“The original settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, adopted an official seal (above) designed in England before their journey. The central image depicts a near-naked native holding a harmless, flimsy-looking bow and arrow and inscribed with the plea, ‘Come over and help us.’ Nearly three hundred years later, the official seal of the U.S. military veterans of the ‘Spanish-American War; (the invasion and occupation of [Spanish colonies of] Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines) showed a naked woman kneeling before an armed U.S. soldier and a sailor, with a US battleship in the background. One may trace this recurrent altruistic theme into the early twenty-first century, when the United States still invades countries under the guise of rescue.”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, in An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
The seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
