May 26, 1637, the Puritans and their allies surround the Pequot Indian stronghold called Mystic Fort near what is now Stonington, Connecticut. They set it ablaze, then shoot those who flee the flames. By dawn, over 400 are dead—mostly women and children.
And yet, we still call Puritans the “peaceful” settlers.
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#blackmastodon #iran #photography #history #war #histodons
Image: The Puritans’ massacre of the Pequots. A 19th-century wood engraving. Source: The Granger Collection, NYC.
Tamir Rice is 12 years old. He is playing in a Cleveland park with a toy pellet gun. A caller tells police the gun is “probably fake.” They pull up in a cruiser, don’t stop, don’t speak. Two seconds after arriving, they shoot him dead.
His sister, Tajai, runs to him. They tackle her to the ground.
No charges. No justice.
A child is gone, and the system that killed him still patrols the streets—still armored, still unaccountable.
Image: Tamir Rice, Source: Instagram.
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Downtown L.A., June 2025. Protesters fill the streets after mass ICE raids tear through immigrant neighborhoods. LAPD fire over 600 rounds—rubber bullets, tear gas, bean bags. Marines patrol the city. And still, they call it peacekeeping. Still, they call it order.
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Image: Protesters clash with police downtown near a VA outpatient clinic. (Luke Johnson / LA Times).
A road cuts through what used to be a neighborhood. Concrete spills from gutted apartments. Wires hang loose like veins. A single building leans like it’s trying to stand. Three small figures walk down the middle—no destination.
Entire families buried beneath what was once home. Walls turned to dust. Lives turned to statistics.
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Image: Aerial view of Palestinians walking past destroyed houses in the Gaza Strip’s Jabalia refugee camp, February 2024/Reuters.
And still, they say: this is defense. Still, they say: they seek peace. And those who bury their children are named the enemy.
Image: Protester lays prostrate surrounded by heavily armed LAPD. (Luke Johnson / LA Times).
Primary Sources:
Mason, John. A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable Taking of Their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Boston: S.G. Drake, 1869. Originally written in 1677. Source: https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofpe00maso/page/n8/mode/1up
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More Primary Sources
PBS NewsHour. “Cleveland Police Forced Tamir Rice’s Sister to the Ground, Footage Reveals.” PBS NewsHour, January 8 2015.. Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/cleveland-police-forced-tamir-rices-sister-ground-footage-reveals
LA Times Staff, “How L.A. Law Enforcement Got Pulled into Trump’s Immigration Fight,” LA Times, Source:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-10/lapd-sheriffs-department-immigration-protests
Nidal Al‑Mughrabi, “Israeli Strikes Kill 33 People in Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, Medics Say,” Reuters, October 18, 2024, accessed June 22, 2025, Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sends-more-troops-into-north-gaza-deepens-raid-2024-10-18/
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According to new security footage released Thursday, Cleveland police handcuffed the 14-year-old sister of Tamir Rice and kept her nearby in a patrol car after a police officer shot the boy within seconds of arriving to the scene.
The sad fact is that we're a violent species, and as violent as things are at the moment they aren't a patch on the violence we have historically meted out against each other.
Don't misunderstand me, I know there are peaceful, kind humans out there, but violence wins out every single time and the sooner those of us in the "merciful" camp, per the attached quote, acknowledge this fact the better.
@Deglassco
RE
A Brief History of the #Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable Taking of Their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Boston: S.G. Drake, 1869. ⭕Originally written in 1677
Thanks‼️
@Deglassco they love to hide their crimes behind misuse of words, re-framing, and what-about-ism. Tools to distract, deny and deflect from the crime they commit.
and they are crimes. They will use words to try to avoid accountability in the pursuit of power.
Fuck those assholes. All of them. Fuck them all. :(
@Deglassco And yet, we still call Puritans the “peaceful” settlers.
You sure that's still what "we" (who is "we"?) call them these days? Who calls them this? Where? I mean woke has been around for some years now. your rhetoric is a bit stale, "Dr..". Doctor of what?
@felis_catus_domesticus Are Puritans called savages? That’s the point. They came armed, burned villages to the ground, slaughtered whole families in the name of covenant and providence—and still, they are remembered as settlers. Brave, godly, principled.
Look at the textbooks. Look at how the violence of Native resistance is labeled. Uprising. Raid. Massacre. Now look at how Puritan conquest is described. Settlement. Expansion. Manifest destiny. One is disorder. The other, ordained.
@felis_catus_domesticus This isn’t about what people say. It’s about what institutions teach. State standards. National curricula. Public memory. The language of the classroom still tells a story where the settlers bring peace and the natives bring war.
That story is not stale. It’s structural. And the violence it erases still shapes the ground we walk on.
@Deglassco @felis_catus_domesticus
Absolutely, Dr. Glassco. "we" definitely includes myself and everyone who was educated in the same time and place I was. To hear our teachers tell it, you'd think it was:
"Peaceful settler" absolutely characterizes the image of the Puritans that the curriculum was intended to convey.
It wasn't until much later that I began to learn the truth, and I was for a time very resistant to accepting it as it contradicted things I'd internalized when I was very young.
If educators are still teaching that "peaceful settler" bullshit then they absolutely need to stop and I thank you for your effort towards making that happen.
Cat guy, blocked.
I have heard that as well. Thanks for weighing in! 👍
@Deglassco The Puritans were horrific monsters, best known in my circles for things like executions for witchcraft. I've always been disgusted by them.
It's too bad a Royal Navy frigate of that era didn't pound the Mayflower to matchsticks with a couple good broadsides of cannon fire and sink it.
@Deglassco I don't think we do call the Puritans “peaceful” settlers, do we?
The peaceful settlers I was propagandized about were the Pigrims, who were not Puritans.
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