Thanksgiving began in two distinct ways. One was an actual dinner that
took place between the Plymouth folk and Massasoit and a few of his group
who joined into a joint celebration of the native fall ceremonial calendar
and Puritan happiness at having survived. This is recorded in the Puritan
chronicles. Within approx. 50 years, the same Puritan group cut the heads
off both King Charles I of England and off a person they named King
Phillip, who was the son of Massasoit. King Phillip's head was kept on a
stake by the Puritans at Plymouth for over a decade. Cromwell and the
Puritan Army did not display Charles I head as long.

The second beginning was John Endicott's declaration of a general day of
thanksgiving for successful massacre of the Niantic Indians on Block
Island in the Connecticut River as the opening salvo in the Pequot War
which was ordered by the Puritan hierarchy for the expansion of New
Israel.

George Washington tried to implement a national day of thanksgiving,
taking his cue of a legal holiday from the still continuing Plymouth
tradition started by Endicott, but could not gain enough popular support
and so abandoned the idea.

Lincoln resurrected Washington's idea and created the national holiday.

Franklin Roosevelt moved the holiday and met with such resistance that he
was forced to move it back.

So, the imagery of thanksgiving comes from an actual occurence that was a
brief moment before the onslaught of the American Holocaust.

The idea of a legal holiday is rooted in Endicott's declaration following
the massacre at Block Island.

The notion of a national holiday was Washington's but was implemented by
Lincoln and experimented with by FDR and our celebration this November is
FDR's final resolution as to date.


Paul Apodaca