The School Massacre Of 1764...!

You might think that school violence is a new thing, but sad to say it's not.

History tells us that school massacres date back as far as 1764. Hard to believe but it's true. The reason this is showing up on Western Wednesday is that the first recorded incident of this type of violence was done by Native Americans.

Mass Shootings In Schools In The 18th And 19th Centuries

Photo credit: Smallbones

Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Umpqua—the list of mass shootings in American schools is long, gruesome, and frighteningly recent. Even the most historically minded would probably trace such random incidents back no further than 1966 when Charles Whitman shot and killed 17 people from a tower at the University of Texas.

While it’s true that modern weapons can make mass shootings deadlier today, they are far from a modern phenomenon. Look through the history books, and you’ll find school massacres in America dating back as far as 1764.

That was the year that four Native Americans from the Delaware tribe entered a classroom in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and gunned down 10 children along with their teacher. Then they scalped their victims. Historically considered part of the Pontiac Wars, this first incident was different in motivation than modern mass shootings.

But the ones that followed weren’t. In 1891, an elderly man took a shotgun and randomly fired it into a crowd of boys playing outside a school, injuring dozens. Remarkably, it was only one of two random shotgun massacres that year.

It saddens me to think that school killings reach that far back Like today, there really is no rhyme or reason to the mess. Bad...really bad!

Coffee out on the patio this morning, where it's cool and breezy!