Washington And The Town Destroyer Name

0:00Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture for our Thursday program. It's called Foundations of Freedom Thursday and it's where we talk about the Foundations of Freedom and you get to ask the questions. So send those emails into us radio at wallbuilders.com with whatever question you've got. The wallbuilder show is always about taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical historical and constitutional perspective and we love it when you pick interesting topics for us. So send those to radio at wallbuilders.com and then of course if you want to go listen to some previous Thursday programs for Foundations of Freedom, they're available at our website wallbuilders.show where you can also find good news Friday programs and the interviews that we have on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and guys we got a boatload of questions and some interesting ones, some things I certainly have I know nothing about. So this first one I'm definitely looking forward to learning from you guys and I know you've written the American story and you've gone back not just a founding father's history

1:03but way back before that and to the things that really were planted in this country long before the founding in 1776. Anyway, I know we're going to get some interesting responses here. So first question is from Michelle. She said I have a question about the Seneca tribe leader giving George Washington the name I'm going to do my best here guys. Konotokkarius which means apparently town destroyer because of Washington giving the order of taking out 40. Here I go again. Haudenosaunee villages during the Revolutionary War. My Marxist 40 year old son insists that Washington was a mass murderer. It is hard to find information on this unless it's from a leftist organization like PBS which I don't trust Mount Vernon website states that this nickname was given to Washington's great grandfather but my son insists that it also applied to watch him because of his murderous acts in the Revolutionary War. I did a search on your website and was unable to find anything on this. Can you clarify?

2:04Thank you, Michelle. Well Michelle, I'm going to be really quiet for however long this takes because I have never even heard of that nickname or those villages. David Tim, anything sound familiar there? Well, they're referring to something that a lot of progressives like to bring up and that's how unjust the American colonists were and the American leaders, George Washington were to Indian tribes, etc. So that's the tone of it behind this. Another blemish on the founding fathers and founding of America. Well, and I would say broader picture, not knowing all the details, knowing some details about this of Washington being accused of genocide. It's in many ways similar to like when Columbus gets accused of genocide. They're like, you know, he came and killed all the natives and you go, wait a second. Tell me about the Taino tribe, right? Let's dig a little deeper on this and what you discover is no Columbus did not do mass genocide and all the natives. It were some tribes he got along incredibly well with the Taino tribe. He actually spoke highly of them.

3:05I think actually even adopted. I'm probably totally butchering this. So don't anybody listening? Don't document and be like, well Tim said it must be. No, there's probably I need to go back and even actually reread the research we did initially. It seems like on some level he adopted one of these tribe members, something like that. I'm a little murk in the details of the bottom line is people look at some of the tribes Columbus went to war with and they're like, see, committed genocide. And what I would point out is Columbus actually didn't start really any of these wars. Columbus responded after he'd been attacked. And certainly if you look at like the Carribus tribe, yes. This went on the war path after they had attacked, killed and eaten some of his men. He responded and I say that adding the context that when people look back historically, they don't know the whole story. It's not that Columbus didn't do bad things. That's not what I'm arguing at all. I am pointing out that you're being incredibly dishonest if you don't tell the whole story

4:06and you pretend like Columbus was this racist genocidal maniac, which is the way he's often portrayed today. That's not true. That's a similar portrayal that's being applied to most of the white individuals from early America, these monstrous genocidal racist maniacs. And frankly, it's a gross misrepresentation of who they were, even though some truth might be there that yeah, there was no doubt. George Washington in his time in the military definitely fought against some natives. Now he actually fought with natives on times too. He definitely wiped out some villages, but he was not this racist genocidal maniac. And so to me, like already the prevailing context when you know that George Washington is overall a honorable person. It's not that an honorable person couldn't do something dishonorable at a time, but when you are framing that as representative of the entirety of his character, it's a gross

5:06misrepresentation. But also when you recognize that we live in an era that the prevailing ideology is a Marxist ideology of the oppressed and the oppressors. And when you automatically put the native peoples into the oppressed category and you put white people into the oppressor category. And that's the way that we are framing the teaching of history. That is why they arrive at these conclusions that Washington is this genocidal maniac who went on the war path and killed all these natives and destroyed their villages. So I would already say like the context, even before we've gotten into the details of the story, the context is important to recognize this is coming from the Marxist ideology that the natives are the oppressed. Washington is the oppressor. Therefore the natives are the victims who did nothing wrong. And Washington is the victimizer who only did wrong. That's obviously incorrect historically. But that is the portrayal that this professor or academia in general will often paint of Washington and the founding fathers.

6:07Yeah, Tim, you've set the boundaries on this thing really, really well. That is a complete proper tone. And so here's some of the details that fit within the boundary of what you just laid out. They're talking about the Air Quark Confederacy and Washington, the Air Quark Confederacy. And just to show you some of the complication that goes on with this about Washington attacking the Indians, etc. The Air Quark Confederacy is one that so many people point to, progresses, love to point to them. Hey, this is where the founding fathers got their idea for the US Constitution. They copied the Air Quark Confederacy because that's where the nonsense, but nonetheless, they love the Air Quark Confederacy. They felt a point out that the Air Quark Confederacy was made up of six separate tribes. When the American Revolution started, four of the tribes went with the British, two of the tribes went with the Americans. So now the Air Quark Confederacy is even fighting itself. Some of the allies in that Confederacy, those six tribes, are now turned against each other. So are you going to say that the tribes, the American leaning tribes that fought the British leaning tribes, they were committing atrocities because they went after their former brother

7:11and their former allies? I mean, that's already part of the complication of this story right there. Which by the way, Dad, for those listening, this is another good point in this context that if you look up Jim Elliott and the praying Indians, Jim Elliott is that missionary. You mean John Elliott? You say? I do mean John Elliott. All right. Yes. Not into the spear or point of the spear, whatever it's called. No, not that one. John, and it was an Elliott. It was a J Elliott. John Elliott is exactly what's talking about. The Elliott Bible, anyway, there were natives that converted the Christianity under the Ministry of John Elliott and they fought wars against other natives, not because they were going to pick fights now in the name of Christianity. No, other natives were attacking them because of their changed beliefs. They were no longer identifying them as part of their tribe anymore. This is something that as you look back historically and by the way, I'm using John Elliott. This is a super easy example that you can look up and hopefully you won't have a hard time finding the information. If you're using some kind of AI bot, whether it be Grog, Crachage, GPT, whatever else,

8:15if you have some search engine, hopefully it doesn't give you all the the woke take of this. If you look, you will discover not just in this encounter or dad, even the one you're talking about with the earthquake and federation, for the history of America, native tribes fought other native tribes. That was the normal. That was the common long before Columbus even sets foot on any of the land that would maybe be considered North America when he discovers any of that or those islands before he even sails west across the ocean. It's estimated by historians that between 20 to 40% of other native tribes were slaves to native tribes. So 20 to 40% of slave population in North America were native slaves because they had been captured in war. This is not an unusual thing, but again, when the ideology is under Marxism that all natives are oppressed people. Therefore the only option for the bad guys have to be the other individuals involved in this, which in this case would be some of the white soldiers or the European soldiers.

9:15They have to be the bad guys not recognizing there can be nuance. There actually could be some natives that were fighting on one side, some fighting on the other that seems very odd in the context of the Marxist paradigm because the natives are the oppressed ones. How could they fight on both sides and dad to your point? This is why it's so skewed when people want to make it so simplistic in this Marxist paradigm that all the natives were oppressed. It contradicts the reality of history and what happened, but this is the way it's portrayed. So to your point, this is not just a unique time when you have the Eroquois fighting the Eroquois in this Confederacy or the kind of the dissolution of the Confederacy at this point. This is something that is absolutely historically common in the native tribes. By the way, not just native tribes, but this is what people did. People groups fought other people groups for the history of the world. That's quite normal in human and world history. Again, it's a misrepresentation, it's academic portrayal of what actually happened. What happens here is the Eroquois is already divided between the British and the Americans.

10:20They're taking side. They're split on themselves. Now the account starts when George Washington, he writes about this himself, his meeting where he received this name that the town destroyer was given to him by the Senate, the half-chief and Senate was one of the larger of the six tribes in the Eroquois Confederacy. This happened during the movie, anybody who's seen the movie Young Washington, this is part of what happens there. So Young Washington, he's 21 years old, he's now been sent by Governor Dinwitty of Virginia out to try it and negotiate and see what's happening with the French and the Indians and whatnot. He goes on a peace mission. On the way, this Senate chief meets with him. Senate chief knows him as the grandson of, and Washington's great grandfather had been called the town destroyer because at Tim, as you pointed out, a bunch of the tribes back then were attacking other tribes. They were attacking everybody that's not of their tribe, including colonists. And so Washington, Colonel John Washington was part of a group that went out and he said, what's Colonel John Washington?

11:21This is great grandfather. So Colonel John Washington, the great grandfather. I'm glad because you tripped me up. I heard Colonel John, I was like, his name is George Dad. I don't know who you've been studying recently. It's George Washington. Okay. So Grandpa is John. Okay. You tripped me up for a second, but I'm with you now. Actually, the great grandfather was John. So he goes out in the 1670s with forces and he eliminates those tribes that were killing all the others, including the other tribes, not just the colonists but the tribes. And so at that time, they gave him the name town destroyer. I mean, he was great warrior. He was a great fighter. So Washington is on his way out to the Pittsburgh area where the French Indian Wars is going to happen with him. And again, the movie Young Washington, if you haven't seen it, it's a really good movie to see and it really sets the title of this. But on the way you met with this Sonny Gacheeve, Sonny Gacheeve called him town destroyer, and gave him the same name that his great grandfather had. And that was considered the title of a war leader saying, hey, you are a formidable warrior.

12:23Because remember, for the Indians, it's a virtue to be a great warrior and a great killer of enemies. So that's not a slur. That is a war title. They're recognizing him as a great warrior. That's part of their culture, part of what they did. So as this thing goes on, we get into the American Revolution now. I'm jumping ahead 20 years. So as we're washing, it gets to the name. Now let's jump into the American Revolution. The Airquoy six tribes have split. Four have gone to the British, two have gone to the Americans. And now the British and the Americans are fighting each other, which means that the Americans and two of the Airquoy tribes are fighting the British and four of the Airquoy tribes. And by the way, just to be real clear about this, that Washington wasn't hated by the Indians nor to he hate the Indians, it is remarkable how many native tribes sided with Washington and fought side by side with him in the war against other tribes. The O'Nighted tribe, that's part of the Airquoy Confederacy. The O'Nighted and the Tushka Roar were two of the tribes in the Airquoy Confederacy that

13:23went with Washington. And the O'Nighted were probably Washington said they were the strongest Indian allies we had. Now I think the Stockbridge Indians are maybe the second strongest right up there with the O'Nighted, but they were the scouts. They provided troops. They gave him intelligence throughout the war. The Tushka Roar did the same thing. They were united with the O'Nighted because the Airquoy Confederacy. The Stockbridge Indians had an entire regiment of Stockbridge Indians that fought throughout the war. They were at Lexington and Concord. So you have the Stockbridge Indians fighting with the colonists against the British election Concord. The Kataba Indians out of South Carolina, the Delaware Indians out of Pennsylvania, the Pasamacuadi I mean, the Penobsquat, there's so many Indian tribes that sided with Washington and fought. So already this notion that Washington hates the Indians and he slaughtered the Indians, what do you do with all those Indian Allied tribes that fought during the war? So what happens? The British and their allies, including the Airquoy, the Four Tribes of the Airquoy, they

14:25did a bunch of slaughters. For example, what's called the Aranski, after Battle of Aranski, the cynical warriors, which is part of the Airquoy Confederacy took the surviving Patriots that survived the battle and clubbed them the death after the battle was over. They just simply executed them. If you go to the Wyoming Valley, Masker in July of 1788, again, the Airquoy Confederacy tribes, along with British lawless, they attacked a Quaker settlement. Quakers are pacifists who don't fight. They attacked a Quaker settlement, killed 220, killed in scalp, 227 civilians, and these are non-combatants. They took 30 to 40 prisoners live and tortured them the death to see what tortures they couldn't inflict before they died. You have the German Flats raid in September 1778. Again, the Airquoy allied with the British, attacked and destroyed barns and houses and mills, civilian settings. The Cherry Valley Masker later in 1778, again, the Airquoy tribes with the British, they

15:26scalped 32 civilians. Most of them were women and children. They took 80 captives and they executed 16 soldiers. This is what is going on and Washington issues an order to General Sullivan in 1779. He says, okay, you destroy those villages of those tribes that are taking out all these civilians. You wipe them out. And that's exactly what Sullivan did. He took those forces out of the war. He did not attack Indian villages per se. He attacked enemy villages who were slaughtering civilians. That's where Washington drew the line. So when you look at that question, that's the background to it. That's what's happened. There's no question there was a slaughter that went on of those Indian villages and the same way those Indian villages slaughtered all the colonists and others. They went into those tribes and essentially neutralized them for the rest of the war. And that's what that battle of 1779 or that campaign is 1779 with General Sullivan at the direction of George Washington. It happened after all those unprovoked slaughters of civilians, that's what got Washington

16:31involved. So there's a whole lot more to the story than what that professor gave. He's looking to make Washington look bad and Tim as you set up so well at the beginning, this is that Marxist narrative. One side is innocent. The other side is guilt that you have to have the two fighting each other to create the tension and friction they want. And that's just not the story of George Washington. That's why he was so highly respected by so many tribes who fought with him and under his leadership who did not commit the atrocities the British tribes did. Washington restrained that from that behavior. So there's a lot of good things to say about Washington and those battles. Man, so much wealth of information there guys, but I gotta be honest, the thing that stands out most to me is wait, there's a Colonel John Washington. I've kind of like you, Tim. It's like, wait, didn't you meet the signature? I just had no idea that he had ancestors that were also even in the military or even known for any of that kind of stuff. This brand new information for sure. Well, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more questions from the audience. You're listening to the Walbler Show Foundations of Freedom Thursday.

17:36Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton from Walbler. There's, I'm gonna let you know about a new resource that should be a tool in your toolbox. This is the reprint of Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now, there's lots of reasons it would be cool to own a reprint like this, but one of the things that I want to highlight is not only is this a reprint that is in Thomas Jefferson's own hand in cursive, it shows some of his edits along the way, which is really fun, but it also shows what Thomas Jefferson thought was the most significant grievance in the original draft. It's the longest grievance. It's the last grievance. It was a grievance against the slave trade arguing actually also against slavery and arguing for the humanity of all that were enslaved. Thomas Jefferson thought that was the most important. Now, it didn't make it in the final draft and we will explain why in the resource packet you get when you order one of these copies, but friends, this is something that you want and your collection go to Walbler.com and look for Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Hey, friends, Rick Green from the Walbler Show encouraging you to share the program with

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19:41To Freedom Thirsty next question, we don't usually allow people from California to ask questions, but I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's a Texas thing. Oh, come on, Rick. Actually, his name is Rick, actually. So that's why I had to throw something in there. Someone named Rick from Monterey, California said, dear Walbler's, if there was such a great influence by Christian Fowl, why didn't they recognize the Bible in founding documents, especially the Constitution? It should have made our life easier to have recognized the Bible in our Constitution in some way. All right, guys. So it doesn't say the Bible or the Holy Bible. Those words aren't in the Constitution, but would you say that there's some biblical influence on the Constitution or any evidence of that? Was that not a set up question? Anybody that knows us on Walbler's knows? That was a softball question. Well, part of it, I'm going to do as part of the federalism thing because the Constitution is a governing document for the Union of the United States, but it's not the governing document per se for each of the states back then. They all had state constitutions.

20:43It was the state constitutions that determined who you would send to Congress. The federal Constitution says, hey, you can send X number of people to Congress, and this is their requirements, be 25 years old, et cetera, be a citizen. But the state said, well, that's fine, but here's what we're going to have from our state go to the federal Congress. And so this is where it becomes important to go back and look at the state constitutions and the relationship they had with the federal government and see what the state constitutions stipulated within those state constitutions for people that they sent to represent them at the federal government. Because if you can send the right kind of, I mean, we know this today, if all the 50 states would send the right kind of people to the federal government, we wouldn't be having any of the problems we're having right now. That all comes from the people that we have sent to the federal government out of the states. So their end was, hey, we're going to fix this or try to fix this as a state end. We're going to tell you exactly who we won't go in. And that's why if you look at the constitutions, I'll just take the Pennsylvania Constitution.

21:47Their first constitution says, for their members, each member before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe to the following declaration, quote, I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the reward of the good, the punish of the wicked, and I know as the scripture is the old New Testament to be given by divine inspiration. If that's who Pennsylvania is going to place into government, I don't really have to worry about the content that's in the Constitution because we have just solidified it by saying the people that are going, they're going to, this is what they believe. Otherwise, they wouldn't be going to Congress. Hey, Dad, along those lines, one of the additional connecting points, as you're saying, the state constitutions give a lot of clarity what they were thinking at the time. And why didn't that wording make it into the Constitution? Well, let me, let me throw out some other ideas. Do you know what other wording didn't make it into the Constitution that, that we all these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're undoubtedly a great point. Certainly an animal rights that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Well, why didn't that make it into the Constitution? Because that's not the point of what the Constitution was.

22:49The declaration was a vision, a mission statement. The Constitution was the way the federal government was going to operate, but by the way, not the way that state government was going to operate because states were in charge of how the state government would operate, which is why in the state, they actually had explicit parameters regarding who could hold office, including that in most of these states, you would be a Protestant hold office. You had to have a profession of faith, you'd have a belief in God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. That's literally in their state constitutions when we separate from Great Britain. I think it was 11 of the 13 states that actually have some profession of faith in their state constitution. When you go forward and you get to the Constitution, when the Constitution is actually ratified of the states that ratified the Constitution, it was either six or seven states that still had a profession of faith in God and Jesus in kind of Christian ideology, Protestant confessions to hold office. Again, that's not in the federal Constitution. Part of the reason why is even at the time of the Constitution, there were state established religions, but they didn't want there to be a federal religion.

23:51They wanted there to be autonomy and independence in the state that if you live in a state and your state says, hey, we're congregationalists, you have the right to do that as a state. If your state said, well, we're Presbyterian or we're Baptist or we're Anglican, you have the right to do that as a state. The Constitution did not void that, but what they were very specific on is we are not going to put anything in here that might sway something in a way that would prevent people from being able to coalesce and join under the union. They're not removing religious content. They're just not advocating that this is what specifically the federal government is going to endorse, whether it be Baptist Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, congregations, whatever else, but also worth noting is what's also well documented. Where do the founding fathers come up with the ideas that go in the Constitution? Who were the influences on the founding fathers as they're doing this? We've talked about this a lot. The primary influence on the founding fathers, the thing most quoted in their political writings was the Bible and it wasn't even close.

24:53So this idea that the founding fathers who were the most influenced by their Bible, who some of them helped establish state denominations or promoted state denominations or in their constitutions, they're actually writing conditions of holding office. You have to be a profession of Christianity, a Protestant to hold office. The idea that those guys wanted an entirely secular government, it's not logical except when you understand the separation of federalism and jurisdictions and what the limited role of the federal government was supposed to play, then it offers clarity of why they were so religious on the state level and didn't enforce that on the federal level because they understood how federalism actually works because they're the ones that wrote that in the Constitution. You know, one of the early legal writers and historians looking back on this early on just years after the Constitution said the framers did not place Christianity beneath nor over their political institutions. It was rather the atmosphere which they breathed to administered it. It was to be the source of their inspiration who sought to make them available for human

25:55advantage. These institutions and law were to be the instruments of Christian men for the good of the whole human family. That's the way they did it. And I'll point out that it was not until 1961 that a radical Supreme Court said, oh, the founding fathers had it wrong and all this religion and government stuff. That's unconstitutional. It was in 1961 when they struck down founding father language back in the state constitutions. They gave them the authority to tell the founding fathers they were unconstitutional. That's how crazy this is. It's this is the result of judicial activism in the 1960s. Well only two questions today, but they were great questions. We'll get to more next Thursday. Be sure to check out the website wallbuilders.show to hear more of our programming to share it with your friends and family. And don't miss tomorrow. It's good news. Friday looking forward to all that good news. You've been listening to The Wallblower Show.