Colonial governments paid out bounties for scalps of at least 375 Indigenous people across New England between 1675 to 1760, they said.Įmerson Baker, a Salem State University professor who specializes in New England history, called the tribal education effort “a powerful course correction.” That’s just a few short decades after the first Thanksgiving in 1621, when Pilgrims gathered with Wampanoag people for a harvest celebration, said Chris Newell, who is Passamaquoddy and wrote “If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving.”Īll told, there were more than 70 bounty proclamations encouraging white colonists to kill tribal members in what’s now New England, and another 50 government-sanctioned proclamations elsewhere across the country, the filmmakers’ research found. The first known colonial scalping order is from 1675. “If every American knew the whole history of this country, even the dark and uncomfortable parts, it would help us to get along better and to understand each other better,” said Maulian Dana, who co-directed the film with Neptune Adams.īoth Europeans and Native Americans engaged in scalping, but English colonists greatly expanded the practice when the government sanctioned the effort with bounties, the filmmakers said. The declaration is familiar to many Penobscots because a copy of the document was displayed at the tribal offices at Indian Island, Maine.

Settlers who killed Indigenous people were sometimes rewarded with land, in addition to money, expanding settlers’ reach while displacing tribes from their ancestral lands. The amount was slightly less for a child. Issued in November 1755, it gave “His Majesty’s Subjects” license to kill Penobscots for “this entire month.” The reward was about $12,000 in today’s dollars for the scalp of a man, and half that for a woman’s scalp.

The filmmakers say they simply want to ensure this history isn’t whitewashed by promoting a fuller understanding of the nation’s past.Īt the heart of the project is a chilling declaration by Spencer Phips, lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. She said the point of the effort isn’t to make any Americans feel defensive or blamed.

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