Original subtitles

Hello, I'm Kevin Costner. Welcome back to 500 Nations.

The first encounters between Europeans and Indian people.

are some of the most famous and important events in world history.

Most of us can recite the names of Christopher Columbus's ships, the year

first landed in the New World, and how he mistakenly called the people he

encountered their Indians.

But few of us know the names of the people who greeted Columbus, or much

the lives they led.

How did they greet the strangers?

Were they treated like gods?

Were they feared?

Were they attacked?

Or were they treated as a new and exotic trading partner by a people who had a

long history of dealing with other seafaring cultures?

The first meeting between European and American worlds would bring two very

different cultures into conflict.

We take you now to the Caribbean, where the rough road of contact begins.

500 Nations continues with A Clash of Cultures.

How much damage, how many calamities, disruptions and devastations of kingdoms

have there been?

How many souls have perished in the Indies over the years?

And how unjustly, how many unforgivable sins have been committed?

Bartolome de las Casas.

In December of 1492.

Three ships, under the command of Christopher Columbus, approached the

largest island in the Caribbean.

For eight weeks, Columbus had traveled from the Bahamas to Cuba, finally

reaching the site of modern -day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the island

would name Hispaniola.

The island was then populated by people known as the Taino.

One region was controlled by the paramount chief, Wakanagari.

On Christmas Eve, while coasting along the shore, Columbus's flagship, the

Maria, ran aground.

When Wakanagari learned the news, He sent all his people from the town with

large canoes to unload everything from the ship.

So great was the care and diligence which that king exercised. And he

was as diligent unloading the ship as in guarding what was taken to land in

order that everything would be well cared for.

Grateful for the island leader's help.

Columbus accepted his invitation to come ashore.

The admiral left to dine on shore and arrived at the time when five kings had

come, all subject to the one who is called Wakanagari.

Wakanagari came to receive the admiral as soon as he had reached land and took

him by the arm.

Columbus was immediately struck by the beauty of Taino life.

The king observes a very wonderful estate in such a dignified manner that

a pleasure to see.

Neither better people nor land can there be.

The houses and the villages are so pretty.

They love their neighbors as themselves.

And they have the sweetest speech in the world.

And they are gentle.

and are always laughing.

Christopher Columbus.

As a token of gratitude for the rescue of his men and supplies, Columbus

presented Guacanagari with a red cape, a prestigious item among the Taino elite.

In return, Guacanagari gave Columbus a golden tiara he wore on his head.

To Guacanagari, it was a fair exchange.

a gesture of mutual respect and recognition, the opening of trade

equals.

To Columbus, it was a crown, a symbol of authority.

Huacanagari was surrendering his lands and people to Spain.

But Columbus was not simply looking to rule people.

He saw something much more valuable to his future.

He saw a goal.

The prize he could take back to his sponsors in Europe.

There was wealth to be had.

And to the Europeans of the time, wealth belonged to those strong enough to take

it.

Now I have ordered my men to build a tower and a fort.

Not that I believe it to be necessary.

For it is obvious that with this man that I bring, I could subdue all of this

island, since the people are naked and without arms.

But it is right that this tower be made, so that with love and fear they will

obey.

Leaving behind a contingent of men in a fort built from the timbers of the Santa

Maria, Columbus set sail for Europe.

With him, he would carry the news of a new world, gold and docile island

Guacanagari and the Taino had no way of knowing what was about to happen to

their ancient way of life.

The Taino's ancestors were part of a series of migrations of South American

Indian people dating back over 2 ,000 years.

They farmed the land and harvested the wealth of the sea.

Taino traders traveled in huge ocean -going canoes capable of carrying up to

men.

Boats laden with feathers, gold, wood, pottery.

beautiful birds, cotton fabric, and food.

Island nations were woven together by trade.

Trade was the communication system by which nations knew one another and

maintained peace.

Some trading partners even exchanged their names to create lasting bonds

their communities.

By the time of contact, there were well over a million people living in the

Caribbean.

Local community leaders were subject to powerful regional leaders, like

Huacanagari, who controlled trade with large personal fleets and warehouses of

commodities.

Into this world, Columbus returned in November 1493 with a military flotilla

17 ships.

Under his command were armor -clad soldiers, mounted cavalry, attack dogs,

guns.

The Spanish conquest of the Caribbean began.

Gold mines were opened, and the Taino were enslaved, forced to mine the ore.

A Spanish priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who accompanied Columbus on his

voyage, spoke out against the cruel treatment of the Taino people.

It is not possible to recount the hundredth part of what I have seen with

eyes.

A man had need to have a body of iron to undergo the labor they endure in

getting gold out of the mines.

They must delve and search a hundred times over in the inner parts of the

mountains till they dig them down from top to bottom.

They must work the very rock hollow.

Bartolomé de las Casas.

Epidemic and famine swept the island.

Yet the Spanish continued to demand that the beleaguered Taino supply them with

both food and labor.

Garrisons were strung across the island to fortify the gold field.

When resistance sprang up, Columbus sent out military units to terrorize towns

into submission.

They were so relentlessly persecuted and pursued with their wives and children

up into the hills so tired hungry and harassed

And there went with them disease death and

misery Just as if they had been killed in the wars

They died of hunger and sickness that surrounded them and the fatigue and

oppression that followed.

After 1496, no more than a third remained of the multitudes that had been

island.

Taino's suffering was so severe that thousands took their own lives rather

submit.

Wherefore many went to the woods and there hung themselves.

after having killed their children, saying it was far better to die than to

so miserably.

Some threw themselves from the high cliffs down precipices.

Others jumped into the sea.

And others starved themselves to death.

Benzoni, soldier for Spain.

Some escaped into the mountains, including Guacanagari, the paramount

had befriended Columbus.

He soon died a homeless wanderer.

By 1503, 11 years after Columbus's first voyage, only a few pockets of

resistance remained.

In the mountainous region of Sharawa, Taino people ruled by a woman named

Anacaona successfully evaded Spanish demands for labor.

Determined to break the resistance, the Spanish governor requested a diplomatic

meeting.

Ana Caona agreed and summoned 80 regional sub -chiefs to her statehouse

meeting.

When the 80 leaders were gathered inside, the governor gave a signal and a

thatched statehouse was set on fire.

Soldiers lined up outside with swords.

Taino leaders who did not burn were killed as they fled the blaze.

Anakoona was spared, only to be later executed by hanging.

In the aftermath of the bloody carnage, a little boy stood among the ashes and

smoke beside the charred remains of his father.

a boy whose name the Spanish would come to remember well,

Enrique.

The child who witnessed the murder of his father and the other Taino leaders

Charoah was taken away from the killing field by a Spanish priest.

He was placed in the care of missionaries and baptized Enrique.

Although raised by Spaniards, he never forgot his own identity, heir to the

chiefdom of the Bajoruco region of the island.

Enrique was a tall and graceful man with a well -proportioned body.

His face was neither handsome nor ugly, but that of a serious and stern man.

He married a native, a woman of excellent and noble lineage, named Doña

Bartolome de las Casas.

The Spanish government created a labor grant system under which individual

Spanish landholders were given village populations to use as forced labor.

Enrique, his wife, and his people were turned over to a debauched young

named Valenzuela.

They were at his mercy.

The priest, Las Casas, protested.

In a more just world, Enrique would have been the master.

Valenzuela viewed Enrique as a slave and valued him less than manure in the

street.

Enrique complied with Valenzuela's tyrannical demands, for which he was

with regular beatings and robbed of his last remaining possessions.

His many appeals to Spanish authorities fell on deaf ears.

When Valenzuela raped his wife, Enrique reached his breaking point.

He and his followers escaped to their homeland.

in the lofty Bajoruco mountain.

The Spanish came to call him the rebel Enrique.

And those who followed him were termed rebels and insurgents.

Although in truth they were not rebelling, but only fleeing from their

enemies who were misusing and destroying them just as a cow or an ox.

tries to escape from the slaughterhouse.

Bartolome de las Casas.

Enrique organized his people.

Women, children, and elderly were sent into caves high in the mountain, where

they raised chickens and cultivated gardens to feed the resistance army.

Scouts were posted on every crag and path.

Heavy boulders rolled into place above the footpaths.

Enrique instructed his men to fight only in self -defense, to kill Spaniards

only in the course of battle, and otherwise to simply deprive them of

arms.

At first, the Spanish army was confident they would quickly crush the Taino

visitors.

But Enrique's people, armed only with spears, iron spikes, fish bones, and

and arrows, fought with fierce determination against the Spanish and

sophisticated arms.

Time after time, they forced the enemy to retreat.

During one fierce battle, Valenzuela himself was captured.

But even this mortal enemy's life would be spared.

Enrique ordered him released.

As word of Enrique's victory spread across the island, many Taino fled to

refuge and joined the fight for freedom.

His legend grew.

It was said that Enrique never slept at night, that he himself patrolled the

village until dawn.

For over a decade, he fought Spain to a standstill.

Finally, unable to defeat the guerrillas on their own territory, an exhausted

and humiliated Spanish government made overtures of peace.

I know the Spanish very well because they killed my father and grandfather

all the people of the kingdom of Sharawa and reduced the population of the

entire island of Española.

I have fled to my own land where neither I nor any of my followers are harming

anyone but are simply defending ourselves against those who came to

kill us.

I need not talk to another Spaniard.

Enrique.

But there was one Spaniard to whom Enrique would still talk, the priest Las

Casas.

After many years spent demanding the king act to stop Spanish atrocities in

New World, Las Casas had been officially designated protector of the Indians.

He now sought out Enrique in his mountain stronghold.

Two months later, Las Casas and Enrique...

appeared before Spanish authorities and negotiated a truce.

Fourteen years after it began, the rebellion came to an end, but only after

Spanish agreed to guarantee freedom for Enrique's people.

At the base of the Cibao Mountains, Enrique settled with his 4 ,000

the last members of a culture that had flourished for millennia.

By the end of the century, the Taino population that Las Casas had estimated

two million was officially reported extinct.

What does the name de Soto mean to me? It means...

The personification of evil.

In the late spring of 1539, less than 50 years

after Columbus, Less than 20 years after the fall of the Aztec Empire, Spanish

conquistador Hernando de Soto landed on the west Florida coast, north of present

-day Tampa Bay.

He rode at the head of a 600 -man army, 200 mounted.

They were supported by 100 servants, herds of horses, pack animals.

swine, and trained attack dogs.

Unable to carry the quantity of food needed to support the massive

De Soto would feed his men and animals on the bounty of the towns they entered.

The invaders came prepared to take their provisions by force.

In July, De Soto struck north into the lands of the Timucua people, chiefdoms

fishermen and farmers scattered across the northern Florida peninsula.

One by one villages were plundered by the marauding art

Indian

people were enslaved as burden bearers chained together with iron neck collars

in groups of 30 If they were men of virtue

They would not have left their own country.

They have made highwaymen adulterers and murderers of themselves without

shame of men or fear of any god.

Timucua.

But the Timucua were people who also knew of war.

As the Spanish army advanced, news reached one leader, Urrutina.

who was secure in a military strength that had never failed him.

As the Spanish force neared Urrutina's town,

De Soto sent a messenger ahead with a warning to submit or be destroyed.

Urrutina responded.

I am king in my land.

I... And all of my people have vowed to die a hundred deaths to maintain the

freedom of our land.

This is our answer, both for the present and forevermore.

De Soto entered Irutina's town with his army in battle formation.

But oddly, they met no resistance.

The chief, who had promised such defiance, seemed to have completely

But the surface belied the reality.

While the Spaniards gorged upon the town's food stores, Urrutina secretly

summoned fighting men from throughout the region.

Then, playing out a military chess game, the young chief invited De Soto to

witness Timucua military maneuvers in a large field.

His plan?

To amass his army and launch a surprise attack on the Spanish force.

But de Soto had been forewarned by a spy.

Matching the Indian leader move for move, he brought his army to the field

battle formation.

To the rear of the Timucua force were two lakes.

To their flank were forests, and in front of them, the Spanish army.

Suddenly, de Soto gave a signal.

Urrutina was seized.

and the Spaniards attacked.

Spanish cavalry thundered forward.

Their forces flew, driving into the Timucuan ranks.

Outmatched, the Indian force fell back.

Some ran towards the shelter of trees.

Hundreds more plunged into the lake nearby, swimming out into the deep water

evade their pursuers.

The Spaniards fired into the lake, trying to force the Timucua to

Indian resistors had to tread water constantly, but by nightfall, not a

man had yielded.

A Spanish chronicler observed the agonizing struggle.

And now, They continued to torment the Indians, never once letting them set

on the shore, hoping that they would become exhausted by the swimming and as

result give up the more quickly.

Thus, they threatened with death those who would not surrender.

Regardless of how much the Castilians afflicted them, they could not do enough

to keep them from showing their spirit and strength.

For even though these men realized that they were without hope of help in the

hardships and danger they were experiencing, some chose death

as their lesser evil.

It was not until late the following morning that 200 survivors surrendered

body.

They had been swimming 24 hours, and it was a great pity to see them emerge from

the lagoon, half drowned and swollen and transfixed by the toil,

hunger, fatigue, and lack of sleep they had suffered.

Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish chronicler.

The remaining seven were dragged out of the water at knife point by De Soto's

men.

The Timucuan prisoners were chained and distributed among the Spanish soldiers

as slaves.

Urrutina was imprisoned inside his own statehouse.

He would make one last act of defiance.

Pretending to have passively accepted his defeat, he lulled De Soto within his

reach.

Suddenly, he lunged at the Spanish leader, smashing his face with chained

The chief gave out such a tremendous roar that it could be heard for a

of a league around.

The blow was so fierce that the Soto was unconscious for more than half an hour,

and he bled through the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Simultaneously, Urrutina was gored by twelve swordsmen.

Outside. The Timucua fell upon their captors, fighting with stones, pots of

boiling food, anything at hand.

The Spaniards turned upon them, killing indiscriminately.

They were valiant and spirited people, and had they found themselves free,

have done more harm.

With all that, imprisoned as they were.

They tried to do everything they could, and for this reason the Spaniards killed

each of them, not permitting a single one to live, which was a great pity.

In a certain way, I feel like the land has a memory of its own, and the memory

of the suffering can still be felt in the southeastern United States.

You can go into sites where Indian villages, and even we might say cities,

were, and you can see the ruins, you can see the mounds where people were

buried, and you don't see the people.

And you know immediately there was a great and tragic story there.

So I think that the story still lives, even if it's not in our history books,

it's in the land itself.

Having laid waste to the Timucua, De Soto marched his army north.

In the spring of 1540, he approached a town near present -day Columbia, South

Carolina.

Cofita Cheque, a farming community with a religious and social heritage,

reaching back to the ancient mound builders.

The army's approach was monitored by the people of Kofita -Cheki.

They hid what they could of their food stores and sent their elderly chieftess

away to a town removed from De Soto's path.

When De Soto reached the bank of the watery river, the niece of the old

chieftess crossed the river to meet him.

Relying on diplomacy rather than military force, She hoped to persuade

Spaniard to spare her people.

The mistress of her town and eight of her ladies embarked in a canoe, which

been covered with a great canopy and adorned with ornaments.

It was towed by a second one, which bore six principal Indians and many oarsmen.

In this manner, they all crossed the river.

The mistress of Kofi Tacheki came before De Soto and, after paying her respects,

seated herself upon a chair which her subjects had brought for her.

She alone spoke with the governor.

Excellent, Lord.

Although my possibility does not equal my wishes, for goodwill is more worthy

than all the treasures of the world which may be offered without it.

With very sincere and open goodwill, I offer you my person, my land,

my vassals, and this poor service.

Unwrapping a great strand of pearls from her neck, she presented them to De

Soto.

Struck with admiration, De Soto called her the Lady of Kofidaceki.

But her generosity and graciousness would not prevent the plunder of her

The Spaniards feasted on 600 bushels of corn.

They looted the graves and temples for pearls.

Then de Soto demanded that the old chieftess be summoned from hiding to

submission.

Finally, a 21 -year -old adopted son of the chieftess was pressed into leading

the army to her.

The Spaniards marched out of town behind the young guide, stopping some time

later in the forest to eat.

He began to grow morose and to sit contemplatively with his hand on his

He gave some long and profound sighs.

Then, as he sat in the midst of the Spaniards, he began to remove his arrows

at a time and very slowly.

Observing that the Castilians were not watching him, he struck himself in the

gullet in such a way as to inflict a mortal wound and thus died instantly.

When the Indian bearers were asked why the boy had taken his life, they

explained.

He realized that the act of guiding these people to his mother's present

location

was unworthy of the love she bore him.

The elderly chieftess remained undiscovered.

But before resuming his march, De Soto took her young niece, the lady of

Cafetacechi, as his hostage.

After days of traveling west, she managed a daring escape, even recovering

of the plundered pearls.

DeSoto would not pursue her. He moved on, crossing the Appalachian Mountains.

In July, he traveled down a broad river into the territory of the Cusa, what is

now northern Alabama.

The Spaniards were amazed by the size and wealth of the Cusa nation, where a

single day's march took them through 12 towns, each surrounded by vast fields of

crops.

When they reached the Cusa capital, They were met on the road by a thousand men

wearing great feathered headdresses and bearing their young chief on a letter.

After replenishing their supplies, de Soto and his men departed without

incident.

With them, they would take stories of Cusa wealth that would become legendary

Spain.

As the army headed west, they left behind one man too sick to travel.

A decision... that would shatter the Kusa world.

On October 18, 1540, de Soto arrived at the fortified town of Movila

in the territory of the powerful Mobile nation.

The Mobile had been preparing for this moment.

Inside a strong defensive wall replete with towers, a war council was in

progress.

Upon the arrival of the Spaniards, a man described as a Captain General was sent

out to confront them.

Who are these thieves and vagabonds who keep shouting, come forth, come forth,

with as little consideration as if they were talking with some such person as

themselves?

No one can endure longer the insolence of these demons, and it is therefore...

Only right that they die today, torn into pieces for their infamy, and that

this way an end be given to their wickedness and tyranny.

As he finished speaking, the Captain General was struck down with a Spanish

sword.

Instantly, thousands of mobile fighters filled out, driving back to Spanish.

Fighting so fiercely, they even grabbed the Cavalier's lances by the blade.

The Indians fought with so great spirit that they drove us outside again and

again.

Elba, planet planet.

But the Spanish soldiers broke through the town's fortifications with battle

axes and drove the mobile inside their home.

De Soto ordered the houses set on fire.

Wind fanned the flames, engulfing the town in thick smoke, while De Soto kept

the trumpets, pipes, and drums blaring.

And yet, the mobile battled ever more desperately.

Women fought frantically beside the men, prompting one Spanish soldier to say,

they fought with the desire to die.

Finally, at sunset, after nine hours of battle, it ended.

Eyewitness estimates of the mobile dead ranged up to 11 ,000.

Bodies littered the streets between the charred remains of buildings.

Even the Spaniards reeled in shock.

One soldier emerged from the silence of the aftermath frozen.

like a wooden statue, until he died.

A mobile fighting man hung himself by his bowstring, rather than be left to

survive alone.

Eighty -two of De Soto's men died, and every one of his soldiers was wounded,

many seriously.

For a month, the army was forced to stop and recover.

Then, as the surrounding Indian nations watched in horror, De Soto renewed his

march.

But his army had been weakened.

The tide was beginning to turn.

In April of 1541, the invaders reached the Mississippi River.

There, De Soto heard stories of the powerful Natchez Nation.

direct inheritors of the Grand Mississippian culture.

Natchez influence, both economic and military, spread in all directions along

the Mississippi.

Their temple pyramids rose majestically along the banks of the rivers.

The Natchez paramount chief, Quaggaltum, was heir to the tradition of the Great

Suns and spiritual head of a powerful religious aristocracy.

His title was Son of the Sun.

He was carried on a litter so his feet would never touch the ground.

His head was flattened according to Natchi custom, and tattoos of black,

and blue designs were etched across his body.

De Soto, claiming that he too was a child of the sun, summoned the Natchi

to the Spanish camp.

Quigaltum sent back his reply.

With respect to what De Soto said about being the son of the sun, let him

dry up the great river, and I will believe him.

With respect to the rest, I am not accustomed to visit anyone.

On the contrary, all of whom I have knowledge.

Visit and serve me and obey me and

pay me tribute.

Quaggaltam, Natchez.

De Soto would never meet Quaggaltam or see the wealth of the Natchez.

On May 21, 1542, he died.

His body was buried in the Mississippi.

Over the following year, DeSoto's army ventured as far west as Texas before

returning to the Mississippi.

There, they built a flotilla and headed downriver for the Gulf of Mexico.

En route, they were met by 100 magnificently painted Natchez canoes,

battle formation.

Seated under canopies, Fighting men, dressed in vivid colors and wearing

headdress plumes, drove the Spanish boats out of Natchez territory and

downriver, where one tribe after another picked up the pursuit.

The Spaniards reached the Gulf of Mexico on July 18, 1543, setting sail

for Spanish outposts on the Mexican coast.

For the American Indian nation, de Soto's expedition mercifully came to an

But it would not be the end of de Soto's influence on the continent.

Twenty years later, another expedition would enter the southeast, this time to

colonize.

In Spain, the agricultural wealth of the region had become legendary.

But the new arrivals found few people and could barely survive.

In desperation, they traveled north to the land of the Cusa, where de Soto's

army had passed through 12 thriving towns on a single day's march.

But instead of the fabled towns, they found ruins and temple mounds deserted

overgrown.

And instead of populations of thousands, they found only pockets of survivors.

Our village had once been very great and populous.

But other men similar to you destroyed it and forced us

to run away in fear.

Unknown to DeSoto.

The thick man he had left with the Cusa carried a weapon far more deadly than

Spanish arms.

While the army carved a path of destruction through the southeast, a

enemy that would take more Indian lives than all the generals and conquistadors

combined was secretly traveling among them.

The Europeans had tremendous immunity and resistance to the diseases that they

had known for tens of thousands of years.

Smallpox, even the plague, chickenpox, whooping cough, measles, mumps. The

Indians had no epidemic diseases.

None of these were there.

Consequently, they had no immunities, absolutely no resistance.

A disease as simple as mumps that we think of today as a childhood disease.

would come into an Indian community and quite possibly kill off 20 % of the

village. Then the next year, another disease could come through, such as

smallpox, and kill off perhaps 30 % of the village. So the Indians were

tremendously weakened by disease.

Knowledge was lost as elders died suddenly.

Nations were thrown into upheaval.

In less than 20 years, civilizations that had flourished for centuries

into oblivion.

Most Americans grow up with the story of the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock

and how they were the first to encounter Indian people in an untouched

wilderness.

But in fact, the arrival of English colonists was by no means the first

encounter.

By the time the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, English slavers and traders

been working the region for decades.

Two of the first Indian people the pilgrims met spoke English.

One of them had even been to England.

It would have been easy for the Indian nations to destroy the original

settlements, but they didn't.

Instead, they welcomed them as potential trading partners and allies.

They gave them land and the knowledge of how to survive on it.

But nothing in the experience of the Indian nations had prepared them for the

European invasion that would follow.

But before we look at the first colonists, we'll go north to a people

English would never conquer, the Inuit, the people who most of us know as

Eskimos.

Welcome to part four of 500 Nations, Invasion of the Coast.

And I think over again, my small adventures when, with a shore wind, I

out in my kayak and thought I was in danger.

My fears, those I thought so big for all the vital things I had to get and to

reach.

And yet, there was only one great thing, the only thing, to live, to

see in Huntsman on Journey the great day that dawns.

and the light that fills the world.

Inuit.

In the northern reaches of the continent, straddling the Arctic Circle,

island larger than Great Britain,

Baffinland.

This was the world of the East Baffinland Inuit, people commonly known

Eskimo.

For the Inuit, the spring thaw was a time of euphoria and plenty.

Small bands would move to summer camps along Baffinland's great southern bay.

There they would hunt caribou along the coast, and seal and walruses.

and the rich marine waters.

Sea has sent me adrift.

It moves me as the weed in a great river.

Earth and the great weather move me, have carried me away, and move my

inward parts with joy.

The summer of

1576 would bring something different.

That summer, English sea captain Martin Frobisher led an expedition in search of

a northern passage to the Orient.

In July, he passed between masses of broken pack ice and through a

channel he named Frobisher Strait.

As the English sailed into the bay, several Inuit launched their kayaks and

paddled toward the ship.

Events were followed by the ship's chronicler.

Our captain discovered a number of small things fleeting in the sea afar off,

which he supposed to be porpoises or seals or some kind of strange fish.

But coming nearer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather.

The Inuit offered fish, field -skin clothing, and friendship.

One man agreed to guide the Europeans through the straits to a place Frobisher

believed to be the Pacific Ocean.

Five sailors were dispatched in a small skiff to row the Inuit guide to his

kayak on shore.

Then, for reasons that may never be known, the Englishman disobeyed

orders not to row out of sight of the ship.

Contrary to his commandment, they rode further beyond that point of the land

of his sight. He could not hear nor see anything of them, and thereby he judged

they were taken and kept by force.

Although Inuit continued to approach the ship for trade,

Frobisher was convinced of treachery.

Preparing to weigh anchor, he decided to take a prize back to his patrons in

England.

The captain was oppressed with sorrow that he should return again back to his

country without bringing any evidence or token of any place whereby to certify

to the world where he had been.

Frobisher held out a bell toward an Inuit trader whose kayak had drawn near

ship.

Reaching toward the hand, outstretched in friendship, Frobisher seized the man,

dragging him aboard.

He then set sail for England, leaving behind his five missing men.

But Frobisher would be denied his living trophy.

Aboard ship, the captive Inuit defiantly bit his tongue in half and later died.

Soon after Frobisher left Baffinland, the winter ice floes closed the bay and

the Inuit returned to their winter lives.

The following summer, Frobisher returned to Baffinland.

On July 31st, one of his ships put ashore at a point some 150 miles from

his five men had disappeared the previous year.

Stumbling upon a vacant Inuit summer camp, they found articles of European

clothing.

In these tents, they beheld a doublet of canvas made after the English fashion,

a shirt, a girdle, three shoes for contrary feet and of unequal bigness,

they well conjectured to be the apparel of our five poor countrymen.

The next day, Frobisher sent 40 soldiers back to the area.

where they surprised 18 Inuit men, women, and children.

As the Inuit fled their tent, the English opened fire.

Dodging bullets, the Inuit ran for the shore.

Launching a large boat called an umiak, they tried to escape to open water.

but English boats forced them back against the rocky coast.

Frantically, they climbed up the crags above the waves.

The soldiers surrounded them from land and sea.

While women and children huddled against the rocks, the Inuit men fought for

their lives.

And desperately returning upon our men, resisted them manfully so long as their

arrows lasted.

And after gathering up those arrows which our men shot at them, yea, and

plucking our arrows out of their bodies, maintained their cause until both

weapons and life utterly failed them. And when they found they were mortally

wounded, with deadly fury they cast themselves headlong from off the rocks

the sea, lest perhaps their enemies should receive glory.

Some Inuit scrambled over the rocks, slippery with blood and the walk of the

sea, and escaped.

A woman and her wounded child were less fortunate.

Frobisher took them captive.

Along with a man he had captured days before, he had now collected a set of

Inuit people.

As his ship sailed for England, Frobisher displayed little compassion

kidnapped victims, torn away from their homes and families.

They were confined together.

The English crew allowed to watch them for entertainment, hoping to see them

mate.

Having now got a woman captive for the comfort of our man, we brought them both

together, and every man, with silence, desired to behold the manner

of their meeting and entertainment.

The crew was to be disappointed by the couple's dignity.

Although they lived continually together, yet did they never use as man

wife, and they both were most shamefast lest any of their private parts be

discovered.

Upon arrival in England, artist John White painted these portraits.

Soon after, the Inuit man, woman, and child.

All died of illness.

The following spring, Frobisher sailed on his final voyage to the Inuit world.

This time, no one came forward to greet the ships.

The Inuit held themselves aloof, refusing contact.

The English never solved the mystery of their missing men.

But for centuries...

the Inuit would tell the story of the five white men Frobisher abandoned.

It was said that after living peacefully among them, one spring the five men

outfitted an umiak with a mast and sails and departed, never to be seen again.

In 1600, the Atlantic coast of North America, the present -day United States,

was home to well over a hundred Indian nations.

Nations nourished by fertile farmlands and bountiful hunting and fishing.

Well -maintained gardens produced corn, squash, and a variety of other fruits

and vegetables.

Summer fishing camps stretched along the barrier islands.

Sounds and estuaries swarmed with fish, harvested by traps and nets.

Land, people, and teachings had melded into a rich, sophisticated way of life.

At the very center of the Atlantic seaboard, south of present -day

.C., 30 small nations united in the early 1600s to form the powerful

Confederacy.

The Powhatan Confederacy was built by a charismatic leader who traveled between

his many subject towns with an entourage of bodyguards and followers.

His name was Wahoon Sanakawa.

Through diplomacy, he held 30 nations together, and through military strength,

he controlled the region.

In 1607, an English ship sailed up Chesapeake Bay and into the lands of the

Powhatan.

The ship was captained by a soldier of fortune, John Smith.

Hoping to be the first successful English colony in North America, the

well -armed expedition landed at a place they would call Jamestown.

As Jamestown took shape, Bohunsonakawa carefully weighed his options.

He could destroy the settlement, but he was well aware of the power of European

weapons and knew that an attack... would be costly in Powhatan lives.

Wahunsanakawa also saw the advantage of trade for European weapons and tools.

He chose to watch and wait, monitoring the progress of the settlement through

the eyes of his most trusted ally, his brother, Opishkankano, chief of the most

powerful Powhatan nation, the Pamunkey.

During their first winter, the colonists were barely able to provide for their

basic needs, and many died.

Opishkankano reported that the desperate English had begun entering Pohatan

towns and taking food by force.

Wahun Sanakewa decided that he had to bring the colony under his direct

He ordered the capture of John Smith.

and had the English captain brought before him.

Present was Wahunsanakawa's favorite daughter, Pocahontas.

The romantic story of Pocahontas saving Smith from death was undoubtedly an

example of Smith's own creativity.

His account of the incident, written immediately afterward, said nothing of

life being threatened.

Only his memoirs, written 17 years later, included the story.

In fact, in his memoirs, he claimed to have been saved from death at the last

moment by beautiful women no less than three times.

In reality, it is probable that Wahunsanakawa cemented an alliance by

proclaiming Smith leader of the Powhatan's newest subject town,

Having established his supremacy and English submission, Wahunsanakawa

Smith.

But as new people and supplies arrived from England, the colony tried a new

to gain the upper hand.

The English attempted to crown Wahunsanakawa king of the Powhatan.

which would make him a subject king of England.

But the coronation turned into a farce.

And a foul trouble there was to make him kneel to receive his crown.

He, neither knowing the majesty nor meaning of a crown, nor bending of the

endured so many persuasions, examples, and instruction as tired them all.

At last, by leaning hard on his shoulders,

He a little stooped, and Captain Newport put the crown on his head.

John Smith, English Captain.

The true balance of power was reflected in the trade between the two nations.

The English were forced to pay extremely high prices in copper and trade goods

for Powhatan food.

New arrivals to the colony were shocked at the exchange rate, and the situation

was an embarrassment to John Smith and the English.

Finally, emboldened by an infusion of new weapons and men, Smith saw his

to tilt the balance of power toward Jamestown.

In January 1609, he took a military contingent into a Pamunkey town.

and seized Opishkankano and held him at gunpoint.

His soldiers plundered the Pamunkey food stores, then demanded regular food

tribute.

If the Pamunkey did not comply, Smith promised to load his ships with their

carcasses.

Despite the assault, Wahunsanakawa strove to maintain the peace.

Why will you take my force?

what you may have quietly by love.

Why will you destroy us who supply you with food?

What can you get by war?

We are unarmed and willing to give you what you ask if you come in a friendly

manner and not with swords and guns.

But the English allowed for no diplomatic solution.

No longer pretending to respect Pohatan authority, they used their weapons to

take what they wanted, including Pohatan land.

The survival of the Pohatan people at stake.

Wahunsanakewa finally turned to war in August of 1609.

It would continue unabated for four years.

Then, in April 1613, Pocahontas was kidnapped for the ransom of all

English prisoners of war.

The English captives were released, but Pocahontas remained a hostage.

While held, she was indoctrinated daily in English customs and Anglican

religion.

Then the prisoner declared she had fallen in love with one of her captors,

Rolfe.

The weary Wahunsanakawa agreed to a truce, hoping to see his daughter again.

I am not so simple as to not know that it is much better to eat good meat.

sleep comfortably, laugh and be merry with the English, than to run away from

them and lie cold in the woods and to be so hunted that I can neither eat nor

sleep.

Pocahontas was baptized Lady Rebecca and peace was sealed with her marriage to

John Rolfe.

Two years later, With their infant son, they sailed to England.

Pocahontas was a sensation in London.

She was shown in the best circles and presented to the king.

But the woman billed as the right -thinking savage would not see her home

She became ill, and in March of 1617, as she prepared to sail for Jamestown,

Pocahontas died.

She was 22 years old.

With his lands shrinking, the death of his daughter finally broke

Wahunsanakawa's heart.

He relinquished power and died the following year.

For Wahunsanakawa's brother, Opishkankano, the struggle continued,

a grave situation.

The American practice of smoking tobacco was taking hold in England.

Demand for Virginia tobacco gave Jamestown a cash crop and the need for

Powhatan land for cultivation.

For the next 25 years, Opishkankano would lead the Powhatan in wars for

land and sovereignty.

But by 1645, the struggle was becoming hopeless.

The aged Opishkankano was carried into battle on a litter.

He could not walk without help.

He could not see without his servants holding his eyelids open.

The last Powhatan war ended with the capture of the 90 -year -old leader.

Opishkan Kano was murdered, shot in the back by an English guard.

The powerful Powhatan Empire had proved unable to stem the tide of colonial

expansion.

On the little land that was left them, Powhatan people live to this day.

descendant of the two brothers who guided their people through the first

generation of contact.

In 1619, a young Patuxet man named Tisquantum returned to

his Massachusetts Bay village.

But no mother or father or wife hurried to welcome him home.

His village was deserted, the houses overgrown, and in the place of family

and friends lay a field of bones.

Five years earlier, Tisquanum had been captured by Englishmen and taken to

to be sold into slavery.

Freed by Spanish priests, he made his way to England.

From there, he worked his way back to North America as a guide and interpreter

on an English ship.

Tisquanum's village had been decimated by disease brought by the same English

slavers who had abducted him.

Now he stood in the shattered remnants of his home.

This year there would be no ceremony of thanksgiving for the bounties of the

earth and sea.

No thanks for the corn, the wild turkeys and geese, the lobsters, walnuts and

berries that were so plentiful.

Tisquanum's long journey finally ended in Montauk, capital of the neighboring

Wampanoag Nation.

themselves recovering from the ravages of European diseases.

In December of the following year, 1620, a small English ship, the Mayflower,

sailed into the Patuxet Bay, landing at the site of Tisquanum's deserted

village.

The English renamed it Plymouth.

The pilgrim's first winter was a hard one.

Thickness and starvation reduced the 100 colonists by half.

No Indian people came forward, and none could be found.

With the coming of spring, The surviving pilgrims were amazed by the appearance

of one Indian man who greeted them with the word, Welcome.

His name was Samoset.

He had learned some broken English among the Englishmen that came to fish at

Monhegan. We questioned him of many things.

He told us the place where we now live is called Patuxet.

and that about four years ago all the inhabitants died of an extraordinary

plague, and there is neither man, woman, nor child remaining, as indeed we have

found none, so that there is none to hinder our possession or lay claim unto

William Bradford, Plymouth Colony.

Samoset left Plymouth and traveled to Montauk to bring word of the fledgling

colony to the Wampanoag leader.

Massasoit.

Within days, Massasoit and an entourage set out on the trip to Plymouth.

Samoset was sent ahead with someone whose English was even better than his

Tisquanam, the last Patuxet, the one person who could truly call Plymouth

Later that day, Massasoit arrived.

He was a very robust man in his best years, grave of countenance and spare of

speech. His face was painted with a red like mulberry, and he was oiled both

head and face.

William Bradford, Plymouth Colony.

Using Samoset and Tisquanum as interpreters, Mathasoit negotiated a

the pilgrims for peace and mutual protection.

Massasoit had reason to seek allies.

The European epidemics had wiped out a vast majority of the Wampanoag people

neighboring nations.

However, their powerful rivals to the west, the Narragansett, were left

untouched.

An alliance with the pilgrims would help the Wampanoag regain their diplomatic

strength.

Why would they want to have two enemies?

The Narragansetts, whom they could probably consider to be their biggest

or these gnat -like English people that kept coming around the country, but they

never seemed to stay before.

Now all of a sudden they've got a group of them that's building houses that have

brought their families, women, first time English women have been in New

England. Native logic would say, well, you don't bring your women where you're

going to make war.

So let's make peace with these people, use them as allies.

They've got their strange weapons, and if we make peace with them first before

anybody else does, then we'll have them on our side and we won't have to face

their guns.

While Massasoit and his entourage returned to Montauk,

Tisquanam remained with the pilgrims on his beloved homeland and taught the new

arrivals how to plant and where to fish.

In the fall, 20 acres of Indian corn stood at Plymouth ready for harvest.

And just as Tisquanam taught the pilgrims to plant, he must have told

the annual ceremony of Thanksgiving.

a ceremony of thanks to celebrate the gifts of their world.

The pilgrims embraced the event and invited Massasoit and his Wampanoag to

their bounty.

The Indian leader arrived with 90 of his people and five deer for the feast.

For three days and nights, the celebration continued.

Prayers and dances alternating with shooting contests, wrestling matches,

games.

The Thanksgiving of 1621 would be remembered as the pilgrim's first.

But for the Wampanoag, such a day of thanks had occurred from the beginning

time.

We believe that everything that was given to us was a gift from the Creator.

So because it was a gift, we remembered to give thanks.

And we did that in all of the ways that we could.

And this was the basis of our ceremonial life.

And because everything was a gift, we realized there was an obligation that

comes with a gift, and that obligation was to share.

Because if we didn't share, there was no reason for the Creator to continue to

give us those gifts.

At the end of the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims and Wampanoag promised to

make the feast an annual celebration of their harvest and friendship.

But the relationship between the nations was destined to change.

We gave them unconditional acceptance and love and nurture men That

was otherwise they would have been massacred at the beach

When the English first came my father

was a great man and the English a little child He constrained other Indians from

harming the English He gave the English corn and showed them how to plant

He let them have a hundred times more land than now I have for my own people.

King Philip, Wampanoag.

For almost 40 years, while the Plymouth colony rapidly expanded, Mathesoit

maintained peace between his Wampanoag and the English.

Mathesoit is a Wampanoag nation.

He was a magnificent peacekeeper.

And that 50 years of peace maintained between us and the English

was really due to his intelligence, integrity, and

love for the people.

By the time of Massasoit's death in 1660, a new generation had risen to

Plymouth.

They had long forgotten.

his generosity.

Leadership passed to Massasoit's 24 -year -old son, Philip.

He would become known as King Philip.

But then when Philip took over, he was a different sort of a person.

He was going to fight to the end for his people.

In 1662, when King Philip came to power, the growing colonies held 50 ,000

residents.

In New England, Indian nations found themselves surrounded.

Their agricultural land shrinking, many Wampanoag were left with little choice

but to work for the English as laborers and servants.

But it wasn't just land and liberty they were losing.

Their culture and traditions were also under attack.

The English, they thought of Wampanoags as...

inferior from all the way around, from a standpoint, especially the religion.

And then as a people, they were savages.

Zealous Puritans set out to convert them, pressuring many to abandon their

and beliefs and to move to newly established praying towns.

With little regard for the laws of the sovereign Wampanoag nation,

The English arrested King Philip's people for violating the Puritan code of

ethics, the Blue Laws.

Individuals were prosecuted for hunting and fishing on the Sabbath, for using

Indian medicine, and entering into non -Christian marital unions.

The women, when we went out for our moon watch and spent time alone or with our

friends, who also had their moon at the same time, and we'd sit out there in the

woods alone chatting and purifying, they made laws against us that we couldn't

do that, that we needed to be in the village, we needed to be working, except

for on the Sabbath.

In Plymouth, Indian people were sentenced to death for denying the

religion.

Pray or be shot was the method of conversion.

That's how the first Christian Indians had Christianity brought to them.

King Philip took an uncompromising stand against the repression.

You see this vast country before us, which the Creator gave to our fathers.

You see these little ones, our wives and children.

And you now see the foe before you.

They have grown insolent and bold.

All our ancient customs are disregarded.

Treaties made by our fathers are broken.

Our brothers murdered before our eyes.

King Philip, Wampanoag.

Fifteen years after his father's death, King Philip finally urged his people to

war.

Our ancestor spirits cry to us for revenge.

These people from the unknown world will cut down our groves, spoil our hunting

and planting grounds, and drive us and our children from the graves of our

fathers.

King Philip had no other choice because his land was being taken away.

His people, the allegiance of his people, was being eroded.

The war itself was not only over land, it was also over the right to follow our

own traditions the Creator had given us.

On June 24th, 1675, King Philip's War began.

In a brilliantly orchestrated series of forays, Several English towns were

caught off guard and burned to the ground by the Wampanoag and their

An Indian never forgets the kindness, but he never forgives the wrong.

And because there had been so much kindness shown during those good years

between Massasoit, King Philip's father, and those settlers that came, King

Philip never forgot. Any of those families had been close to he and his

and he spared them. He actually even sent warnings.

Some of those families during the war that they were the towns would be burned

so they could escape with their families As Indian victories mounted

hysteria gripped the settlement It was reported that Indian troops

hung upon the fringes of the English towns like the lightning on the edge of

clouds On the side of a bridge over the Charles River one of King Philip's

men posted a taunting message.

Know by this paper that the Indians that you have provoked to wrath and anger

will war if you will.

There are many Indians yet.

You must consider the Indians lose nothing but their life.

You must lose your fair houses and cattle.

James, Nipmuc.

Through the fall and winter, fortune favored King Philip's forces.

Then, a series of defeats demoralized some Wampanoag allies.

The Great Swamp Massacre was where over 300 Native American old women and

children were all burnt alive in their wigwams.

just six days before Christmas, December 19, 1675.

And one historian recorded that the smell of burning flesh so

moved one of the pilgrim soldiers that he later asked one of his superiors

whether burning the enemies alive was consistent with the benevolent

of the gospel.

The fortunes of war were turning.

With the coming of spring, their winter food stores were depleted and they were

unable to plant or replenish their supplies.

King Philip's people were starving.

And English troops hunted them as though trailing a wounded animal.

In May, the English attacked an allied Indian force camped above the falls on

the Connecticut River.

300 Indian people were killed.

Some managed to reach their canoes, but in their haste left behind their paddles

and were swept over the fall to their death.

For the next two months, King Philip and his people evaded capture, but the

noose was tightening.

In August, English troops fell upon his camp, killing or capturing 173.

King Philip narrowly escaped, but among those captured were his wife and nine

-year -old son.

In Plymouth, The clergy decided their fate.

They were sold into slavery in Bermuda.

My heart breaks.

Now, I am ready to die.

He would choose where he would die.

King Philip returned to his home at Montauk, where his father, Massasoit,

often fed and entertained the pilgrims decades earlier.

In the dawn light of August 12, 1676, an English and Indian army surrounded the

sleeping camp.

Moments later, King Philip was dead.

shot through the heart by an Indian mercenary.

King Philip's head was put on display in Plymouth, where it remained for

the next 20 years.

We all have a purpose, a role in life, and the Creator in all of his wisdom.

saw fit to spare us.

We all could have been burned alive in the Great Swamp. We all could have been

slaughtered in that war.

But we were left here for a reason, and I believe that part of that reason is to

be a conscience of this society, to prevent those same kinds of mistakes

continuing to be repeated over and over.

That's what I see as my purpose, as the purpose of all of our Native people who

will stand up and...

continue with that spirit that King Philip, Pontiac, Geronimo, all of our

leaders have had.

In our next program, we move to the interior of the continent where the

the Indian nations were turned into battlefields as the French the English,

the American colonists all fought for supremacy.

Please join us when 500 Nations returns for A Cauldron of War.