It is widely recognized that the winners write the history. All too often, it remains to the reader to discover the facts behind the story. This is clearly the case in the brief snippets of “History” found in the Aug. 6 issue of the Concord Insider.

You report that on Aug. 6, 1728, a grant of land is given to the “47 soldiers and survivors of an Indian-hunting expedition.” While the reports of “Indian-hunting” is shocking in itself, one begs to know who these “Indian-hunters” were, and if the term “Indian-hunter” is sufficiently gruesome to describe their character, mission, and purpose. Were they participants in a wider effort by European settlers to drive native populations from their lands? Were they driven to this purpose by conquering politicians, teachers, and preachers who dehumanized the Native peoples by labeling them savages? What is the deeper story here?

Similarly, a report from Aug. 9, 1746, reads that a band of Indians “invades Rumford.” Is it not true that Rumford had been inhabited by Natives for generations, that the European settlers had taken their lands by superior force, and that these “invaders” were actually Native peoples endeavoring to regain the lands stolen from them? Then, a report from Aug. 11, 1746, just two days later, tells of a subsequent battle in which a military party of Indians kill, “strip, and mutilate” the bodies of five Rumford defenders.

Characterizing the Native peoples in such manner has long been a part of dehumanizing these defenders of their homelands, a part of the narrative spun by politicians and preachers justifying the genocidal actions of our European forebears. The narrative ignores the Europeans’ own acts of violence against the Natives, and subtly suggests that Europeans would never engage in such actions themselves.

These snippets of history, reinforcing a narrative created by earlier generations of European invaders, are overdue for revision. I hope that the editors of this paper will be more attentive to the damage that has been done and continues to be done through the uncritical repetition of the winners’ version of “history.”

RICHARD SLATER

Hopkinton