounded ends. Several are seen to contain an interior platform along one or both sides and across one end, supported by two rows of posts independent of the house posts. All have simple arched roofs, except the largest, where the cupola-like roof is constructed on ridges springing from the corners and coming to a point in the centre. In three houses the open sides seem to be shaded by an arched section of roof supported on longer vertical poles. The houses are grouped irregularly about a large open space in the centre where a fire is burning and around which a number of apparently naked Indians are sitting with rattles in their hands. Other groups of men, women and children are seen standing or walking near the houses, several of them making signs with their hands towards the fire and one man is splitting timber with an axe, another is carrying wood on his back, yet another carries a bow, while a cloaked figure is dimly seen emerging from a house to the left of the fire. A dog with longish legs and tail is also shown.

Inscribed in brown ink, at the foot, "The towne of Pomeiock and true forme of their howses, couered | and enclosed some wth matts, and some wth barcks of trees. All compassed | abowt wth smale poles stock thick together in stedd of a wall."

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of Britain's efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina & Virginia in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant, as they are the most informed, eyewitness contemporary illustrations of an early Native American society of the North America's Eastern seaboard.