American Identity part 4

The settlers saw the Indian and feared their fate. They wondered in earnest if they would degenerate to the ostensible savagery of the Indians. From the time of their first arrival, in the 1620 and 1630, the settlers had worried about losing their Englishness (Lepore 5). The colonists had asked themselves a question concerning the origin of the natives. If they were in fact natives then their savagery is explained. “But if the Indians were migrants from Europe or Asia, then they had changed since coming to America and had been contaminated by its savage environment. If this were the case, as many believed, then the English could expect to degenerate, too.” Wrote Lepore (6). The settlers also feared losing their lands and their houses. In fact as Lepore further writes “For most colonists the loss of habitations became the central crisis of the war” (77)
This seemingly prominent culture of fear the United state had come of age into explains the tendencies toward the extreme and viciousness of reaction when feeling threatened or when responding to an attack. In that they passed what Lepore call “Colonists vigilante justice” (138). As one of its practices any Christian Indian wishing to return to the English had to supply severed body parts of slain enemy Indians. As was done by James Painter, a Nipmuck Christian Indian, who when amnesty was presented, surrendered himself to the English settlers “ Bringing with him, as required by special instruction, the heads of two enemy Indians-testaments of his fidelity.” Lepore wrote