I know many USA citizens wouldn't like this post, some of my friends at facebook are usually frustrated because of such posting as it is against their country... Yet, I think it's not against USA but actually just condemns and show such vile acts... This is history and must be very well known... Those who forget their past are forced to repeat it again, as they said in Babylon 5, right? Thanks to a good FB friend of mine, Gray Wolf, I could share it here too, happy Thanksgiving, let's such vicious acts remain in the past:
The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England
with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind
smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the
Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living ...Patuxet
Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their
language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace
treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first
year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags.
But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world,
religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no
fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined
by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for
slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace
treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of
the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought.
In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children
of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is
our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were
surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside.
Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and
children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the
governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of
Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been
murdered.
Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists and their Indian
allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold
into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500
slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian
scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.
Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now
Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of
"thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During
the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets
like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness.
Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth,
Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.
The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts
being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested
that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating
each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a
legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered
troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
This story doesn't have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the
one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big
feast. But we need to learn our true history so it won't ever be repeated. Next
Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your
blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their lives and
raise their families. They, also took time out to say "thank you" to
Creator for all their blessings...
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