My “favorite” US Revolutionary War hero, Colonel William Crawford, led the militia, responsible for the Gnadenhutten Massacre of christian native Americans in western Pennsylvania, for a similar campaign into eastern Ohio. It did not end well for him. The county where I grew up is named after him, but I was never taught anything about him other than “the Indians burned him at the stake.”
He was tied to a post and “seventy shots of powder were fired at his body. Indians then cut off his ears, prodded him with burning sticks, and tossed hot embers at him. [He] continued in the extremities of pain for an hour and three quarters or two hours longer… when at last, being almost totally exhausted, he laid down on his belly; they then scalped him. An old squaw got a board, took a parcel of coals and ashes and laid them on his back and head, after he had been scalped. Colonel Crawford then raised himself upon his feet and began to walk around the post; they next put a burning stick to him as usual, but he seemed more insensible of pain than before.” Crawford finally died from his wounds, but not before begging those around him to end his misery with a bullet.
Is this from an indigenous source on what happened to him? I ask out of caution because even though it sounds well deserved (for massacring people), it reads more like the kind of thing colonizers would come up with so they can call the natives “savage.” And especially after seeing what israel came up with to slander Palestinian resistance fighters, I have to wonder.
My “favorite” US Revolutionary War hero, Colonel William Crawford, led the militia, responsible for the Gnadenhutten Massacre of christian native Americans in western Pennsylvania, for a similar campaign into eastern Ohio. It did not end well for him. The county where I grew up is named after him, but I was never taught anything about him other than “the Indians burned him at the stake.”
He was tied to a post and “seventy shots of powder were fired at his body. Indians then cut off his ears, prodded him with burning sticks, and tossed hot embers at him. [He] continued in the extremities of pain for an hour and three quarters or two hours longer… when at last, being almost totally exhausted, he laid down on his belly; they then scalped him. An old squaw got a board, took a parcel of coals and ashes and laid them on his back and head, after he had been scalped. Colonel Crawford then raised himself upon his feet and began to walk around the post; they next put a burning stick to him as usual, but he seemed more insensible of pain than before.” Crawford finally died from his wounds, but not before begging those around him to end his misery with a bullet.
Is this from an indigenous source on what happened to him? I ask out of caution because even though it sounds well deserved (for massacring people), it reads more like the kind of thing colonizers would come up with so they can call the natives “savage.” And especially after seeing what israel came up with to slander Palestinian resistance fighters, I have to wonder.
you know, for a good few minutes that didn’t even occur to me because i was just unable to perceive how this could be taken negatively