THIS is not what we were taught. The Pilgrim Fathers, those pious pioneers who quit heathen Britain to found modern America, virtually obliterated the native Wampanoag tribe.
Between June 1675 and August 1676, they waged a bloody war in New England, which cost 5,000 lives, chiefly of the indigenous Indians.
In ratio to population the mortality was double that inflicted in the Civil War, and seven times worse than in the Revolution that overthrew British rule. True, the near-holocaust happened half a century after Mayflower dropped anchor.
But Philbrick, an American academic, argues that the slaughter set the pattern for conquest of America - How The West Was Won.
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