Thursday, November 22, 2018

The Aftermath of New England’s Thanksgiving

Image result for he Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World’s Most Profitable Casino,


The Pequot tribe inhabited the coastline of southeastern Connecticut before the arrival of the Dutch in 1614, and shortly afterward, the English. The Pequots did not welcome strangers who settled on their land, took their wild game, and infected the tribe with smallpox — warring between the tribe and the strangers soon commenced. Early on the morning of June 5, 1637, the English “murmured their prayers,” descended upon a sleeping village, set fire to the wigwams and killed some 400 Pequots. “The brutality of burning people alive did not faze the English” and one commander wrote “Sometimes the scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings.” After finally extinguishing the Pequots in 1638, the English turned upon their Indian allies to continue their efforts to make New England safe for European settlement, selling many into slavery in the West Indies.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org   The Great American Political Divide

The Aftermath of New England’s Thanksgiving

“The English were now determined to eradicate the remnants of the Pequots . . . The first band . . . were captured without resistance, and 40 of them were murdered by the English in cold blood. Some 80 of the women were handed over to the Narragansetts to become part of their tribe. The remainder were bound up and sent to Massachusetts Bay Colony to be sold as slaves, destined for the cane fields of the Caribbean.

Ultimately, according to [Commander John] Mason, some 700 additional Pequots were killed or captured in various groups. Those that had escaped became marked men. Hardly a week passed . . . that [English ally] Narragansetts or Mohegans didn’t appear with yet another grisly trophy. It brought joy to colonial leaders, who proclaimed gratefulness “that on this day we have sent 600 heathen to heaven.”

On October 1, 1638, in a document styled the “Treaty of Hartford,” the colonial government of Connecticut, along with its Indian allies, passed final judgement on the Pequots. Under the terms of the treaty, the remaining living Pequots were divided among the Narragansetts and Mohegans . . . [and] the Pequots could never again live in their homeland and could never again use the name Pequot.

The French traveler and historian Alexis de Toqueville recorded their extermination for the world after travelling New England in 1833. “All the Indian tribes who once inhabited the territory of New England – the Narragansetts, the Mohicans, the Pequots – now live only in men’s memories,” he wrote in Democracy in America after returning home.

Much of the 500 square miles of land that had once been under the domain of the Pequots was awarded to the winning commanders in the Pequot War. John Mason and Lion Gardiner were given huge plantations in what is now southeastern Connecticut. Thousands of settlers from the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies streamed into what today is the metropolitan area of Hartford.

Before the war, the body of water that flowed to Norwich was known as the Pequot River. The nostalgic English, after the war, renamed the waterway the Thames River.”

(The Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World’s Most Profitable Casino, Kim Isaac Eisler, Simon & Schuster, 2001, excerpts 33-39)

1862 Thanksgiving Proclamation - To the People of the Confederate States of America

Via Jonathan

Cheng Two: More Notes on Two Weeks in China

 
 Fast rail is hardly unique to China, but the scale is. So  far there are 17,000 miles of fast rail in China, aiming at 24,000 by 2025. The UnitedStates couldn’t finish the environmental impact sttement as quickly. The Shanghai maglev line reaches 267 mph. 

This is my second column on the two weeks that Vi and I just spent in Chengdu, China. It is meant not so much as a travelog as a snapshot of what is going on in an economic juggernaut. Judging by email from readers, many do not realize the scope and scale of China’s advance. Neither did I: Since I was last in the country twelve years ago, much has changed. Reading journals is one thing. Walking the streets is another.

Having heard much about China’s high-speed rail, we bought tickets to Chongqing, a mountain town of thirty million at a distance of 250 miles from Chengdu.

White House Authorizes Lethal Force At The Border


President Trump's chief of staff John Kelly signed a memo late Tuesday allowing troops stationed at
the border to act in a law enforcement capacity and use lethal force, if necessary, according to Tara Copp of Military Times.

The new “Cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump. It allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.”

More @ Zero Hedge

Video: Thanksgiving Daily Deal Alert: SIG P320s & Swiss Rifles


Sen. Grassley Highlights Justice Roberts’ Hypocrisy In Attacking Trump: Justice was silent when Obama rebuked Alito in SOTU address

Via Billy

Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made abt judge’s decision on asylum I don’t recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he had reservations about Chief Justice John Roberts’ response to President Donald Trump’s controversial characterization of a federal judge and the 9th District court, and suggested it was a hypocritical move based on Roberts’ previous interactions with Trump’s predecessor.

“Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made [about a] judge’s decision on asylum,” Grassley said in a tweet on Wednesday. “I don’t recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union.”