Let’s be civil. The Flathead Beacon encourages vigorous discussion and lively debate, but we will delete comments that attack other readers, make accusations we can’t verify, stray too far off topic, criticize local businesses (call them if you have a problem), convict someone of a crime, use profanity or are simply judged to be in bad taste. We don’t always have someone moderating comments, so we ask for your help: If you see a comment that violates these ground rules, or you simply deem it offensive, please e-mail editor [at] flatheadbeacon.com. The views expressed in the comments section do not reflect those of the Beacon.
By woody on 11-26-09
Frank B james:
We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.
This true story of “Thanksgiving” is what whites did not want
Mr. James to tell.
What Really Happened in Plymouth in 1621?
According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim,
a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in
mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though
it later became known as “Thanksgiving,“ the Pilgrims never called it
that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some
of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.
The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural
expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without
which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought
food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to
survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly
generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere’s first
class of welfare recipients. The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem
Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal
tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his
Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful
Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they
likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by
Massasoit. In fact, most, if not all, of the food was most likely
brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with
the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.
The Pilgrims wore no black hats or buckled shoes-these were the silly
inventions of artists hundreds of years since that time. These
lower-class Englishmen wore brightly colored clothing, with one of their
church leaders recording among his possessions “1 paire of greene
drawers.“ Contrary to the fabricated lore of storytellers generations
since, no Pilgrims prayed at the meal, and the supposed good cheer and
fellowship must have dissipated quickly once the Pilgrims brandished
their weaponry in a primitive display of intimidation. What’s more, the
Pilgrims consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank
at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to
water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people’s “notorious sin,“ which included their “drunkenness and uncleanliness” and rampant “sodomy”...
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By woody on 11-26-09
cont -
The Pilgrims of Plymouth, The Original Scalpers
Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local
Indians. They were engaged in a ruthless war of extermination against
their hosts, even as they falsely posed as friends. Just days before the
alleged Thanksgiving love-fest, a company of Pilgrims led by Myles
Standish actively sought to chop off the head of a local chief. They
deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one
against the other in an attempt to obtain “better intelligence and make
them both more diligent.“ An 11-foot-high wall was erected around the
entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.
Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was
subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further
advertised their evil intentions and white racial hostility, when they
mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a
platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four
companies-all in preparation for the military destruction of their
friends the Indians.
Pilgrim Myles Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He went to the
Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named
Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a
wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, “as a symbol of
white power.“ Standish had the Indian man’s young brother hanged from
the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known
to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name “Wotowquenange,“ which in
their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By woody on 11-26-09
Who Were the “Savages”?
The myth of the fierce, ruthless Indian savage lusting after the blood
of innocent Europeans must be vigorously dispelled at this point. In
actuality, the historical record shows that the very opposite was true.
Once the European settlements stabilized, the whites turned on their
hosts in a brutal way. The once amicable relationship was breeched again
and again by the whites, who lusted over the riches of Indian land. A
combination of the Pilgrims’ demonization of the Indians, the concocted
mythology of Eurocentric historians, and standard Hollywood propaganda
has served to paint the gentle Indian as a tomahawk-swinging savage
endlessly on the warpath, lusting for the blood of the God-fearing
whites.
But the Pilgrims’ own testimony obliterates that fallacy. The Indians
engaged each other in military contests from time to time, but the
causes of “war,“ the methods, and the resulting damage differed
profoundly from the European variety:
• Indian “wars” were largely symbolic and were about honor, not about
territory or extermination.
• “Wars” were fought as domestic correction for a specific act and were
ended when correction was achieved. Such action might better be
described as internal policing. The conquest or destruction of whole
territories was a European concept.
• Indian “wars” were often engaged in by family groups, not by whole
tribal groups, and would involve only the family members.
• A lengthy negotiation was engaged in between the aggrieved parties
before escalation to physical confrontation would be sanctioned.
Surprise attacks were unknown to the Indians.
• It was regarded as evidence of bravery for a man to go into “battle”
carrying no weapon that would do any harm at a distance-not even bows
and arrows. The bravest act in war in some Indian cultures was to touch
their adversary and escape before he could do physical harm.
• The targeting of non-combatants like women, children, and the elderly
was never contemplated. Indians expressed shock and repugnance when the
Europeans told, and then showed, them that they considered women and
children fair game in their style of warfare.
• A major Indian “war” might end with less than a dozen casualties on
both sides. Often, when the arrows had been expended the “war” would be
halted. The European practice of wiping out whole nations in bloody
massacres was incomprehensible to the Indian.
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By woody on 11-26-09
According to one scholar, “The most notable feature of Indian warfare
was its relative innocuity.“ European observers of Indian wars often
expressed surprise at how little harm they actually inflicted. “Their
wars are far less bloody and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe,“
commented settler Roger Williams in 1643. Even Puritan warmonger and
professional soldier Capt. John Mason scoffed at Indian warfare:
“[Their] feeble manner…did hardly deserve the name of fighting.“
Fellow warmonger John Underhill spoke of the Narragansetts, after having
spent a day “burning and spoiling” their country: “no Indians would come
near us, but run from us, as the deer from the dogs.“ He concluded that
the Indians might fight seven years and not kill seven men. Their
fighting style, he wrote, “is more for pastime, than to conquer and
subdue enemies.“
All this describes a people for whom war is a deeply regrettable last
resort. An agrarian people, the American Indians had devised a
civilization that provided dozens of options all designed to avoid
conflict—the very opposite of Europeans, for whom all-out war, a
ferocious bloodlust, and systematic genocide are their apparent life
force. Thomas Jefferson—who himself advocated the physical
extermination of the American Indian—said of Europe, “They [Europeans]
are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the
destruction of labor, property and lives of their people.“
Puritan Holocaust
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling
themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which
only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.
In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven
hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near
the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian
camp with “fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk.“ Only a handful
escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the
Europeans:
To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood
quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed
a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.
This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years
12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they
pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had
reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to
less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in
Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.
By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the
great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed “King Philip”
by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle
and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed
them.
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By woody on 11-26-09
In 1671, the white man had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to
enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that
he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from whites.
They also demanded that he turn in his community’s firearms. Marked for
extermination by the merciless power of a distant king and his ruthless
subjects, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated
frontier towns. Eventually, the Indians attacked 52 of the 90 New
England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately
regrouped, and after much bloodletting defeated the great Indian nation,
just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. Historian
Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:
The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences…were all aimed at the
same goal-unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England. That
the program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost
complete docility of the local native ever since.
When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in
1676, his body was quartered and parts were “left for the wolves.“ The
great Indian chief’s hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head
went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first “day of
public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy.“
Metacomet’s nine-year-old son was destined for execution because, the
whites reasoned, the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of
their father. The child was instead shipped to the Caribbean to spend
his life in slavery.
As the Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were
proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a “General
Thanksgiving”-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man-but for
[God’s] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors…In defeating and
disappointing…the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And
the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them
into our hands…
Just two years later one could reap a £50 reward in Massachusetts for
the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a
European tradition. According to one scholar, “Hunting redskins
became…a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were
worth good money…“
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By dsrobins on 11-26-09
Thanks for the reminder of the reality of white colonization of America, Woody. Of course, the thing that really decimated the Indians and led to their collective demise were the diseases that decimated the coastal Indian villages of New England in the first few years after the whites arrived. There’s a good account of it in the book entitled “1491” by Charles C. Mann. Borders Books has it.
By the way, despite the rumored shortage of Hutterite turkeys were false. They turned out to be plentiful here in the Bigfork area this year. A guy from the Pondera Colony near Valier brought over a truckload a couple of days ago. and sold them at very reasonable prices by the roadside. If you’ve never had the pleasure of cooking and eating a Hutterite turkey, you’re missing something very worthwhile. Our non-Hutterite majority of farmers and ranchers who have hated them for so long should pay more attention and follow their examples. Hutterite turkeys could run the lousy Butterball turkeys out of the national market easily if more folks followed their production practices.
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
By mitch on 11-27-09
Thank you Woody, for a very interesting and very sad post. Not our proudest moment in history for sure. Happy Thanksgiving
Beacon Readers Rated This Comment:
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Comments on: Hutterites Underestimate Demand for Turkeys
Let’s be civil. The Flathead Beacon encourages vigorous discussion and lively debate, but we will delete comments that attack other readers, make accusations we can’t verify, stray too far off topic, criticize local businesses (call them if you have a problem), convict someone of a crime, use profanity or are simply judged to be in bad taste. We don’t always have someone moderating comments, so we ask for your help: If you see a comment that violates these ground rules, or you simply deem it offensive, please e-mail editor [at] flatheadbeacon.com. The views expressed in the comments section do not reflect those of the Beacon.
By woody on 11-26-09
Frank B james:
We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.
This true story of “Thanksgiving” is what whites did not want
Mr. James to tell.
What Really Happened in Plymouth in 1621?
According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim,
a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in
mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though
it later became known as “Thanksgiving,“ the Pilgrims never called it
that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some
of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.
The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural
expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without
which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought
food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to
survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly
generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere’s first
class of welfare recipients. The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem
Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal
tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his
Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful
Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they
likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by
Massasoit. In fact, most, if not all, of the food was most likely
brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with
the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.
The Pilgrims wore no black hats or buckled shoes-these were the silly
inventions of artists hundreds of years since that time. These
lower-class Englishmen wore brightly colored clothing, with one of their
church leaders recording among his possessions “1 paire of greene
drawers.“ Contrary to the fabricated lore of storytellers generations
since, no Pilgrims prayed at the meal, and the supposed good cheer and
fellowship must have dissipated quickly once the Pilgrims brandished
their weaponry in a primitive display of intimidation. What’s more, the
Pilgrims consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank
at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to
water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people’s “notorious sin,“ which included their “drunkenness and uncleanliness” and rampant “sodomy”...
By woody on 11-26-09
cont -
The Pilgrims of Plymouth, The Original Scalpers
Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local
Indians. They were engaged in a ruthless war of extermination against
their hosts, even as they falsely posed as friends. Just days before the
alleged Thanksgiving love-fest, a company of Pilgrims led by Myles
Standish actively sought to chop off the head of a local chief. They
deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one
against the other in an attempt to obtain “better intelligence and make
them both more diligent.“ An 11-foot-high wall was erected around the
entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.
Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was
subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further
advertised their evil intentions and white racial hostility, when they
mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a
platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four
companies-all in preparation for the military destruction of their
friends the Indians.
Pilgrim Myles Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He went to the
Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named
Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a
wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, “as a symbol of
white power.“ Standish had the Indian man’s young brother hanged from
the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known
to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name “Wotowquenange,“ which in
their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.
By woody on 11-26-09
Who Were the “Savages”?
The myth of the fierce, ruthless Indian savage lusting after the blood
of innocent Europeans must be vigorously dispelled at this point. In
actuality, the historical record shows that the very opposite was true.
Once the European settlements stabilized, the whites turned on their
hosts in a brutal way. The once amicable relationship was breeched again
and again by the whites, who lusted over the riches of Indian land. A
combination of the Pilgrims’ demonization of the Indians, the concocted
mythology of Eurocentric historians, and standard Hollywood propaganda
has served to paint the gentle Indian as a tomahawk-swinging savage
endlessly on the warpath, lusting for the blood of the God-fearing
whites.
But the Pilgrims’ own testimony obliterates that fallacy. The Indians
engaged each other in military contests from time to time, but the
causes of “war,“ the methods, and the resulting damage differed
profoundly from the European variety:
• Indian “wars” were largely symbolic and were about honor, not about
territory or extermination.
• “Wars” were fought as domestic correction for a specific act and were
ended when correction was achieved. Such action might better be
described as internal policing. The conquest or destruction of whole
territories was a European concept.
• Indian “wars” were often engaged in by family groups, not by whole
tribal groups, and would involve only the family members.
• A lengthy negotiation was engaged in between the aggrieved parties
before escalation to physical confrontation would be sanctioned.
Surprise attacks were unknown to the Indians.
• It was regarded as evidence of bravery for a man to go into “battle”
carrying no weapon that would do any harm at a distance-not even bows
and arrows. The bravest act in war in some Indian cultures was to touch
their adversary and escape before he could do physical harm.
• The targeting of non-combatants like women, children, and the elderly
was never contemplated. Indians expressed shock and repugnance when the
Europeans told, and then showed, them that they considered women and
children fair game in their style of warfare.
• A major Indian “war” might end with less than a dozen casualties on
both sides. Often, when the arrows had been expended the “war” would be
halted. The European practice of wiping out whole nations in bloody
massacres was incomprehensible to the Indian.
By woody on 11-26-09
According to one scholar, “The most notable feature of Indian warfare
was its relative innocuity.“ European observers of Indian wars often
expressed surprise at how little harm they actually inflicted. “Their
wars are far less bloody and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe,“
commented settler Roger Williams in 1643. Even Puritan warmonger and
professional soldier Capt. John Mason scoffed at Indian warfare:
“[Their] feeble manner…did hardly deserve the name of fighting.“
Fellow warmonger John Underhill spoke of the Narragansetts, after having
spent a day “burning and spoiling” their country: “no Indians would come
near us, but run from us, as the deer from the dogs.“ He concluded that
the Indians might fight seven years and not kill seven men. Their
fighting style, he wrote, “is more for pastime, than to conquer and
subdue enemies.“
All this describes a people for whom war is a deeply regrettable last
resort. An agrarian people, the American Indians had devised a
civilization that provided dozens of options all designed to avoid
conflict—the very opposite of Europeans, for whom all-out war, a
ferocious bloodlust, and systematic genocide are their apparent life
force. Thomas Jefferson—who himself advocated the physical
extermination of the American Indian—said of Europe, “They [Europeans]
are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the
destruction of labor, property and lives of their people.“
Puritan Holocaust
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling
themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which
only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.
In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven
hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near
the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian
camp with “fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk.“ Only a handful
escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the
Europeans:
To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood
quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed
a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.
This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years
12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they
pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had
reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to
less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in
Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.
By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the
great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed “King Philip”
by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle
and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed
them.
By woody on 11-26-09
In 1671, the white man had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to
enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that
he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from whites.
They also demanded that he turn in his community’s firearms. Marked for
extermination by the merciless power of a distant king and his ruthless
subjects, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated
frontier towns. Eventually, the Indians attacked 52 of the 90 New
England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately
regrouped, and after much bloodletting defeated the great Indian nation,
just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. Historian
Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:
The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences…were all aimed at the
same goal-unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England. That
the program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost
complete docility of the local native ever since.
When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in
1676, his body was quartered and parts were “left for the wolves.“ The
great Indian chief’s hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head
went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first “day of
public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy.“
Metacomet’s nine-year-old son was destined for execution because, the
whites reasoned, the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of
their father. The child was instead shipped to the Caribbean to spend
his life in slavery.
As the Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were
proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a “General
Thanksgiving”-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man-but for
[God’s] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors…In defeating and
disappointing…the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And
the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them
into our hands…
Just two years later one could reap a £50 reward in Massachusetts for
the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a
European tradition. According to one scholar, “Hunting redskins
became…a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were
worth good money…“
By dsrobins on 11-26-09
Thanks for the reminder of the reality of white colonization of America, Woody. Of course, the thing that really decimated the Indians and led to their collective demise were the diseases that decimated the coastal Indian villages of New England in the first few years after the whites arrived. There’s a good account of it in the book entitled “1491” by Charles C. Mann. Borders Books has it.
By the way, despite the rumored shortage of Hutterite turkeys were false. They turned out to be plentiful here in the Bigfork area this year. A guy from the Pondera Colony near Valier brought over a truckload a couple of days ago. and sold them at very reasonable prices by the roadside. If you’ve never had the pleasure of cooking and eating a Hutterite turkey, you’re missing something very worthwhile. Our non-Hutterite majority of farmers and ranchers who have hated them for so long should pay more attention and follow their examples. Hutterite turkeys could run the lousy Butterball turkeys out of the national market easily if more folks followed their production practices.
By mitch on 11-27-09
Thank you Woody, for a very interesting and very sad post. Not our proudest moment in history for sure. Happy Thanksgiving