Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer from Genoa, Italy, whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Over the course of four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World".
Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe—he was preceded by at least one other group, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who built a temporary settlement 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows[5]— Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans.
It is believed that on one of these voyages Columbus' crew infected the Northern woodland Indian population with smallpox - most likely by accident, although Columbus was not above using such tactics as a form of warfare. The ensuing epidemic wiped out over 90% of the population of Northeast woodland Indians within a period of only a generation leaving them severly weakened and unable to repulse the colonial onslaught that would begin a century after Columbus' maiden voyage.

Columbus' Voyage
An Eyewitness Account of the Landing

Ben Franklin's Prescription for Today's Congressional Gridlock

Sometimes the briefest speeches echo the most powerfully down through our history. As it has been with Lincoln's address at Gettysburg; such it is with the words of Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Franklin, frail and unable to deliver the speech himself , asked his friend and fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson to read the speech for him. It is a speech that every member of Congress should be required to read at the start of each annual Congressional Session for Franklin reminds us - in the wisdom of his age - that our obligations to our country must be larger than our egos.

Here in less than 720 words is a prescription for what ails the United States Congress.

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats.

Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.

The Metamorphosis

Robert Rogers – Frontier Hero – White Devil

Robert Rogers, or Rodgers (7 November 1731 – 18 May 1795), was a New Hampshire resident and colonial frontiersman. Born in November of 1781 in Methuen, Mass, his family soon moved north to what is now New Hampshire settling in a town Roger's refers to in his writing as Mountalona and today encompassing the towns of Dunbarton and Bow.

His service to the people of New England, particularly in the war known in the colonies as the French & Indian War (in Europe the Seven Years War) is well documented and a study in the fame and controversy that surrounded this remarkable man. Many military historians attribute the seeds of the American Revolution to the ideology, tactics and strategies of the famed Roger's Rangers, started under his leadership. Indeed, one of his favored rangers was John Stark who would later set aside his "Ranger temperament" to become a General in the Colonial Army and utter the famed phrase "Live Free or Die".

Legend has it - though no documented evidence exists - that, after a brief stint in England where he was feted as a British hero of the frontier, Rogers returned to America and offered his services to George Washington who turned him down for fear that he was a loyalist spy. Rogers in spite joined the British and fought as a loyalist.

The Colors of Livermore, Livermore Falls

Image signed and dated by the Artist

Open Edition, unsigned

We will, likely, never know if Washington was right about Rogers and the legend may, in fact, be nothing more than revisionist history fostered by the likes of the peripatetic historian Francis Parkman who nearly one hundred years after Rogers day, set his sights on rehabilitating Rogers in the eyes of a public that remembered only his final betrayal in his service to the army of King George.

Yet, the legend of Washington's actions - true or not - and certainly the work of Parkman, may contain the seeds of Roger's historic rehabilitation. After all, today Rogers is revered as the father of the Rangers and the Green Berets, while his fellow loyalist Benedict Arnold's name has become synonymous with treachery and betrayal.

Lest we fall into the Parkman trap of romanticizing the frontiersman, it should be pointed out that Native American’s of the time – with the exception of the Iroquois who often fought beside him – referred to him as Wobomagonda, translated to “White Devil” because Rogers and his Rangers could be every bit as blood thirsty, vengeful and savage as any of their rivals.

The truth about Rogers probably lays somewhere in between. The Rangers may have been pitted by history against the native indigenous people – but they drew much of their strategies, dress and temperament from the very same people and many historic documents evidence their admiration of their foes.

After the Revolution Rogers returned to England where he died unappreciated and impoverished in London - far from his family and the woods and mountains of his native New England that he loved so much.

God's Final Touch

Signed and dated by the artist

Open Edition Image

Pontiac's Rebellion

Pontiac's Council

Following the French and Indian War and uprising against the English ensued that is attributed to efforts led by Chief Pontiac, an Ottawa leader. The uprising came to be called Pontiac's Rebellion, though Pontiac's role had been more related to his early leadership in key battles than his overall leadership which is much in dispute. The rebellion ran from 1763–1766.

The uprising came largely as a result of the resentment among Indians of the area that "their" land had been ceded to the British by the French in the treaty that ended the War.

Pontiac - Wikipedia Biography
Indigenous Chamber Biography
Pontiac's Rebellion - Wikipedia

Resources
Francis Parkman
The conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian war after the conquest of Canada

Pontiac and the Indian uprising
By Howard Henry Peckham

Who is buried in the Dunbarton Cemetary Next to Samuel Rogers?

A History Mystery
Where is Robert Rogers Buried?

Robert Rogers was born to James and Mary McFatridge Roger. He was one of five brothers three of whom are believed to have served under him as Rangers. James, Richard and possibly John all were Rangers during the period when Rogers' name was made.

Richard died of smallpox, James returned to the family farm after the war and John vanished into obscurity. Brother Samuel seems to have been the homebody among them, not venturing into miliary service but remaining with the family.

When Robert Rogers died in London on May 18, 1795 he was a pauper - likely as a result of a descent into alcoholism in his later years. Just what happened to his remains is a matter of some dispute and speculation. Some writings about Rogers claim he was buried in a paupers grave in London that was destroyed by German bombing raids during World War II and later made into a park.

However, the romantic legend about Roger's final resting place is far more interesting - and quite possibly even provable.

In what is now the town of Bow in the Dunbarton Cemetary, and just across the street from where their childhood home stood, lay the remains of Robert Rogers' older brother, Samuel, in a grave marked with his name. Not far from Samuels grave is a shallow, unmarked grave according to Frank Nastasi, an amateur historian and Rogers aficionado. Nastasi has been to the Dunbarton Cemetary on two separate occasions in early 2000 and 2003. Employing a ground-penetrating radar, Nastasi found an unmarked grave, 3-1/2 feet deep, in the cemetery.

Some say that members of the Rogers family spirited the last remains of Robert Rogers back to New Hampshire and, in the dead of night, laid him to rest for eternity in the state he had loved.






The Colors of Livermore, Livermore Falls

Image signed and dated by the Artist

Open Edition, unsigned