Christian History 1500 to 1599

1572

In France, about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of Pope Pius V. By the 17th century, 200,000 had already fled.

1580

The Charter for the Virginia Colony stated that its purpose was to bring the Christian religion to those who are ignorant of the true knowledge of God. Historian Edmund S. Morgan compiled the following description from Christian accounts of events occurring in one of the earliest settlements of English Christians in Roanoke, Virginia in 1580:
"Wingina [the local chief] welcomed the visitors, and the Indians gave freely of their supplies to the English, who had lost most of their own when the Tyger [their ship] grounded.”

Indian openness and generosity were said to have been met with European stealth and greed. “Ritualized Indian warfare, in which few people died in battle, was met with the European belief in devastating holy war. Vast stores of grain and other food supplies that Indian peoples had lain aside became the fuel that [later] drove the Europeans forward.”

Indians who went to the English settlements to provide food were captured and accused of spying. They were executed and every Peace Treaty was signed with intentions to violate them. The Counsel of the State of Virginia was quoted saying, “when the Indians grow secure upon the treaty, we shall have the better advantage both to surprise them and cut down their corn.”

One of the first Christians to ever set foot on Virginia soil was Arthur Barlowe and he described the natives he encountered in 1584 as such:

"...we were entertained with all love and kindness and with as much bounty, ...as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle loving, and faithfull, void of all guile and treason ... a more kind and loving people there cannot be found in the world, as farre as we have hitherto had triall."

The friendly native Americans were treated as such:
"...we burnt, and spoyled their corne, and Towne, all the people being fledde."

1590

June 11, POSEN FIRE (Germany) - Built of wood, the entire Jewish quarter burned while the gentile population watched and pillaged. Fifteen people died and eighty scrolls were burned. . [83] (63)

1592

ESTHER CHIERA (Ottoman Empire) - Was executed along with one of her sons by the Sultan Murad III's cavalry. Esther, the wife of a Jewish merchant, was known as a Chiera or Kiera, the title given to the women in charge of all relations (including commercial) between the wives in the sultan's royal harem and the outside world. Esther was extremely influential with Safiyeh, the favorite wife of the Sultan. Jealousy on the part of other ministers and the desire of the Sultan for her assets led to their arrest (officially for interfering in a military appointment) and execution, with all their possessions and property going to the Sultan. . [83] (63)