The Hidden History Of The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples
In Publications, Rarely Does A Book Emerge That Has The Power To Shake The Foundational Myth Of An Entire Nation, And Reshape The Collective Consciousness Of The Colonial Past As Does The Book By The Historian And Academic Linford D. Fisher (Linford D. Fisher) Titled “Stolen America: The Hidden Story Of Indigenous Slavery In The History Of The United States” (Stealing America: The Hidden Story Of Indigenous Slavery In US History), Published By Liveright Publishing Corporation (Liveright Publishing Corporation). This Reference Work Provides A Highly Sober Analytical Introduction To One Of The Most Silent And Absent Taboos In The Western Archive, Namely The Systematic And Intensive Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples In The Americas, And How This Crime Was Organically Linked To The Plundering Of Their Lands And The Destruction Of Their Communities.
Fisher Begins This Historical Tome With A Scene That Transports The Reader To A Sunny Day In June 2018 On Saint David’s Island In Bermuda; Where A Woman Wearing The Traditional Costume Of Indigenous Peoples Stood To Drop A Large Wreath Of Flowers Into The Waters Of The Atlantic Ocean. That Moving Ritual Was A Touch Of Revival In Memory Of Hundreds Of Members Of The Pequot, Wampanoag, And Narragansett Nations Who Were Captured In New England And Shipped As Slaves Across The Ocean To Bermuda And The Caribbean Nearly Four Hundred Years Ago. Soon That Sad Gathering Turned Into A Reconnection Powwow (Reconnection Powwow) That Lasted For Two Days, In Which The Descendants Of The Enslaved In Bermuda Met With Their Brothers Coming From New England Around A Huge Circular Drum, Dancing And Restoring The Bonds Of Kinship That Colonial Violence Had Tried To Sever Forever. The Testimony Of One Participant, Nives Filice (Nives Filice), Embodies The Depth Of This Moment When She Expressed That Communication With The New England Islands Had Filled A Spiritual Gap She Did Not Know Existed, Noting That Setting Foot On Wampanoag Lands Made Her Immediately Feel That She Had Returned Home.
This Opening Scene Opens The Door To The Central Thesis Of The Book: That The History Of The United States And The Americas Was Not Built Only On Transatlantic African Slavery, But Stood On A Dual Pillar Of “Double Theft” That Targeted The Indigenous Person And His Land At The Same Time. Fisher Explains That Historical Academic Studies Have For Decades Focused On African Slavery And Its Role In Building The Plantation Economy And American Capitalism, While Indigenous Peoples Lived The Experience Of Slavery As “Theft Of Relatives” And A Communal Loss Aimed At Ending Their Demographic And Political Existence. The Book Shocks Us With Documented Numbers That Turn Traditional Concepts Upside Down; It Is Estimated That The Number Of Indigenous People Who Were Subjected To Enslavement Between 1492 And 1880 Throughout The Americas Ranged Between 3 Million And 6 Million People. And In The Region That Later Became Known As The United States, Up To 600,000 Indigenous People Were Enslaved, A Number That Rivals And Even Exceeds The Total Number Of Enslaved Africans Imported Into North America Until 1865, Which Amounted To About 530,000 People.
How Then Were These Great Truths Hidden From Historical Curricula And Public Consciousness? Fisher Answers Through The Harsh Archival Concept Known As “Documentary Genocide” (Documentary Genocide). Colonists And Their Descendants Practiced A Tight Administrative Obliteration Policy Of Indigenous Identities In Official Statistics And Estate Records. For Example, The Bermuda Census Of 1698 Showed Only Slaves Of “Blacks,” While Sale And Estate Documents Indicate That About 20% Of The Slaves On The Island At That Time Were Indigenous People. This Pattern Was Repeated In Virginia, North And South Carolina, And Pennsylvania; As Soon As Intermarriage Occurred Between Indigenous People And Africans, Laws And Courts Hastened To Impose Arbitrary Racist Labels Such As “Mulatto” (Mulatto) Or “Negro” (Negro), To Erase Their Indigenous Affiliation And Link Them To The Eternal Slavery Prepared For Africans. Fisher Estimates That This Strategy Led To The Concealment And Obliteration Of The Identity Of Between 80,000 And 200,000 Individuals Of Indigenous And Mixed-Race People In The American South Before The Civil War, After They Were Officially Listed As “Negroes.” But Despite This Administrative Absence, The Oral Memory Of The Tribes Remained Alive And Resistant; As Embodied In The Immortal Declaration Of The Narragansett Nation In 1866 In Response To Attempts By The State Of Rhode Island To Strip Them Of Their Identity, Where Their Leaders Firmly Affirmed: “We Are Not Negroes, We Are The Heirs Of Ninigret And The Great Leaders And Warriors Of The Narragansett, And As Long As One Drop Of Indian Blood Flows In Our Veins, We Hold Fast To Our Rights And Our Sovereignty.”
The Exceptional Value Of This Book Is Manifested In The Ethical Research Method Followed By Fisher, Which Starts From A Personal Experience In Which He Grew Up Among Amish And Mennonite Communities In Pennsylvania On The Historical Lands Of The Lenape Nation (Lenape), Before Colliding With New England Archives During Doctoral Research To Discover The Existence Of Indigenous “Servants” Referred To In Church Documents. That Discovery Prompted Him To Launch A Collaborative Project With Indigenous Tribes At Brown University Called “Stolen Relations” (Stolen Relations), Which Formed, Along With The Contributions Of The Late Leader Of The Pequot And Wampanoag Nations, Tall Oak Weeden (Tall Oak Weeden), The Intellectual Foundation Of The Book. Tall Oak Always Reminded Fisher That Written American History Is Whitewashed And Sanitized To Absolve Whites Of Gross Violence, Calling For “Connecting The Dots” To See The Full Picture. Therefore, Fisher In His Terminological Introduction Is Keen To Use Precise Concepts That Respect Indigenous Sovereignty, Preferring The Word “Enslaved” Instead Of “Slave” To Indicate That Slavery Is A Forcibly Imposed Condition And Not A Pre-Existing Identity, And Adopting The Term “Trafficking” (Human Trafficking) To Draw A Parallel Between The Kidnapping Of Children And Women In The Early Colonial Centuries And What Indigenous People Are Exposed To In The Modern Era. He Also Evokes Indigenous Terms For Captivity, Such As The Haudenosaunee Term We-Hait-Wat-Sha Which Means “A Body Cut Into Pieces And Scattered Everywhere,” And The Cherokee Term Atsi Nahsa’i Meaning “Owned Person,” In Contrast To The Comprehensive Concept Of Freedom Among The Miskito Nation Which Means Living Without Harassment And Working Freely And For A Fair Wage.
Fisher Takes Us In The First Part Of The Book, Titled “The Emergence (1492-1650),” And Specifically In The First Chapter “Colonial Models,” To Place Events In Their Comprehensive Atlantic Historical Context. The Book Rejects The Romantic Narrative That Begins American History With The Arrival Of The Mayflower Ship Or The Founding Of Jamestown, Affirming That The Spanish Conquest In 1492 Is What Laid The Initial Blueprint And Executive Model For All European Colonial Empires That Followed. The Narrative Takes Us To The Morning Of October 12, 1492 On The Island Of Guanahani (San Salvador) In The Bahamas, Where The Lucayan People Of The Taino Nation Woke Up To See Three Strange Spanish Ships. Although The Taino Received The Strangers With Gifts And Animals And Cotton, Christopher Columbus Saw In Them Only Free Labor, Writing In His Famous Diaries That They “Would Be Excellent Servants, And With Fifty Men Alone They Could All Be Subjugated And Made To Do Whatever Is Ordered.”
Columbus Did Not Wait Long; On His Third Day On The Island, He Kidnapped Seven Lucayans To Work As Guides For His Ships’ Navigation Toward Gold Regions In Cuba And Hispaniola (Haiti And Dominican Republic). And Before His Return To Spain In 1493, He Had Kidnapped More Than Twenty Individuals Of The Taino, And Paraded Them In The Streets Of Seville On Palm Sunday As Visual Spoils And Proof Of The Possibility Of Exploiting “Indian Slaves” As A Profitable Commercial Commodity. Indeed, Columbus, After His Second Voyage In 1493-1494, Submitted A Complete Project To The Spanish Court To Establish A Regular And Institutionalized Trade Of Indigenous Slaves. He Proposed Operating Fleets Loaded With Taino Captives To Be Sold In Spanish Markets In Exchange For Equipment And Provisions, Then The Ships Would Return To Raid The Islands And Fill Their Holds With Captives Again. And In 1495, Columbus Gathered 1,600 Captives Of The Taino On The Shores Of Hispaniola, And Crammed 550 Of Them Into Four Ships On A Tragic Voyage Across The Atlantic That Witnessed The Death Of Dozens Of Them In The Ships’ Holds, So That The 350 Who Remained Alive Were Sold In Slave Markets In The City Of Seville, In What Is Considered The First Middle Atlantic Passage Dedicated To Indigenous Enslavement.
The Book Reviews The Legal And Religious Developments That Accompanied This Spanish Expansion And The Crown’s Quest To Legitimize Enslavement Through Flexible Terms Such As “Just Wars” Against Tribes Accused Of Cannibalism (Indios Caribes), Or Enslaving Residents Of “Useless Islands” Devoid Of Gold, Or The Rescue System (Rescate) That Permits Buying Or Kidnapping Captives From Other Tribes. Despite These Strict Laws, Indigenous Peoples Stood Firm And Resisted Fiercely; The Book Tells The Story Of An Indigenous Woman Named Catalina, Captured As A Child From El Salvador, Branded On Her Face, And Transported To Spain, But She Did Not Surrender And Dragged Her Enslavers To The Council Of The Indies In Madrid In The 1540s To Demand Her Freedom And Condemn Her Illegal Enslavement. The Book Also Conveys The Stern Moral Condemnation Launched By The Dominican Priest Antonio De Montesinos In His Famous Sermon In Santo Domingo In 1511, And The Devastating Historical Testimony Of The Monk Bartolome De Las Casas In His Book “A Short Account Of The Destruction Of The West Indies” (Brevisima Relacion), Which Revealed How The “Encomienda” System Led To The Slaughter Of Millions And The Dismemberment Of The Bodies Of Women And Children And The Charring Of Tribal Leaders On Flaming Grills, Which Prompted King Charles V To Issue The “New Laws” (Leyes Nuevas) In 1542 For The Formal Prohibition Of Enslaving Indigenous Peoples.
But To Embody The Magnitude Of The Enormous Wealth Reaped From This Enslavement, Fisher Takes Us On A Visual Tour Inside The Cathedral Of Seville (Catedral De Sevilla) In Spain. This Giant Gothic Cathedral Contains The Largest Golden Altar In The World, Rising About 66 Feet And Covered With Dense Layers Of Pure Gold And Silver. And The Book Reveals The Dark Truth Hidden By This Ornament; The 88,000 Pounds (44 Tons) Of Gold And Silver Covering The Altar Were Extracted Entirely From The Mines Of Mexico And Bolivia By The Hands Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Enslaved Workers From The Nahua And Huastec Nations And Others, Who Perished In The Darkness Of The Mines Due To Inhalation Of Poisonous Dust And Deadly Lung Diseases. And The Harsh Symbolic Irony Is That The Tomb Of Columbus Himself Lies Inside This Cathedral A Few Steps Away From This Altar Laden With The Blood And Bodies Of The Peoples He Enslaved.
The English Empire Was Nothing But A Utilitarian Student Who Followed The Same Spanish Steps, Despite Pretending Moral Sophistication And Protesting With Protestantism. During The Sixteenth Century, English Explorers And Pirates Imitated Spanish Conquests; Gaspar Corte-Real Kidnapped 57 Individuals Of The Abenaki In Maine In 1500, And Verrazzano Tried To Kidnap A Girl And A Young Man In New England In 1524. And In The Late 1570s, The Sailor Martin Frobisher Kidnapped Three People Of The Inuit People From Baffin Island (Kalicho, Arnak, And Nutaaq) And Led Them To Bristol In England As Human Exhibits, To All Perish From Strange Diseases, Where It Was Recorded That Kalicho Died Singing The Same “Death Song” He Sang At The Moment Of His Kidnapping From His Original Homeland.
Fisher Clarifies That All Early English Colonial Attempts Were Based On The Labor Force And Geographical Knowledge Of Indigenous Peoples. Before Building Permanent Settlements, The English Colonized The “Intellectual Labor” Of The Tribes By Kidnapping Young Men And Forcibly Training Them In The English Language To Extract Maps And Navigational Information From Them. This Was Manifested In The Campaign Of Walter Raleigh And Richard Grenville To Establish The “Roanoke” Colony In 1585 On The Shores Of North Carolina, Where They Were Accompanied By The Painter John White Who Immortalized With His Brush The Images Of The Secotan And Roanoke Communities. At The Same Time, The Pirate Francis Drake Was Roaming The Caribbean To Plunder Spanish Settlements Accompanied By A Young Indigenous Man Kidnapped From Margarita Island Named Pedro, And When Drake Stormed The Cities Of Santo Domingo And Cartagena, He Withdrew With A Huge Human Shipment Including 300 Captives Of Indigenous Peoples And 200 Africans And Turks, To Take Them To Roanoke To Support The Colony’s Workforce Before A Severe Hurricane Struck The Area And The Settlement Attempt Failed And The Colony Disappeared Mysteriously.
These Practices Were Repeated In The Guiana And Orinoco Coast Trade (Caribana); Where Captain Francis Sparrey Bought Eight Indigenous Girls For A Small Knife To Exploit Them Sexually And For Labor, And In Maine In 1605, George Weymouth Set An Ambush For Members Of The Abenaki Nation And Kidnapped Five Young Men (Tahanedo, Amoret, Skicowaros, Manedo, And Ssassacomoit) And Took Them To London To Hand Them Over To Sir Ferdinando Gorges And John Popham To Benefit From Their Geographical Information To Pave The Way For Settlement. Indeed, This Phenomenon Became Common In English Society To The Point That The Playwright William Shakespeare Sarcastically Referred To It In His Play “The Tempest” (The Tempest) In 1611, On The Tongue Of The Character Trinculo Who Wished He Were In England To Display The Indigenous Character Caliban Before Curious Audiences For Money.
The Researcher Takes Us From The Early Imperial Models To The Stage Of Institutionalizing And Entrenching The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples In The English Colonies In North America And The Caribbean Islands Between 1607 And 1650. It Is The Foundational Period That Witnessed The Building Of The Legal And Social Structures That Prevailed For Centuries, Where Fisher Dismantles Cosmetic Colonial Narratives To Expose The Harsh Mechanism Through Which The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Was Transformed From A Transient Military Emergency Tool Into A Comprehensive Economic And Structural Practice, That Preceded And Accompanied The Rise Of The African Slave Trade.
Fisher Begins This Chapter With One Of The Biggest Foundational Myths In American History, Which Is The Narrative That Dates The Emergence Of Slavery In North America To 1619 With The Arrival Of A Ship Flying The Dutch Flag Carrying “Twenty And Odd” Africans To The “Jamestown” Colony In Virginia. The Book Brilliantly Clarifies That This Reductive Reading Overlooks A Horrific Truth; That English Settlers Were Enslaving And Subjecting Indigenous Peoples To Forced Labor In Virginia Nearly A Decade Before 1619. Since The Founding Of Jamestown In 1607, Settlers Faced Great Difficulties In Providing Food And Service, And Immediately Resorted To Using Armed Force Against Members Of The “Powhatan” Confederacy Led By The Leader “Wahunsenacawh.” And Colonial Leaders Captured Many Members Of The Tribes And Forced Them To Work In Chains To Produce Corn And Build Facilities And Provide Provisions For The Fragile Colony.
With The Outbreak Of The Successive “Three Powhatan Wars,” The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples In Virginia Turned Into A Genocidal Military Strategy Aimed At Emptying Fertile Lands For Tobacco Cultivation That Began To Generate Fabulous Profits. Fisher Narrates In A Painfully Reportorial Style The Atrocities Committed By Colony Leaders, Such As The Incident Of The Destruction Of The Village Of “Paspahegh” In 1610; Where English Soldiers Led By George Percy Launched A Surprise Attack That Resulted In Burning The Village And Killing Most Of Its Residents, And They Took The Wife Of The Chief Of The People And Her Children Captive On Board A Ship. On The Way Back, Soldiers Threw Small Children Into The River Waters And Shot Their Heads In The Water To Prevent The Continuation Of The Leadership Lineage, Before Taking The Queen To The Shore And Executing Her By Stabbing With Swords. These Massacres Were Only A Prelude To Harsh Legislation Passed By The Colonial Virginia Council, Which Permitted Considering All Indigenous Captives As Slaves For Life To Be Distributed As War Booty To Officers And Soldiers To Support The Growing Tobacco Economy.
At The Same Time, The Atlantic And Caribbean Islands Were Turning Into Real Laboratories In Which The Fiercest Laws And Practices Of Forced Labor And Slavery Were Designed. The Book Takes Us To The Island Of Bermuda, Which Was Settled By The English After The Wreck Of The Ship “Sea Venture” In 1609, Where The Somers Isles Company Hastened To Import Indigenous And African Slaves Together Since The Early 1620s. Indigenous Captives In Bermuda Were Exploited In Extremely Arduous And Risky Works, Such As Deep Diving To Extract Pearls And Retrieve The Wreckage Of Sunken Ships, In Addition To Tobacco Cultivation And Building Stone Forts To Protect The Colony. The Same Tragedy Was Repeated On The Island Of St. Kitts, Where The Colonist Thomas Warner In 1626 Led A Preventive Massacre Against The “Kalinago” People And Their Leader Tegremond, Resulting In The Killing Of Hundreds And The Enslavement Of Survivors To Establish The First Sugar Plantations.
As For Barbados, Fisher Reveals A Tragic Chapter Of Colonial Treachery; In 1627, English Settlers Recruited Dozens Of Indigenous People Of The “Lokono” Nationality From The Suriname Region In South America, And Transported Them To Barbados To Help Teach The English How To Cultivate Tropical Crops Such As Tobacco, Cotton, And Cassava Amid The Caribbean Environment Strange To Them. These Indigenous Experts Were Promised Their Freedom And Return To Their Homelands After Bridging The Agricultural Gap, But Once The English Settled And Mastered Agriculture, Settlers Broke Their Promises And Betrayed Them, And Turned Them All Into Slaves For Life Working In The Harsh Sugar Fields. And As A Result Of The Increasing Numbers Of Slaves Of Africans And Indigenous Peoples, The Barbados Council In 1636 Issued The First Comprehensive Colonial Resolution That Explicitly States That All Africans And Indigenous Peoples Brought To The Island Are Considered “Slaves Eternal And For Life” Unless There Is A Prior Contract Stating Otherwise, Thus Recording A Decisive Historical Step In Linking Race And Eternal Slavery.
The New England Colonies Of Puritan Religious Character Were Not Isolated From These Infamous Practices, But Rather Presented A More Organized And Cruel Model Of Enslavement Based On Religious Doctrine And The Theory Of “Just War.” Fisher Deconstructs The Myth Of The “City Upon A Hill” That Governor John Winthrop Tried To Market To Promote Puritan Idealism, To Show How Puritans Engaged In A Comprehensive Genocidal War Against The “Pequot” Nation Between 1636 And 1638. This War Reached Its Darkest Peak In The Massacre Of Fort “Mystic” In May 1637, When English Militias Led By John Mason And John Underhill And With The Help Of Allied Tribes Besieged The Huge Fortified Village That Included Hundreds Of Women, Children, And Elderly, And Deliberately Set It On Fire, So That Between 400 And 700 People Burned Alive In Horrific Scenes. And Puritan Leaders Described This Holocaust In Their Memoirs With Pride As A “Sweet Sacrifice” Sent By The Lord To Cut Off The Infidels!
The Catastrophe Did Not Stop At The Holocaust; Rather, Puritans Launched Wide Tracking And Hunting Campaigns Against Survivors Of The Pequot, And Men Were Executed And Hundreds Of Women And Children Were Distributed As Spoils And Servants In Houses And Farms Of Boston, Hartford, And New Haven. And More Importantly, This War Inaugurated The First Transatlantic Maritime Trade Operations With Indigenous Slaves From New England; In 1638, Captain William Pierce Sailed On Board The Ship “Desire” (Desire) Collecting Dozens Of Boys And Women Of The Pequot, And Shipped Them To Providence Island In The Caribbean To Sell Them To The Governor Of The Island And Its English Traders. And The Ship “Desire” Returned To Boston Carrying A Swap Shipment Including Enslaved Africans And Cotton And Tobacco, To Record Boston Thus The First Documented Trade Line Linking The Export Of Indigenous Slaves And The Import Of African Slaves In New England.
Fisher Addresses In The Third Chapter Of The Book, Titled “Fragile Justifications,” The Conceptual And Legal Network Invented By Colonial Authorities To Justify These Flagrant Violations Before The European Conscience And English Laws. In The Absence Of Explicit Laws Regulating Slavery In The Beginning, Settlers Relied On Colonial Custom, Old Testament Texts, And The Theory Of “Just War” (Bellum Iustum). And In 1641, The Massachusetts Bay Colony Issued The Document “Body Of Liberties” (Body Of Liberties), Which Was Considered Apparently The First Codification Of Civil Liberties, But Article 91 Of It Explicitly Legalized Slavery And Stated That “There Shall Never Be Any Bond Slavery Among Us… Except Lawful Captives Taken In Just Wars, Or Those Who Are Purchased As Slaves From Other Merchants.” This Clause Gave Absolute Legal Legitimacy To The Enslavement Of Pequot Captives Already Distributed In The Homes Of Judges And Ministers, And Opened The Door To Importing Slaves From Anywhere Else.
Moreover, The Principle Of “The Child Follows The Mother” (Partus Sequitur Ventrem) Was Introduced Into American Colonial Custom And Law During This Foundational Period, Before It Was Officially Codified In Virginia In 1662 And Jamaica In 1684. This Ancient Roman Principle Was Enough To Ensure The Continuation Of Slavery Through Generations And Feed The Direct Labor Market; If The Mother Was An Indigenous Or Enslaved African Woman, Then Her Children Automatically Become The Legal Property Of The Mother’s Owner For Life, Regardless Of The Lineage Or Nationality Of The Father. This Criminal System Encouraged White Settlers To Forcibly Sexually Exploit Indigenous And Enslaved Women, Turning Their Bodies And Wombs Into Tools For Reproducing Slave Property And Expanding Wealth.
In Contrast, Fisher Is Keen To Highlight The Forms Of Solid Resistance And Organized Refusal Shown By Indigenous Peoples Against These Practices. The Judicial Records In New England And Virginia Were Full Of Continuous Escape Models Of Enslaved Indigenous People Who Exploited Their Knowledge Of Trails And Forests To Flee Toward Their Free Communities Or Toward Allied Tribes. Indigenous Leaders Also Waged Sharp Diplomatic Confrontations Against Invaders; Where The Narragansett Leader “Miantonomo” Clearly And Bravely Declared His Rejection Of English Treachery And The Enslavement Of Captives, Calling On Indigenous Peoples In New England To Unite And Cluster To Confront English Violence Aimed At Erasing Them And Plundering Their Lands And Their Children.
This Decisive Foundational Chapter Ends With The Historian Linford D. Fisher Affirming That Enslavement Was Not Just An Incidental Or Marginal Incident In The History Of Early British Colonies, But Was The Structural Engine And Backbone Upon Which The Colonial Experience On The Continent Was Based. The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Provided The Invaders With Free Labor To Build Farms And Forts, And At The Same Time Achieved The Most Important Goal Of Settler Colonialism, Which Is The Demographic And Social Contraction Of Tribes And The Emptying Of Vast Lands To Seize Them. And These Legal And Economic Pillars That Were Established Between 1607 And 1650 Are Those That Will Expand And Explode On A Huge Atlantic Scale During The Next Century.
We Move At This Stage To The Era Extending From The Middle Of The Seventeenth Century Until The Early Eighteenth Century, Which Is The Stage That The Book Describes As The Dark Golden Age Of The Indigenous Slave Trade. At This Stage, Enslavement Was No Longer Just A Local Colonial Practice To Fill The Labor Shortage Or A Tactic To Terrorize Opponents, But Turned Into A Transatlantic Industry, And A Huge Capitalist Project That Was Institutionalized And Expanded To Cover A Complex Commercial Network That Linked North America And The Caribbean Islands And Europe, And Sometimes Extended To Reach The Markets Of North Africa. Fisher Sheds Light In This Section On Two Geographical Focal Points That Witnessed The Fiercest Chapters Of This Trade: The New England Colonies In The North, And The Carolina Colony In The South.
The Writer Begins By Dissecting The Details Of “King Philip’s War” (1675-1676) In New England, Which Is Considered One Of The Bloodiest Conflicts In The History Of North America Relative To Population. The War Broke Out Led By The Leader “Metacom” (Metacom), Whom The English Called “King Philip,” Who Is The Leader Of The Wampanoag Nation Who Realized That Accelerating Settler Expansion And Provocative Policies Would Inevitably Lead To The Erasure Of His People. Metacom Was Able To Mobilize A Wide Alliance Of Indigenous Tribes To Wage An Existential War Against The English Colonies. Despite The Initial Victories Achieved By The Indigenous Alliance, English Military Force, Supported By Alliances With Other Tribes, Was Finally Able To Crush The Rebellion With Extreme Brutality. But Fisher Does Not Stop At The Classic Military Narrative Of The War, But Reads It From The Perspective Of Enslavement As A Tool For Genocide And Demographic Restructuring.
With The End Of The War, The New England Colonies Turned Into A Huge Machine For Processing And Exporting Humans. The Book Documents How Thousands Of Captives Of The Wampanoag, Narragansett, And Nipmuc, Including Those Who Surrendered Voluntarily In Exchange For Promises Of Safety, Were Led To Be Displayed In The Squares Of Boston And Plymouth In Preparation For Their Sale. Northern Ports Became Crowded With Ships Whose Holds Were Loaded With Indigenous Men, Women, And Children, To Be Forcibly Deported On Horrific Sea Voyages Toward The Harsh Sugar Plantations In Barbados, Jamaica, And Bermuda, And In Documented Cases, Some Of Them Were Sold In Slave Markets In Tangier In North Africa And Spain. And Perhaps The Most Painful And Symbolic Scene In This Chapter Is The Fate Of The Family Of Leader Metacom Himself; After His Killing And Dismemberment Of His Body And Displaying His Head On A Pike In Plymouth For Two Decades, His Wife “Wootonekanuske” And His Small Son Who Represented The Legitimate Heir To The Leadership Of The Nation Were Captured. And Instead Of Executing Them, Colonial Authorities Decided To Sell Them As Slaves In The Caribbean Islands, In A Deliberate Step Aimed At Uprooting The Leadership Lineage Forever And Erasing Any Hope Of Rebuilding The Nation Anew.
From The Blood-Stained North, Fisher Takes Us Toward The South, Specifically To The Carolina Colony Founded In 1670, Where The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Took A More Terrifying And Organized Character. The Book Describes The City Of Charleston (Charles Town At That Time) As Not Just An Agricultural Colony, But As An Imperial Center Specialized In Sponsoring And Directing Human Trafficking On A Continental Scale. The Rulers And Merchants Of Carolina Invented A Diabolical System Later Called The “Gun-Slave Cycle” (Gun-Slave Cycle). This System Relied On Arming Certain Tribes With Advanced European Guns And Ammunition, And Inciting Them To Launch Continuous Raids Against Weaker Or Unarmed Neighboring Tribes, With The Aim Of Capturing Their Members And Handing Them Over To English Traders In Charleston To Pay Off Debts For Weapons And Commercial Goods.
The Book Reveals How This Policy Led To Igniting Proxy Wars That Swept The Entire American Southeast, From The Atlantic Coasts To The Mississippi River And The Florida Peninsula. Tribes Such As The Westos (Westos) Then The Yamasees (Yamasees) Turned Into Military Contractors Working For The English Commercial Elite, Launching Devastating Raids That Emptied Vast Areas Of Their Indigenous Population. And The Statistics Provided By Fisher In This Context Shock Us; During The First Decades Of The Founding Of The Carolina Colony, And Until About 1715, The Number Of Indigenous Slaves Exported From The Port Of Charleston To The Caribbean Islands And Northern Colonies Far Exceeded The Number Of African Slaves Imported Into It. Historians Estimate That Tens Of Thousands Of Indigenous People Were Uprooted From The Southeast Through This Commercial Network, Leading To The Collapse Of Entire Communities And The Integration Of Their Survivors Into New Tribes Or Their Refuge To Remote Areas Fleeing Human Hunting Squads.
This Rapid Demographic Disappearance Was Not Only The Result Of Diseases And Epidemics As The Traditional Narrative Promotes, But Was In Large Part A Direct Result Of This Enslaving Commercial Arsenal. Fisher Explains How English Traders Preferred To Export Indigenous Slaves Abroad Instead Of Keeping Them In Local Farms, In Order To Cut Their Ties To Their Lands And Prevent Them From Escaping Or Rebelling, And At The Same Time They Used The Huge Profits From This Trade To Finance The Import Of African Slaves, Who Were Believed To Be More Capable Of Enduring Tropical Diseases And Less Capable Of Rebelling Due To Their Ignorance Of The Geography Of The Place.
This Part Of The Analysis Ends By Reviewing The Major Turning Point Represented By The “Yamasee War” (1715-1717). After Decades Of Exploitation And Accumulated Debts And Increasing Frequency Of Kidnapping Of Indigenous Women And Children Even From Allied Tribes, The Yamasee Tribes And Their Allies Rose Up Against The Carolina Colony, And Almost Wiped It Out Of Existence Had It Not Been For The Arrival Of Military Reinforcements. The Colonial Administration Realized After This Catastrophic War That Reliance On The Indigenous Slave Trade Poses A Strategic Security Danger That Threatens The Very Existence Of The Colony. Accordingly, The Gradual And Methodical Shift Toward Complete Dependence On Enslaved African Labor In The South Began.
However, Fisher Clearly Affirms That This Transformation Did Not Mean The Actual End Of The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples, But Was A Herald Of Its Transition To A New Stage Of Institutional Concealment And Changing Legal Names, Which Paves The Way For Understanding The Major Transformations Witnessed By The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries.
To The Most Complex And Mysterious Gray Area In The History Of The American Continent, Which Is The Era Of The Eighteenth Century Until The Dawn Of The Nineteenth Century. If The Previous Centuries Were Characterized By Open Brutality, Explicit Massacres, And Transatlantic Indigenous Slave Trade Through Mechanisms Such As The “Gun-Slave Cycle,” Then The Eighteenth Century Witnessed A Radical Transformation In The Strategy Of Colonialism. The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Did Not Disappear, But Wore A New Legal And Institutional Cloak, And Hid Behind Administrative Terms Designed Specifically To Erase The Identity Of Victims From Official Records Forever. In This Crucial Section Of The Book, Fisher Analyzes What Is Known As “Paper Genocide” Or “Administrative Erasure,” Which Is The Methodical Process That Transformed Hundreds Of Thousands Of Indigenous People From Humans With Roots And Rights Into Mere Numbers And Vague Racial Classifications Serving The Emerging Capitalist Economic Machine.
Fisher Begins His Analysis Of This Era By Monitoring The Direct Consequences Of The Yamasee War (1715) In The South, And Similar Disturbances In New England. Colonial Authorities Realized That Continuing To Rely On Indigenous Slaves, Who Preserve The Terrain Of The Land And Have Blood Ties With Tribes Surrounding The Colonies, Poses An Existential Threat To Settler Security. In Parallel, The Transatlantic African Slave Trade Was Reaching Its Peak, Supported By Huge Monopoly Companies Such As The “Royal African Company.” Here, Colonies Began To Favor African Labor That Had Been Uprooted From Its Environment And Has No Local Allies. But This Demographic And Economic Transformation Did Not Mean The Release Of Indigenous Slaves Already Existing In Farms And Homes, But Meant The Beginning Of A Fierce Campaign To Forcibly Integrate Them Into The New Slavery System Based On The Strict Racial Duality: Free White, And Enslaved Black.
The Book Dives Into The Corridors Of Courts And Estate Records And Legislative Councils To Reveal How Language And Law Were Manipulated To Strip Indigenous Peoples Of Their Affiliation. Fisher Clarifies That Settlers And Census Officials Began To Gradually Abandon The Use Of The Word “Indian” (Indian) Or “Indigenous” In Official Documents To Refer To Slaves. And Instead, Elastic And Racist Terms Such As “Mulatto” (Mulatto) And “Mestizo” Or “Mestee” (Mustee) Were Invented And Generalized, Reaching The Comprehensive Classification Under The Word “Negro” (Negro) Or “Colored” (Colored). This Terminological Change Was A Deadly Weapon; Once The Indigenous Individual Or Mixed Child Is Recorded In Church Records Or Inventory Lists As “Negro” Or “Colored,” He Immediately Loses Any Legal Protection, However Slight, That Treaties Concluded With Indigenous Tribes Might Provide, And Is Fixed At The Bottom Of The Social Pyramid As A Slave Owned For Life, He And His Descendants After Him.
The Author Lingers Long Over The Social And Psychological Consequences Of This Forced Integration, Highlighting The Emergence Of “Afro-Indigenous” Communities In The Darkness Of Large Plantations. Indigenous And African Slaves Found Themselves Sharing The Same Shackles, And The Same Whips Of Executioners, And The Same Narrow Living Spaces. This Sharing In Pain And Destiny Led To Deep Intermarriage And Cultural Mixing That Changed The Face Of Social History Of America. Spiritual Beliefs, Agricultural Techniques, Music, And Methods Of Resistance Blended. But Fisher Alerts Us That This Beautiful And Tragic Mixing At The Same Time, Was Exploited By White Masters To Accelerate The Process Of Erasure. Laws Such As The Principle Of “The Child Follows The Mother” (Partus Sequitur Ventrem) That Were Passed In Virginia And Others, Ensured That Any Child Born To An Enslaved Indigenous Woman Will Be Classified As A Slave, And With The Passage Of Generations And Mixing Of Lineages, Courts Refused To Recognize Indigenous Blood And Were Content With Racial Classification Based On Skin Color, Which Led To The Swallowing Of Entire Branches Of Indigenous Nations Within The Category Of “Blacks” In America, And Depriving Them Of Their Heritage And Historical Claims To Their Lands.
The Narrative Later Moves To The Stark And Painful Contradiction That Accompanied The Era Of The American Revolution (1776-1783). Fisher Puts Us Before The Historical Mirror To Contemplate How The Founding Fathers Were Writing Resounding Declarations About The Natural Rights Of Man, And That “All Men Are Created Equal,” While In Reality They Owned Hundreds Of Slaves, And Launched Extermination Campaigns Against Indigenous Tribes That Stood As An Obstacle In The Face Of Their Westward Expansion. The Book Highlights How The War Of Independence, Which Is Taught As An Epic Of Liberation From British Tyranny, Was For Indigenous Peoples A Double Catastrophe. On One Hand, Their Villages Were Targeted And Their Crops Burned In Devastating Military Campaigns, Such As The “Sullivan Campaign” In 1779 Ordered Personally By George Washington To Wipe The Haudenosaunee Nation (Iroquois) Off The Face Of The Earth. And On The Other Hand, American Militias Exploited The State Of War To Kidnap Indigenous Women And Children And Sell Them Again To Finance The War Effort, In A Literal Replication Of Seventeenth-Century Practices But This Time Under The Banner Of Freedom And Independence.
With The Establishment Of The New Republic, The Book Tracks How Absence And Exclusion Were Institutionalized In The Structure Of The Federal State Itself. Fisher Sheds Light On The First National Censuses Of The United States, Starting With The Census Of 1790. The Engineers Of The American Constitution Led A Racist Statistical Campaign That Excluded “Indians Not Taxed” From The Population Count That Determines Political Representation, While Indigenous People Who Lived Inside Settlements As Servants And Slaves And Day Laborers Were Crammed Into The Category Of “Other Free Persons” Or Simply Added To The Numbers Of African Slaves. This Statistical Mechanism Was Not Just A Bureaucratic Error, But Was A Political And Legal Assassination; It Succeeded In Convincing Later Generations Of Americans That Indigenous Peoples Had “Disappeared” Or “Become Extinct” Naturally From The East Coast, Paving The Way For The Myth Of “Inevitable Vanishing” That Later Justified Forced Displacement Policies.
But In The Face Of This Crushing Machine Of Legal And Administrative Obliteration, Fisher Does Not Leave Us In The Swamp Of Colonial Despair, But Allocates A Wide Space To Document Forms Of Legal And Social Resistance Waged By Enslaved Indigenous And Mixed Individuals. The Book Reviews Dozens Of Cases And Lawsuits Filed Before The Courts Of New England And Virginia In The Late Eighteenth And Early Nineteenth Centuries, Where Enslaved Individuals, Women And Men, Used The Colonial Legal System Against Itself. They Submitted Petitions Demanding Their Freedom Based On Tracing Their Maternal Lineage Lines, Trying To Prove That Their Grandmothers Were Indigenous Women Captured Illegally Outside The Framework Of “Just War.” Although Courts Controlled By Slave Masters Rejected Most Of These Petitions, The Documents And Genealogy Testimonies Presented In These Trials Stand Today As A Counter-Archive, And A Living Testimony To The Insistence Of These Individuals On Extracting Their Identity And Documenting Their Indigenous Affiliation Despite The Cruelty Of The System That Tried To Swallow Them.
Alongside Resistance In The Courts, The Book Reveals The Phenomenon Of “Indentured Servitude” (Indentured Servitude) As A Convincing Alternative To Explicit Slavery. With Increasing Pressures To Abolish Slavery In The Northern States After The Revolution, Indigenous And African People Did Not Obtain Real Freedom. Instead, Northern Legislative Councils Invented Laws Forcing Indigenous Children, Especially Orphans Or Children Of Poor Families Stripped Of Their Lands, To Work As Servants In White Family Homes Until They Reach The Age Of Twenty-One Or Twenty-Four. Under The Guise Of “Vocational Training” And “Civil Care,” These Children Were Torn From Their Mothers And Their Cultures, And Forced To Forget Their Languages, And Worked Without Pay In White Farms And Kitchens. Fisher Sees In This System Nothing But An Extension Of Slavery With Seemingly Gentler Legal Tools, And That It Was A First Rehearsal For The Policies Of Boarding Schools That Will Sweep The Lives Of Indigenous Peoples In The Late Nineteenth Century.
Thus Fisher Succeeds In The Part Devoted To The Eighteenth Century In Ending The Comfortable Narrative Claiming That The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Was Just A Marginal Phenomenon That Quickly Faded. He Has Proven With Documents And Records That Indigenous Slavery Did Not Fade, But Was Swallowed And Recycled Within The System Of African Slavery, And Within Systems Of Forced Labor And Vocational Training, And Within Distorted Racial Records. It Is The Era Of Erasure Par Excellence, The Era In Which Individuals Were Stripped Of Their Names And Their Tribes To Become Ghosts In The Archives Of A Nation Built On Their Stolen Lands And Their Forgotten Sweat. This Deep Understanding Of The Mechanisms Of Institutional Concealment And Paper Genocide In The Eighteenth Century Is What Prepares Us To Comprehend The Next Shock, Which Is How These Practices Reappeared Blatantly And Fiercely With The Expansion Of The Borders Of The American Republic Toward The West In The Nineteenth Century, So That The Cycle Of Theft Of Bodies And Souls Continues Under New Names.
Fisher Opens The Fourth Section Of His Book, Which Bears The Title “Reappearance Or New Rise (1820-1880),” By Shedding Light On One Of The Deepest Moral Paradoxes In American History. At A Time When The United States Was Moving With Hasty Steps And Escalating Political Tension Toward The Great Civil Clash Over The Issue Of Abolishing African Slavery In The South, There Was A Silent And Violent Wave Of Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Escalating Horrifically In The West And American Southwest. With The Growing Doctrine Of “Manifest Destiny” (Manifest Destiny), And The Frantic Rush Of White Settlers Toward The Vast Lands Seized From Mexico In Texas And California And New Mexico, Settlers Did Not Bring With Them Only Dreams Of Wealth, But Also Brought A Renewed Enslaving Machine, That Merged Smoothly And Opportunistically With The Forced Labor Systems Left By Spanish Colonialism.
The Book Takes Us With Horrific Documentary Detail To The State Of California During The “Gold Rush” That Erupted In 1848, To Reveal How This State, Which Officially Entered The Union As A “Free” State Prohibiting Slavery, Turned Into An Open Slaughterhouse And A Fully Integrated Slave Market For Indigenous Peoples. With The Influx Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Gold Seekers, The Legislature In California Issued A Diabolical Legislation In 1850 Known As The “Act For The Government And Protection Of Indians.” This Law In Its Appearance Was A Civil Document, But In Its Essence It Legalized The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples Under The Cover Of “Vagrancy Laws.” It Was Enough That Any Indigenous Individual Be Accused Of Being A Vagrant Without Work To Be Arrested, And Then Displayed In A Public Auction For A Settler To Pay His Bail In Exchange For Forcing Him To Work With Forced Labor In Farms Or Mines For Months Or Years.
The Horror In California Did Not Stop At The Enslavement Of Adults, But Fisher Documents The Emergence Of A Thriving Black Market For The Trade Of Indigenous Children Under The Guise Of “Apprenticeship” (Apprenticeship). The Law Encouraged White Families To Sponsor Indigenous Children To Teach Them Crafts, Which Led To The Formation Of Organized Militias And Gangs That Raided The Villages Of Peaceful Tribes In Northern California, And Killed Fathers And Mothers In Cold Blood, Then Kidnapped Children And Girls To Sell Them At Prices Ranging Between 50 To 250 Dollars Per Child To Become Servants In The Homes Of The New Rich And Workers In Farms. Fisher Describes This Era As A Genocide Accompanied By Systematic Human Trafficking, That Occurred Under The Hearing And Sight Of Federal Officials Who Were In Many Cases Owning These Enslaved Children In Their Homes.
From California, The Narrative Takes Us To Another Theater Of Late Enslavement In The Territory Of New Mexico And The Southwest. The Book Highlights Here The Stark Paradox Of The American Civil War (1861-1865); While Union Armies Were Fighting Bravely In The East To End Black Slavery, The Same Federal Forces Were Launching Campaigns Of Ethnic Cleansing And Enslavement In The West Against The Navajo And Apache Tribes. Fisher Reviews The Story Of “The Long Walk Of The Navajo” (The Long Walk), Where The American Army Forced Thousands Of Indigenous People To Walk For Hundreds Of Miles To Put Them In The Detention Camp “Bosque Redondo,” Which Was Designed To Be Closer To Forced Labor And Forced Work Camps. At The Same Time, American Authorities Turned A Blind Eye To The Continuation Of The “Peonage” System (Peonage) Or Work To Pay Off Debt, Which Was Inherited From Mexicans, Where Thousands Of Indigenous People Were Traded As Commodities To Pay Off Inherited Fictitious Debts. And Even After The Passage Of The Thirteenth Amendment To The American Constitution In 1865 Which Officially Abolished Slavery, The Enslavement Of Indigenous Peoples In The West Continued, Which Required Congress To Issue The “Anti-Peonage Act” In 1867 In A Desperate Attempt To Stop These Practices, And Yet They Continued In Veiled Forms For Decades After, Leaving Inherited Traumas Among The Tribes Of The Southwest.
Then Fisher Moves With Superb Analytical Brilliance To The Fifth Section, “Transformations (1880-1978),” To Pose The Most Difficult And Complex Question: What Does A State Founded On Expansion And Hegemony Do When Open Lands End And The Western Frontier Closes And Indigenous Peoples Are Defeated Militarily And Placed In Reservations? The Answer, As Documented By The Book, Was In Transforming “The Theft Of Bodies For Labor” Into “The Theft Of Minds And Souls For Cultural Erasure,” And Transforming “Military War” Into “Psychological And Institutional War.” Here, The Book Deconstructs The Era Of “Indian Boarding Schools” (Indian Boarding Schools), Which Are Institutions Designed By Former Army Officers Such As Richard Henry Pratt, Under The Famous Fascist Slogan: “Kill The Indian, Save The Man.”
Fisher Explains How These Schools Were Never Educational Or Enlightening Centers, But Were A Modern Extension Of The System Of Enslavement And Colonial Child Trafficking. Children Were Forcibly Taken From The Arms Of Their Families In Reservations, And Shipped On Trains To Distant Distances In The East Such As Carlisle School In Pennsylvania. There, Their Long Hair Which Carries Deep Spiritual Connotations Was Cut, They Were Stripped Of Their Traditional Clothes, And Given English Names, And Punished By Severe Beating Or Solitary Confinement If They Uttered A Single Word Of Their Mother Languages. But The Most Important Addition That Fisher Presents In This Chapter Is His Revelation Of The Enslaving Economic Dimension Of These Schools, Represented In “Outing Programs” (Outing Programs). Instead Of Returning Children To Their Families In Summer Holidays, School Administrations Would Rent Them To Work As Servants In White Family Homes Or As Agricultural Workers In Fields Of Pennsylvania And New York For Free Or For Very Meager Wages Confiscated By The School. Fisher Sees In This System A Literal Replication Of The Policies Of “Vocational Training” And “Contractual Service” That Prevailed In New England In The Eighteenth Century, Where The Final Goal Was To Dismantle The Connection To Land And Tribe And Transform The Indigenous Individual Into A Compliant Cog In The Machine Of The White Capitalist Economy.
And With The Progress Of The Twentieth Century, The Book Clarifies That The Policy Of “Theft Of Relatives” Did Not Stop, But Wore A New Softer And More Dangerous Mask, Represented In Programs Of “Foster Care And Adoption” (Foster Care And Adoption). Fisher Documents How Government Social Welfare Agencies In The Middle Of The Twentieth Century Targeted Indigenous Families Excessively And With Bias. Based On White Middle-Class Standards That Do Not Recognize Community And Tribal Upbringing Methods, Agencies Would Tear Children From Their Homes Under Flimsy Pretexts Related To Material Poverty, To Offer Them For Adoption In White Families, In A Final Attempt To Forcibly Integrate Them And Dissolve Their Identity In The Crucible Of The Dominant Society. This Practice Reached Its Tragic Peak With The Federally Supported “Indian Adoption Project” (Indian Adoption Project), Which Led To The Removal Of About One-Third Of Indigenous Children From Their Communities In The Fifties And Sixties. This Collective Bleeding Did Not Stop Except With The Bitter And Persistent Struggle Of Civil Rights Movements Of Indigenous Peoples, Which Finally Bore Fruit With The Passage Of The “Indian Child Welfare Act” (ICWA) In 1978, Which Imposed Strict Restrictions To Protect Indigenous Families And Restored To Tribes Their Legal Sovereignty Over Issues Of Custody Of Their Children, Considering That Preserving The Family Fabric Is A Matter Of National Survival.
In The Moving Conclusion Of The Book, Linford D. Fisher Presents A Deep Philosophical And Historical Reflection Under The Title “Forgetting And Remembering.” The Book Poses A Terrifying Question To The American Conscience: How Was An Entire Nation, Possessing A Huge Academic And Media Machine, Able To Forget And Erase The Enslavement Of Millions Of People From Its Collective Memory And Its Educational Curricula For Long Centuries? Fisher Answers That This Forgetting Was Not Spontaneous Nor A Result Of The Passage Of Time, But Was An Active And Continuous Process Of “Institutional Amnesia” (Institutional Amnesia). The Official American Narrative Was Carefully Designed To Be A Pure Epic About Freedom, And Democracy, And Glorious Civilizational Expansion. This Exceptional Narrative Does Not Have Room For The Enormity Of The Scandal Represented In Hunting Humans, And Enslaving The Children Of The Original Continent, And Erasing Their Identities. The Obliteration Of These Truths Was A Psychological And Political Necessity To Absolve The Settler Conscience, And To Give Moral Legitimacy To The Possession Of Vast Lands That Today Constitute The United States Of America.
