Who were the Pilgrims and the Indians?
The Pilgrims were not simple refugees from England fighting against oppression and religious discrimination. They were political revolutionaries and part of the Puritan movement considered objectionable and unorthodox by the King of the Church of England. Outcasts and fugitives in their own homeland, they plotted to take over the government. When unsuccessful, they had to relocate or face prosecution. After several attempts at finding a suitable new home, they elected to try their luck in the New World. Here they thought they could build their own promised land. The Pilgrims also thought themselves as `chosen’ Biblical people and saw America’s first inhabitants as heathens; products of the devil. In a written text from a sermon in 1623, Mather the Elder praised God for the plagues racing through Native villages. He cheered the death of “chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth.” The “better growth” was, of cou
