The History of Thanksgiving By Russel Means Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoag, had welcomed the so-called Pilgrim Fathers—and the seldom-mentioned Pilgrim Mothers—to the shores where his people had lived for millennia. The Wampanoag taught the European colonists how to live in our hemisphere by showing them what wild foods they could gather, how, where, and what crops to plant, and how to harvest, dry and preserve them. The Wampanoag now want to remind America of what had happened after Massasoit’s death. Massasoit was succeeded by his son, Metacomet, whom the colonists called “King” Philip. In 1675-1676, to show “gratitude” for what Massasoit’s people had done for their fathers and grandfathers, the Pilgrims manufactured an incident as a pretext to justify disarming the Wampanoag. The whites went after the Wampanoag with guns, swords, cannons and torches. Most, including Metacomet, were butchered. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies. His body was hideously drawn and quartered. For twenty-five years afterward, Metacomet’s skull was displayed on a pike above the whites’ village. The real legacy of the Pilgrim Fathers is treachery. Most Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a boar harvest, but that is not so. By 1970, the Wampanoag had turned up a copy of a Thanksgiving proclamation made by the governor of the colony; the text revealed the ugly truth: After a colonial militia had returned from murdering the men, women, and children of an Indian village, the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to give thanks for the massacre. He encouraged other colonies to do likewise—in other words, every autumn the crops are in, go kill Indians and celebrate your murders with a feast. Nothing remains of those nations but their names, and even some of those have been lost. - The above text was excerpted from Russell Means’ autobiography titled, “Where White Men Fear To Tread.”