Memorializing the Undeparted: Two Case Studies in the American Movement to Prematurely Memorialize the Native Race

Abstract

On June 26, 1889, Major John Mason returned to Connecticut. Dead for over two centuries, the English military leader and colonial politician received immortality on this day in a twenty-three ton, granite memorial statue, commissioned and dedicated by the town of Groton, Connecticut. The people of Groton wished to honor Mason for his leadership in the Pequot War of 1634-1638, during which, the plaque clarified, Mason “overthrew the Pequot Indians and preserved the settlements from destruction.”