126-486: The Fall Creek massacre refers to the slaughter of 9 Native Americans—two men, three women, two boys, and two girls—of uncertain tribal origin on March 22, 1824, by seven white settlers in Madison County, Indiana . The tribal band was living in an encampment along Deer Lick Creek, near the falls at Fall Creek , the site of present-day Pendleton, Indiana . The incident sparked national attention as details of
252-572: A band of Canarse from Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as the Manhattoes , for 60 guilders ' worth of trade goods. Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who accepted valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by another indigenous group, the Weckquaesgeeks . Dutch fur traders set up a network upstream on
378-700: A capital city and royal palace, fully expecting the Dutch to retain control of this rich area. As the Dutch had in Europe, it tolerated the presence of Jews and other religious groups in the colony. After Maurits departed in 1643, the Dutch West India Company took over the colony until it was lost to the Portuguese in 1654. The Dutch retained some territory in Dutch Guiana , now Suriname . The Dutch also seized islands in
504-647: A century after Spain. The relatively late arrival meant that the British could use the other European colonization powers as models for their endeavors. Inspired by the Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the Aztecs , Incas , and other large Native American populations in the 16th century, their first attempt at colonization occurred in Roanoke and Newfoundland , although unsuccessful. In 1606, King James I granted
630-585: A charter with the purpose of discovering the riches at their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. They were sponsored by common stock companies such as the chartered Virginia Company financed by wealthy Englishmen who exaggerated the economic potential of the land. The Reformation of the 16th century broke the unity of Western Christendom and led to the formation of numerous new religious sects, which often faced persecution by governmental authorities. In England, many people came to question
756-505: A colony in Greenland in the late tenth century, and lasted until the mid 15th-century, with court and parliament assemblies ( þing ) taking place at Brattahlíð and a bishop located at Garðar . The remains of a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland , Canada, were discovered in 1960 and were dated to around the year 1000 (carbon dating estimate 990–1050). L'Anse aux Meadows is
882-475: A core group of scientists, who sought to map and catalogue the flora, fauna, and other aspects of the natural world. A major Russian expedition for exploration was mounted in 1742, contemporaneous with other eighteenth-century European state-sponsored ventures. It was not clear at the time whether Eurasia and North America were completely separate continents. The first voyages were made by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov , with settlement beginning after 1743. By
1008-663: A farmer. In 1824 he settled in Carroll County, Indiana , where he became a dry goods merchant. He died at Delphi, Indiana, in 1876. The prosecutions of the white men for the murders of the Native Americans, which cost the United States government nearly seven thousand dollars, avoided further disruptions in the area. Removal of native tribes from the area east of the Mississippi River continued, as did white settlement along
1134-452: A federal Indian agent, identified them as a band of Seneca who had come to the area as part of their winter migration from their home base near Lewis Town, Ohio . In spite of the case's notoriety and the convictions of the white perpetrators, the massacre did not set a lasting precedent for equal justice under American law. A stone marker in Pendleton's Fall Creek Park commemorates the site of
1260-533: A fine of one hundred dollars. Bridge Jr., who faced two murder charges in Logan's death, was tried next. The jury found him guilty after three hours of deliberation on both counts; however, they recommended a pardon for the teenager due to his youth, remorse, and the influence of his father and uncle. The jury took only a few minutes to return a guilty verdict for Bridge Sr. Andrew Sawyer was retried on other counts and found guilty of murder. A petition on behalf of Bridge Jr.
1386-402: A large crowd, which reportedly included several Seneca and Shawnee, gathered to witness the historic execution. The condemned man had to be carried to the gallows due to the frostbite he had suffered while in hiding. Hudson was interred in a nearby cemetery, north of the falls at Fall Creek. The trials of the remaining three men, Bridge Sr., Bridge Jr., and Andrew Sawyer, began on May 9, 1825, in
SECTION 10
#17328515476541512-633: A mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee from their home village of Lewis Town in northwest Ohio , approximately one hundred miles to the east. Other, slightly later sources, suggest the band included Delaware , Miami , and mixed-race members having some European ancestry. Bands with remnant members from numerous tribes in the Old Northwest were quite common at this time, but the precise ethnic backgrounds of this particular group's members will never be known. They established their camp in Madison County, near
1638-511: A planetary scale, ... The fact that this other slavery had to be carried out clandestinely made it even more insidious. It is a tale of good intentions gone badly astray." A major event in early Spanish colonization, which had so far yielded paltry returns, was the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521). It was led by Hernán Cortés and made possible by securing indigenous alliances with
1764-664: A protected group of Christians, Indigenous men no longer could aspire to be ordained Christian priests. Throughout the Americas, the Jesuits were active in attempting to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity. They had considerable success on the frontiers in New France and Portuguese Brazil , most famously with Antonio de Vieira, S.J; and in Paraguay , almost an autonomous state within
1890-671: A range of responses, from outright hostility to active embrace of the new religion." In central and southern Mexico where there was an existing Indigenous tradition of creating written texts, the friars taught Indigenous scribes to write their own languages in Latin letters . There is a significant body of texts in Indigenous languages created by and for Indigenous peoples in their own communities for their own purposes. In frontier areas where there were no settled Indigenous populations, friars and Jesuits often created missions , bringing together dispersed Indigenous populations in communities supervised by
2016-456: A red or black one? Who has ordained that men of the white skin shall be at liberty to shoot and hunt down men of the red skin, or exercise rule and dominion over those of the black? The Indians of America have been more 'sinned against than sinning.' Our fore fathers came across the broad Atlantic, and taking advantage of their fears and their simplicity obtained a resting place among the Indians, then
2142-408: A richer endowment of antibodies. The large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced Eurasian germs to the indigenous people of the Americas . Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1558), diphtheria (1614) and measles (1618) swept the Americas subsequent to European contact, killing between 10 million and 100 million people, up to 95% of
2268-473: A seafaring nation and built a global empire in regions where the Portuguese had originally explored. In the Dutch Golden Age , it sought colonies. In the Americas, the Dutch conquered the northeast of Brazil in 1630, where the Portuguese had built sugar cane plantations worked by black slave labor from Africa. Prince Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen became the administrator of the colony (1637–43), building
2394-525: A series of Papal Bulls that confirmed Spanish claims to the newly discovered lands. After the final Reconquista of Iberia , the Treaty of Tordesillas was ratified by the Pope, the two kingdoms of Castile (in a personal union with other kingdoms of Spain) and Portugal in 1494. The treaty divided the entire non-European world into two spheres of exploration and colonization. The longitudinal boundary cut through
2520-508: A settler's wife. On Sunday, March 21, the day before the attack, Sawyer came to the Hudson farm to report that two of his horses were missing and asked for help in recapturing them. Harper and Sawyer; Sawyer's son, Stephen; John T. Bridge Sr.; his two sons, James and 18-year-old John Bridge Jr.; and a boy named Andrew Jones went on an unsuccessful search for the horses. The men gathered at the Sawyer cabin
2646-574: A state. The Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God , a translation by John Eliot of the gospel into Algonquian , was published in 1663. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World, as settlers in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Portugal and Spain, and later, France in New France . No other religion was tolerated and there was a concerted effort to convert indigenous peoples and black slaves to Catholicism. The Catholic Church established three offices of
SECTION 20
#17328515476542772-746: A stone marker reads: "Three white men were hung here in 1825 for killing Indians." In 1991 the Pendleton Historic District , which includes the park and this historical marker, was named to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1966 the Indiana Sesquicentennial Commission erected an historic highway marker noting the incident along State Route 38 , one-half mile east of Markleville , Madison County. It reads: "In 1824, nine Indians were murdered by white men near this spot. The men were tried, found guilty and hanged. It
2898-450: A village of white settlers with whom they could trade their goods. Sources reporting the massacre's events suggest the white settlers had developed a friendly relationship with the band, which was headed by Chief Logan, a "venerable old chief" and "a friend of the white men"; however, historians have proposed that tensions were growing between Ludlow and some of the settlers, most notably James Hudson, Thomas Harper, and John T. Bridge Sr., in
3024-609: A wandering frontiersman who drifted from Butler County, Ohio, into Madison County early in 1824, was an obsessive Indian-hater. Native Americans kidnapped his three-year-old sister, Elizabeth, in 1800, and killed his brother, James, during the War of 1812. Harper was also the brother-in-law of John T. Bridge Sr., who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and moved to Ohio before migrating to Indiana with his wife, Mary Harper, and their children in 1819. Mary died two years later and Bridge Sr. may have married
3150-406: A week they were all in custody, with the exception of Harper, who had taken the stolen goods and fled. He was never captured. Following their arrest Hudson, Bridge Sr., Bridge Jr., and Andrew Sawyer were chained in Madison County's newly built log jail until their trials. Andrew Jones and Stephen Sawyer, who remained free on bond, and John Adams turned state's evidence in the upcoming trials. News of
3276-417: A written pardon, the governor announced, "Here is your pardon. Go, sir, and sin no more." The young prisoner was immediately set free. Upon learning that he would live, Bridge Jr. collapsed. A Seneca chief in attendance at the hangings and the dramatic pardon remarked, "We are satisfied." Furor over the massacre quickly subsided following the trials and hangings of Hudson, Bridge Sr., and Sawyer. The village at
3402-469: Is estimated that from Columbus's arrival to the end of the 19th century between 2.5 and 5 million Native Americans were forced into slavery. Indigenous men, women, and children were often forced into labor in sparsely populated frontier settings, in the household, or in the toxic gold and silver mines. This practice was known as the encomienda system and granted free native labor to the Spaniards. Based upon
3528-494: Is now Brazil. They imported millions of slaves to run their plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish royal governments expected to rule these settlements and collect at least 20% of all treasure found (the quinto real collected by the Casa de Contratación ), in addition to collecting all the taxes they could. By the late 16th century silver from the Americas accounted for one-fifth of the combined total budget of Portugal and Spain. In
3654-591: The Age of Discovery , a large scale colonization of the Americas , involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe and the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short-term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland circa 1000 AD. However, due to its long duration and importance,
3780-562: The Caribbean that Spain had originally claimed but had largely abandoned, including Sint Maarten in 1618, Bonaire in 1634, Curaçao in 1634, Sint Eustatius in 1636, Aruba in 1637, some of which remain in Dutch hands and retain Dutch cultural traditions. On the east coast of North America, the Dutch planted the colony of New Netherland on the lower end of the island of Manhattan , at New Amsterdam starting in 1624. The Dutch sought to protect their investments and purchased Manhattan from
3906-455: The Caribbean , and parts of South America. They also gained Florida and Quebec in the French and Indian War . John Smith convinced the colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not taking care of their immediate needs for food and shelter. The lack of food security leading to an extremely high mortality rate was quite distressing and cause for despair among the colonists. To support
Fall Creek massacre - Misplaced Pages Continue
4032-608: The Hudson River . There were Jewish settlers from 1654 onward, and they remained following the English capture of New Amsterdam in 1664. The naval capture was despite both nations being at peace with the other. Russia came to colonization late compared to Spain or Portugal, or even England. Siberia was added to the Russian Empire and Cossack explorers along rivers sought valuable furs of ermine , sable , and fox . Cossacks enlisted
4158-704: The Indigenous peoples in the Americas, and the establishment of several settler colonial states. Russia began colonizing the Pacific Northwest in the mid-18th century, seeking pelts for the fur trade. Many of the social structures—including religions , political boundaries , and linguae francae —which predominate in the Western Hemisphere in the 21st century are the descendants of those that were established during this period. The rapid rate at which some European nations grew in wealth and power
4284-594: The Indigenous peoples of the Americas to the Christian religion . Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera bull in May 1493 that confirmed the lands claimed by the Kingdom of Spain , and mandated in exchange that the Indigenous peoples be converted to Catholic Christianity . During Columbus 's second voyage, Benedictine friars accompanied him, along with twelve other priests. With
4410-580: The River Plate in South America. These explorers include João Vaz Corte-Real in Newfoundland; João Fernandes Lavrador , Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real and João Álvares Fagundes , in Newfoundland, Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia (from 1498 to 1502, and in 1520). During this time, the Portuguese gradually switched from an initial plan of establishing trading posts to extensive colonization of what
4536-593: The Silk Road , the traditional route for trade between Europe and Asia, forced European traders to look for alternative routes. The Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus led an expedition to find a route to East Asia, but instead landed in The Bahamas . Columbus encountered the Lucayan people on the island Guanahani (possibly Cat Island ), which they had inhabited since the ninth century. In his reports, Columbus exaggerated
4662-982: The Spanish Inquisition , in Mexico City ; Lima, Peru ; and Cartagena de Indias in Colombia to maintain religious orthodoxy and practice. The Portuguese did not establish a permanent office of the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil, but did send visitations of inquisitors in the seventeenth century. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Protestant Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Jews , Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Jews fled to
4788-531: The Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire , evangelization of the dense Indigenous populations was undertaken in what was called the "spiritual conquest". Several mendicant orders were involved in the early campaign to convert the Indigenous peoples. Franciscans and Dominicans learned Indigenous languages of the Americas , such as Nahuatl , Mixtec , and Zapotec . One of the first schools for Indigenous peoples in Mexico
4914-494: The first wave of European colonization , the religious discrimination , persecution , and violence toward the Indigenous peoples' native religions was systematically perpetrated by the European Christian colonists and settlers from the 15th–16th centuries onwards. During the Age of Discovery and the following centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires were the most active in attempting to convert
5040-585: The indigenous population of the Americas. The cultural and political instability attending these losses appears to have been of substantial aid in the efforts of various colonists in New England and Massachusetts to acquire control over the great wealth in land and resources of which indigenous societies had customarily made use. Such diseases yielded human mortality of unquestionably enormous gravity and scale – and this has profoundly confused efforts to determine its full extent with any true precision. Estimates of
5166-484: The northern Great Plains , experienced little to no colonization at all until the 1800s. European contact and colonization had disastrous effects on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their societies. Norse Viking explorers were the first known Europeans to set foot in North America. Norse journeys to Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. The Norsemen established
Fall Creek massacre - Misplaced Pages Continue
5292-495: The pre-Columbian population of the Americas vary tremendously. Others have argued that significant variations in population size over pre-Columbian history are reason to view higher-end estimates with caution. Such estimates may reflect historical population maxima, while indigenous populations may have been at a level somewhat below these maxima or in a moment of decline in the period just prior to contact with Europeans. Indigenous populations hit their ultimate lows in most areas of
5418-624: The 'lords of the soil,' and since that time by a series of aggressions, have taken from them their homes and firesides—have pressed them westwardly until they are nearly extinct. We have introduced among them diseases and vice; we have done to them wrongs which cry to heaven for vengeance, and which have, in many instances, brought down on us severe retribution." Hudson appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court , then in session at Corydon, Indiana . The court issued an opinion on November 13, 1824, written by Chief Justice Isaac Blackford that upheld
5544-545: The 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered ports in the Americas. France founded colonies in the Americas: in eastern North America (which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida ), a number of Caribbean islands (which had often already been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease), and small coastal parts of South America. Explorers included Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524; Jacques Cartier (1491–1557), and Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), who explored
5670-467: The 1790s the first permanent settlements were established. Explorations continued down the Pacific coast of North America , and Russia established a settlement in the early nineteenth century at what is now called Fort Ross, California . Russian fur traders forced indigenous Aleut men into seasonal labor. Never very profitable, Russia sold its North American holdings to the United States in 1867, called at
5796-584: The 1800s, although some parts of the continent gained their independence from Europe by then, countries such as the United States continued to fight against Native Americans and practiced settler colonialism . The United States for example practiced a settler colonial policy of Manifest Destiny and the Trail of Tears . Other regions, including California , Patagonia , the North Western Territory, and
5922-726: The Americas in the early 20th century; in a number of cases, growth has returned. According to scientists from University College London , the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so much of the indigenous population that it resulted in climate change and global cooling . Some contemporary scholars also attribute significant indigenous population losses in the Caribbean to the widespread practice of slavery and deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines. Historian Andrés Reséndez, supports this claim and argues that indigenous populations were smaller previous estimations and "a nexus of slavery, overwork and famine killed more Indians in
6048-485: The Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of present-day Brazil. The countries declared their rights to the land despite the fact that Indigenous populations had settled from pole to pole in the hemisphere and it was their homeland. After European contact, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650), due in part to Old World diseases carried to
6174-563: The Aztecs' enemies, mobilizing thousands of warriors against the Aztecs for their own political reasons. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan , became Mexico City , the chief city of the " New Spain ". More than an estimated 240,000 Aztecs died during the siege of Tenochtitlan , 100,000 in combat, while 500–1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the conquest died. The other great conquest was of the Inca Empire (1531–35), led by Francisco Pizarro . During
6300-602: The Caribbean than smallpox, influenza and malaria." According to the Cambridge World History , the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, and the Cambridge World History of Genocide, colonial policies in some cases included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples in North America. According to the Cambridge World History of Genocide, Spanish colonization of the Americas also included genocidal massacres. According to Adam Jones , genocidal methods included
6426-668: The Darien scheme was one of the factors that led the Kingdom of Scotland into the Act of Union 1707 with the Kingdom of England , creating the united Kingdom of Great Britain and giving Scotland commercial access to English, now British, colonies. The Netherlands had been part of the Spanish Empire , due to the inheritance of Charles V of Spain. Many Dutch people converted to Protestantism and sought their political independence from Spain. They were
SECTION 50
#17328515476546552-457: The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam when the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions cracked down on their presence. The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, dogs and various domesticated fowl , from which many diseases originally stemmed. In contrast to the indigenous people, the Europeans had developed
6678-518: The Indian camp and returning to their farms. Reports of gunfire, the sudden disappearance of the nearby Indians, and conversations that neighbors overheard in the Sawyer and Bridge homes prompted a search party to begin an investigation the following morning. John Adams, a neighbor boy who was staying overnight at the Bridge cabin, overheard the men when they returned home the night of the murders. Bridge Sr. sent
6804-545: The Indies in 1524, based in Seville, and issued laws of the Indies to assert its power against the early conquerors. The crown created the viceroyalty of New Spain and the viceroyalty of Peru to tighten crown control over these rich prizes of conquest. Over this same time frame as Spain, Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil . On behalf of both
6930-403: The New World. Smallpox was especially devastating, for it could be passed through touch, allowing native tribes to be wiped out, and the conditions that colonization imposed on Indigenous populations, such as forced labor and removal from homelands and traditional medicines. Some scholars have argued that this demographic collapse was the result of the first large-scale act of genocide in
7056-469: The Pacific Coast from Alaska to California . Violent conflicts arose during the beginning of this period as indigenous peoples fought to preserve their territorial integrity from increasing European colonizers and from hostile indigenous neighbors who were equipped with Eurasian technology. Conflict between the various European empires and the indigenous peoples was a leading dynamic in the Americas into
7182-492: The Portuguese and Spanish crowns, cartographer Amerigo Vespucci explored the South American east coast and published his new book Mundus Novus ( New World ) in 1502–1503 which disproved the belief that the Americas were the easternmost part of Asia and confirmed that Columbus had reached a set of continents previously unheard of to any Europeans. Cartographers still use a Latinized version of his first name, America , for
7308-558: The Spanish crown had acknowledged their inability to control and properly ensure compliance with traditional laws overseas, so they granted to Native Americans specific protections not even Spaniards had, such as the prohibition of enslaving them even in the case of crime or war. These extra protections were an attempt to avoid the proliferation of irregular claims to slavery. However, as historian Andrés Reséndez has noted, "this categorical prohibition did not stop generations of determined conquistadors and colonists from taking Native slaves on
7434-409: The Third Judicial Circuit Court in Madison County. Miles C. Eggleston replaced Wick as one of the three presiding judges. Oliver H. Smith was the chief prosecutor and James Rariden led the defense team. After fifteen hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict in Sawyer's case. He was found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, for killing one of the women. His punishment was two years in prison and
7560-410: The White River. The guilty verdict from the white jury "remained an extreme anomaly". Other acts of violence between whites and native tribes occurred in the decades that followed; however, the events at Fall Creek set a precedent with the trials that recognized the civil rights of Native Americans in a court of law. Complete details of all the related events remain unknown. The original transcripts of
7686-451: The abandoned camp was the scene of the murder after the bodies were discovered nearby. The men also found that one of the women, although injured, had survived the attack, but was unable to clearly explain what had happened. The group left her at the scene and rode off to report it. On Wednesday, March 24, two days after the attack, a second group of men arrived at the camp to find her still alive. They also located Logan's body and buried him at
SECTION 60
#17328515476547812-410: The aid of indigenous Siberians , who sought protection from nomadic peoples, and those peoples paid tribute in fur to the czar. Thus, prior to the eighteenth-century Russian expansion that pushed beyond the Bering Strait dividing Eurasia from North America, Russia had experience with northern indigenous peoples and accumulated wealth from the hunting of fur-bearing animals. Siberia had already attracted
7938-451: The beginning of Virginia's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labor and a large portion of the immigrants were indentured servants looking for a new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, indentured servants constituted three-quarters of all European immigrants to the Chesapeake Colonies . Most of the indentured servants were teenagers from England with poor economic prospects at home. Their fathers signed
8064-449: The boy home and asked him to return with his father, a local farmer named Abraham Adams, to help search for Sawyer's missing horses. Adams also told his father what he had overheard. Adams and his son went to the Sawyer farm, where they met Bridge Sr., two of Bridge's sons, and Harper. Sawyer informed the men that the horses had come home on their own, but he reported hearing gunfire at the camp. The men went to investigate. Adams realized that
8190-413: The century, the new Province of Pennsylvania was given to William Penn in settlement of a debt the king owed his father. Its government was established by William Penn in about 1682 to become primarily a refuge for persecuted English Quakers, but others were welcomed. Baptists , German and Swiss Protestants , and Anabaptists also flocked to Pennsylvania. The lure of cheap land, religious freedom and
8316-445: The colony, numerous supply missions were organized. Tobacco later became a cash crop, with the work of John Rolfe and others, for export and the sustaining economic driver of Virginia and the neighboring colony of Maryland . Plantation agriculture was a primary aspect of the economies of the Southern Colonies and in the British West Indies . They heavily relied on African slave labor to sustain their economic pursuits. From
8442-421: The complete and irrevocable renunciation of their ancestral religious beliefs and practices. In 1539, Mexican bishop Juan de Zumárraga oversaw the trial and execution of the Indigenous nobleman Carlos of Texcoco for apostasy from Christianity . Following that, the Catholic Church removed Indigenous converts from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition , since it had a chilling effect on evangelization. In creating
8568-405: The conclusion of other court business, a twelve-member jury was seated for the trials, which generated nationwide attention. The following morning, James Hudson was tried first. Andrew Jones was a key witness for the prosecution; however, the defense called no witnesses on Hudson's behalf. The jury deliberated only an hour before finding Hudson guilty. Some people were surprised by the verdict. Hudson
8694-405: The county jail on more than one occasion, but were quickly recaptured. The Fifth Judicial Circuit Court of Indiana opened in Madison County on October 7, 1824. At that time state law allowed the court only three days to complete its work before adjourning the session. The cases were tried before a three-member circuit court panel, which consisted of Wick, Samuel Holliday, and Adam Winsell. Following
8820-425: The crime spread quickly, and settlers feared retribution from Native Americans living in the local Delaware villages. Native American customs at the time also called for monetary compensation to the victims' families. While the accused men awaited trial, William Conner , a trusted frontiersman, interpreter, and community leader, and John Johnston , and Indian agent residing in Piqua, Ohio , at that time, traveled to
8946-451: The days leading up to the attack. Hudson alleged that he had encountered Ludlow several days prior to the massacre and heard him threaten to kill any white man who disturbed his animal traps. He also accused Ludlow of threatening to harm his wife after she refused to trade with Ludlow several days prior to the attack. Bridge Sr. and Harper had also visited the camp a few days prior to the attack. Hudson later acknowledged that three days prior to
9072-452: The debate on Christianization was particularly acute during the early 16th century, when Spanish conquerors and settlers sought to mobilize Indigenous labor. Later, two Dominican friars, Bartolomé de Las Casas and the philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda , held the Valladolid debate , with the former arguing that Native Americans were endowed with souls like all other human beings, while
9198-556: The early 1500s, and the East Indies to Spain, where It established the Philippines . The city of Santo Domingo , in the current-day Dominican Republic , founded in 1496 by Columbus, is credited as the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the Americas. By the 1530s, other Western European powers realized they too could benefit from voyages to the Americas, leading to British and French colonializations in
9324-509: The early period of exploration, conquest, and settlement, c. 1492–1550, the overseas possessions claimed by Spain were only loosely controlled by the crown. With the conquests of the Aztecs and the Incas, the New World now commanded the crown's attention. Both Mexico and Peru had dense, hierarchically organized indigenous populations that could be incorporated and ruled. Even more importantly, both Mexico and Peru had large deposits of silver, which became
9450-502: The economic motor of the Spanish empire and transformed the world economy. In Peru, the singular, hugely rich silver mine of Potosí was worked by traditional forced indigenous labor drafts, known as the mit'a . In Mexico, silver was found outside the zone of dense indigenous settlement, so free laborers migrated to the mines in Guanajuato and Zacatecas . The crown established the Council of
9576-422: The exception of Hudson, returned to the camp, where they murdered the three women and four children. M'Doal, who was not in camp when they arrived, witnessed the killings as he returned. Although he may have been wounded by gunfire, M'doal escaped into the woods and was never found. In all, Harper's party killed nine people: two men, three women, and four children. The men also stole everything of value before leaving
9702-414: The executions, which were conducted one at a time. Sawyer was hanged first, followed by the execution of Bridge Sr. His eighteen-year-old son, John Bridge Jr., witnessed both hangings before being led to the gallows and fitted with a noose and hood. At that point, Governor Ray, who had arrived on horseback, moved through the crowd and stopped the execution. After presenting the pinioned teenage prisoner with
9828-626: The falls of Fall Creek soon faded from the public spotlight and settlers continued to move into the area. Johnston returned to his home in Ohio. The defense and prosecuting attorneys went on to achieve political success. Oliver H. Smith was elected to Congress and James Brown Ray was re-elected as governor. Harper, the ringleader of the murderers, was never apprehended. It is not known what happened to Andrew Jones and Stephen Sawyer. John Bridge Jr. returned to his home in Butler County, Ohio, where he worked as
9954-521: The field of battle, stating that the indigenous were now subjects of the Spanish Crown and would be punished if they resisted. When the news of this situation and the abuse of the institution reached Spain, the New Laws were passed to regulate and gradually abolish the system in the Americas, as well as to reiterate the prohibition of enslaving Native Americans. By the time the new laws were passed, in 1542,
10080-441: The following morning to continue the search. During this time Hudson began to suspect that Harper had convinced Sawyer to harm the small group of Native Americans living near Deer Lick Creek, even if they had not been involved in the horse theft. The white men approached the band on March 22, 1824. There were just two men in camp with the women and children at the time of their arrival. M'Doal had gone to check his animal traps before
10206-453: The following: Indigenous population loss following European contact directly led to Spanish explorations beyond the Caribbean islands they initially claimed and settled in the 1490s, since they required a labor force to both produce food and to mine gold. Slavery was not unknown in Indigenous societies. With the arrival of European colonists, enslavement of Indigenous peoples "became commodified, expanded in unexpected ways, and came to resemble
10332-455: The form of gold, agricultural products, and labor. The Spanish Crown tried to terminate the system through the Laws of Burgos (1512–13) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). However, the encomenderos refused to comply with the new measures and the indigenous people continued to be exploited. Eventually, the encomienda system was replaced by the repartimiento system which was not abolished until
10458-420: The friars in order to more easily preach the gospel and ensure their adherence to the faith. These missions were established throughout Spanish America which extended from the southwestern portions of current-day United States through Mexico and to Argentina and Chile. As slavery was prohibited between Christians and could only be imposed upon non-Christian prisoners of war and/or men already sold as slaves,
10584-421: The group for unknown reasons and was replaced by his father, John Bridge Sr. As Logan moved ahead, the three white men in his group fell behind and Hudson shot him in the back. Bridge Jr. struck Logan in the head with his rifle and stabbed him before the men hid his body in the woods. In the meantime, Harper shot Ludlow in the back as the others in his group watched. Ludlow's body was never recovered. The men, with
10710-427: The hangings. A state historical marker along State Road 38 in rural Madison County, close to present-day Markleville, Indiana , identifies the nearby site of the murders. The events also served as the inspiration for The Massacre at Fall Creek , a novel by Jessamyn West , which was published in 1975. Sometime between November 1823 and February 1824, a small party of Indians came to the area along Deer Lick Creek, near
10836-462: The influence the others may have had on his involvement in the murders. Few details about the victims are known. The white men knew the Native American men only as Ludlow and Logan. The names of the remaining victims were not recorded. It is possible that the band had a mixed tribal background of Seneca , Shawnee , and Delaware , which was not unusual in the tribes of the region. John Johnson ,
10962-406: The kinds of human trafficking that are recognizable to us today". While the disease was the main killer of indigenous peoples, the practice of slavery and forced labor was also a significant contributor to the indigenous death toll. With the arrival of Europeans other than the Spanish, enslavement of native populations increased since there were no prohibitions against slavery until decades later. It
11088-552: The later colonization by the European powers involving the continents of North America and South America is more well-known. During this time, the European empires of Spain , Portugal , Britain , France , Russia , the Netherlands , Denmark , and Sweden began to explore and claim the Americas, its natural resources, and human capital , leading to the displacement, disestablishment, enslavement , and even genocide of
11214-410: The latter argued to the contrary to justify their enslavement. In 1537, the papal bull Sublimis Deus definitively recognized that Native Americans possessed souls, thus prohibiting their enslavement, without putting an end to the debate. Some claimed that a native who had rebelled and then been captured could be enslaved nonetheless. When the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they burned
11340-436: The local Indian villages to talk with the people. Johnston and Conner, whose intent was to maintain order, calmed the fears of the white settlers and assured the Native Americans that the men who had attacked their people had been caught and the government would seek justice for their murders. The two men's efforts were successful, and no violence erupted. The threat of retaliation for the murders subsided, but no one knew how long
11466-435: The lower court's decision and rejected all points of Hudson's appeal. Two days later, Hudson escaped from jail and hid beneath the floor of a vacant cabin, where he suffered from frostbite and dehydration . He was recaptured ten days later, when he came out of hiding to find water and was returned to the Madison County jail. While he was missing, the execution date was rescheduled for the following January. On January 12, 1825,
11592-405: The massacre and trial were reported in newspapers of the day. This was the first documented case in which white Americans were convicted, sentenced to death , and executed for the murder of Native Americans under U.S. law. Of the seven white men who participated in the crime, six were captured. The other white man, Thomas Harper, was never apprehended. Four of the men were charged with murder and
11718-502: The massacre he thought Bridge intended to poison the Native Americans, but decided did not proceed with the idea. Hudson also reported that Ludlow became angry after a dog he had purchased from Harper was later taken away from him. More details are known about the background of the victims' attackers. Hudson, who was originally from Baltimore County, Maryland, moved to Kentucky as a boy and later migrated to Ohio before settling with his wife, Phoebe, and their family in Madison County. Harper,
11844-407: The men arrived. As the group neared the camp, Bridge Jr. asked if he could go home. However, his father called him a coward and said that God had commanded them to kill their enemies. Hudson and Sawyer asked Logan and Ludlow for help in tracking the two horses that had escaped from Harper's farm. The two men agreed to help for an agreed upon fee of fifty cents each, and walked with the white men toward
11970-589: The migrants from England died in the first few years. Economic advantage also prompted the Darien scheme , an ill-fated venture by the Kingdom of Scotland to settle the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s. The Darien Scheme aimed to control trade through that part of the world and thereby promote Scotland into a world trading power. However, it was doomed by poor planning, short provisions, weak leadership, lack of demand for trade goods, and devastating disease. The failure of
12096-500: The modern era . For example, the labor and tribute of inhabitants of Hispaniola were granted in encomienda to Spaniards, a practice established in Spain for conquered Muslims. Although not technically slavery, it was coerced labor for the benefit of the Spanish grantees, called encomenderos . Spain had a legal tradition and devised a proclamation known as The Requerimento to be read to indigenous populations in Spanish, often far from
12222-472: The native population of North America which would come to be known as the skrælings . After capturing and killing eight of the natives, they were attacked at their beached ships, which they defended. Systematic European colonization began in 1492. A Spanish expedition sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East , the source of spices, silks, porcelains, and other rich trade goods. Ottoman control of
12348-560: The natives was important. About 16,000 French men and women became colonizers. The great majority became subsistence farmers along the St. Lawrence River . With a favorable disease environment and plenty of land and food, their numbers grew exponentially to 65,000 by 1760. Their colony was taken over by Britain in 1760, but social, religious, legal, cultural, and economic changes were few in a society that clung tightly to its recently formed traditions. British colonization began in North America almost
12474-598: The northeast tip of the Americas, including in the present-day United States . Within a century, the Swedish established New Sweden ; the Dutch established New Netherland ; and Denmark–Norway along with the Swedish and Dutch established colonization of parts of the Caribbean . By the 1700s, Denmark–Norway revived its former colonies in Greenland , and Russia began to explore and claim
12600-459: The only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978. It is also notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland , established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with the Norse colonization of the Americas . Leif Erikson's brother is said to have had the first contact with
12726-691: The organization of the Church of England by the end of the 16th century. One of the primary manifestations of this was the Puritan movement, which sought to purify the existing Church of England of its residual Catholic rites. The first of these people, known as the Pilgrims , landed on Plymouth Rock in November 1620. Continuous waves of repression led to the migration of about 20,000 Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642, where they founded multiple colonies . Later in
12852-445: The other two testified for the prosecution. The four accused men were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging . James Hudson was hanged on January 12, 1825, in Madison County, and Andrew Sawyer and John Townsend Bridge Sr. were hanged on June 3, 1825. Moments before he could be executed, James B. Ray , the governor of Indiana, pardoned John Townsend Bridge Jr., the eighteen-year-old son of John Bridge Sr., due to his age, remorse, and
12978-482: The papers that gave them free passage to America and an unpaid job until they came of age. They were given food, clothing, and housing and taught farming or household skills. American landowners were in need of laborers and were willing to pay for a laborer's passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for five to seven years worth of work, they could then start on their own in America. Many of
13104-654: The peace would last. The four men who had been arrested were tried in Madison County Court. Seven of the state's top lawyers were hired to defend them. It is unclear whether the men paid for their own legal fees or others paid all or part of their defense. The two lead defense attorneys were Calvin Fletcher and Martin M. Ray, a brother of James Brown Ray , the governor of Indiana. The other defense lawyers were Bethuel F. Morris, William R. Morris, Lot Bloomfield, Charles H. Test, and James Rariden . U.S. Senator James Noble
13230-574: The phrase "gold, glory, and God". The Spanish justified their claims to the New World based on the ideals of the Christian Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims, completed in 1492. In the New World, military conquest to incorporate indigenous peoples into Christendom was considered the "spiritual conquest". In 1493, Pope Alexander VI , the first Spaniard to become Pope, issued
13356-469: The practice of exacting tribute from Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista , the Spanish Crown granted a number of native laborers to an encomendero , who was usually a conquistador or other prominent Spanish male. Under the grant, they were theoretically bound to both protect the natives and convert them to Christianity. In exchange for their forced conversion to Christianity , the natives paid tributes in
13482-457: The present-day town of Pendleton, Indiana , in Madison County , to hunt, trap, gather furs, and collect maple syrup. The band included three men known to local whites as Logan, Ludlow, and M'Doal (or Mingo), three women, two boys, and two girls. Their tribal origins remain a mystery, although some sources connected to the case, such as the Federal Indian agent, John Johnston , describe them as
13608-501: The quantity of gold in the East Indies , which he called the " New World ". These claims, along with the slaves he brought back, convinced the monarchy to fund a second voyage. Word of Columbus's exploits spread quickly, sparking the Western European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americas. Spanish explorers, conquerors, and settlers sought material wealth, prestige, and the spread of Christianity , often summed up in
13734-523: The region of Canada he reestablished as New France . The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire . In the French colonial regions, the focus of the economy was on sugar plantations in the French West Indies . In Canada the fur trade with
13860-729: The right to improve themselves with their own hand was very attractive. Mainly due to discrimination, there was often a separation between English colonial communities and indigenous communities. The Europeans viewed the natives as savages who were not worthy of participating in what they considered civilized society. The native people of North America did not die out nearly as rapidly nor as greatly as those in Central and South America due in part to their exclusion from British society. The indigenous people continued to be stripped of their native lands and were pushed further out west. The English eventually went on to control much of Eastern North America ,
13986-487: The sacred places dedicated to the Indigenous peoples' native religions . However, in Pre-Columbian Mexico , burning the temple of a conquered group was standard practice, shown in Indigenous manuscripts, such as Codex Mendoza . Conquered Indigenous groups expected to take on the gods of their new overlords, adding them to the existing pantheon. They likely were unaware that their conversion to Christianity entailed
14112-417: The scene. The surviving woman was taken to a settler's farm, but the owner refused to let her stay, so she was taken to the Bridge's cabin, where she died later that day. On Thursday, March 25, within three days of the killings, the authorities arrived to arrest Harper, Bridge Sr., and Bridge Jr.; however, Harper escaped into the woods. Hudson, Jones, and both Sawyer men were arrested shortly thereafter. Within
14238-511: The signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Portugal and Spain agreed to divide the Earth in two, with Portugal having dominion over non- Christian lands in the world's eastern half, and Spain over those in the western half. Spanish claims essentially included all of the Americas ; however, the Treaty of Tordesillas granted the eastern tip of South America to Portugal, where it established Brazil in
14364-479: The sister of a neighbor named Andrew Sawyer, who was also involved in the massacre; however, this has not been confirmed. Little is known of Sawyer's family background. On Friday, March 19, 1824, when several local settlers gathered for a house-raising, Harper, Hudson, Sawyer, and others began discussing the Indian presence in the area. The conversation became heated as the men drank liquor and boasted that they would kill any Indian who stole their property or threatened
14490-622: The time " Seward's Folly ". Duke Ferdinand I de Medici made the only Italian attempt to create colonies in America. For this purpose, the Grand Duke organized in 1608 an expedition to the north of Brazil, under the command of the English captain Robert Thornton. Thornton, on his return from the preparatory trip in 1609 (he had been to the Amazon ), found Ferdinand I dead and all projects were cancelled by his successor Cosimo II . Beginning with
14616-528: The time were recorded, and none were called to testify in the legal proceedings. The events near present-day Pendleton, Indiana, remains a part of the area's local history, despite a lack of detailed records, inaccuracies among the sources, and its disappearance from recollections of national events. It also inspired a fictional account of the events in Jessamyn West's novel, The Massacre at Fall Creek , published in 1975. In Fall Creek Park in Pendleton, Indiana,
14742-408: The trials were destroyed in a fire at the Madison County courthouse in 1880, and details gathered from the surviving sources leave behind an incomplete record of conflicting information and disputes over the accuracy of the reports. Two official documents incorrectly recorded that the massacre occurred on April 20, 1824. No written accounts from the victims or other Native Americans living in the area at
14868-403: The two continents. In April 1500, Portuguese noble Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the region of Brazil to Portugal; the effective colonization of Brazil began three decades later with the founding of São Vicente in 1532 and the establishment of the system of captaincies in 1534, which was later replaced by other systems. Others tried to colonize the eastern coasts of present-day Canada and
14994-443: The woods, joking as they went. The white men, who had been drinking heavily for several days, were heavily armed with knives and rifles. After a brief stop at an abandoned cabin, where several of the men drank more liquor, the party divided into two groups and continued into the woods. Logan joined Hudson, Bridge Jr., and Jones, while Ludlow went in a different direction with Harper, Andrew and Stephen Sawyer, and James Bridge. James left
15120-422: Was appointed as special prosecutor to assist two local attorneys, James Gilmore and Cyrus French. Noble selected Harvey Gregg and Philip Sweetser to assist him. Hudson, Bridge Sr., Bridge Jr., and Andrew Sawyer were indicted on April 8, 1824; however, their trials were postponed until October 1824, due to the illness of the circuit court's lead judge, William W. Wick . While awaiting trial, the prisoners escaped from
15246-411: Was as dear to him as is yours to you? Logan, although an Indian, is a son of Adam, our common father. Then surely he was not the natural enemy of white men. He was bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh. Besides, by what authority do we hauntingly boast of our being white? What principle of philosophy or of religion establishes the doctrine that a white skin is preferable in nature or in the sight of God to
15372-418: Was founded by Pedro de Gante in 1523. The friars aimed at converting Indigenous leaders, with the hope and expectation that their communities would follow suit. In densely populated regions, friars mobilized Indigenous communities to build churches, making the religious change visible; these churches and chapels were often in the same places as old temples, often using the same stones. "Native peoples exhibited
15498-417: Was sentenced to death by hanging , with an execution date set for December 1, 1824. It was the first time any white man in the United States had been sentenced to death for killing a Native American. The trials for the other three men were postponed. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Wick expressed his anger at Hudson: "O my God, how could you do it? How could you deprive your brother man of that life which
15624-458: Was signed by ninety-four locals, including many members of the jury, the county clerk, several attorneys, two prison guards, and a minister, and submitted to Governor James Brown Ray . The petition requested a pardon and cited "his youth, ignorance, and the manner which he was led into the transaction." By the appointed date of execution, it had not been answered. On June 3, 1825, another large crowd, including numerous Native Americans, gathered for
15750-571: Was the first execution of white men for killing Indians." While the case was the first one under U.S. law, it was not the first in American history. There were several capital prosecutions recorded in Puritan New England . 39°58.519′N 85°36.193′W / 39.975317°N 85.603217°W / 39.975317; -85.603217 European colonization of the Americas During
15876-515: Was unforeseeable in the early 15th century because it had been preoccupied with internal wars and it was slowly recovering from the loss of population caused by the Black Death . The Ottoman Empire 's domination of trade routes to Asia prompted Western European monarchs to search for alternatives, resulting in the voyages of Christopher Columbus and his accidental arrival at the New World . With
#653346