Comparing Metacom's War, The Stono Rebellion And Civilization

Throughout the creation of civilization, rebellions have played an important role impacting the path of cultures, both in their initial cause and preceding result. While analyzing significant rebellions within the American colonies, one aspect persists throughout all. The use of a superior viewpoint with regards to one culture over another in an attempt to preserve or impose a group’s culture and way of life. In Metacom’s War, the Stono Rebellion, and the Salem Witch Trials a common theme is certainly notable and relates to Bailyn’s quote, “intermingling between the barbarity and developing civilization,” but who are the barbarians and who are the civilized cultures? In each of the rebellions there is a clear historical tendency to label groups,

More specifically, the question of the barbarian and the civilized. In contrast with the simplistic nature that the quote suggests, one could argue that it was not a rebellion between barbarians and civilized, but rather the ignorant and misunderstood cultures. In the instance of Metacom’s war, it could be inferred that Bailyn refers to the New Englanders as civil and the Indigenous as barbaric, when in reality, it is the Europeans who come to Metacom’s home and impose their will upon his people. In the case of the Stono rebellion, the term “barbarian” can be presumed to be the label of the African slave, but does not capture the meaning of what it meant to be an African living the the New World, a world in which they were forcibly taken to by the Europeans. For the Salem Witch Trials, the people of the town are thought of as superior to that of the rural village, however, it was the rural village who took control with Samuel Parris at the head of the church in town. In summation, although the quote may not have intentionally made the delineation between the two, it is important to realize and truly understand the diverse situations of the events being analyzed because many times the situations are not as simply explained with barbarics versus the

In the case of the Indigenous, Metacom’s war was in essence a rebellion against the English ideals that had been slowly enveloping the indigenous culture of New England, while for the Puritan settlers it was a war to impose their religious beliefs of Christianity and to punish the Indigenous for not believing in the word of God (Lecture). For each, it was a symbol of their cultural power and who would have the upper hand for the remainder of the relationship. Although the two groups traded, intermarried, and worked together in an attempt to peacefully avert war, the superficial relationship and lack of deeper understanding would lead to war. This narrative goes hand and hand with the aforementioned analysis of Bailyn’s quote explaining that there are no civilized or uncivilized, rather a lack of respecting and understanding each other's’ culture. Mary Rowlandson for instance, a captive of Metacom’s revolt, demonstrates her incomplete view of the natives calling them “God-less” and “barbarous creatures” who did things haphazardly (qtd. in Demos). In reality, the Indigenous were certainly not “God-less” and the haphazard assumption is made with a great lack of knowledge. An example of the rejection of European culture by the Indigenous was the Wampanoag killing of a native by the name of John Sassamon who became european educated and acclimated to the settlers’