Colonialism 6

Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food? (…) You see us unarmed, and willing to supply your wants, if you will come in a friendly manner, and not with swords and guns, as to invade an enemy. I am not so simple, as not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children; to laugh and be merry with the English; (…) I insist that the guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy and uneasiness, be removed and sent away.

Howard Zinn (1980/2003: 13).

Chief Powhatan, 1545-1618, whose actual name was Wahunsenacawh, leader of the Algonquian-speaking Native Americans in what is now Virginia, where British colonists landed in the late 16th century.

The historian Howard Zinn wrote about how Native Americas in Virginia were initially friendly to European settlers, with some Europeans even living with them during a famine in 1610. However, Zinn also described violent retaliation on the part of the British: ‘When one of them [Native Americans] stole a small silver cup, Grenville [the leader of the British settlers] burned an entire village’ (Zinn 2003: 12). According to historian Edmund Morgan, the Europeans’ strategy was to exterminate the Native Americans. As the latter knew the area better and were difficult to make contact with, the English held sham peace negotiations, allowed the Native Americans to settle, and then killed as many as possible, burning their crops just before harvest (Morgan 2003: 100). Chief Powhatan's brother Opechancanough led the resistance against the British.

*Glen Sean Coulthard (2014): Red Skin, White Masks. Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. *Edmund S. Morgan (1975/2003): American Slavery, American Freedom. New York: Norton. *Howard Zinn (1980/2003): A People‘s History of the United States. 1492 – present. New York: Harper Collins.

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