Jeffery Amhurst Quotes

The Abenaki Indians from Canada had come South and raided many of the settlements of upstate New York. In the process, they committed many atrocities killing civilian men, women and children. Amhurst ordered Robert Rogers and his rangers to attack the Abenaki home villiage in Canada on a famous punitive raid. The Rangers, did indeed, raid the Abenaki and wiped out all the males of the tribe that were in the camp at the time. Amhurst hated Indians, but still had his standards regarding the killing of women and children, but was perfectly willing to kill all the mature males. There were no Geneva Conventions at the time. The same general introduced biological warfare by giving Indians smallpox infected blankets. See {619646}

Some of the Indian tribes who were allied with the French, raided the farms and settlements of upper New York State, committing many atrocities. Amhurst allowed Rogers Rangers to carry the war to the enemy; the Rangers traveled to St. Francis in Canada and attacked the Indian tribe in their home village, killing all the men, and despite Amhurst’s orders, some of the women. The other women and children were released. This was the first successful American commando raid. Rogers had almost no casualties in the raid, but lost many men to starvation and disease on the long trek home.

Lawrence of Arabia. In the Middle East, Lawrence led a small Arab army against the Turks and the Germans. In a battle near Tafas, the captured 250 Turkish and German soldiers as prisoners. They them shot them all in cold blood with their Hotchkiss machine gun. What makes this quotation so significant is that one of the great British heroes of WWI was actually guilty of War Crimes. An American journalist gave Lawrence and his exploits great publicity without mentioning the atrocities. The British chain of command also ignored the transgression of one of the most fundamental rules of war even though the clear evidence was in basic battle report files. However, the British never removed the report from the files or destroyed it. The Turks and the Germans while they respected the rules of war with the English, French, and most allies, treated the Arabs much more harshly and murdered Arab prisoners on many occasions. In part this atrocity at Tafas was an act of vengeance and retaliation. But Lawrence never even tried to explain it.

The White Boers viewed themselves as superior to the Blacks and the Blacks and Whites competed for land. In an early form of ethnic cleansing, the Boers attacked the undefended women and children of the Black tribes. The authorities opposed these atrocities but did not have any way of enforcing their orders.

While there were atrocities committed by both sides in the Civil War, the proportion tended to be heavily weighted by Confederate perpetrations. The Confederate officers were not appointed by the command structure and under strict military discipline, but they were elected by the troops and could be so removed (except for the general officers who were appointed by the confederacy). Also, the confederate troops were not as well fed or supplied as the North and they had fewer resources with which to fulfill their obligations to prisoners. In a number of battles, ill-clothed soldiers stripped the Union dead, wounded and prisoners, often naked to use their shoes, blankets and clothing, Union prisoners of war were much more badly abused in the prisoners of war camps like Andersonville which were not under the command of Robert E. Lee.

Japanese military culture of the time was that a soldier who surrendered, even if wounded, was totally dishonorable and therefore could be abused and killed. The American marines then retaliated, and after that, the Americans also took no live prisoners contrary to American military regulations. This incident shows how difficult it is to maintain military professional standards and regulations if the other side does not. Similar situations existed in most American wars, but by the end of the 20th century, the all volunteer military had become much more professionalized and disciplined, and there were relatively few American atrocities despite many provocations.

These battles with the Irish—in this case the MacDonnell clan—were brutal atrocities where the winners of the battle killed all the losers and the women and children with them in the case of the Irish.

The Indian allies of the French scalped some American colonists which for some whites was akin to the modern reaction to terrorist atrocities. The British and Americans then justified the scalping of their Indian allies as simple retaliation. While Indians had scalped before the whites ever came, the whites accelerated the practice. There was an economic element to scalping. The French “paid” their Indian allies in arms, blankets, trinkets and alcohol by the scalp as it was a crude way of “performance measurement.” Not to be outdone, the English adopted the same custom with the French allied Indians as targets. In North Carolina, for example, the “volunteer” rangers were paid the enormous rate of 10 pounds a scalp.

1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

Referring to the behavior of English King Edward I, 1239-1307, towards Scotland:

The U.S. was at war with Spain and Filipino insurgents for the control of the Philippines. During this war there were a few senior U. S. Officers who in later times would have been tried and jailed for war crimes. The men under them were brutal and committed atrocities at their orders. See {615368}.

The Creeks—the Cherokee traditional rivals and enemies were under a different command but all the other Indians were under Stand Watie’s command. In this quotation, we see the negative reaction that many Southerners had toward Quantrill and his cutthroats. This quote and others show that the Quantrill atrocities were generally known throughout the South. The Confederate command structure however, did nothing to rein in Quantrill’s atrocities much less discipline him for his war crimes. It is not clear to whom Waite referred as “enemies”—the Union troops or the Creeks, their traditional enemies. The slavery issue of the Civil War divided more than the nation. The Cherokee’s were badly divided over social class, aristocracy, strategy in keeping their land and tribal sovereignty, and slavery. A number of the older families had Black slaves. Stand Waite was one of the old, traditional, Cherokee, families, who were not happy losing their traditional power and influence when Jon Ross was elected tribal leader. He and his majority faction would not support the South in the Civil War. Stand Waite did, and after Ross was murdered Waite became the Second Cherokee Tribal leader.

Clark’s men had English Colonel Hamilton under siege by making him think there were many more Americans in Clarks army than the real 180 or so. He tried to get Hamilton to surrender by threatening if they had to take the fort they would treat Hamilton and the British as murderers—Hamilton had paid hostile Indians for American scalps. At that point a party of Clark’s men arrived with 4 or 5 Indian prisoners who had been captured raiding
civilian farms. After the Indians were executed, Hamilton agreed to surrender.

About 2000 Irish were slaughtered while Cromwell only lost 64. In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, many English Protestants—men, women and even children were massacred by Catholic rebels who were out of control of their leadership. See {639336} for an example. Cromwell, when he landed in Ireland with his troops, made no bones about the fact that he was there to avenge the massacres of 1641 {639283} . This was his first “payback”. 150 years later the Irish Protestants memorialize the massacres of the Rebellion of 1641. The Catholics, memorialize, the massacre at Drogheda. Each group uses these and other similar events to justify their positions of antagonism against the other. See {639282} for a moral analysis of Cromwell’s action here.

This is a description of a massacre of Protestants (mostly English) by Catholic Rebels led by Phelim O’Neill. The Catholics whose religion had been compromised when English King Henry VIII severed all ties to the Pope and the Vatican and bound the Irish to that decision of his. The Irish Catholic peasants so resented the English that their hate caused massacres like this in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Their anger was so great that Phelim O’Neill and his officers lost control of their troops who were bent on revenge.

Howe had written Franklin attempting to stave off a American break with England. Franklin, with the approval of the Continental Congress, replied.

The Christian Crusaders had captured Jerusalem and slaughtered the Muslim civilian inhabitants. In the 21st century, some Islamic terrorists justified the beheading of captured Christian prisoners as revenge for this massive Christian beheading of Muslims almost 1,000 years earlier.

The Hindus of Bihar had retaliated brutally to the earlier Muslim ethnic cleansing terror against Hindus. The atrocity by their own co-religionists was very shocking to the party leaders who realized for the first time that the "Blood for Blood" slogan and other incendiary oratory could have disastrous consequences. They realized that they had lost control and influence over their own followers and became really frightened as they seemed to be forced to accept the Muslim unreasonable dictates or accept the uncontrolled internecine civil war that ended up killing over 2 million Indians and displacing, raping and wounding more than 15 million more in the largest mass migration in human history.