#massachusetts history

[life-of-a-rat]

I saw this meme in a dream

[basementofthebizarre]

The Mysteries of the Bridgewater Triangle: Exploring New England's Paranormal Hotspot

Nestled in southeastern Massachusetts, the Bridgewater Triangle is an area shrouded in mystery, folklore, and paranormal phenomena. Spanning approximately 200 square miles, this region has garnered a reputation as one of the world’s most active paranormal hotspots, drawing in researchers, thrill-seekers, and curious visitors alike. From ghostly encounters to UFO sightings and cryptid sightings,…

[pussyandpetrichor]

Moswetuset Hummock

Today, I went for a walk and saw the above plaque. My partner and I read it and said to each other that something doesn't feel right about that. Namely, the last bit: With Chickatawbut Governor Winthrop made a treaty which was never broken. Was it possible? Yes, depending on the terms of the treaty it would have been possible for us to live in the world we do and also not have broken one specific treaty, but the lack of specifics concerned me. As such, when I got home, I decided to verify the information.

First step was fairly simple: who are these people. I knew them both basically, but was initially confused as I knew Chickatawbut as Sac'hem not Sagamore, but apparently these are regional dialects of the same word, so clarified well enough. And John Winthrop was the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which was, at the time, separate from the Plymouth colony established about 10 years prior up the Cape. The Massachusett tribe at Ponkapoag, modern descendants of Chickataubut's Neponset band, spell his name thusly and refer to him as Sac'hem, and moving forward in this post I will do the same.

The treaty between Sac'hem Chickataubut and Governor Winthrop was harder to verify. Many sources I attempted to use cited the very plaque I was reading for information about the treaty.

The English colonists claim in histories that they paid Chickataubut for the land now known as Dorchester to his satisfaction, but the Massachusett have a different interpretation. Based on the conists' continued pursuit of land ownership as of at least 1666, the Massachusetts claim that it was not understood by either side of the deal that land was purchased in perpetuity and instead describe a tributary system as one might expect of a feudal lord. That is to say, it was understood by both the colonists and the natives that the land was owned/controlled by Chickataubut and that they were doing the equivalent of paying rent, rather than purchasing the land outright.

As such, I think it is invalid to claim that the treaty was never broken because, while I cannot find a written text of the treaty, it very much appears that the terms as they were understood are no longer in place.

Above is a link to a text used as citation by the Massachusett tribe on the previously linked article, included because it has some of the relevant information in its first chapter.

[rodeoradio]

Boulders in now abandoned Dogtown, MA. In the 1930s millionaire Roger Babson commissioned unemployed stonecutters to engrave 35 glacial erratics in the abandoned village where his relatives once lived with “inspirational” phrases after the announcement of the stock market crash that would lead to the Great Depression.

Edit: The “First Attacked” boulder was inscribed in 1892 at the site where local James Mary was gored by a bull while picking berries. Roger Babson would later inscribe a nearby boulder with “NEVER TRY NEVER WIN”

Most of these photos sourced from the interesting website: adeadguy.com

[muleydoestreasurehoard]

[forthosebefore]

Women pioneers of reparations

I’ve previously posted about Henrietta Wood. Here are some other early women pioneers for reparations.

Belinda Sutton

Belinda (Royal) Sutton was born in 1712 in Ghana. She was abandoned by her enslaver, who had offered emancipation upon his death or her transfer to his daughter. If she chose freedom he provided 30 pounds for three years so she wouldn’t be a public charge. In 1783, at 63 years old, Sutton filed a petition to the Massachusetts General Court requesting a pension from the estate of her former enslaver. In her petition she recalled her life in Africa as a joyful one full of love prior to her captivity and enslavement. Sutton’s testimony describing the happy times with family in Africa contradicted the narrative that the enslaved were happy in their captivity. She won her claim and was awarded 15 pounds and 12 shillings annually. She had to fight continuously for that award to be honored and paid.

Belinda Sutton’s […] petition of 1783 is among the earliest narratives by an African American woman. […] It has been seen by some commentators as the first call for reparations for American slavery [and] opens a rare window onto the life on an enslaved woman in colonial North America.

To read the full text of Belinda Sutton’s first petition, click here. All of her petitions are available through the Antislavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse, maintained by Harvard University.

Callie House

Callie House was born enslaved in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1861. In 1897, at 36 years old, she founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Bounty and Pension Association (MB&PA) to seek financial support for former slaves left without resources. With Isiah Dickerson she traveled to former slave states to encourage others to join the organization. The organization was eager to petition Congress for a bill that would grant payments (reparations) and mutual aid for burial expenses. Their grass-roots advocacy grew in membership to hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved residents all over the country. The government used three agencies to try to stop this movement: the Federal Bureau of Pensions, the Department of Justice and the Post Office Department. On September 1899, the Post Office issued a fraud order, without evidence, against MB&PA, which made it illegal for them to send mail, cash or money orders. House resisted by invoking the 1st, 14th and 15th amendments and hiring an attorney.

Congress rejected the pensions petition, as if it was not to be taken seriously, and postponed it indefinitely.

In 1909, when Dickerson died, House became the leader of the MB&PA. In 1915, under House’s leadership, the class action lawsuit Johnson v McAdoo was filed in U.S. Federal Court requesting reparations for slavery in the amount of $68 million. This amount was cotton tax money collected from 1862 to 1868 and held by the U.S. Treasury Department. A former slave, H. N. Johnson, led the charge as the plaintiff against U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the claim. This was the first documented litigation for reparations for American chattel slavery in a U.S. federal court.

The following year, House was arrested on charges of fraud from the Post Office, convicted by an all-white, all-male jury and sentenced to a year in jail, deliberately hampering the reparations movement.

Callie House died from cancer in Nashville, Tennessee on June 6, 1928, at the age of 67. Source: Greenbelt News Review, BlackPast.org, RoyallHouse.org

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[faithandarisadventures]

History of Worcester's Blackstone River October 12, 2023 Blackstone Gateway Park Worcester, Massachusetts

[stavrosskundromichalis]

The Friday dinosaur dance theme continues with a pair of Podokesaurus holyokensis doing the Monster Mash in the woods of Massachusetts during the Early Jurassic 🎃🦖👻

[turtleislandhistory]

September 1, 1897

The first underground rapid transit system in North America, the Tremont Street Station, opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Could we please have some fun facts about the great state of Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is by far the likeliest state in America to have a Nantucket. Several reports of at least one Martha's Vineyard and possibly even a Cape Cod have also emerged. If true, it would make Massachusetts the spiralliest state, as Cape Cod is basically the golden spiral of Capes as well as Cods.

Massachusetts has a rich history, which for some reason my old schoolbooks only date back to 1620 despite the area likely having existed before then. History in Massachusetts consists of tea parties, men with the last name Adams, towns also named Adams, and also Matt Damon, who was born Adam A. Adams.

Massachusetts also has a rich future, including the Boston Retro Speedrun Festival where the Super Mario 4:50 barrier will be broken, the Boston Phoning-In Music Festival where Ariana Grande will reveal her next new ethnicity, and the Boston Molasses Factory Grand Reopening, at which nothing at all will go wrong.

[mrskennedy]

Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy on Election Day, 1958.

[humanoidhistory]

Head-measuring device at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, Massachusetts, ca. 1951-1984.

[thoughtartistry]

Salem, Massachusetts is a must visit spooky season. The heart of Halloween in New England. 🎃

[deadpresidents]

President John F. Kennedy's secret nuclear bunker on Peanut Island, near JFK's "Winter White House, La Querida, in Palm Beach, Florida. Given the codename "Detachment Hotel", the bunker was constructed by U.S. Navy Seabees and could hold roughly 30 people for about 30 days. The bunker was disguised as a munitions depot near a Coast Guard station and wasn't officially acknowledged by the government until 1974, nearly 13 years after JFK was assassinated.

President Kennedy had a similar bunker on Nantucket Island, near the famous Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.