The Year was 1637....700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their "Annual Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now know as Groton, Conn. While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the governor of the Massachusetts bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women, and children. For the next 100 years, every "Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a Governor or president was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.
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The true story of Thanksgiving
By Richard B. Williams
Nov. 1, 2000 - One day in 1605, a young Patuxet Indian boy named Tisquantum and his dog were out hunting when they spotted a large English merchant ship off the coast of Plymouth, Mass. Tisquantum, who later became known as Squanto, had no idea that life as he knew it was about to change forever. His role in helping the Pilgrims to survive the harsh New England winter and celebrate the "first" Thanksgiving has been much storied as a legend of happy endings, with the English and the Indians coming together at the same table in racial harmony. Few people, however, know the story of Squanto's sad life and the demise of his tribe as a result of its generosity. Each year, as the nation sits down to a meal that iscelebrated by all cultures and races - the day we know as Thanksgiving - the story of Squanto and the fate of the Patuxet tribe is a footnote in history that deserves re-examination.
Both are presented in issue 09.047 archived at http://www.nanews.org<http://www.nanews.org/>
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