E90 After the First Thanksgiving

Gladio Free Europe

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In November 1622, the great diplomat Squanto died while leading a trade expedition with his English allies. Only a year had passed since he formed a treaty between the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the indigenous Wampanoag people. While the early years of English-Indian relations were marked by cooperation and accommodation, including the famous Thanksgiving feast, Squanto's passing marked a descent into a period of slowly ramping hostilities, culminating in the first war fought between English settlers and Native Americans.

This episode of Gladio Free Europe explores the continuing history of colonial New England, across the 1620s and '30s as the English population rapidly swelled, in large part due to the establish of the new Massachusetts Bay colony which would quickly overshadow Plymouth and the original Pilgrims. While the Pilgrims and Puritans maintained warm relations with some native peoples, such as the great Mohegan chief Uncas, competition over land and resources drew them into conflict with others.

Though little known today, the Pequot War would have particularly grave consequences on English-indigenous relations, as it set the precedent for mass slaughter of Indian women and children and ended with the enslavement of the entire Pequot nation. Massachusetts and Connecticut are not remembered as slave societies, but captive Native Americans formed an essential role in the colonial economy and helped normalize the institutions of slavery and racial segregation across the English colonies.

Listen to understand how the peace of the First Thanksgiving collapsed into the bloodshed and subjugation that defined the American colonial experience, and try to uncover how the consequences of this turn towards violence shaped our country for the worse for centuries to come.

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