What Was Served at the First Thanksgiving Meal?‏ The Dark Historical Roots of 'Thanksgiving'

The people of the Wampanoag tribe made a gift of five deer to the Pilgrims
for the first Thanksgiving in 1621.
 
Historians believe that shellfish, wild fowl and five deer were served at the first Thanksgiving meal at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in November 1621.
The meal celebrated the autumn harvest and is believedto have included the meat of geese, turkey, ducks and the deer, which were brought as a gift to the English settlers by the people of the Wampanoag tribe. The meats are thought to have been stuffed with onions, nuts and herbs, rather than the bread-based stuffing of modern Thanksgiving meals. Flour and sugar typically werenot available in the area at that time, so historians do not believe that any desserts were served at the first Thanksgiving meal, and potatoes had not yet made their way into the country. 

The Dark Historical Roots of 'Thanksgiving'  


  Lest We Forget...

  From Tristan

  11-26-3 

  





The arrival of Europeans on the east cost of North America
    occurred not in 1620, but well before. French and Dutch fishermen and settlers
    had been in the area as early as 1614, and had been responsible for kidnapping
    Indians, selling them into slavery, and maliciously infecting them with
    smallpox.
    
 
    
In 1620, the pilgrims arrived on the east coast and within
    two days they had received assistance from the local Wampanoag Indian tribe:
    The pilgrims stole their stored crops, dug up graves for dishes and pots,
    and took many native people as prisoners and forced them to teach crop
    planting and survival techniques to the colonists in their new environment.
    
 
    
Luckily, for the colonists, an ex-slave named Squanto
    had recently escaped slavery in England, spoke English fluently and was
    able to instruct the pilgrims in crop planting, fishing, and hunting. Squanto
    not only escaped from slavery, he was also one of the only survivors of
    his tribe, the rest had been wiped out from the European smallpox plagues
    years before. When it came to helping the rag-tag team of colonists, Squanto,
    not only was able to put aside his personal differences with the people
    who had enslaved him and killed off his entire tribe, but also helped make
    the colonists self-sufficient, and aided in brokering a treaty with the
    Wampanoag tribe. In 1621 Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags, signed
    a "treaty of friendship" giving the English permission to occupy
    12,000 acres of land.
    






 
    
In 1621 the myth of thanksgiving was born. The colonists
    invited Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, to their first feast as a follow
    up to their recent land deal. Massasoit in turn invited 90 of his men,
    much to the chagrin of the colonists. Two years later the English invited
    a number of tribes to a feast "symbolizing eternal friendship."
    The English offered food and drink, and two hundred Indians dropped dead
    from unknown poison.
    
 
    
The first day of thanksgiving took place in 1637 amidst
    the war against the Pequots. 700 men, women, and children of the Pequot
    tribe were gathered for their annual green corn dance on what is now Groton,
    Connecticut. Dutch and English mercenaries surrounded the camp and proceeded
    to shoot, stab, butcher and burn alive all 700 people. The next day the
    Massachusetts Bay Colony held a feast in celebration and the governor declared
    "a day of thanksgiving." In the ensuing madness of the Indian
    extermination, natives were scalped, burned, mutilated and sold into slavery,
    and a feast was held in celebration every time a successful massacre took
    place. The killing frenzy got so bad that even the Churches of Manhattan
    announced a day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the
    "heathen savages," and many celebrated by kicking the severed
    heads of Pequot people through the streets like soccer balls.
    






 
    
The proclamation of 1676 announced the first national
    day of thanksgiving with the onset of the Wampanoag war, the very people
    who helped the original colonists survive on their arrival. Massasoit,
    the chief invited to eat with the puritans in 1621, died in 1661. His son
    Metacomet, later to be known by the English as King Phillip, originally
    honored the treaties made by his father with the colonists, but after years
    of further encroachment and destruction of the land, slave trade, and slaughter,
    Metacomet changed his mind. In 1675 "King Phillip" called upon
    all natives to unite to defend their homelands from the English. For the
    next year the bloody conflict went on non-stop, until Metacomet was captured,
    murdered, quartered, his hands were cut off and sent to Boston, his head
    was impaled on a pike in the town square of Plymouth for the next 25 years,
    and his nine-year-old son was shipped to the Caribbean to be a slave for
    the rest of his life.
    






 
    
On June 20, 1676 Edward Rawson was unanimously voted
    by the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, to proclaim June
    29th as the first day of thanksgiving. The proclamation reads in part:
    "The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive
    dispensations in and by the present War with the Heathen Natives of this
    land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant
    people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the
    midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercyÖ The council has thought
    meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day
    of solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and FavorÖ"
    
 
    
It was not until 1863 that Abe Lincoln, needing a wave
    of patriotism to hold the country together, that Thanksgiving was nationally
    and officially declared and set forth to this day. At the time, two days
    were announced as days to give thanks, the first was a celebration of the
    victory at Gettysburg on August 6th, and the second one became the Thursday
    in November that we know now.
    
 
    
The most interesting part of thanksgiving is the propaganda
    that has been put out surrounding it. During the 19th century thanksgiving
    traditions consisted of turkey and family reunions. Whenever popular art
    contained both pilgrims and Indians, the scene was usually characterized
    by violent confrontations between the two groups, not a multi-cultural/multi-racial
    dinner. In 1914 artist Jennie Brownscombe created the vision of thanksgiving
    that we see today: community, religion, racial harmony and tolerance, after
    her notorious painting reached wide circulation in Life magazine.
    
 
    
Adamant protests to the celebration of thanksgiving have
    taken place over the years. As early as 1863 Pequot Indian Minister William
    Apess urged "every man of color" to mourn the day of the landing,
    and bury Plymouth Rock in protest. In 1970 Apess got his way. 1970 was
    the "350th" anniversary of thanksgiving, and became the first
    proclaimed national day of mourning for American Indians.
    
 
    
State officials of Massachusetts asked Frank B. James,
    President of the federated Eastern Indian League, to speak at the thanksgiving
    celebration. The speech he submitted read: "Today is a time of celebrating
    for youÖ but it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with heavy
    heart that I look back upon what happened to my peopleÖ The pilgrims
    had hardly explored the shores of Cape CodÖ before they had robbed
    the graves of my ancestors, and stolen their corn, wheat, and beansÖ
    Massasoit, the great leader of the Wampanoag, knew these facts; yet he
    and his people welcomed and befriended the settlersÖ, little knowing
    thatÖ before 50 years were to pass, the WampanoagsÖ and other
    Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead
    from diseases that we caught from themÖ Although our way of life is
    almost gone and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still
    walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed, but
    today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people
    and nature once again are important." James was subsequently barred
    from speaking.
    
 
    
As a result, hundreds of people from around the country
    came to support him by gathering around the statue of Massasoit that had
    been erected in town. The protesters buried Plymouth Rock twice that day.
    For the next 24 years, American Indians staged protest every thanksgiving,
    in 1996 the United American Indians of New England put a stop to the annual
    pilgrim parade and forced the marchers to turn around and head back toward
    the seaside (symbolism?). In 1997 the peaceful protestors were assaulted
    by members of the Plymouth police, the county sheriffs department, and
    state troopers on horseback in full riot gear. Men, women, children, and
    elders were beaten, pepper sprayed and gassed. Twenty-Five people were
    arrested; blacks, whites, latinos, Indians, and even a 67-year-old Penobscot
    elder were taken to jail. Videotape was later produced to confirm the assault
    and ensuing police brutality. Plymouth is known as "Americas Hometown."
    
 
    
Finally in 1999 plaques were approved and dedicated to
    commemorate "genocide" and other crimes against indigenous peoples
    of the Americas. The plaque at Coles Hill, where the statue of Massasoit
    is reads: "Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the pilgrims
    and other European settlersÖ To them, thanksgiving day is a reminder
    of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands,
    and the relentless assault on their culture." The second plaque in
    the towns post office square honors "King Phillip", Massasoits
    son.
    
 
    
~~~~~~~~~~
    
 
    
Please email: Tristan_Ahtone@hotmail.com for a copy of
    sources used to compile this information. And please feel free to use this
    piece at your thanksgiving dinners, give it to your friends, or send it
    with your kids to school. He who has no inclination to learn more will
    be very apt to think he knows enough.

    
  


[CRAZY HORSE (His Horse Is Enchanted) 1877 said this smoking a pipe with Sitting Bull 4 days before his assassination.]

“Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it
 shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken 
promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I
 see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will 
gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one
 circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who 
will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things 
and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for 
this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole 
Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am 
that place within me, we shall be one.”






Another Day that Will Live in Infamy: Wounded Knee,

By Sean Cruz


Portland, Oregon—


On this day, December 29, 1891, the U.S. 7th Cavalry committed the 
outrageous genocidal cold-blooded murder of more than 150 defenseless 
Lakota men, women and children at a place called Wounded Knee. 


A force of some 500 U.S. 7th Cavalry terrorists equipped with four 
Hotchkiss guns surrounded the Lakota camp in the early morning as 
families slept in their tipis, and opened fire. Most of the Lakota men 
died in the first few minutes, and were mostly unarmed. After that, it 
was mostly a matter of slaughtering women, children, babies and anything
 that moved.







7th Cavalry butchers pose with three of the four Hotchkiss guns they used 

at Wounded Knee massacre
“(The Hotchkiss guns were) used with devastating effect at San Juan Hill and Wounded Knee.”—narrator, The History Channel

Thanks to modern technology, you can see for yourself the damage a Hotchkiss gun can do:

Top Shot: Hotchkiss mountain gun, pt 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=aQNE6pkuf5E


Top Shot: Hotchkiss mountain gun, pt 2 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRHSzHknqME&feature=related

Among the 51 wounded Lakota who survived the massacre were 47 women and 
children, but only 4 men. Many of the wounded died later, on the cold 
ground or on the floor of the church where they were taken. Several 
babies were found alive in the snow days later, wrapped in their 
murdered mothers’ shawls.






7th Cavalry butchers pose with massacred Lakota corpses, men, women and children
The American public mainly supported the slaughter, and the Army awarded
 Congressional Medals of Honor to twenty of these terrorists. L. Frank 
Baum, who later became the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer several days after the massacre:

“The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the 
total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, 
we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one
 more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face
 of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the 
soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect 
future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have 
been in the past.”

The atrocities at Wounded Knee were described by a number of witnesses:

American Horse (1840–1908); Chief, Oglala Lakota:

"There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she 
almost touched the flag of truce...A mother was shot down with her 
infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still 
nursing...The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed 
together, shot right through...and after most all of them had been 
killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded 
should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys...came out of 
their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of 
soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there."

Edward S. Godfrey; Captain; commanded Co. D of the Seventh Cavalry:

"I know the men did not aim deliberately and they were greatly excited. I
 don't believe they saw their sights. They fired rapidly but it seemed 
to me only a few seconds till there was not a living thing before us; 
warriors, squaws, children, ponies, and dogs...went down before that 
unaimed fire." 

Hugh McGinnis; First Battalion, Co. K, Seventh Cavalry: 

General Nelson A. Miles who visited the scene of carnage, following a 
three day blizzard, estimated that around 300 snow shrouded forms were 
strewn over the countryside. He also discovered to his horror that 
helpless children and women with babes in their arms had been chased as 
far as two miles from the original scene of encounter and cut down 
without mercy by the troopers. ... Judging by the slaughter on the 
battlefield it was suggested that the soldiers simply went berserk. For 
who could explain such a merciless disregard for life?... As I see it 
the battle was more or less a matter of spontaneous combustion, sparked 
by mutual distrust....”








Three weeks after the massacre, there were still unburied Lakota men, 

women and children