Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: The Pequot War of 1637
Chapter 2: John Winthrop and the Official Thanksgiving Declaration (1637)
Chapter 3: The Thanksgiving Feast of 1621
Chapter 4: Squanto: The Last of the Patuxet
Chapter 5: The Kidnapping of Squanto (1621)
Chapter 6: Captain Shrimp and the Wessagusset Massacre
John Winthrop and the Official Thanksgiving
Declaration
1637
Uncas looks up, like he just heard
Sassacus yelling.
Uncas
William Brewster: “Psalm 18. David
wrote and dedicated this psalm to God after God delivered him from
all of his enemies, especially Saul. David began the psalm with:
[Uncas looks out of the window of the
building, and see the hacked off heads of Natives being kicked
through the streets like soccer balls by Pilgrim boys; Uncas
shudders]
Brewster: “I love you, O Lord, my strength. The
Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in
whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my
stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am
saved from my enemies.”
John Mason: “I'm happy to have the love
and support of the religious community during our trying times of
survival as a colony. Make no mistake about it. We are doing God's
work. At Mystick River, all of the enemy were vanquished. Only 7
Pequot escaped, and we brought 7 Pequots home to be used as slaves,
or to sell them to Spanish traders who run the ship Desire. The
surviving Pequots were hunted but could make little haste because of
their children. They were literally-run to ground...tramped into the
mud and buried in the swamp. We also attacked and sacked a second
Pequot Village was attacked, massacred and destroyed on June 5, 1637
near present day Stonington and a third Pequot Village was attacked,
massacred and destroyed on July 28, 1637 near present day Fairfield." ... "For recognition of my great conquering
hero status, and that's why, today, I want to announce, that
Connecticut Plantations have decided to make me Governor General, and
I'll be responsible for training the military men of Connecticut.”
John Mason
(with Underhill and Troops)
[polite applause and congratulations
from the peanut gallery]
A man from the gallery: “Well let's
hope Captain Mason is better than Captain Underhill. Captain Underhill still needs to catch Roger
Williams.” (laughter)
Underhill: “I know he's in Rhode
Island somewhere!” (laughter) "If you're so brave, you chase after him in Narragansett territory."
William Brewster: “Psalm 18: Verse 29-39. With [God's] help I can advance
against a troop [or can run through a barricade], with my God I can
scale a wall. . . . It is God who arms me with strength. . . . He
makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the
heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of
bronze. . . . I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn
back till they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they could not
rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for
battle, you made my adversaries bow at my feet." ... “In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them.”
William Bradford: “Those that scraped
the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others
rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte,
and very few escapted. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400
at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the
fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was
the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete
sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought
so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their
hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting
an enimie.”
Bradford
William Brewster: "Did David not war with the
Philistines, and the House of Saul, and his sons Absalom, and the
nomads? And where would we be without David having had shed the blood
of Goliath the Giant? Instead of killing Goliath the Giant, we killed
all he knew, and loved. We killed his spirit and purpose for living,
and his future legacies. We killed his wives, his children, and his
parents, and one day, we shall get Goliath the Giant ourselves."
Pilgrim 1: "Do not forget. David wasn't allowed to build the temple, because his
hands were drenched in blood. That's why God grant
Solomon permission to build the temple."
Brewster: "Even if we have to war like
David, with all of this blood on our hands, eventually, our children
of peace, like Solomon, will be able to build the temples that
pleases the Lord.
Underhill:
“Sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish
with their parents; David’s war, when a people is grown to such a
height of blood, and sin against God and man, and all confederates in
the action, there he hath no respect to persons, but harrows them,
and saws them, and puts them to the sword, and the most terriblest
death that may be: It may be demanded…Should not Christians
have more mercy and compassion? We had sufficient light from the word
of God for our proceedings.”
John Winthrop “Governor of
Massachusetts Bay Colony” proclaims: "Say a final grace Reverend Brewster, and I will make today the official day for Thanksgiving for all of posterity."
Brewster: "O Lord our God and heavenly Father,
which of Thy unspeakable mercy towards us, hast provided meate and
drinke for the nourishment of our weake bodies. Grant us peace to use
them reverently, as from Thy hands, with thankful hearts: let Thy
blessing rest upon these Thy good creatures, to our comfort and
sustentation: and grant we humbly beseech Thee, good Lord, that as we
doe hunger and thirst for this food of our bodies, so our soules may
earnestly long after the food of eternal life, through Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Saviour, Amen."
Winthrop: “Today, the 12th of the
8th Month, we, the English Protestants of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony shall hold a public day of Thanksgiving to
God in all of our Churches for his great mercies in subduing the
Pequot, bringing the soldiers in safety, the success of the
conference, and for good news from Germany. Perhaps we can now be forever free from these Pequot savages. We
shall divide the few remaining prisoners amongst all of the tribes,
and outlaw the Pequot out of existence. Even their names shall be
wiped out of history. We are the exceptional city on the hill. We
cannot allow the muck to sink us. We're God's chosen people. The lost
tribe of Israel. We will not lose. [evil laughter] And to commemorate
this Blessed Day, the vanquishing of the horrid savage Pequot, I
officially declare, hence from this day forward, for the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, to celebrate annually, an official Day of
Thanksgiving.”
Everybody: "Amen"
Where Are They Now?
[like a baseball card]
Picture of John Underhill (1597-1672)
smiling, with his face on the right side:
“Underhill takes several Pequots to
be his own personal servants! Captain John Underhill was excommicated
and disgraced from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Underhill owned
a Tobacco Plantation in New Netherlands! Underhill then sold his
services to the Dutch as a mercenary, and would go on to commit 2
MORE MASSACRES! Underhill massacred over 500 Lenape, who he thought
were the Siwanoy and Wechquaesgeek bands of the Wappinger
Confederacy. Underhill also attacked and burned the Massapequan
fort, killing 120 Indians.
Underhill shouting towards the camera:
“Yall better clear out of here before I start to strike at random!”
Where are they now?
[Baseball card picture of “Miantonimo,
Chief of the Narragansett” (1600- August1643) smiling.]
In August 1643, during the
Mohegan-Connecticut war (with sachem Sequasson), Miantonimo is
captured by Uncas, and Uncas delivered him right up to the English. Miantonimo was wearing European armor that weighed him down, and that's how Uncas caught him. Miantonimo is tried and convicted by 5 Puritan clergymen. Miantonimo
is executed when the English allows Uncas's brother, Wawequa, to chop
Miantonimo's head in half with a tomahawk while Miantonimo was being
escorted to Norwich. Uncas also murdered many of Sequasson's men too.
Where are they now?
[Picture of Desire, the Slave Ship]
The
Desire was America's first slave ship. Desire sailed her maiden
voyage in June 1637, leaving Plimouth, proceeding to Barbados in the
Bahamas, with a cargo of dry fish and strong liquors and Sassacus's
wife and children, and the Englishmen traded the Pequot prisoners of
war with a Spanish slave ship for African slaves, which began the
Transatlantic Slave Trade. Rhode
Island Colony, Providence Plantations, and the Connecticut Colony all
followed Massachusetts into the slave trade shortly afterwards.
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