Incident in Cherry Valley – fate of Jane Wells / from the original picture by Alonzo Chappel (1828-1887); Thomas Phillibrown, engraver. Jane Wells is pleading for her life, and a man attempts to protect her from an Indian who is about to kill her. House behind them is being burned by Loyalists and Indians led by Major Walter Butler and Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, Cherry Valley, New York. Published: N.Y. : Martin, Johnson & Co. publishers, c1856. via Wikimedia
Heart pumping, Hugh Mitchell rushed into his burning home. Face covered against the smoke, his mind raced. Where could he begin? But his mind emptied of all thought when he saw what lay before him. The bloodied bodies of his wife and four children.
Hugh had been out working the fields when he saw the raiders approaching. Too far away to run to his house, he fled into the nearby woods, hoping the Indians would show mercy to his family should they have failed to escape. He hurried to his home as soon as it was safe to do so, only to find his worst fears confirmed.
With melancholy remorse, he extinguished the fire before returning to the corpses. One still breathed—barely. Extending his arms under her, he gently lifted her, then placed her at the door for fresh air. As he bent down to examine the extent of her injuries, he saw another party heading toward the house. He barely had time to hide undetected behind a log fence.
He did not move. He could not. He watched helplessly as one of Butler’s rangers, later identified as Sergeant Newbury, stepped up to the girl and, with a single blow of his hatchet, killed Mitchell’s last surviving child.1
A year later, Hugh Mitchell would testify to this brutal act at Newbury’s trial. The British soldier was found guilty and hanged for his crime.2
But justice was the exception.
And in 1778, exception was giving way to pattern.
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The fate of Mitchell’s family in the Cherry Valley Massacre reveals how warfare intensified in Continue Reading “The River Ran Red With Blood”
Democracy Dies On The Blackboard
Perhaps because the phrase originated in a judicial ruling that echoed a modern myth about the role of newspapers in our country’s history. Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote in his opinion for the court in Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 303 F.3d 681 (6th Cir. 2002): “Democracies die behind closed doors. The First Amendment, through a free press, protects the people’s right to know that their government acts fairly, lawfully, and accurately in deportation proceedings. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people.”
The opinion, and many subsequent interpretations of it, overstate the importance of Continue Reading “Democracy Dies On The Blackboard”