Thanksgiving Betrayal

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 known 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.

William B. Newell (Penobscot Tribe), former Chairman of the University of Connecticut Anthropology Department, based his research on his studies of the Holland Documents and the 13 volume Colonial Documentary History collection, both thick sets of letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king of England, as well as the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s.

"My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay."

Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the Indians at what is now Groton, Connecticut [home of a nuclear submarine base] rather than a celebration with them. He said the image of Indians and Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was "fictitious," although Indians did share food with the first settlers.

This information was taken from the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council website from the Ministry of Information at www.aimovement.org.

I was a displaced Native American child. Don't get me wrong - my adoptive parents are incredible people as is my whole adoptive family. Sadly, until a few years ago I did not know my blood. I assumed I was a white Irish kid even though Native friends and their parents and one grandfather were positive I was of the blood.

I grew up white going to white catholic and public schools. Due to this I have a different perspective of Thanksgiving. We were taught that the natives welcomed the pilgrims and there was a great feast. The natives then taught the pilgrims how to farm and fish and hunt. That all was joyous until the natives attacked a settlement and the trouble began.

So can we all say in unison: OH WHAT A LIE !!!!!!!!!!!

Growing up I always had an issue with Thanksgiving that I just couldn't explain. Something never seemed right with me. I said, when I was about six or seven, "They helped us start here in this land and taught us how to learn the land. Even made us a huge dinner. Why did we betray them?" No one had an answer for me and so from that point on I called it Betrayal Day. When I told my blood mother my feelings for the so-called holiday she chuckled and said "It's in your blood."

In grade school every Thanksgiving we did the old paper pilgrim hats and feathers. I recall one year they tried to make me play a pilgrim and I refused. My parents got called in for my poor attitude. Hmmm... I think something was amiss even then. I always had to play the indian, even at four years old, with my friends.

As a white kid you are taught throughout school from kindergarten to your high school graduation that the Indians always started everything. That they signed treaties and then would attack in the dead of night, raping and murdering. Like they say, the victors write history not the subdued, the repressed, the political prisoners... LP we love you. The people were almost brought to genocide. No, the white man wrote the history and made the lie of Thanksgiving to smoke and mirror everyone.

We the people of the blood know the truth; it is all in black and white - you just have to dig for it. You have to be ready to be mocked and ridiculed for telling the truth, as the X-Files used to say...'The truth is out there.' So I challenge you this next Betrayal Day, when you are with your non-native friends. Stand up and say this is all a lie and show them the truth. Don't let their children and their children's children live the lie of the table.