Reason First: America’s First ‘Murtherer [sic]‘

At America’s inception theft, graft, rape, and pillaging and other illicitness became ways of life. As folks from Europe avoided creditors, extradition, and persecution, ships like the Mayflower would bring them to the New World. With the unsanitary conditions and poor living spaces, the occupants of such vessels had to fend off constant wetness and disease.

One such man who along with his family journeyed to parts unknown to them was John Billington. This ill-mannered and disgusting person travelled in the ship and made life miserable, more than it already was. While there exist little to no official record of his time in England, his exploits have been well-recorded on the ship and in the colonies.

Billington attempted at least one mutiny and one revolt during his lifetime. But his role in the first recorded murder on American soil would make him infamous. After a quarrel with another colonist named James Newcomen, Billington dispatched the man with a blunderbuss, a forerunner to a pistol.

Billington received a trial where the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. To warn other people of the fate that they could encounter if they go down his route, the authorities nailed his skull to a tree.

So, what is to be made about America’s first homicidal criminal? He opened the door for murderers to arise in the developed United States of America. His disgusting display of insolence and rage landed him in an execution that had nothing to do with witchcraft of or sorcery. That wouldn’t take place for another few decades. No, his crime stands as the initial slaying of one man against another human being in the New World.

How Billington should be remembered and studied depends on the memory and the student. His viciousness ought to be recalled and repelled. Scholars ought to take down his actions as the precursor to the scores or murders that still occur to this day in America.

As his corpse laid out in the open to fester, the colonists forced themselves to recall the brutish nature of Billington. How he could just silence a life without reason or regard shows how he had no respect for life. He held no regard for his victim and none for himself.

As America’s pioneer in brutal murder, Billington will forever have a mark against his name. While he could have set up a business in the New World or developed a rational atheist society, he chose to snuff out the life of his fellow man. Because of the horrendous nature of his crime, he would inspire future murderers to spill blood on American soil.

By evading the choice to use the faculty of reason, Billington found himself in the tiger’s mouth of the law. The system crushed him and spit him out as it should have. He deserved his death sentence and the showcase of his body and skull. Without employing the rational part of his being, he lowered himself to a beast in the streets. His savage nature involved no indication of having a purpose or self esteem.

What was his purpose for landing in America? Of course he wanted to evade creditors with his family in tow, but what did he plan to do once he arrived? What prospects did he possess? Billington represented the man with the misbegotten plan. Rather than apply himself to continue tilling the land or finding a trade or being selfish, Billington forewent all instruction and possibilities for employment and self-regard.

With his inability to face reality, he became the first man to die by capital punishment adminstered by the state. Billington will forever be thought of as the monster who sparked the centuries of murder in America.