Author: Dr. Gene Norman
Publication: The Green
Bay Press-Gazette
Date: November 22, 2000
Allouez - On Nov.
13 in the Lifestyle section of your newspaper, you published a brief story,
"Thanksgiving a myth?" You are correct that Thanksgiving was NOT from the
generosity of the native people at Plymouth Plantation. So where
did it originate?
That answer is found
in documents still in existence in the United Kingdom of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony (MBC). The crown Colony of Connecticut was separated from
the MBC and was given its own governor general who was appointed by the
Crown. In accordance with the documents of the time, this new governor
wanted to eradicate the aboriginal people of his colony (the Pequot Indians).
So, at their annual Green
Corn Gathering, his troops forced 900 of them into a barn and set fire
to the barn. Anyone trying to escape was shot. Based on that
event, the governor general of Connecticut Colony pronounced a Day of Thanksgiving.
As the Civil War was
winding down, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the Connecticut celebration
of Thanksgiving as a national holiday in recognition of Gen. Sherman's
solution of the "Indian Question!" In particular, the Cheyenne, Arapahoe
and Sioux people were holding up construction of the railroads and were
resisting the invasion of the lands awarded them by the Treaty of Fort
Laramie because someone found gold there.
So, Gen. Sherman,
also incited by Aberdeen, S.D., Editor L. Frank Baum (author of the
"Wizard of Oz") who advocated the eradication of these people as the "ultimate
solution" (sound familiar?), directed George Armstrong Custer to seek and
destroy all aboriginals in his territory. This resulted in the massacre
of the Washita and the massacre at Wounded Knee.
This Thanksgiving Day
is a national day of mourning of my people. It would be like Germany
feasting and celebrating the Holocaust!
