Experimental Blog #13

Comments on the book "The Name of War - King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity" by Jill Lepore

The author of this book, the original scholar {from my point of view}, Jill Lepore, seems to have meticulously given all sides and opinions about this American event, which occurred over 325 years ago, and its subsequent affects.
I found the philosophical background to be especially interesting. The author says that the Dutch jurist and theologian Hugo Grotius was "deeply influential" in New England during this time, and he wrote that a "just war" must have two criteria; a "just cause" and "just conduct". She also mentioned St. Augustine, who said that a "just war" is "fair, legal, and limited", while a "holy war", a concept rejected by Hugo Grotius, is "sanctioned by God", or "divinely ordained and unrestrained".
The author also wrote at length about how American public opinion went seemingly from one extreme to the other about King Philip and his war. First he was a "treacherous beast", but then he was portrayed, especially in the 19th century, as a "noble, but doomed, hero, who must die." At the very same time the majority of Americans supported the "Indian removal" policy, often brutal, persued by President Andrew Jackson and all the following presidents.