DON'T TRUST THE OSTERHOUTS

 Now that we've debunked the Thanksgiving holiday myth, let's get down to the nitty-gritty within the consaguinal family lineage of the Osterhouts' interaction with Native Americans.  The first time a Dutch Van Oosterhoudt moved next door to an Indian was near the Esopus River, just outside the Kingston, NY stockade, sometime around 1653. Six years later the First Esopus war broke out. Did the Osterhouts start that war? Probably.

From Wikipedia: The First Esopus War was a short-lived conflict between Dutch settlers and the Esopus Indians from September 20, 1659 and July 15, 1660. An incident occurred where a group of Dutch settlers opened fire on a group of Esopus around a campfire, who had been celebrating with brandy given as payment for farm work. Esopus reinforcements raided Dutch settlements outside the stockade, destroying crops, killing livestock, and burning buildings. The war party later besieged the walled settlement of Wiltwijck.^[4]

The colonists were outnumbered and had little hope of winning through force, but they managed to hold out and make some small attacks, including burning the Indians' fields to starve them out. They received reinforcements from New Amsterdam. The war concluded July 15, 1660, when the Indians agreed to trade land for food. Tensions remained between the Esopus and the settlers, however, eventually leading to the second war.^[5]

     Records are spotty, but very possibly Jan Jansen Van Osterhout's first wife Anneken Hendricks, was killed during this war. This started the long history of animosity between the Dutch/American Osterhouts and the Native stewards of the Americas. It's not hidden. 

   Fast forward to the late 18th Century. One branch of the Osterhouts (and only one that I can find) fought with the British during the American Revolution. William Osterhout was an officer with Butler's Rangers a British company made up of Mohawk Indians and Loyalist Tories aligned with the Crown. This branch moved to Scarborough Bluffs, Canada and built the Osterhout Cabin in the 1790's. It's still there. 

    Over the next century these Osterhouts moved west across Canada, ending up in British Colombia. Rev. Dr. Smith Stanley Osterhout, a Methodist missionary and amateur photographer left the most historical information in the family of this time period. Although an early architect of the Residential Indian School System, that is "credited" with Cultural Genocide across Canada, S.S. Osterhout also wrote a short forward to the diary widely accepted as the first Indigenous author to write in English. He was a complex man. The Tsimshian fisherman Arthur Wellington Clah convinced Rev. Osterhout (then a missionary at Port Simpson) to write this: "Memoir of the life of one of Christianity's first converts on the North-west coast. Kept with a view to the production of a history of the same region. See Psalm XC-10. "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

    From reading this one would think that Rev. Osterhout was a champion of the Indigenous cause. But, as the 20th Century dawned, Christian missionaries (Osterhout included) were increasingly in lockstep with the Canadian (and U.S.) governments  forcefully enfranchising Natives into citizenship-- giving up all native rights to land--while Anglicanizing the youth into giving up the old ways. Native traditions and beliefs of Potlatch, carving and dance were outlawed, while churches and lumber framed houses replaced the traditional gathering places and ancient iconography. In the end you can't trust an Osterhout (or any European). Stop the propaganda. Just read our history. "...teach us to number our days..."