The Lies That Built America:

Untold Story of America’s First Bestseller

Let me begin by saying, for those who may be questioning, I am far from a DUI-hire. Mr. Trump does not vouch for my capacity to perform any task. I am qualified. In fact, I am more qualified to have this discussion with you - on “paper?” - than anyone this second Administration has installed is qualified to have this discussion with you in person. I am an award-winning journalist. Unlike them, the free market of ideas validates me.

“Now that we have completed that portion of tonight’s business,” in my Alfred Hitchcock voice, I must ask the question: Where are we in our story?

Ah, yes, it is April 2025. At the time of this writing, I have, once again, added to my Greyhound miles. For those who do not, yet, know, I am purposely on tour through sundown towns. (Yes, sundown towns still exist inside the United States.) The goal is to spark an anti-racism movement at the grassroots level. It is reasoned that whatever medicine works for those living in sundown towns, said medicine will be potent, meaning more than strong enough to work anywhere else.

Currently, we are on the third leg of the “Distribute the Medicine” tour. I found myself returning to Orrville, Ohio. Vix Prunty is the tour coordinator there. She picked me up and brought me to my happy place: a used book store.

Bookstores! Correction. (I will seek to keep an accurate account.) We went to more than one.

In Wooster, Ohio (I told you these were sundown towns!) we entered a local bookstore entitled, ”Books in Stock.” (Yes, these small towns need help with naming their businesses.)

I had a, “I remember this place,” moment. When I visited Orrville in November, we came here. I went looking for the Edgar Rice Burroughs section. There were several Tarzan novels that were out of order. We took to laughter while arranging the series in the numerical order of what was available.

I state this so that you, dear Reader, understand that this is a “used bookstore” of the normal American variety. Customers receive the impression that the community is the source of the books. On the shelves is the history of what was popular twenty or thirty years ago.

Vix found it: the book I wish to discuss with you and has come to fascinate me. I received it, just like the Tarzan books, with laughter. The cover was a woodcarving, which means the book is old.

Very old.

This copy originated in 1953. It was a part of a 300th year celebration. “Lancaster (in Massachusetts) was incorporated as a town on May 18, 1653,” wrote Frederick Lewis Weis. He completed the foreword with the exact date of May 18, 1953.

Immediately, as a Black man living inside of the United States, I became curious. In 1653 my people were technically “free.” Introduced into colonial America - if such a term applies to 1619 - Black people were accepted citizens at this early stage of “America’s” development. Not until Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 does what we later call “The Black Codes” start being imagined.

In 1680, seventy years after invading Turtle Island, colonial laws reflecting a racial tone entered the historical record. After Bacon’s Rebellion, indentured servants became completely different from the enslaved, Black bodies. Once free of their contract, former indentured servants could own Black bodies.

The gray area is 1619 - 1680. (Yeah, I know. Every time I see it written out in black and white, it hurts.) Meaning, it only took one generation for the English to create a racial caste system.

In 1682, Mary Rowlandson published a small book entitled, “The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson” - simultaneously, from Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England. It was “America’s” first bestseller. Whomever chose to finance this endeavor, made their money back and then some because four editions (approximately 1,000 books per edition?) were issued before the end of the year. The English mind was fascinated with the frontier adventure “New England” meant inside of their imagination.

Please give me a few moments to explain the text. I do not begrudge your ignorance. I am aware that 18 states still maintain anti-CRT bans on their books. At the date of this writing, middle schools in Arkansas may not permit the teaching of King Philip's War, which is the reason for Mrs. Rowlandson’s captivity.

I don’t like that name.

“King Phillip” is the “English” name that the colonists could most easily pronounce. The person that the name “King Phillip” points towards is an Indigenous man named Metacomet. He was a Wampanoag sachem, or tribal leader. He was one among many who fought the English between the summer of 1675 and the spring of 1678.

As a working title, for our purposes, I suggest, “The Great Swamp War of 1675.”

This two year contest is memorable because it is the latest date the Native people of Turtle Island (historically) had to remove the English from its shores. So successful was the English invasion, in 1675 some 50,000 English men, women and children now occupied four colonies: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Haven and Connecticut.

Our historical knowledge is vaste of this time period, because the English were fantastic at documenting their lives. It is also limited for the exact same reason. It is the English colonizers who are the source of the material. We do not have many viewpoints from the Indigenous without their voices being filtered through colonial minds.

And, it is here, at this juncture in our discussion, dear Reader, we must begin asking questions. I am plagued by doubt. I have to ask myself, “Am I asking the right questions?”

Because, I do not wish to be intellectually dishonest. To read Rowlandson, I have to leave my contemporary biases. We do not share the same time stream, to borrow a concept from Marvel comics. Unlike you and I, Rowlandson is not recording her thoughts using a cellphone or Substack. She is using quill pens, ink and hand-made paper, while dealing with the demands of a hostile frontier border.

Or, that is how “New England” was imagined in the 17th century.

Mrs. Rowlandson’s environment is the naked wilderness. In her world, although sophisticated enough to print newspapers, is crude enough to have “craftsmen.” Meaning, yes, colonists get shoes and boots. No, you don’t just buy them. Customers commissioned a pair of boots. A commitment is made with a down payment. Or, at least, that is my understanding of commerce during this time period. Everything was hand made.

For any item to be on the market, someone, or a team, had to make it.

The 21st century mind has to take a few moments to imagine how much more valuable a bonnet or hat is when it costs two years of someone’s life to produce. During colonial times, money had tremendous purchasing power.

It is so powerful a practice, the coins produced a culture where trading items became a bonding element among humans. Slowly, as the English practiced private property, the indigenous tribes found themselves trapped inside of a dilemma. Village young adults were restless. The English were restricting Native access to land that was “sold” to them. Worse, some of the forest was being cut down and made into “gardens.”

It is argued that in the summer of 1675, the Wampanoag started raiding English cattle. Buildings that were outcroppings, or non-essentials, caught fire. The colonists felt provoked by these losses, yet did not make a retort for three days.

A “boy” - whatever that means in 1767 - shot a Native warrior. In retaliation, hundreds of Wampanoag descended upon the English.

Like many events, the sequential order of what happened and how it happened is buried under lies and contentious evidence. Add the layer of 300 years and we have a feeling of despair concerning our capacity to learn the truth.

Between you and I, dear Reader, we may formulate the right questions. We may never receive enough evidence to satisfy our curiosity.

Lancaster was attacked by 400 warriors on Monday, February 10, 1676. This action came approximately eight months after the start of the Great Swamp war. Englishmen had organized themselves into the Massachusetts and Plymouth militia regimes. They are moving West, having survived by knowing how to hide behind walled garrisons.

Mrs. Rowlandson begins her account with the sun rising to reveal Native warriors at the horizon. The first few pages are dominated by the language of battle. The narrative reads the way it was most likely written to read: like a sermon.

The presentation is very stream of consciousness: as if someone was speaking and in doing so was building the scenery of a world with every syllable spoken. The environment - a frontier war - is everything, so much so, it is over a dozen pages into the narrative before we Readers learn the name of Rowlandson’s children.

Taken captive, this Puritan woman is blessed to receive a Bible, which she reads continuously for comfort and mental strength. She is treated fairly well. Technically, she is a prisoner of war, in the English mind, yet, not treated like a prisoner of war by Indigenous standards. Rowlandson is taken while her husband is off in Boston, making an appeal to the colonial government to protect Lancaster from Natives.

I have questions. Who is funding this book? Was it the church or a private person?

Considering the fact that Mrs. Rowlandson survives this encounter, isn’t this evidence of how civilized the Native people were?

The text is arranged into twenty-one “removes,” or locations, Mrs. Rowlandson travels to. The time lapse is precise: eleven weeks and five days. She name drops. She even meets “King Phillip” himself. Metacomet commissions a shirt from Mary. It is for his son. When the shirt is completed, Mary receives an English shilling. She trades the shilling for food. This leads to her receiving more business and eating well considering the circumstances.

Question: How much of the stereotype of Indigenous populations am I seeing reflected by Mrs. Rowlandson versus how much is she creating?

Why does this story sound so familiar? Was Rowlandson “captured” or was she using this as an elaborate story to conceal her sexual desire for Native men?

I have many other questions. However, I think, by now, you have caught the drift.

I would like to write a book. I think I can write this book within the next 30 days, meaning April 2025. Here is the working title - “Puritan Propaganda and the Great Swamp War of 1675.”

To do so, I need your help:

Leave questions that you have in the comment section, under this Substack.

Please share this Substack directly to three of your friends, across your social media platforms. Why? So, they can help us ask questions, too.

Please choose to subscribe to this Substack. Each annual subscription will earn a copy of the book, tentatively to be released at the end of May 2025.