After The War Began By Jill Lepore Summary

Jill Lepore used quotes and images from English colonists and portraits to show how colonists wrote about their experiences during King Philip’s War and how the narrative of the war has changed throughout the centuries. It also sets how colonists will narrate wars for future centuries. She spoked about how their writings of the war had a consequence of temporally silencing the Native Americans version on the war and how people have forgotten or even have any knowledge of the war. She uses a Boston merchant, Nathaniel Saltonstall account tilted “A true but brief account of our losses since this cruel and mischievous war begun” written in July 1676 year after the war had begun. He lists towns such as Narragansett, Warwick, Seekonk and Springfield

Lepore found the account of Mary Rowlandson of February 10, 1676 powerful, describing the day Nipmuc come into her town killing everyone and taking people as captives. Lepore found interesting was the concern the English had was that they had lost everything that they had created. After the war when everything was destroyed in a way the colonist no longer owned the land. What the colonists did to make reconcile themselves was to turn to God for an answer on why the war happen. The colonists figured that God had brought this war upon them due to their sins, some colonists believed that God was abandoning them and punishing them. Lepore specks about how Native Americans knew colonists feared that their god has abandoned them and they would mock Christianity by telling them that their god was on the native American side. One of Lepore’s favorite stories is about a man that believed that the bible held a mystical power and he didn’t feel that he had to run to the garrison when Native Americans would

She talks about when early in the war Philip stated that he hated Christianity. Since the conversion of his people to Christianity was dividing his people and making his people no longer loyal to him and native ways. Lepore expresses that the colonist in the beginning of King Philip’s war wrote about it to reconcile and defend their actions. They used the fact that they had the ability to read and write to silence the Native Americans and portrayed them as savages. She used an image of a naked Native American welcoming them with his arms open and his weapons down as an example that colonists had the conference to put words into their mouths. Lepore discusses how the colonists changed how they wrote about the war a century later. Colonists remembered the war in a way to gain support for the American Revolution by saying that the founding fathers fought to protect their homes and all they can do is fight the British. She counues to talking about the image of war changed in 1814, when Washington Irving wrote “Philip of Pokanoket”. Irving claimed that Philip was an American hero because he fought to free his