Oddities: White Strangles Indian on Official Seal

Your eyes do not deceive you - you are seeing what you think you're seeing. The official seal of the village of Whitesboro, in upstate New York, depicts a white settler strangling a native.

In today's age of racial sensitivity, it challenges plausibility - yet, there it is.

According to the village's (pseudo) Historical Society, the emblem shows the founder, a man named White, wrestling with an indian; they were exercising a native tradition that led to peace between their peoples.

That's 'sort of' true. White did wrestle a native warrior, and they did have peace, eventually. But the full history tells a much broader story, and explains why what should be a scandal, an outrage, or at least a huzzabazoo, isn't even widely noticed - even by locals.

When White came to the area, hoping to find a settlement already flourishing with distant family members who had moved out to the frontier (Yes, the Utica area was once "the frontier"), he found instead a most tragic sight. Scores of settlers, some of whom were his own blood kin, lay slaughtered. There was not a single survivor of the massacre.

Incensed, White sent the word out about what had happened. The nearby Iroquois nation had attacked and wiped out the entire population. Whatever the reason, the challenge could not go unanswered.

The actual reason for the attack was never determined, and, to White, the point was academic. He wanted blood. And he got it.

The hostilities finally ended with the afore mentioned wrestling match, with White proving once and for all that he was the superior warrior. But given the events that led up to it, it's easy to see why the seal shows White choking the life out of the bewildered brave, instead of just pinning him to the ground.