Anne,
Great Post! This is one point that was missing in the discussion on Islam. 
The role that religion played in slavery. You answered my unasked question.


Anita

>From: Anne Pemberton <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Slavery and Unanswered Questions
>Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:04:13 -0400
>
>Actually, according to the Jamestown Narratives, and what I am reading on 
>the Pennsylvania Colony and its relationship to the Indians, "saving" the 
>Indians had little to do with the goals of the colonies.
>
>Jamestown came to seek riches. When they discovered the riches in tobacco, 
>they wanted land. The Pennsylvania colonists came specifically for land. 
>Land, was the most desired commodity. The Natives were on the land, so the 
>notion of calling them savages, marginalizing them, making them slaves in 
>accordance with the Old Testament commands, and feebly trying to 
>Christianize them (then totally ignoring those who converted when removal 
>was the goal), were the initiatives involved. I'm not as knowledgeable on 
>the Massachusetts colony, but again, the goal seems to have been to secure 
>land, with a feeble intent to Christianize the Indians, again with the 
>colonists ignoring the Christians among the Indians when removal became the 
>goal.
>
>As soon as the Indians posed any resistance to the colonists intents, the 
>saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" spread throughout the 
>colony, whichever one it was.
>
>There seems to be little distinction among the Puritan colonists in 
>Massachusetts, the Quaker colonists in Pennsylvania, and the Corporate 
>colonists in Virginia. They all seemed to follow the same agenda. The 
>Indians as slaves had one advantage over the African slaves - they knew the 
>lay of the land better than their owners and could escape almost at will. 
>The Africans did not know their way around and were stuck in place.
>
>Anne
>Anne Pemberton
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www.erols.com/apembert
>http://www.educationalsynthesis.org

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