In a year, reported to be 1620 puritans, looking to escape religious persecution booked passage on ships bound for the new world. Technically it wasn’t new, it was as old as the world they were leaving. And in the end, religious persecution followed them, they were just the persecutors, which seemed to be ok with them. Funny how that always works out.
Anyway, they got here, and rumor has it, it was cold and wet, and they were hungry, and lost and really didn’t know what to do.
In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “They said, let’s set up a fort and start buying the place with beads.”
But it was lonely, and they didn’t know what to do. Unlike the established world they left there were no shops to go buy a goose, or vegetables or ale, mead, wine, rum. It was just this big, empty place. Except for all the trees.
Fortunately for our hardy settlers some Native Americans, who had been around for centuries, took pity on them and showed them how to grow and harvest the local crops, corn, which they called maize, made into cornbread and porridge. There was deer, cod, bass, and assorted wild fowl. It turned out to be a generous spread.
There are rumors that the pilgrims, unaccustomed to such delicacies after months of hard tack, (which is not really made from tacks at all, but is a kind of biscuit, that could be stored for a long time) and salted meat, became violently ill, and blamed the natives for all the discomfort.
“We should kick their asses.” The mayor said, several days later, when he could stand up without dizziness and, well you don’t need the details. You can trust me on this, there was an employee where I work, and when he called in sick, he would give me all the disgusting symptoms, the colors and smells, the appearance.
It was terrible, I told him I didn’t need any of the details, he could tell me he felt too good to come to work, it was fine with me. Ah, the trials of a minor, insignificant supervisory functionary.
Anyway, the pilgrims decided to form into loose, ill organized and poorly armed militias, and go out and put foot to bottom, if you get my drift. They weren’t sure what to call their former friends, now mortal enemies, native Americans wasn’t really available, because America was probably copyrighted and there would be legal ramifications.
“Hey, let’s call them Indians.” One guy said, he was cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife and didn’t look up.
“It’s not India,” Someone interjected. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t matter. Besides, it might be India. We don’t know.”
“Ok, Indians, it is.”
Meanwhile, the native Americans were suffering from some sort of European flu, or just a malaise of some sort. They had no immunity to the viruses and bacteria crawling all over the Europeans. A lot of them probably came from Hard Tack and salted pork. Refrigeration was years away and sanitary practices involved prayer and a little extra sodium, imagine the hypertension and thirst. Anyway the native Americans were convinced it was the tourists and they were furious.
“Let’s go toss their sorry, sick butts back into the water.” Said, Thundering Cloud, the chief.
“Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it’s just a seasonal illness, and we would have had it anyway.”
“Oh sure, leave it to Vacillating Rabbit to suggest that.”
And, with that, the fight was on.
Remember this with your feast, it was the sacrifice of our ancient ancestors, that made it all possible.
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