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 _________________________________________________________________ Picture this – share your photos and you could win big! http://www.GETREALPhotoContest.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us