Native Americans

Dear Mr. De Vries,

Your journal entry dated 1643 shows great insight into the character of the colonies at the time. Such brutally disgusting bodily mutilations could only have been carried out by the most backwards and primitive people. A series of similar journal entries penned by other settlers shows that your experiences were far from unique. In fact, the prevailing attitude towards the indigenous peoples was generally despicable. That the Reverend Solomon Stoddard should suggest that the native peoples be "hunted like dogs" proves that even those who profess to be morally upright practice the same satanic behaviors.

You, Mr. De Vries, are the only one of the entries I came across that specifically mentioned the unthinkable. I cannot tell if you are personally taking pleasure or sympathizing with people who for sport bind babies "to small boards with ropes, and then cut, stuck, pierced, and thrown about." You do not interject any judgment onto the perpetrators of the crime, but simply record the facts in a detached manner. While I understand the journalistic merit of your entry, I object to your having observed such atrocities while standing idly by and doing nothing. Therefore, I consider you complicit in these acts.

It seems as if those colonists that you observed took great pleasure in babies "hacked to pieces in the presence of the parents, and the pieces thrown into the fire and in the river." You, too, may have believed such practices crucial to the survival of the colonies. What hypocrisy, that the settlers would travel so far to flee tyranny only to dole it out to others -- let alone to babies. That you could bear to write down the events in your personal journal without a shred of remorse spilling onto the page is remarkable and suggests you and your fellow settlers may be truly insane.