34 Benjamin Franklin Laments

Iroquois History and Legends

Andrew James Cotter

Canadian History, Iroquois, History, North American History, First Nations, Religion & Spirituality, American History, Education, Six Nations, Native America, Christianity, Native American, Indian History, Colonial History, Haudenosaunee

4.8 • 697 Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2017

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

In December 1763 a group of miscreants known as "The Paxton Boys" led raids into Lancaster County. They murdered and mutilated an entire community of Iroquois Conestoga people. Men, women and children. A month later after the facts were gathered Benjamin Franklin wrote a lengthy article called "A Narrative of the Late Massacres" in which he chides the murders and also the colony of Pennsylvania as a whole for letting their apathy allow this horrible event to take place. In this short episode Andrew will read excerpts from Franklin's article.

Source:

Direct Quotes taken from "A Narrative of the Late Massacres" by Benjamin Franklin 1764

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone. Hello everyone and welcome to Iroquois History and Legends.
0:26.7	This is Andrew.
0:27.6	Today, I just wanted to do a short bonus episode for you.
0:31.3	We had mentioned in our previous episode that due to the fallout from Pontiac and Gaiasuta's
0:36.7	war, there was a huge upswing in reprisals
0:40.0	towards Native American peoples, even people that had nothing to do with Paniac and Gaiasuta's
0:45.4	uprisings. We mentioned that a group of innocent Conestoga, who are some Iroquois living in Pennsylvania,
0:51.5	were horribly and brutally massacred by a group known as the Paxton boys.
0:56.3	The following year, due to an investigation, Benjamin Franklin wrote a long and very detailed
1:02.8	retort and criticism of the colony of Pennsylvania for failing to protect these people.
1:09.5	And so I'd like to read some quotes and excerpts from
1:12.3	that newspaper article. I will not be quoting the entire thing, but I'll be taking highlights from it.
1:18.5	I hope that this gives you an idea of the mindset of the two competing factions and ideals that
1:24.1	were going on in 1763. On one hand, you have people like Benjamin Franklin,
1:29.5	who are huge advocates for Native American rights. And then you have other people that have this
1:35.3	genocidal view that we need to wipe out all of these people and take their land. And then,
1:41.4	of course, you have people in between the two, and then you have people
1:44.4	that are just totally apathetic about the situation. And Franklin's purpose of writing this
1:49.5	is towards those who have those violent tendencies for ethnic cleansing and colonial superiority,
1:57.9	and those that are apathetic in allowing this kind of evil to occur.
2:02.5	We hope that after listening to this, it will give you a new perspective.
2:07.8	January 30th, 1764, a narrative of the late massacres by Benjamin Franklin.
	...

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