More likely:

****************************

The True Origin Of Thanksgiving

In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast(at Plymouth Rock) delivering 102 Puritan exiles. The original Native people "Indians") of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off in great numbers. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea behind. That plague swept the so called "tribes of New England",destroyed some villages totally.

The Puritans landed and built their colony called "the Plymouth Plantation" near the desired ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Historical accounts tell us that

only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived. He had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. The Pilgrim crop failed miserably, but the agricultural expertise of Squanto produced 20 acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. Squanto spoke the colonists' language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch

fish. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.

These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the Puritans not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the

Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace. In celebration of their good fortune, the colony's governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast after the first harvest of 1621. It later became known as "Thanksgiving", but the Pilgrims never called it that.

The "Indians" who attended were not even invited. The pilgrims only invited Chief Massasoit and it was Massasoit who then invited ninety or more of his "Indian"

brothers and sisters to the affair to the chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the "Indians" were not invited back for any other such meals. The Pilgrims did however consume a good deal of brew on that day. In

fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day which they preferred even to water.

The peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the Puritans would have fifteen years to established a firm foothold on the coast. Until 1629 there were no more than 300 Puritans in New England,

scattered in small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of Plymouth; Boston and Salem. For ten years, boat loads of new settlers came.

As the Europeans' numbers increased, they proved not nearly as generous as the Wampanoags. On arrival, the Puritans discussed "who legally owns all this land? "Massachusetts Governor Wintrop declared the "Indians" had not "subdued" the land, and therefore all uncultivated lands

should, according to English Common Law, be considered "public domain." This meant they belonged to the king. In short, colonists decided they did not need to consult the "Indians". When they seized the new lands, they only had to consult the representative of the crown (meaning the local governor).

The Puritans embraced a line from Psalms 2:8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee,

the heather for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of he earth for thy possession."

Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indigenous People ("Indians"). A company of Pilgrims led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He beheaded an Indian named Wituwamat and brought the head to Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years.

In about 1636, a force of colonists trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians near the mouth of the Mystic River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken.

"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 to the great delight of the Pilgrims, and they gave praise thereof to God."

The Puritan fathers believed they were the Chosen People of an Infinite God and that this justified anything they did. They were Calvinists who believed that the vast majority of humanity was predestined to damnation.

During this period a day of thanksgiving was also proclaimed in the churches of Manhattan. The European colonists declared thanksgiving days to celebrate mass murder more often than they did for reverence, harvest or friendship.

In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first "scalp bounty". His government paid money for the scalp of each "Indian" brought to him. A couple of years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a "friendly tribe". Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated, skinned alive and forced at points to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed. Then Kieft hired the notorious Underhill who had commanded in the Pequot War to carry out a similar massacre near Stamford, Connecticut. The village was set on fire, and 500 "Indian" residents were put to the sword.

In their victory, the settlers launched an all out genocide plot against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government, following what appeared to be the order of the day, offered twenty shillings bounty for every "Indian" scalp, and forty shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave and rape any "Indian" woman or enslave any "Indian" child under 14 they could kidnap. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles

with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful Indians" of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts and were sold onto slave ships. Colonial law further gave permission to "kill savages ("Indians") on sight at will."

Any goodwill that may have existed was certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding colonies were in a full scale war with the great chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Phillip" by the White man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyles and culture of his people as European laws and values engulfed them. The syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox and all types of "white man" diseases took their toll. Forced ultimately into humiliating submission by the power of a distant king, Metacomet struck out with raids on several isolated frontier towns. The expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians" (natives converted to their version of Christianity), ultimately defeated the great "Indian" nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, 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 poke on Thanksgiving Day, 1767. Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being that the offspring of the "Devil" must pay for the sins of their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust/Genocide of the Red Man and woman, Governor Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate 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...

Whose Thanksgiving Have You Been Celebrating???

From YourObserver.com Our View: Lessons from the Pilgrims:

Edward Winslow’s 1622 description of a Pilgrim feast is often regarded as the model from which grew our modern Thanksgiving tradition.

Winslow and Gov. William Bradford were the leaders of the Pilgrim settlement that landed at Cape Cod and eventually settled in Plymouth, Mass. The two kept diaries of the colonists’ settlement and, today, their descriptive recollections should be retold again and again throughout America — as reminders of our social, religious and economic heritage.

Two profound lessons stand out from the Pilgrims: their faith and thanksgiving toward God and their discovery, through incredible hardship, that the key to the flourishing of liberty and material abundance lay in private property.

In a letter Winslow wrote to a friend Dec. 11, 1621, he laced it with multiple references and thanks to God:

• “Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn” ...

• “ … It has pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us, and love unto us, that not only the greatest king amongst them, called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have either made suit unto us or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us … ”

• “ … You might on our behalf give God thanks who hath dealt so favorably with us.”

These are important reminders, especially now when hardship is befalling economies and families here and around the world. The hurt that families are experiencing brings into focus — especially for us who are so fortunate on Longboat Key — the many blessings God has allowed us to have.

The thanksgiving the Pilgrims expressed to God also is a reminder of the bibilical lessons from St. Paul, when he wrote to the Romans (5:3-5): … “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Before the Pilgrims held their feast with the Indians, they persevered through great hardships. They endured near-starvation for nearly two years. Of the 101 Pilgrims who arrived in 1620, nearly half were dead within a few months. Gov. Bradford wrote in his diary:

“Many sold away their clothes and bed coverings [to the Indians]; others (so base were they) became servants to the Indians, and would cut them wood and fetch them water for a capful of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both night and day, from the Indians … In the end, they came to that misery that some starved and died with cold and hunger. One in gathering shellfish was so weak as he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”

And yet the Pilgrims persevered. And they did so, not only because of their faith, character and hope, but because of a profound decision that set the course for our nation’s prosperity over the next three centuries.

The Pilgrims turned from communal living, where everyone contributed food to a colony-operated warehouse, to private property.

Faced with starvation because of their communal arrangement, Gov. Bradford wrote, “The Governor and the chiefest among them gave way that they should set downe every man for his owne. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.”

The results were miraculous.

“It made all hands very industrious,” Bradford wrote. “The women now went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before they would allege weakness and inability. Some of the abler sort and more industrious had corn to spare and sell to others so any general want or famine hath not been among them since … ”

After the colony converted to private ownership, three or four Pilgrims provided for themselves what used to take 30 to produce.

As families gather this year for Thanksgiving, we hope the lessons of our forefathers do not get lost in the hubbub of the festivities. As bad as these times may be, there still is much for which we can be thankful to God. We have life, liberty, property and our families. Thank the Lord.

But we should also pray that in these times we respond the way the Pilgrims did: with the perseverance, character and hope to find our way to better days. A blessed Thanksgiving to all.

Thanksgiving spoiler

While many Americans will focus their attention today on giving thanks for their families and feasts, an enormous threat looms over the American people.

Sadly, however, America’s three top political and legislative leaders — Obama, Reid, Pelosi — as well as their Democratic colleagues are ignoring it: the national debt.

Every intelligent American is talking about it. It’s consuming the news columns and commentaries. To wit:

Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal: “Each (health-care bill) sets up a new entitlement program that grows at 8% annually as far as the eye can see — faster than the economy will grow, faster than tax revenues will grow and just as fast as the already-broken Medicare and Medicaid programs … It is a dramatic statement to financial markets that the federal government does not understand that it must get its fiscal house in order.”

Even the New York Times sees it: “Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.

“With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

“In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

When you pray before you partake in your Thanksgiving feast, pray not only for thanks, peace and love.

Pray for a miracle: That Almighty God intervenes and bestows common sense and wisdom in our Washington leaders.

And ask him to put a rush on it.

Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving proclamation

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

Forwarded by Lamar Cook

Any goodwill that may have existed was certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding colonies were in a full scale war with the great chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Phillip" by the White man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyles and

culture of his people as European laws and values engulfed them. The syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox and all types of "white man" diseases took their toll. Forced ultimately into humiliating submission by the power of a distant king, Metacomet struck out with raids on several isolated frontier towns. The expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians" (natives converted to their version of Christianity), ultimately defeated the great "Indian" nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, 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 poke on Thanksgiving Day, 1767. Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being that the offspring of the "Devil" must pay for the sins of their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust/Genocide of the Red Man and woman, Governor Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate 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...

Whose Thanksgiving Have You Been Celebrating???

"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 to the great delight of the Pilgrims, and they gave praise thereof to God."

The Puritan fathers believed they were the Chosen People of an Infinite God and that this justified anything they did. They were Calvinists who believed that the vast majority of humanity was predestined to damnation.

During this period a day of thanksgiving was also proclaimed in the churches of Manhattan. The European colonists declared thanksgiving days to celebrate mass murder more often than they did for reverence, harvest or friendship.

In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first "scalp bounty". His government paid money for the scalp of each "Indian" brought to him. A couple of years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a "friendly tribe". Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated,

skinned alive and forced at points to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed. Then Kieft hired the notorious Underhill who had commanded in the Pequot War to carry out a similar massacre near Stamford, Connecticut. The village was set on fire, and 500 "Indian" residents were put to the sword.

In their victory, the settlers launched an all out genocide plot against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government, following what appeared to be the order of the day, offered twenty shillings bounty for

every "Indian" scalp, and forty shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave and rape any "Indian" woman or enslave any "Indian" child under 14 they could kidnap. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles

with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful Indians" of

Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading

posts and were sold onto slave ships. Colonial law further gave permission

to "kill savages ("Indians") on sight at will."

The peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the Puritans would have fifteen years to established a firm foothold on the coast. Until 1629 there were no more than 300 Puritans in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of Plymouth; Boston and Salem. For ten years, boat loads of new settlers came.

As the Europeans' numbers increased, they proved not nearly as generous as the Wampanoags. On arrival, the Puritans discussed "who legally owns all this land? "Massachusetts Governor Wintrop declared the "Indians" had not "subdued" the land, and therefore all uncultivated lands

should, according to English Common Law, be considered "public domain." This meant they belonged to the king. In short, colonists decided they did not need to consult the "Indians". When they seized the new lands, they only had to consult the representative of the crown (meaning the local governor).

The Puritans embraced a line from Psalms 2:8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heather for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of he earth for thy possession."

Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indigenous People ("Indians"). A company of Pilgrims led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He beheaded an Indian named Wituwamat and brought the head to Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years.

In about 1636, a force of colonists trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians near the mouth of the Mystic River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken.

ramalc wrote: "It would be good except for leaving out God but including the easter bunny."

What's G-d got to do with it?

Thanksgiving like many of the holidays was hijacked by christians with a bit of murder and theft involved by a bunch of drunks.

************************************

In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast(at Plymouth Rock) delivering 102 Puritan exiles. The original Native people "Indians") of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off in great numbers. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea behind. That plague swept the so called "tribes of New England",destroyed some villages totally.

The Puritans landed and built their colony called "the Plymouth Plantation" near the desired ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Historical accounts tell us that only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived. He had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. The Pilgrim crop failed miserably, but the agricultural expertise of Squanto produced 20 acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. Squanto spoke the colonists' language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch fish. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.

These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the Puritans not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace. In celebration of their good fortune, the colony's governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast after the first harvest of 1621. It later became known as "Thanksgiving", but the Pilgrims never called it that.

The "Indians" who attended were not even invited. The pilgrims only invited Chief Massasoit and it was Massasoit who then invited ninety or more of his "Indian" brothers and sisters to the affair to the chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the "Indians" were not invited back for any other such meals. The Pilgrims did however consume a good deal of brew on that day. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day which they preferred even to water.

Like the RNT is always saying about the lottery, which is "good", except for just one more thing the editor would like to add to his long list.

Such is the case with this editorial. It would be good except for leaving out God but including the easter bunny.

Lamar Cook