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Nothing. Mills just provided, August, 2019, the fourth item that the theory allowed to be developed, and the second item being scrutinized for procurement or lease by the USA Department of Defense."Department of Defense has a Suncell running on its premises as a licensee":by July 21, 2019:according to Navid Sadikali(CEO at The End Of Petroleum) in the first segment at time stamp 0:00 to 17:45 on a talk show at r/BrilliantLightPowerthen scroll down to "End Of Petroleum talks Hydrino Energy - Live on Freedom Talk Live July 21, 2019"UPDATE: I (Frank Acland Moderator at E-Cat World.com) have received the following message from Navid Sadikali:“Request: please modify the article. My interview stated these facts.1) The SunCell is running.2) The DOD is a licensee through ARA.3) The DOD was onsite to see the SunCell.”It is finally happening, the Suncell is being scrutinized towards being leased by a commercial or military client.I communicated with Navid, several months ago. In a radio cast, he mentions something about Brett's book about Mills: "Randell Mills and The Search for Hydrino Energy" at time stamp 2:36 "we wrote about him"..:One of several books about Mills and the Grand Unified Theory-Classical Physics.I have been asked what I am doing to get GUT-CP accepted by the academics in physics. Navid is the one who might be actually doing something about that. By joining forces, that is what will break through the impasse formed by the physics community against GUT-CP and the device on Brilliant Light and Power and on sites such as Evaco LLC as well.GUT-CP is not cold fusion. CF and LENR try to explain their mechanisms using Standard Quantum Mechanics and are all full of various hypotheses that lead nowhere. GUT-CP is purely classical and has three items fully developed1)in 1986 the explanation for the DoD for how their Free Electron Laser works2) in 2007 developed process for manufacturing accordingto the predictions of GUT-CP, diamond thin film for such uses as as a scratch proof cover on cell phones or tablets and as a heat sink substrate on circuit mother board for chip components3) 2012 developed the Millsian® molecular modeller, available for free trail use by download, 100 times more accurate than any similar app made using SQMand at least 3 more items in development, one of which is the Suncell, which is being scrutinized by the USA DoD:4) finished proof of pronciple for the SUncell in 2000, and thefully functional and finely tuned and controlled version in May 2020, the Suncell the second item being considered by the DoD for procurement or lease, which item is being developed based on the predictions of GUT-CP,5) the Hydrino, fully validated in April -May 2020 is patented in many processes and devices since 2000 and is used as the mechanism that drives the Suncell:Randell L. Mills Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications6) the end point device using the Suncell’s ash, Hydrino’s or dark matter, from which indestructible plastics are being developed for us in the structure of that end point item and which end point item is to be powered by the first viable antigravity device, which is being developed by Huub Bakker of Massey University, NZ , in collaboration with Randell L. Mills, which device was patented as :FIFTH-FORCE APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROPULSIONWO1995032021A1 - Apparatus and method for providing an antigravitational force - Google Patentswhich antigravity device is mentioned in general terms in a university lecture at time stamp 00:29:08:20161019 Introduction to the Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics_001What are all those patents validations and experiments and fully developed and commercially used items, if not proof or at least some indication of the accuracy of using GUT-CP and the Hydrino as a subset or prediction made since 1999, under that theory?The case for Millsian physicsNASA Takes a Flyer on Hydrinosfresno state lecture randell millsAs an update, this answer was flagged by someone hostile to the theory of Mills and tried to have this answer collapsed. This answer was eventually allowed to stay un-collapsed, since the one complaining did not provide a specific reason to have the answer censored.This attempt at censoring this answer begs the question, why? If the theory is as bad as some claim, or even a scam, why are not other, equally suspect theories not being attacked so strongly. Yet Mills theory is the only theory so singled out for strong censoring. The reason is that GUT-CP presents a threat to the some that are using SQM to make large incomes or gaining prestige, as in developing such devices and or related experiments, as controlled fusion and quantum computing. Both are dead end projects since the physics used, to develop these, is itself a dead end. In the Sun it is gravity that draws nucleons together, exactly centre on centre, very easily to very successfully attain fusion, while the nucleons in Earth based devices are pushed together, using magnetic confinement, which ends up doing something like trying to push wet noodles together; in quantum qbits, these particles always de-cohere a fraction of a second after the device starts to “compute” actually ending in non-computing anything. This is due to all devices using SQM, as a guide, which guide is based on imagined then assumed and therefore, at based are non-existant mechanism of waves. This was a mechanism that was then just a lucky guess about a seemingly viable mechanism that seemed to explain the 2 slit experiment. Then, using what was basically a wild guess, to be the base on which SQM has laid its foundation on. It seems to explain the 2 slit experiment, in the same way that square wheels might have been considered towards building a car, at at a time when wheels were an unknown. Then, finding the square wheels seemed worked ok if pushed hard enough, was decided on for use in building a car on top of that. Later, when industry was starting to get under way, cars were seen as having the potential of being developed for rapid transportation, but the cars are found to be difficult to move at the required speeds. Instead of looking back through its development, to find where the problem might be, the wheels are considered as off limits for such scrutiny and instead the motor is considered as the most likely place for finding the problem. The motor is looked at to see how to make it more and more powerful to make the car go as fast as the transportation needs require. This is similar to what is being considered currently, to find out why qbit are decohering, then using the qbits in a different, more robust way. This, as if the problem started with the qbits themselves, and not at an earlier development in SQM when waves were an assumed mechanism, that was assumed to exist in trying to explain the 2 slit experiment. The solution, in SQM, is then to attempt to make the qbits ever more robust, with current efforts ending making large complex devices that try to ensure the qbits do not decohere.This has resulted in quantum computing having purported successes in developing all of the peripheral items, such sotware, fudiciary concerns, building being funded and built for research into quantum computing, andall the rest, except for the hardware, circuit try in electronic chips that houses and makes up the q-bits themselves. It might be better to look all the way back to where the problem is known to have a big assumption involved, when waves were accepted as the best explanation for just one particular experiment. That was at the time when qbits and their use was not even dreamed of, but the waves were ok'd for use everywhere and in an inviolable way.I did all of the surveying of the topic completely independent of Mill and his associates. I read copies of all the original papers and people at the institutions where all of the original data and records and peer reviewed papers involved originate then read those papers and communicated with theose weho were closest related to those papers or who had access to the original records relating to such sources, to get at their side of the story in all this.The sources I have used are:L. A. Rozema, A. Darabi, D. H. Mahler, A. Hayat, Y. Soudagar, A. M. Steinberg, “Violation of Heisenberg’s Measurement-Disturbance Relationship by Weak Measurements,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 100404 – Published 6 September 2012; Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 189902 (2012)Thomas E. Stolper, mathematician and Political analyst and Author of “America’s Newton, The reception of the work of Randell Mills, in historical and contemporary context”,Herman Haus, Institute profesor of Electronic Engineering,(1986). "On the radiation from point charges". American Journal of Physics. 54 (12): 1126–1129. Bibcode:1986AmJPh..54.1126H which paper was given to Mills by Haus used to develop the same model of the electron as developed by HausThe USA Department of Defense, and physics academia which accepted the FEL explanation provided by Haus,Philip Payne, Principal Scientist, Princeton University, Physicist in charge of using the topological predictions of the Grand Unified Theory-Classical Physics for use in developing the Millsian Molecular Modeller,Brett Holverstott: Science Philosopher, head of the development team of the Millsian Molecular ModellerGerrit Kroesen, Professor of Plasma Physics, Eindhoven Technologicl University, independently tested the Hydrino reaction and found no explanation for the reaction using SQM,NASA independently tested the hydrino reaction by sub contract to:Anthony J. Marchese, a mechanical engineering professor specializing in propulsion at Rowan University, with the conclusion being indeterminate of the cause of the reaction. “ From what I can tell from BlackLight's studies – and they've been pretty good about letting others outside verify their excess energy – there are some things going on that people are having trouble understanding.”Marchese, a PhD engineer from Princeton, says NASA granted him the money to study the feasibility of the BlackLight Rocket for six months. None of the NASA money will go to Mills or BlackLight Power, Marchese says, and his work will be done independently.Marchese's colleague at the Rowan College of Engineering, associate professor of electrical engineering Peter Mark Jansson, researched the BlackLight process while employed by Mills' backer Atlantic Energy, now part of the utility Conectiv.Besides Conectiv, Mills other subsidiaries using the theory are Evaco LLC, and Millsian Corp. The main company Brilliant Light and Power is growing exponentially since then.Scams just die out and disappear after getting a few million dollars and its perpetrators also disappear.Mills is still around and has all the earmarks of someone very successful, and well liked by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, who themselves granted him a few million dollars. Chambers of commerce are made up of people who are not known to be taken in by any kind of scams, but are on the other hand always ready to promote any business that has shown great promise in producing successful goods and services to the local community, over a long period of time and which businesses are headed by equally good willed people. In the case of BrLP those people are:DAVID BENNETTMr. Bennett was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2018.Consultant – Strategic management consulting for growth businesses in aerospace, transportation and alternative energy field. Focused on startups through mid-sized firms.Mr. Bennett was CEO of Proterra electric bus startup and led the firm from prototype design through national validation and successful commercial launch. Raised funds from key investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GM Ventures, and Mitsui & Co. Global Investment.Mr. Bennett worked with Eaton for ten years in a series of operating and corporate roles. His most recent roles were VP Business Development Industrial Sector and President Eaton’s Vehicle Group in Asia Pacific. The Vehicle Group AP business, headquartered in Shanghai, has operations in five countries providing full design, product development, production, sales and service solutions for a wide range of automotive and commercial vehicle customers.Previously, Mr. Bennett held a variety of general management positions in Europe and North America for the Truck business. He was also a general manager in Eaton Aerospace.Prior to joining Eaton in 2001, Mr. Bennett worked with Honeywell (formerly AlliedSignal) and General Electric in a variety of general management, operational, program management and technical roles for high technology aerospace and industrial businesses.Mr. Bennett holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and materials from Duke University and a master’s degree in business administration from Drexel University.Emilio Icaza ChavezMr. Icaza Chavez was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2018.Mr. Icaza Chavez is a co-founder and current Chairman of the Board of Aspel, a Mexico-based company which is the market leader in small business accounting software both in Mexico and in Colombia. Telmex bought an initial stake in Aspel in 2000; since then the relationship has evolved and Grupo Financiero Inbursa now owns a majority stake in Aspel.From 1989 to 1996, Mr. Icaza Chavez worked at GBM, one of the top brokerage houses in Mexico, where he was Co-Executive Director, in charge of Corporate Finance, Research and Investor Relations.In addition to his continued role at Aspel, Mr. Icaza Chavez co-founded Fusion de Ideas in 2008, a Private Equity investment vehicle with current investments in Energy, Software, Real Estate Development, Food, and other industries.Mr. Icaza Chavez is the main shareholder of Enextra Energía, a Mexican corporation which has signed a licensing agreement with Brilliant Light Power, Inc. to serve energy customers in certain industries within the Mexican Territory.Mr. Icaza Chavez was awarded a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM) in Mexico City.JEREMY HUXMr. Hux was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2016.Mr. Hux is President of HCP Advisors, based in San Francisco, California. For nearly 20 years, he has advised Technology and Clean Technology companies on equity, debt, and strategic transactions.Prior to HCP Advisors, Mr. Hux spent nine years with Credit Suisse. He was a Managing Director and Global Head of Credit Suisse’s Clean Technology Investment Banking practice. In addition to running the Clean Technology effort at Credit Suisse, he worked extensively with semiconductor and storage companies. Mr. Hux joined Credit Suisse after approximately eight years with Morgan Stanley. At Morgan Stanley, he was Head of West Coast Clean Technology and also advised companies across the technology spectrum, including storage, networking, hardware, semiconductors, and contract design and manufacturing. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he advised Media and Entertainment companies at SG Cowen.Mr. Hux earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and History from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.DR. RANDELL L. MILLSDr. Mills, Founder and principal stockholder of Brilliant Light Power, Inc., has served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer and President since 1991.Dr. Mills has authored nine books, participated in over 50 presentations at professional meetings, and authored and co-authored over 100 papers regarding the field of energy technology that have been published in peer-reviewed journals of international repute. Dr. Mills has received patents or filed patent applications in the following areas: (1) Millsian computational chemical design technology based on a revolutionary approach to solving atomic and molecular structures; (2) magnetic resonance imaging; (3) Mossbauer cancer therapy (Nature, Hyperfine Interactions); (4) Luminide class of drug delivery molecules; (5) genomic sequencing method, and (6) artificial intelligence. A thorough description of the Company’s technology and Dr. Mills’ underlying atomic theory is published in a book entitled The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics.Dr. Mills was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Franklin & Marshall College in 1982, and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from Harvard Medical School in 1986. Following a year of graduate work in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Mills began his research in the field of energy technology.Roger S. Ballentine – CEO Green Strategies Inc.William Beck – Managing Director and Global Head of Engineering and Sustainability Services Credit SuisseH. McIntyre Gardner – Chairman of the Board, Spirit Airlines, Inc.Dr. Ray Gogel – President, Avanti EnterprisesJim Hearty – Former Partner of Clough Capital PartnersPhil Johnson – Former SVP – Intellectual Property Policy & Strategy of Johnson & Johnson – Law Department, Former SVP and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel of Johnson & JohnsonMatt Key – Commercial Director Charge.autoBill Maurer – SVP ABM IndustriesJeffrey S. McCormick – Chairman and Managing General Partner of SaturnDavid Meredith – Chief Operations and Product Officer at Rackspace Hosting, Inc., President of Private Cloud & Managed Hosting at Rackspace Hosting, Inc.Bill Palatucci – Special Counsel Gibbons LawAmb R. James Woolsey – Former Director of the CIA under President Bill ClintonColin Bannon – Chief Architect BT Global ServicesMichael Harney – Managing Director, BTIGStan O’Neal – Formerly Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Former Board Member of General Motors, Currently on the Board of ArconicRoger S. BallentineRoger Ballentine is the President of Green Strategies Inc., where he provides management consulting services to corporate and financial sector clients on sustainability strategy; investment and transaction evaluation and project development execution in the clean energy sector; and the integration of energy and environmental policy considerations into business strategy. He is also a Venture Partner with Arborview Capital LLC, a private equity firm making growth capital investments in the clean energy and energy efficiency sectors. Previously, Roger was a senior member of the White House staff, serving President Bill Clinton as Chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force and Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Initiatives. Prior to being named Deputy Assistant, Roger was Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs where he focused on energy and environmental issues. Before joining the White House, Roger was a partner at Patton Boggs LLP.Over the years, Roger has acquired a wealth of experience and knowledge of the energy sector, financial markets, and environmental business practices as well as the politics, players and trends in the energy and environmental space. Using his expertise and deep relationships, Roger has helped clients develop better business strategies, make better investment decisions, negotiate new business partnerships, build critical alliances with stakeholders, and devise impactful government and public affairs strategies.Roger currently serves on the Advisory Boards of the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Clean Capital LLC, 8 Rivers Capital, and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), where he was a founding Board member in 2001. He is a member of Ingersoll Rand’s Advisory Council on Sustainability. Roger also serves on the Selection Committee for the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Zayed Future Energy Prize and is the Co-Chair of the Aspen Institute’s Clean Energy Forum.In addition to being a frequent speaker, media commentator and writer, he has been a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School teaching in the area of energy and climate law and a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington D.C.Roger is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Connecticut and a Cum Laude graduate of the Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Connecticut, District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court bars.William BeckWilliam Beck is a Managing Director within the Group Business Support Services (GBSS) Department of Credit Suisse. William is the Global Head of Critical Engineering & Sustainability, based in New York. He leads a team responsible for developing and implementing strategy and governance for the Bank’s Innovation, Energy management, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing & Fire (MEPF) design, Engineering Operations Maintenance, Environmental and Sustainability integration as well as the Data Center Strategy programs. His mandate also includes the bank’s Global Energy Strategy and Procurement integration. Bill has 25+ years of experience including the strategic planning, development, design, construction and operations of mission critical and non-mission critical facilities. William is a licensed Professional Engineer, Master Electrician and Energy procurement specialist. He holds a BSEE degree and a MS degree in Management, both from Fairleigh Dickenson University.H. McIntyre GardnerMr. Gardner was the head of Merrill Lynch’s Private Client business in the Americas and also the Global Bank Group within the firm’s Global Wealth Management Group until early 2008. As head of Private Client Americas, Mac was responsible for the region’s extensive network of more than 600 advisory offices; private banking and investment services to ultra-high net worth clients; the group’s middle markets business; investment and insurance products; distribution and business development; and corporate and diversified financial services.For the Global Bank Group, Mr. Gardner was Chairman of Merrill Lynch Bank USA and responsible for Merrill Lynch’s consumer and commercial banking and cash management products. This included distribution and sales of all bank products and services primarily delivered into the marketplace through Financial Advisors. These activities encompassed retail deposit products and services, credit and debit cards, commercial cash management, residential mortgage lending, securities-based/small business/high-net-worth structured/middle-market lending, and community development lending and investing.Mr. Gardner’s 13-year career at Merrill Lynch also included roles in strategy, Finance Director for the corporation, and as an investment banker specializing in high yield finance, mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring.Mr. Gardner has also served as the principal of a financial advisory services firm and as the president of two consumer products companies. He has served on the Board of Directors of Spirit Airlines, Inc. since 2010 and has served as Chairman since August 2013. He also serves on the North American Strategic Advisory Board of Oliver Wyman. Mr. Gardner is a 1983 graduate of Dartmouth College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion.Dr. Ray GogelDr. Ray Gogel started his career in academia, where he obtained his PhD with distinction in philosophy from Drew University after studying for four years in Germany with leading Continental philosophers. Ray’s background in philosophy has permeated the rest of his career, driving a strong and abiding interest in forward-thinking leadership and business models, as well as innovation and disruptive technology. Ray moved from academia to a career in the utility and power industry, progressing through a variety of operational, leadership and business development roles at Public Service Electric & Gas Co in New Jersey, before he left to join IBM as a solution architect, where he designed, sold and delivered IBM’s first Business Process Outsourcing transaction (PG&E Energy Services). Gogel progressed within IBM to become VP—Client Services, responsible for IBM’s largest utility customer and P&L, before joining Xcel Energy, headquartered in Minneapolis.At Xcel, Ray reported directly to the CEO as CIO and later in the expanded role of CAO and President of Customer and Enterprise Solutions, where he managed the core areas of IT, Customer Care/Marketing, Human Resources and Utility Innovation. During his tenure, Xcel received recognition as a premier IT organization in InformationWeek’s Top 500 Awards, placing in the Top 20 for 3 years and twice winning their Business Technology Optimization award. Ray was featured in ComputerWorld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders. Xcel’s unique outsourcing model and use of Strategic Advisory Boards has been the subject of various publications and an early driving force for transformational outsourcing in the utility industry. In 2006, Xcel was awarded the prestigious Edison award from the Edison Electric Institute for its ‘Utility of the Future’ initiatives in IT, as well as Utility of the Year in 2009 from EnergyBiz Magazine for its unique and pioneering ‘SmartGridCity™’ efforts.Ray left Xcel Energy to serve as President and COO of Current Group, an innovative US-based start-up Smart Grid company specializing in cutting-edge smart grid operations and analytics with clients in NA, Europe and AP. He also served as Global Head of Smart Grid for Nokia-Siemens Networks as they explored entry into the Smart Grid adjacency. Ray spent two years as a Managing Director in Accenture’s Resources Group, working as a market-maker for strategic pursuits.In 2014, Ray co-founded USGRDCO with Jay Worenklein and David Mohler and served as President and COO. USGRDCO’s objective is to upgrade the distribution systems of America’s utilities and accelerate the benefits of grid modernization through commercial microgrids and distributed energy resources, thereby offering utilities alternative paths to more efficient, reliable, resilient and secure power systems. Ray and his team pioneered a series of microgrid archetypes and designs, suitable for utilities, private communities and smart cities, which USGRDCO believes represents the future of the North American grid. Ray left his COO role at USGRDCO to found his own consulting group, Avanti Enterprises, Inc., where he provides strategic consulting and business planning to companies in the power sector.During his career, Ray has served on IBM’s Strategic Advisory Board, The World Economic Forum, the Colorado Smart Grid Task Force, EEI’s Smart Grid Workshop Group, the Board of MedicAlert International, Denver’s United Way and Goodwill.Jim HeartyGraduate of Williams College and The Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School.Jim began as a bond trader at First National Bank of Boston, where he eventually ran the Bond Department, (the largest underwriter of Tax Exempt Debt in New England with a significant business in US Government and Agency Securities and Money Market securities). In the early 1990’s, Jim was the Assistant Secretary of Administration and Finance for Governor Bill Weld and responsible for all Bond Financings for the Commonwealth and Agencies and Authorities where the Governor served on the Board.Over the course of his career he also served as: Board Member of the Public Securities Association and a Board Member and Chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, Board Member of the Mass HFA, The Mass Industrial Finance Agency, The Massachusetts Land Bank and the Pension Reserve Investment Management Board (The State Pension System) among others. Remained on the Board of the Pension System and co-through the terms of Governors Weld, Cellucci, Swift and Romney.Working at Lehman Brothers as a banker in the Tax Exempt Division, Jim was responsible for Business in New England and grew the franchise substantially, lead managed significant issues in all New England State. Became the Head of Public Finance in 1998, and Co-Head of the Tax Exempt Division including all trading and underwriting in 2000, and grew the Business substantially.In 2002, he was the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Pension Reserve, and served for two years as ED and CIO of the $70 Billion Pension Fund. Then in 2005, Jim was a Partner of Relational Investors, one of the original “Activist” Institutional Investors, and grew the business from $1.5 Billion to $5 Billion Dollars in AUM. Significant Engagements included Home Depot, Sovereign Bancorp, Hewlett-Packard and Sprint. In 2008, he became a Partner of Clough Capital Partners and was responsible for fundraising in the Institutional Market, where he grew the AUM in our long/short fund from $500 Million to $2.0 Billion.Jim is married to Doris Blodgett since 1975, 3 sons, Resident of Boston.Phil JohnsonPhil is currently a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (“IPO”), Co-Chapter Editor of the Sedona Conference WG10 biopharmaceutical patent litigation project, and member of the board of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. Phil recently retired as Senior Vice President – Intellectual Property Policy & Strategy of Johnson & Johnson – Law Department. Prior to April of 2014, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel of Johnson & Johnson where he managed a worldwide group of about 270 IP professionals, of whom over 100 were patent and trademark attorneys.Before joining Johnson & Johnson in 2000, Phil was a senior partner and co-chair of IP litigation at Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia. During his 27 years in private practice, Phil counseled independent inventors, startups, universities and businesses of all sizes in all aspects of intellectual property law. His diverse practice pertained to advances in a wide variety of technologies, including pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, consumer products, semi-conductor fabrication, automated manufacturing, materials and waste management. During his time in private practice, Phil served as trial counsel in countless IP disputes, including cases resolved by arbitration, bench trials, jury trials and appeals to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, many of which resulted in reported decisions.During his tenure at Johnson & Johnson, Phil served terms on the Medical Device & Diagnostics and Pharmaceutical Group Operating Committees responsible for managing J&J’s many businesses in these fields, while also serving on the senior management team responsible for J&J’s legal organization, which has now grown to over 450 attorneys located in 70+ locations in 35+ countries.Phil’s has previously served as the Chair of the Board of American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation, as President of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, as President of INTERPAT, as President of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel, as President of the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation, as co-founder and member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, as Chair of PhRMA’s IP Focus Group and as Board Member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.Phil’s has previously served as the Chair of the Board of American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation, as President of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, as President of INTERPAT, as President of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel, as President of the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation, as co-founder and member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, as Chair of PhRMA’s IP Focus Group and as Board Member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.Phil has frequently testified before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees about patent law reform and, more recently, abusive patent litigation. Phil served as a member of Chief Judge Michel’s Advisory Council on Patent Reform, and was recognized in the Congressional Record as a member of the Minority Whip Jon Kyle’s “Kitchen Cabinet” for the America Invents Act (“AIA”). Thereafter, Phil served as IPO’s representative on the ABA-AIPLA-IPO committee of six experts (“COSE”) formed at Director Kappos’ request to propose regulations to the USPTO for implementing the PGR-IPR post-grant proceedings created by the AIA.Phil co-authored “Compensatory Damages Issues In Patent Infringement Cases, A Pocket Guide for Federal District Court Judges,” published by the Federal Judicial Center, and has served that Center as a faculty member on its IP-related judicial education programming. Phil was also featured in the Landslide Publication March/April 2013 issue. Most recently, Phil authored “The America Invents Act on Its Fifth Anniversary: A Promise Thus Far Only Partially Fulfilled,” published on 9/15/2016 in IP Watchdog.Phil’s awards include the Woodcock Prize for Legal Excellence (1997); the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association’s Jefferson Medal (2013); the Philadelphia Intellectual Property Association’s Distinguished Intellectual Property Practitioner award (May, 2017), induction into the international IP Hall of Fame by the IP Hall of Fame Academy (June, 2017) and the Intellectual Property Owners Association “Carl B. Horton President’s Distinguished Service Award” (September, 2017).Phil received his Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude with distinction in biology from Bucknell University, and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.Matt KeyMatt has been changing business through the innovative use of technology throughout his career. He has successfully transformed how businesses approach the market and enabled the creation of repeatable and sophisticated services and solutions whilst bringing in many new clients.Prior to Everynet and now Charge (a new connected electric truck manufacturer) he ran the Global IoT Business for Vodafone and before led the Enterprise division in Cable & Wireless Worldwide. Other experience includes working for Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Capita and Barclays.Bill MaurerBill Maurer is the Senior Vice President of ABM Industries. Mr. Maurer is responsible for managing the Energy portfolio for ABM. ABM Industries is a best-in-class provider of Integrated Facility Services which include – Energy Solutions, Mechanical Service and Construction, Facility Management, Janitorial, Security, and Parking Services for building owners and operators in North America and selected international locations. ABM is one of the nation’s most successful single source providers of high value facilities management and building optimization services.Mr. Maurer has over 20 years of experience in the Energy Industry where he has held various and increasing levels of management and responsibility. Most recently, Mr. Maurer joined ABM in 2006. Under his guidance, the Energy Solutions division has maintained exponential growth year after year. To do this Mr. Maurer had to completely re-organize and re-structure the existing energy division. There were significant changes made in personnel, market focus and overall strategy towards the Energy Business. Through the changes that were made in Energy offerings, ABM is now able to offer to their clients a unique program to provide cost savings that allow them to fund needed improvements to reduce energy consumption, reduce environmental impact and comply with government regulations. Not only has the revenue increased substantially in the Energy division, but the unique solutions delivered by ABM and the markets in which were focused on has also increased dramatically.With a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Maurer’s career path began at the Systems and Services Division of Johnson Controls, an internationally renowned building technology and manufacturing leader. At Johnson Controls, he spent nearly 8 years in sales and management positions where he was a top performer with a track record of consistent top performances in growth, sales achievement, profitability and leadership.Over the past 21 years, Mr. Maurer has been involved with over $900M in Energy Saving Programs to customers. He is a recognized leader in the industry by his co-workers and competition alike. He is involved with leadership positions in multiple industry related organizations – NAESCO (Board Member), BOMA, ASHRAE (Former Treasurer) and Energy Services Coalition. Mr. Maurer has been involved in multiple speaking engagements at industry/ market events and The White House. Mr. Maurer is also involved with and holds leadership positions within 2 Cancer Fund Organizations.On a personal note, Mr. Maurer has a wife of 20 years and two children (16 old boy and 14 old girl). They have lived in Milford, MI area for the past 11 years. He enjoys playing competitive hockey, soccer and golf. He is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys hunting – specifically pheasant and duck. Reading financial, motivational and educational books is a daily practice.Jeffrey S. McCormickJeffrey is the Chairman and Managing General Partner of Saturn. He founded Saturn in 1993 and began financing early stage companies including, the extremely successful business to business e-commerce company, FreeMarkets (FMKT, acquired by ARBA); the largest U.S. biodiesel company, Twin Rivers Technologies (acquired by FELDA); email marketing company, Constant Contact (CTCT); and the extremely popular Boston Duck Tours. Saturn Partners II and III, have invested in cutting-edge technology companies in healthcare, education, energy, IT and environmental businesses.Jeffrey has over 25 years of experience as an investment banker, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He currently serves on the boards including BioWish, Knopp Biosciences, Third Pole, and XNG Energy.Jeffrey is a graduate of Syracuse University, where he received an MBA in Finance and a BS in Biology. He was a Collegiate Scholar Athlete, first year team All-American lacrosse player, and a captain of Syracuse’s first NCAA championship lacrosse team.Jeffrey is a Vice Chair of the CitiCenter for the Performing Arts. He serves on the Dean’s Advisory Committee of the School of Management at Syracuse University and is Founding Principal Financier of the Sean McDonough Charities for Children. He is actively involved with the Trinity Church in Boston.Jeffrey is married with three children.David MeredithDavid Meredith has been Chief Operations and Product Officer at Rackspace Hosting, Inc. since January 2018. Mr. Meredith’s responsibilities include P&L oversight of the vision, operational and administrative direction of Rackspace’s product lines, operations, technology and service delivery functions. Mr. Meredith has been the President of Private Cloud & Managed Hosting at Rackspace Hosting, Inc. since June 1, 2017. Prior to joining Rackspace, Mr. Meredith served as the President of global data centers at CenturyLink. He has led international managed hosting businesses in roles including senior manager, president, Chief Executive Officer and board director. His experience spans a range of industry verticals from venture-backed firms such as NeuPals in China to business units of large public companies such as Capital One, CGI and VeriSign. He served as Senior Vice President and Global General Manager for Technology Solutions at CenturyLink, Inc. As an industry thought leader, he has provided insights for leading media outlets such as BusinessWeek, USA Today and The Washington Post. CIO Magazine, Wireless Week and The Huffington Post have published his articles. He has spoken on industry topics for NBC’s Carson Daly Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, Seoul Broadcasting System, PBS’ Nightly Business Report and at analyst forums such as Gartner, Bloomberg, Yankee and Cantor Fitzgerald. In December 2016, the respected Uptime Institute recognized his contributions to the Industry by selecting him for their Change Leader Award. He was named “Top 40 under 40 – Best and Brightest Leaders” by Georgia Trend Magazine in 2008. Mr. Meredith graduated with honors from James Madison University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance and he earned a Masters in IT management from the University of Virginia, where he serves on the UVA advisory board.Bill PalatucciBill Palatucci is one of the state’s most prominent and widely respected attorneys, with a reputation for strategic planning and advice regarding complex public policy and communications initiatives. He has been named among NJBIZ’s “100 Most Powerful People in New Jersey Business” every year that the issue has been published.Most recently, following the Republican National Convention through Election Day, Mr. Palatucci served as General Counsel to the Presidential Transition Committee of President Donald J. Trump. In this role, he was responsible for all legal matters related to ethics compliance and contracts and agreements between such agencies as the U.S. Department of Justice, General Services Administration, and the White House. Mr. Palatucci coordinated extensively with internal and external members assisting the transition, providing all necessary legal advice and guidance to facilitate the Transition Committee’s interactions with the Trump-Pence campaign, federal departments and agencies, local, state, and federal officials, think tanks, outside experts and consultants, and various other entities and individuals with whom the Transition Committee engaged with during the pre-Election Day time period.Mr. Palatucci also served as General Counsel to Governor Christie’s presidential campaign. In 2013, he served as Chairman of the Governor’s reelection campaign and as Co-Chair for the Governor’s Inaugural Committee.In 2010, Mr. Palatucci was elected the Republican National Committeeman for New Jersey, and, for the past 30 years, he has had a hand in some of the most important state and federal elections in New Jersey. Over this time, he has led the reelection campaigns of President Ronald Reagan, President George H. W. Bush, and Governor Tom Kean, and he served as a senior advisor to Governor George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000. Mr. Palatucci was also the principal consultant for Christine Todd Whitman’s run for the U.S. Senate in 1990.Amb R. James WoolseyAmbassador R. James Woolsey was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1993 to 1995. He’s been appointed by Presidents to positions of leadership during the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. In a town riven by partisan divisions, Ambassador Woolsey is widely respected on both sides of the aisle.A national security and energy specialist, he is the Chancellor of the Institute of World Politics and Chair of the Leadership Council of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Chairs the United States Energy Security Council. He is also a Venture Partner with Lux Capital and chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of the Paladin Capital Group, a multi-stage private equity firm.He is a frequent contributor of articles to major publications, and gives public speeches and media interviews on the subjects of energy, foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence.This just a partial list of the high powered personnel sources I have used. Mills himself is just one of the thousands involved so far.

THANKSGIVING CELEBRATES A MASSACRE! STUFFING IS GENOCIDE!The particular lie I wish to examine may not be the biggest in and of itself, but it’s an especially persistent one of a very common type (one of my favorites is the “Jesuit Blood Oath,” but one lie at a time).Many of those who attempt to debunk generally accepted history (the historical facts as well as the interpretation of those facts) strike the pose of skeptical and critical thinkers even though they’re merely parroting bunk that they’ve swallowed whole: that it fits their weltanschauung is apparently all the proof they require (I think the kids call this “confirmation bias”).An example of this is the claim the first “Thanksgiving" (with a capital “T,” immediately implying a false link to the modern holiday that’s generally more trouble than it’s worth) was in commemoration of the Mystic Massacre in the Pequot War and that every thanksgiving in the 13 colonies for the next 100 years, as well as the modern Thanksgiving holiday, are also in commemoration of said 1637 massacre.A large problem with this claim is that those making it seem to misunderstand the notion of “thanksgiving.” Devout Christians used to be (and maybe some still are) absolutely nuts about giving thanks to their God (“giving thanks…thanksgiving,” get it?). Reading through the rather small amount of extant contemporary documentation of the early Colonial period of what would become the U.S. of A., we find mention of prayers of thanks being given to God. Every mass, including those of the Anglican Church (since this all about the Anglos, right?), is a thanksgiving (among other things) unto God for…well, whatever it is that the attendees are supposed to be thankful.And officially sanctioned (by church or civil leaders) “days of thanksgiving” were not uncommon occurrences among the English settlers in the Colonial era of the United States: they pronounced them before they ever got to the U.S. and started buying land from the locals, which is of course the start of all the drama.(The holding of land in perpetuity seems to have been an alien notion to the locals, a likelihood that some extreme apologists for the English and other European settlers ignore, just as the good faith attempt to purchase the land from the locals tends to be ignored by the extreme demonizers of the European settlers. I’ll try to steer my opinion-micating towards the center as much as I can, with the caveat that this is not supposed to be an apologia for the Mystic Massacre, nor of any other acts carried out against or by any Native Americans: I am talking about “just the facts, ma’am.”)BEFORE THE INTERNET: “MY RESEARCH IS AUTHENTIC…IT IS FIRST HAND. IT IS NOT HEARSAY.”Spoiler alert: It’s hearsay.We could start in 1933 (see the appendix if you care), but we’ll start with a 1977 UPI story that Newspapers.com shows was picked up by newspapers throughout the U.S. (including the Boston Globe, though they didn’t write it up until a year later, nonetheless still giving William B. Newell’s age as 84).Here’s the version that appeared in Montana’s Billings Gazette of November 24, 1977:INDIAN ISLAND, Maine (UPI) — The first official Thanksgiving wasn't a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children, an anthropologist says.Due to age and illness, his voice cracks as he talks about the holiday, but William B. Newell, 84, speaks with force as he discusses Thanksgiving."Thanksgiving Day was first officially proclaimed by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men, women and children who were celebrating their annual green corn dance—Thanksgiving Day to them—in their own house," Newell said in a recent interview."Gathered in this place of meeting they were attacked by mercenaries and English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building," he said.He based his research on studies of the Holland Documents and the 13-volume Colonial Documentary History, both thick sets of letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king in England, and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s."My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay.”Newell, a Penobscot Indian, lives on a reservation near Old Town. He has degrees from Syracuse and the University of Pennsylvania and is listed in two regional editions of Who’s Who.He’s a former chairman of the University of Connecticut anthropology department and has advised museums on primitive art.Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the Indians at what is now Groton, Connecticut rather than a celebration with them.“The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day, thanking God that they had eliminated those 700 men, women, and children, that they had wiped out the Pequots.“For the next 100 years every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor or president was to honor a bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won,” he said.He said the image of Indians and Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was “fictitious," although Indians did share food with the first settlers.Note that Newell does not present the documentary evidence nor give adequate citations to check it: he only claims that it exists somewhere in the midst of a large body of material. This is, in fact…(drum roll)…hearsay!II. “IT IS DOCUMENTARY”Spoiler alert: It is not documentary, it is fabricated.Although the article does not give sufficient information about Newell’s sources to locate the alleged evidence that would support his “first Thanksgiving” claims, it turns out that it’s unnecessary to wade through daunting mountains of material in search of those nuggets, as the “sources” are irrelevant or possibly nonexistent:SOURCE 1: “the Holland Documents”If this refers to a published work, it would seem to refer to Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, Procured in Holland, England and France by John Romeyn Brodhead (O’Callaghan, E., editor and translator, Weed, Parsons & Co., Albany,1856). Although that seems the work that most closely fits the bill, none of the four documents from 1637 (the year of the Mystic Massacre and the supposed “first Thanksgiving”) mention the war between the English settlers and the Pequots nor Thanksgiving. In fact, only one of them dates from after the Mystic Massacre (p. 104):“September 2. Resolution of the States General to commission William Kiest, Director of New Netherland.”If, on the other hand, “Holland Documents” is supposed to indicate some loose Dutch documents that didn’t make it into that volume, it’s worth repeating from the introduction of the book that, with a few exceptions, “none of the records from Director Minuit’s administration, from 1633 to 1638, nor of director Van Twiller’s, from 1633 to 1638, have been preserved.”Perhaps Mr. Newell picked up some long lost Dutch documents at a church jumble sale and, as any true scholar would do, decided to refer to their contents while otherwise keeping their existence a secret to maximize his credibility. (I’M BEING SARCASTIC.)SOURCE 2: “13 Volume Colonial Documentary History”I can find no reference to any work with anything close to the rather prosaic, if not downright generic, title "Colonial Documentary History" other than in the internet scribbling parroting Newell’s claims. If anyone can help me out here, I’d be greatly appreciative, but it seems as though it wouldn’t be out of character for Newell to have severely misrepresented, or even fabricated a source.SOURCE 3: “Private Papers of Sir William Johnson”Sir William Johnson was indeed appointed British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but not in the “mid-1600’s”: he was appointed in 1756; having been born in England around 1715, almost 80 years after the Pequot War and subsequent day of thanksgiving for its conclusion. He didn’t even arrive in the Colonies until 1738, so he would have missed every single one of the100 years of subsequent Mystic Massacre Thanksgiving celebrations supposedly ordained by governors and presidents, though he probably wouldn’t have noticed them any way, since he was in New York.(And just what “presidents” are supposed to have ordained anyThanksgivings from 1638 to 1737?)III. HOW MANY FIRST THANKSGIVINGS WERE THERE, ANYWAY?Even with the extant records as spotty as they are, there are enough pre-Mystic Massacre thanksgivings that you will probably get bored reading about them and skip ahead if you don’t just give up on reading this post altogether.Since it’s all about the dastardly Anglos, we’ll discount the relevance of claims of French and Spanish “thanksgivings” in the territory that is now the U.S.A. (e.g., the 1541 mass performed in Palo Duro Canyon by Father Fray Juan de Padillo of the Coronado expedition). (What, you’re going to go to Mobile, Alabama for Mardi Gras, like a shmuck?)As mentioned, thanksgiving observances (as well as their counterparts, days of humiliation and of fasting) were a regular part of the religious lives of both Separatists (Plymouth Colony) and Puritans (the later Massachusetts Bay Colony) before, as well as after, they arrived in the English colonies of the New World.Extant records of the early Colonial Period are scant, so we have no way of knowing when and where all of them were observed. Wikipedia claims that "Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607," giving Ann Morill's book Thanksgiving and Other Harvest Festivals as the source of the information. I haven’t read the book, so I don't know what sources she cites and am therefore in no position to weigh in on this claim, though it hardly matters given the number of other easily verifiable thanksgivings prior to the 1637 thanksgiving (that which Newell claimed to have been the first).A 1619 thanksgiving was observed on the occasion of a group of English settlers arriving in Virginia on the Margaret from Bristol, in accordance with the directions from the journey's underwriters to Captain Woodleaf. Especially of interest is that, unlike every other thanksgiving of the era (nb), it was supposed to be observed annually thereafter:"wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perputually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god."(1)The annual observance of this day of thanksgiving in Berkeley Hundred only lasted a few years owing to a disruption in the settlement by the Powhatan Confederacy (this disruption was also known as “The Indian massacre of 1622”). The observance was more or less revived in 1958 according to an article in the Washingtonian by Matt Ditz.(2)There's no extant indication that the 1621 feast by Pilgrims and Indians at Plymouths (which wasn’t even promoted as a precursor to the modern Thanksgiving holiday until the 19th Century, but let’s leave that alone for the moment) was declared a day of thanksgiving by any authorities, civil or ecclesiastical. This has allowed great latitude for those (and they seem to be legion) who want to argue about where (and whether) it qualifies in the chronology of New World thanksgivings, and is also the reason why poorly-researched articles “debunking” the “first Thanksgiving,” with or without specific reference to Newell’s claims, will probably continue to multiply (because that’s what the Internet does).Be that is it may, William Bradford's journal (eventually published in the mid-19th century as (History) of Plymouth Plantation) states that in 1623, heat and drought from the third week in May to the middle of July prompted "a solemne day of humilliation, to seek ye Lord by humble & fervente prayer, in this great distress." The "gracious and speedy answer, both to their owne, & the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them," of evening showers "without either wind, or thunder, or any violence...caused a fruitfull & liberall harvest, to their no small comforte and rejoycing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiveing.”(3)[Incidentally, this is the "Free Enterprise First Thanksgiving" that has become a contentious conservative counterweight to the Mystic Massacre/Pequot War First Thanksgiving claim; I think that anyone reading Bradford would have to admit that the promoters of the ”Free Enterprise Thanksgiving" are essentially correct in the main thrust of their claim, contrary to the fuzzy editorial naysaying of various media, including the NY Times (oh, how the mighty have fallen!), even if those promoters play more than a little loose with the facts.][Bradford clearly believed that the colony’s abandonment of collectivism and parceling out of land was a crucial component to the success of that year’s harvest, but it was the also crucial favorable weather—being outside the control of humans, clearly the bailiwick of their God—for which thanks to that supernatural being were being given.][Some of the “Free Enterprise Thanksgiving” promoters have resorted to fabricated proclamations, which demonstrates that neither of the farther ends of the political spectrum has a franchise on fabrication.]N.b. that this 1623 “thanksgiveing” predates the Mystic Massacre, supposed impetus for the “first Thanksgiving,” by 14 years.Bradford briefly mentions the 1621 feast, though he makes no mention of “thanksgiving” in relation to it.Nonetheless, at least one late 19th Century edition indexes that passage as “First Thanksgiving,” most likely thanks to the popularity of Jane Austin(4)’s 1890 novel Standish of Standish— a formative part of the process that eventually made the Pilgrims and Indians into prominent symbols of the modern Thanksgiving holiday, which is what makes any negative feelings of Native Americans about Thanksgiving relevant, though the righteousness of any resentment tends to be be diluted when backed up by different baloney, such as Newell’s claims.Bradford’s journal also mentions the Pequot War, including 1637’s Mystic Massacre, but without mention of any thanksgiving for the campaign that included the Mystic Massacre nor for the conclusion of the Pequot War. In fact, the only one other mention of a designated thanksgiving/thanksgiveing/thanks-giving observance other than the “Free Enterprise Thanksgiving” I’ve found in the entirety of his journal appears in a letter from John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (see below) that Bradford includes, noting the June 19, 1633 thanksgiving on Massachusetts Bay Colony caused by Christopher Gardener(5), an alleged adulterer and…gasp! choke! Roman Catholic.The single mention Bradford makes of thanksgiving observances in Plymouth Colony from 1620-1648 perhaps demonstrates how rare they were in the Plymouth, as opposed to other colonies, or might indicate that he didn’t consider thanksgivings especially noteworthy in and of themselves, which may have been indicative of the general attitude of the Plymouth Colony.Having established a verifiable, “official” thanksgiving in New England (Plymouth, no less) in 1623, let’s move forward to the establishment off the Massachusetts Bay Colony (especially pertinent since it was their soldiers were involved in the Mystic Massacre, despite claims of Plymouth Colony and Dutch involvement by SJWs garbling their copypasta).John Winthrop was Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for twelve of the years from 1630 and 1649 (he was appointed in 1629 while in England, but did not arrive in the colony until 1630). In his journal, which was eventually published as The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, he records a number of thanksgivings in that colony from the time off his arrival.(6)July, 8. 1630: “We kept a day of thanksgiving in all the plantations.”February 22, 1631: “We held a day of thanksgiving for this ship[the Ambrose]’s arrival, by order from the governor and coincil, directed to all the plantations”November 11, 1631: “We kept a day of thanksgiving at Boston.”Jun 13, 1632: “A day of thanksgiving in all the plantations, by public authority, for the good success of the king of Sweden, and Protestants in Germany, against the emperor, etc., and for the safe arrival of all the ships, they having not lost one person, nor one sick among them.”September 27, 1632: “A day of thanksgiving at Boston for the good news of the prosperous success of the king of Sweden, etc.,' and for the safe arrival of the last ship and all the passengers, etc.”June 19, 1633: “A day of thanksgiving was kept in all the congregations, for our delivery from the plots of our enemies(7), and for the safe arrival of our friends, etc.”August 4 of 1634: “At the court, the new town at Agawam was named Ipswich, in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to our people which took shipping there, etc.; and a day of thanksgiving appointed, a fortnight after, for the prosperous arrival of the others, etc.”Moving ahead to the Pequot War, there was indeed (and unsurprisingly) a day of thanksgiving declared after the successful (from the English perspective) attack on the Pequot fort at Mystic on May 26, 1637:June 15, 1637: “There was a day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for the victory obtained against the Pequods, and for other mercies.”Winthrop also noted the thanksgiving for the successful conclusion of the war:October 12, 1637: “A day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for our victories against the Pequods, and for the success of the assembly; but, by reason of this latter, some of Boston would not be present at the public exercises.”These are both also noted in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. The thanksgiving after the campaign that included the Mystic Massacre:At “A Quarter Court, houlden at Boston,the 6th Day of the 4th Mo, @1637” [June 6 (8)], tucked in among tidbits such as the relation of John Sweete being punished for shooting Colonel Endecots “woolfe dog,” Edward Seale being sentenced to the whip for “beastly drunkennes,” and “Willi: Baulston being “licensed to keep a house of intertainment” at which he could sell “claret and white wine as is sent for,”“The 5th day of the next weeke, being the 15th of this month, was appointed to be kept a day of thanksgiveing in the several churches/“(9)Note that the Mystic Massacre took place on May 27,1637; it was decided on June 6 to hold a day of thanksgiving on June 15. So much for Newell’s claim that,”The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day, thanking God that they had eliminated those 700 men, women, and children, that they had wiped out the Pequots.”]Also, The Pequot War was also not yet over: mention is made of another proposed thanksgiving in regard to the Pequot War is noted twice in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England:“Gen: Court, by Adiornmt from 3: 17:, the First of the 6xt Mo, called August, 1637(10)… The Court did intreat the magistrats to treat with the elders about a day of thanksgiveing upon the returne of the souldiers, & the souldiers to bee feasted by the Townes” (11)Perhaps no further mention appears in the civil records because it was left up to the church’s elders. Be that as it may, the other thanksgiving that Winthrop noted in regard to the Pequot War appears in the record of “the General Courte, holden at Newetowne, the 26th of the 7th Mo (12), @1637”:“The 12th of the 8th m. (13) was ordered to bee kept a day of publicke thanksgiving to God for his great m'cies in subdewing the Pecoits, bringing the soldiers in safety, the successe of the conference, & good news from Germany.” (14)As far as I can ascertain, there’s no record or any credible indication anywhere of it being made a permanent and annually observed holiday, nor of any law being based to codify the thanksgiving, as later bunk-spreaders have felt free to claim.Given the stridency of Newell’s claim, it’s worth noting that neither account of the October thanksgiving gives the occasion of victory in the Pequot War as the sole reason for the thanksgiving ; the “assembly” to which Winthrop refers is the Synod convened at Newton on August 30 to deal with the issues occasioned by Anne Hutchinson’s unorthodox teachings - but I digress.IV. THE GREEN CORN FESTIVALHow to have a Green Corn Dance without any corn.Newell’s claim that the Pequots were “celebrating their annual green corn dance—Thanksgiving Day to them—in their own house," adds a dash of diabolical irony to the notion that Thanksgiving Day commemorates the Mystic Massacre. For some subsequent self-styled “authorities” (i.e., people who saw something on the Internet and repeated it) this has morphed into the notion that the concept of thanksgiving was stolen by the Anglos when they massacred the Pequots, despite the fact that the English, among other post-Colombian arrivals, were just as familiar with the notion of thanking supernatural beings for boons received.The Green Corn Dance/Ceremony/Festival is observed by various Native American groups and, as one might guess from the name, is a “first fruits” observance. May 26 is rather early for such an observance in what is now Connecticut, where the early harvest of sweet corn is approximately July 15, according to the Connecticut Harvest Calendar(15).For what it’s worth, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation held their 27th annual revived Feast of Green Corn and Dance (Schemitzun) on August 25 and 26 this year, two months after May 26. (Maybe global warming is causing later harvest dates than in 1637 or something: you tell me.)As Newell states in the introduction to his book, Crime and Justice Among the Iroquois Nations (16), “Since there were no Indian historians we only have one side of the story.”None of the extant sources of that said mention the Green Corn Dance or any other festival taking place at the Pequot fort at Mystic, so the only source for the claim that a Green Corn Dance was taking place at the Mystic fort when the English attacked seems to be Newell’s imagination.Some of who have followed in his footsteps have felt appropriately free to interject their own imaginary details, as shall be seen.V. THE INTERNET GIVES HOKUM A NEW LEASE ON LIFEA compact version of the UPI story from 1977 appeared a few years later in the Akwesasne Notes newspaper (Vol. 12 Number. 3, Late Summer Issue, August 1980, page 16’s “Short Notes,” under the title “THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE.”This was posted verbatim (outside of a few typos) on “The People’s Paths” website (17) with the addition of some additional information on the Mystic Massacre (note that Newell did not specifically state that he was talking about the Mystic Massacre, so the author seems to have been the first to figure out that it was the only historical event to which Newell could have been referring), with the incorrect claim that it was witnessed by “William Branford” (sic).Mention is then made of the Jamestown Colony and Powhatan, concluding:“The Jamestown Colony may be the source for the tradition of Indians under the leadership of Powhaton joining with early settlers for a dinner and helping those settlers through the winter. There were no pilgrims of puritans at Jamestown, however. The present Thanksgiving may therefore be a mixture of the tradition of the Jamestown dinner and the commemoration of the Pequot massacre. The celebration of Thanksgiving as an official holiday possibly roots in the Pequot massacre, while the imagery is of Jamestown with pilgrims, images misused.”[Note that this “possibly”—with no indication of how possible it is, nor why—eventually becomes “certainly” in subsequent Internet-erations.]The post carries the byline: "Research compiled, October 19, 1990 by Johyn Westcott and Paul Apidaca.”André Cramblit, who posted the article on The People’s Paths website (and whose name is frequently linked with repostings of it), doesn’t recall when he did so but told me that it “was just an article I found on the web and shared.”The earliest version of the People’s Paths website captured by the Internet Archives was from 2000, and the first version with “THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE” was captured in February of 2001.Assuming that the 1990 copyright date is correct (though there seems no reason to assume that it is), the source would have been a print article somewhere (since 1990 was a year before the world wide web) that someone posted (making a few uncorrected typos in the process), perhaps on a website that’s now defunct, that Mr. Crambit saw and reposted as an item of interest.Paul “Apidaca” probably refers to Dr. Paul Apodaca, an Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies who specializes in Folkore, Mythology, American Indian studies and California, Southwestern and Mexican culture. He has no recollection of Newell’s claims or the 28 year old article that made its way to the People’s Path website 17 or more years ago, but has known John (not “Johyn”) Westcott, for many years and hazarded a guess that it might have been primarily Mr. Westcott’s work and that his [Dr. Apodaca’s] credit might have been given from advising Westcott in some capacity.In the course of a genial and stimulating conversation, Dr. Apodaca related a concise history of thanksgiving/Thanksgiving as he teaches it, with appropriate emphasis rather than overreaching claims placed on the Pequot War and King Philip’s War (a later conflict which was apparently supposed to have prompted “THE FIRST THANKSGIVING” before Newell’s claims that the earlier Mystic Massacre prompted “THE FIRST THANKSGIVING”: see two paragraphs below).There are a number of entries on Native American websites that repeat Newell’s claims. This is not surprising, since many of these sites seem to exist for any authorized person to post whatever they like, being more akin to 4 Chan than peer-reviewed studies: as mentioned, the ““THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE” article pops up pretty frequently among them, as well as other miscellaneous nooks and crannies of the Internet.A noteworthy post on Native American sites that exists apart from this stream of buncombe is Karen Nelte's "History of the Modern American Thanksgiving" (History of the Modern American Thanksgiving) from 2001, which is a soundly researched examination of the development of “thanksgiving” into “Thanksgiving” (and would have saved me a lot of search time had I discovered it earlier).It contains the statement that she's seen "many descriptions of Thanksgiving that both claim that it was started by the Pilgrims in 1621 who were on friendly terms with the Wampanoag, and together with this talk of peace and friendship, quote the 1676 proclamation of thanks for victory in King Philip's War and claim that proclamation as the first Thanksgiving proclamation." Since the Pequot War predated King Philip’s war, the unblinking acceptance of Newell’s claims have apparently made King’s Philip’s War’s an also-ran in the revisionist “First Thanksgiving” sweepstakes.By early 2003, the Journal of History website (which has been in operation since at least 2000) posted the UPI story as it appeared in one or more of the original newspaper editions , apparently as part of posting the entire Fall 2002 print version of the JOH (18), and states that they copied it from Healing Global Wounds (19), Fall, 1996, which was a reprint from the Community Endeavor News (20), November, 1995.[Incidentally, the table of contents for this Fall 2002 issue of the Journal of History is worth a peek, as it shows that Editor-in-Chief Arlene Johnson was not a fan of the mundane: other articles include "Bush's Satanic Worship Winter Solstice-Sedalia, Colorado By Stew Webb" and "Illuminati Defector Details Pervasive Conspiracy: Satanic Cult Plans 'Fourth Reich' By Henry Makow, Ph.D.”]VI. THE DANGERS OF UNDERGRADS DOING RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET“Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre: Is All That Turkey and Stuffing a Celebration of Genocide?”, credited to “Laura Elliff, Vice President, Native American Student Association”(21) was published on November 20, 2002 and made its way to the world wide web in July of the next year (22).She seems to have drawn from the source of the “Thanksgiving Day Celebrates A Massacre” post on The People’s Path, or from that post itself. There are a few differences: she seems to be the first to change “mercenaries and English and Dutch,” where “mercenaries” presumably refers to the Native Americans who were enemies of the Pequots and came along because ti was the only action that Friday night (I have been unable to verify whether they were paid and it doesn’t mater much to me, but according to Bradford they mocked the Pequots as they burned, something that seems to get left out of the recounting of those who wish to only use broad strokes in their rendering of history) to “mercenaries of the English and Dutch,” the meaning of which is clearly open to interpretation.Very significantly, she’s the first writer I’ve found to specifically state what Newell hinted: “It was signed into law that, ‘This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.’” Subsequent writers have felt free to invent and quote from their own proclamations, some of them in rather comic Ye Olde Englishe.Elliff is clearly passionate, but her passion leads her to impetuous implications and haphazard reasoning.(I’m more than willing to cut her an appropriate amount of slack for her confusing the simulation of critical thinking with actual critical thinking, as she was an undergraduate at the time—sophomores are allowed to be sophomoric—and I assume that this piece was not submitted for academic credit. My attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful, not that it really matters since she’s likely to not recall much about something she wrote in college 16 years ago.)Here is a substantial portion of her piece in bold, with my comments both bracketed and italicized to minimize confusion. (The whole article can be easily found on a number of current sites by searching for “Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre”).The reason why we have so many myths about Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition.[ALL traditions are invented, even if you believe they started with a burning bush named “I am that I am,” or a Man Called Horse With No Name for that matter: it’s not as though any of them existed before human consciousness and we just discovered that they existed as “traditions,” unless you want to claim that natural phenomena such as seasons and the migration of birds are “traditions.” I would also contend that her glib analysis of cause and effect is erroneous. While traditions, “invented” or otherwise, can help create myths, they do not necessarily do so: myths can also cause traditions.]It is based more on fiction than fact.[So the author writes before delving into fiction—very nice.]So, what truth ought to be taught?[I’d suggest, for starters, not teaching fiction as “fact.”]In 1637, the official Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence.[This, as previously demonstrated, is a falsehood: stating it matter-of-factly doies not transmute it into “fact.”](Some people argue it formally came into existence during the Civil War, in 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed it,[Starting a tradition which every subsequent president of the U.S. followed until FDR established Thanksgiving as an annual, national holiday in 1941. Despite this clear evidence, it’s implied that anyone who maintains this is merely “arguing” against the baseless claim that “In 1637, the Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence.”]which also was the same year he had 38 Sioux hung on Christmas Eve.[The execution to which she refers actually took place on December 26 of 1862, which (do the math!) was the prior year. It would still be an irrelevant rebuttal to Lincoln’s proclamation of a national, rather than localized, Thanksgiving Day even if there was, as seems to be implied, some sort of connection between the two events.][And while Lincoln, as Commander in Chief, can certainly be said to be ultimately “responsible” for the mass execution, but the phrasing in the article implies that he personally ordered it. This makes it worth noting that Lincoln actually commuted the death sentences of 264 of the prisoners who’d been convicted and sentenced in the military tribunal that acted as a kangaroo court after the conclusion of the Dakota War.]William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children." In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."[None of the original articles about Newell’s claims that I’ve been able to find include this supposed quote from the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (Winthrop) nor the quote of the supposed law that was signed by unspecified parties, nor have I encountered them anywhere else other than in reiterations of Eliff’s article.]Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the "Thanksgiving dinner" was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.[It’s not clear how she come to these “true” conclusions; the former is an opinion for which a substantial argument might be made, but the latter is pretty squirrelly: does she really think that the Mystic Massacre would be better remembered if not for the marketing off the Pilgrim and Indian First Thanksgiving Feast?]Was Thanksgiving really a massacre of 700 “Indians"?[This rhetorical question doesn’t make any sense, so I’m not sure what the author is trying to say: a thanksgiving declared for something is not the same as the thing itself.]The present Thanksgiving may be a mixture of the 1621 three-day feast and the "Thanksgiving" proclaimed after the 1637 Pequot massacre.[Ummm…yeah, I suppose it “may,” despite the lack of evidence that the thanksgiving proclaimed after the Mystic Massacre has much of anything to do with the modern holiday. (Similarly, I “may” be the King of Sweden). However, since the first Presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving to mention the Pilgrims came from Herbert Hoover, it would be a hard argument to make.]Although the Independent Media Center/Progressive Activism in Bloomington-Normal website is defunct [still viewable via the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine”], this seems to have been the ur-source of many copied versions of Elliff’s article that have given Newell’s claims a new lease on life.In 2005, Elliff’s article was reposted on the Milfuegos blog (23).On November 26, 2008, it was posted on “Circle of 13: Recommended daily allowance of insanity, under-reported news and uncensored opinion dismantling the propaganda matrix.” (24)November 22, 2009, saw it pop up on the Republic of Lakotah website(25), which is frequently credited as the source by subsequent copypasta chefs, such as ace reporter Maddie Diemert of the Minnesota State University, who cites that version in her 2017 “breaking news” version of Newell’s then 40-year-old fabrication of “the REAL first Thanksgiving"(26).Among other apparent uses of Elliff’s article as a source is a passionate screed by Glen Ford (not to be confused with Glenn Ford of The Big Heat fame any more than Jane Austin is to be confused with Jane Austen) entitled “No More American Thanksgivings” that appears on the Black Agenda Report website (27) and is dated November 23, 2016, but which originally appeared in the November 23, 2003 (funny how this Thanksgiving origin scholarship seems to be seasonal) issue of Ford’s Black Commentator. In it, the error of Bradford being present at the Mystic Massacre from “Thanksgiving Celebrates a Massacre” is repeated (a minor error, but one which makes tracing the vector of disinformation easier) as well as the statement, “‘This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,’ read Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic Thanksgiving Day was born,” in which the wording of the Governor’s supposed proclamation mirrors Elliff's (Ford also mentions the Independent Media Center as a source for another bit of information he tosses out in his wake.)S. Brian Wilson’s blog entry for November 21, 2012, “The Defining and Enabling Experience of Our “Civilization” — Genocide and THE THANKSGIVING MYTH” (28) is ”slightly edited version of essay originally published November 2005,” which repeats both the Bradford as eyewitness mistake and the fabricated Winthrop proclamation.VII. TAKING IT TO THAT NEXT LEVELWhether she was building on Elliff or someone else, Susan Bates outdid everybody, including Newell, in her oft-reproduced post “THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING,” which the Internet Archive captured in February 2004 on the Manataka Amewrican Indian Council website(29). She claims that not only was the Mystic Massacre the occasion. for the First Thanksgiving, but that annually observed thanksgivings were declared after “every successful massacre” until the thanksgiving calendar was so full that apparently no one was working and Washington finally condensed them all to one Thanksgiving (for Indian Massacres) Day:“Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.“The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre.”In addition to her other historical confusion, Ms. Bates seems to have confused the head of the chief of the Pequots, Sassacus, which was delivered to the English by the Mohawks with whom Sassacus had sought refuge, with the head of Metacomet (a.k.a. King Philip), which was indeed removed from his corpse and displayed on a post at the entrance to Plymouth at the conclusion of King Philip’s War almost forty years later, in 1676. (For what it’s worth, this was not some special barbarity that the English Colonists were practicing on the Natives, as decapitated heads of convicted traitors were still displayed on London Bridge at the time)As for miscellaneous decapitated heads being used for footy, this seems to be the product of her imagination rather than her confusion.VIII. I READ IT ON THE INTERNET, SO IT MUST BE TRUEIn 2008, the broken mystic blog(30) claimed, “it is strongly argued by many historians that the Pequot Massacre led to the “Thanksgiving” festivities.” As evidence for this, a link is provided to someone’s regurgitation the Elliff piece with some additional junk found on the Internet thrown in(31), none of it any kind of argument by any kind of historian that the Pequot Massacre led to modern Thanksgiving festivities.“Should We Rename Thanksgiving ‘National Ethnic Cleansing Day’?” pondered Christopher Moraff on the PhillyMag website in 2012 (32) in a piece that repeats Newell’s claim (without crediting him) of the first Thanksgiving being in honor of the Mystic Massacre and claimed that, “For decades after the Pequot Massacre, annual religious ceremonies and thanksgiving fast days were dedicated to its memory.”In 2013, the Huffington Post site posted Nicole Breedlove’s “Happy National Genocide (Thanksgiving) Day!”, updating it in 2014 (33), wherein she states,“The New York City public education system told me what Thanksgiving was all about. I was very careful to regurgitate what they taught me when tested so I wouldn’t get a failing grade.” Then she gives a very abbreviated but nonehteless garbled version of the Pequot War before regurgitating the UPI Newell story. (The 2013 version had a link to Elliff’s piece on the Republic of Lakotah website.)The cherry on top is her statement, “I am very thankful, pun intended, that I learned about the origins of this holiday. It is a reminder that history can be rewritten and if told enough times eventually becomes the truth!”And thanks for contributing to that process, Ms. Breedlove!I haven’t seen anything substantially new or different on subsequent regurgitations on various blogs, tweets, but a completely unverified claim that appeared in newspapers 40 years ago is still going strong, with additional misinformation that it’s accumulated along the way, all thanks to the Internet!To end on an upbeat note, I’d like to quote from John Two-Hawks post on the Native Circle site that repeats Newell’s claim and a lot of others that have accumulated around it, but concludes with, “Let us face the truths of the past, and give thanks that we are learning to love one another for the rich human diversity we share.”(34)Attempting to abide by such a sentiment is much more worthwhile (and difficult) than reading (or misreading) history merely as a means of assuring oneself of one’s own righteousness and others lack thereof. Disagree if you like.APPENDIX: WHO WAS WILLIAM B. NEWELL, ANYWAY?The telephone tree branching out from UPI feed has inspired so much additional b.s., especially on the Internet, that some have questioned the accuracy of William B. Newell stated credentials, his tribal affiliation (if any), and even if was a real person.None of which really has any bearing on the veracity, or lack thereof, to the claim that Thanksgiving Day is a more or less direct outgrowth of the Mystic Massacre, which is why I’m appending this to the main portion of my post.William Benjamin Newell was born December 17 of 1892 in Boston and was also known as “Rolling Thunder II”(35) (although by the time he started popping up in various newspapers in relation to his lectures or press announcements, he was often noted as being known as “Rolling Thunder”).He was the son of Penobscot Louis Belmont Newell (a.k.a. Chief Rolling Thunder, leader of the “Kiowa Indian Medicine Company traveling Medicine and Wild West Show”)(36) and full-blooded Iroquois Louisa Stump (“an expert shot and traveled with the Kiowa Medicine Company for a time” and called “the Prairie Flower” by Buffalo Bill Cody (37)—sorry for the digression, but this minutiae is rather more interesting to me than much of the significant history that people insist on getting wrong anyway).Louis Belmont Newell “claimed that his mother was a Kiowa Indian, then that his father was Kiowa, but at other times he claimed only to have been adopted by the Kiowa…As to him or his parents being born in North Dakota, this was probably just good PR to promote himself to the public as Kiowa. To friends in New York, he spoke of his father as a Penobscot guide on Moosehead Lake in Maine. There is no evidence to date to indicate that either parent was anything other than a Penobscot from Maine.”(38)One especially skeptical soul commented that William Benjamin Newell was stated to be a Penobscot in the widely regurgitated Mystic Massacre Thanksgiving piece but claimed to be a Mohawk elsewhere (as he does in his book: “Wiliam B. Newell, TA-IO-WAH-RON-HA-GAI (Mohawk Band Number 15794) If I understand correctly (from Mr. Newell’s book(39), in fact), tribal affiliation among the Iroquois is matrilineal, so despite Newell’s father being a Penobscot, he would be eligible for enrollment as a Mohawk, (who were part of the Iroquois Confederacy) rather than Penobscot. (If I’m wrong, someone please tell me.)As for the claim in a December 5, 1937 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle(40) and elsewhere that Newell was “born of a full-blooded Kiowa father and Iriquois mother,” he may well have been confused the conflicting claims that father Louis Belmont left behind when he married another woman not long after Louis Benjamin’s birth.In regards to the claim of William Benjamin’s Penobscot affiliation in the 1977 UPI story, perhaps since he was at the time staying on the Penobscot reservation on Indian Island, Maine, for whatever reason (most likely familial, as there is a long history of Newells there), it was less complicated for him to identify as a Penobscot there. Or something.Newell seems to have knowingly misrepresented his academic credentials, however, beyond the degree of inflation that seems not uncommon to that world.His first teaching position was reportedly at the Fort Trumbull branch of the University of Connecticut, New London, 1946-1949(41). Whoever put together that posthumous Internet CV claims that Newell was the “department chairman sociology and anthropology” there, which may have been an attempt to make sense out of Newell’s claim that he was the chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, as it’s been widely noted on the Internet (and elsewhere) that there was no separate department of anthropology at the U of Connecticut until much later: 1969, in fact.(42)The Fort Trumbull campus in New London, was a temporary, two-year campus that was open September 1946 to June of 1950.(43) It seems doubtful that a satellite campus, and a junior college at that, would have its own department head, or that they would give the position to someone with a Master’s Degree and Newell’s lack of experience if they did.Then again, I can find no reference to department heads at the U of Con ever being referred to as “chairmen” (nor “chairwomen”) so perhaps Newell felt justified in both making up a title and assigning it to himself.In the midst of teaching at the Fort Trumbull satellite campus, he taught at the U of Florida as an associate professor of sociology in 1947 and as a visiting associate professor/acting head department sociology in the summer of 1948.(44) The “acting head” of the sociology department for the summer of 1948 also sounds to me like a self-conferred title, as though he was hired as a visiting associate professor while the usual sociology professor was on vacation and decided that made him the acting head, but that is, of course, conjecture.At any rate, Newell never seems to have been a full-time, tenure track professor, which is the least qualification one would generally expect of an actual head (or “chairman”) of an academic department of a university.Newell became certified as a Florida public school teacher in 1950 and taught at Brandon High School from 1954 to his retirement “on the advice of his doctors” in 1959. (45)In a June 17, 1963, Windsor Star article (datelined Montreal), it’s stated that Newell had “returned to his birthplace” of Caughnawaga, “having retired as a university professor in Tampa.”(46) His aforementioned book, the only publication of the Caughnawaga Historical Society (of which he was the founder and president; he may have been the only member, as far as I know), was copyrighted the next year and published the year after that. For the most part, it’s a credible compilation and analysis of sometimes contradictory second-hand information, though some might be put off by his thesis that civilization causes crime (which is likely to be ridiculously obvious or simply ridiculous, depending on one’s orientation) and his still-slightly ahead of his time Indian Flower Child editorializing.Among his accomplishments in the non-academic world were his service with the 42nd Infantry Division in World War I, missionary work (representing the Presbyterian or Episcopalian Church, depending on the source) to the Seneca Indians on the Cattaraugas Reservation of New York from 1924-1928., and numerous lectures given in museums as well as to meetings of culture clubs, Rotaries, Lions’ Clubs, etc., starting no later than 1926 and going strong at least until 1940.According to contemporary newspapers, his topics included “Indian Problems,” “The Art of the American Indian,” “Indian Plants,” and “The Cultural Influence of the Indian on Modern Life.”UP (before they were UPI) picked up one of his lectures (or the promotion he was giving for one) in 1933 and sent it out, datelined “Philadelphia.” The Daily Notes of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, ran the story under the headline “Modern Social Life Old Stuff for Indians” (used by every other paper that picked up the story) with their own snappy subhead, “Nudism, Companionate Marriage, Plucked Eyebrows are Customs.”It includes:“Thanksgiving Day was celebrated nine times a year among the Indians, Newell asserted, and, contrary to general belief, the first American Thanksgiving Day was an occasion for giving thanks because the Puritans succeeded in setting fire to a log house where 700 Indians were celebrating a Thanksgiving of their own. The Puritans, according to Newell, killed 180 Redmen who tried to escape from the burning building. The others perished in the flames.” (47)So Newell had actually been making this claim in 1933 (or earlier), when it was treated as a mere curiosity. In 1977, it may have (correctly) seemed to him that he could get some more attention out of it by reviving the claim more stridently. Did he even ever believe it to be objectively true, or was he merely exercising a familial penchant for showmanship while championing a cause that was dear to him?I suppose all that can be said for certain is that the nonsense men spread lives after them, as long as the nonsense has the right symbolic resonance.Finally, I’m compelled to say that in the early stages of my research, I regarded William B. Newell as a fairly typical old crank. While researching the man, especially reading the many appearances he made in the press through the years, I have come to appreciate his historical significance, as a link from the era of the Wild West and Indian Medicine shows of his parents to modern Native American activism.Smyth of Nibley papers, NYPL Digital Collections, Copy of Instructions geven to Captayne Woodleefe“The First Thanksgiving Took Place in Virginia, not Massachusetts,” November 18, 2015, The First Thanksgiving Took Place in Virginia, not Massachusetts | WashingtonianBradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 170 (footnote) p. 355, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1898, p. 355An American author, no relation to the co-author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies“Sir Christopher Gardiner, and Thomas Morton, and Philip Ratcliff, (who had been punished here for their misdemeanors,) had petitioned to the king and council against us…accusing us to intend rebellion, to have cast off our allegiance, and to be wholly separate from the church and laws of England; that our ministers and people did continually rail against the state, church, and bishops there, etc.” (Winthrop’s Journal, May 1933)All quotes from Winthrop’s journal are from the an electronic version of the 1908 publication of it, edited by James Kendall Hosmer by Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY: http://www.noblenet.org/salem/reference/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Original-Narratives-of-Early-American-History-Winthrops-Journal-vol.-1.pdfSee note (5)June is called the fourth month because the British officially regarded the year as starting on March from some time in the Twelfth Century until the Calendar Act of 1750, which also (finally) put Britain on the Gregorian calendar, was enacted in 1752. The dates I have provided outside of these two quotes are the Gregorian calendar modern equivalents, as per those given by the editors of the published versions of Winthrop’s journal.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.197-199, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveMeaning the 12th of August. See note 8.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.200 Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveSeptember. See note 8.Meaning the 12th of October. See note 8.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.204. Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveConnecticut Harvest Calendar crop harvest calendarCaughnawaga Historical Society, Montreal, 1965Thanksgiving Day Celebrates A MassacreFrom the Journal of History, Fall 2002, The Journal of HistoryI can find references to anti-nuclear testing protests in the 1990's called "Healing Global Wounds," but no reference to to any newsletter or other publication put out by an affiliated organization. Be that as it may (since not everything is on the Internet, hard as that may be to believe), there may have been some republication of the piece from Community Endeavor (assuming the Journal of History's reference is correct) in some sort of publication. According to the HOME - Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth website (Who We Are), HOME founding member Jennifer O. Viereck was involved with the Healing Global Wounds Alliance, 1991 – 2000. Anyone who cares enough to trace the provenance of this article from its initial appearance to its current lease on life on the Internet should be able to get in touch with her easily enough.According to the Library of Congress, "Community endeavor: planetary news involving personal involvement" was published in Grass Valley, CA from October 1993-September 1997 (for three years prior, it wax published in Nevada City, CA). Also according to the LOC, the Shields Library of UC Davis has copies.(About Community endeavor : planetary news involving personal involvement. [volume] (North San Juan, Calif.) 1989-1997), if anyone wants to put in the extra legwork to expand on this to make a Doctoral Thesis on Vectors of Transmission of Pre-Internet to Internet Folklore or some such. Just send me a copy, please.The Illinois State University NASA, as confirmed by John K. Wilson (see note 21).The first appearance of this article was in The November 20, 2002, issue of the Indy, an independent newspaper for the Bloomington-Normal area put out by a “registered student organization at Illinois State University.” This issue of The Indy was posted on http://indy.pabn.org, the website of the Independent Media Center of the Progressive Activism in Bloomington-Normal, on July 25, 2003 by John K. Wilson, who was also founder and co-editor of the Indy (and is therefore sometimes credited in addition to Laura Elliff in subsequent appearances on the Internet, since apparently almost NOBODY is paying attention to what the hell they’re citing).MilfuegosCooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving MassacreCooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving MassacreA history of ThanksgivingNo More American Thanksgivings | Black Agenda ReportThe Defining and Enabling Experience of Our "Civilization" -- Genocide and THE THANKSGIVING MYTHTHE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVINGThe Truth About Thanksgiving: Brainwashing of the American History TextbookThe Thanksgiving Day Massacre...Or, would you like Turkey with your genocide?The Real History of Thanksgiving / The Philly PostHappy National Genocide (Thanksgiving) Day!First Thanksgiving MythSideshow World, Sideshow Performers, Medicine Show from around the world. For those requiring extra documentation, William B. Newell’s WWI draft registration can be viewed at William Newell Image 1Sideshow World, Sideshow Performers, Medicine Show from around the world.IbidIbidNewell, William B., Crime and Justice Among the Iroquois Nations, Caughnawaga Historical Society, Montreal, 1965. The concluding passage gives a well-executed taste of the editorial flavor of the work: “A study of Iroquoian culture might point the way to the future peace and happiness of the world. If we analyze the present world situation we readily come to the conclusion that the European races and their descendants are even as barbarous, cruel and inhuman as they were when America was first discovered…Modern races are far more blood thirsty than they were 300 years ago. More crime exists, more criminialoids are born every day, the mental capacity of the human race is slowly degenerating. The mad race to nowhere is dangerously near an end.”p. 8A, “Boro Indians Plan to Form Social Body”William B. NewellStave, Bruce M. Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits: Creating the University of Connecticut 1881-2006, University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, p.171Stave, Bruce M. Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits: Creating the University of Connecticut 1881-2006, University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, pp. 62-54William B. NewellThe Tampa Times, June 9, 1959, p. 5, “Brandon High Teacher Retiring” by Grant Blump. 2, “Winnie Now Full Member”The Daily Notes of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, October 20, 1933, p. 10

I just posted much of this under “Biggest Lies on the Internet,” but I guess it’s worth posting here since no one else is taking the bait and this took enough time researching that I feel justified in spreading it around some.The biggest lie is really that the modern holiday has much to do with Pilgrims, nor other European colonists in the New World, nor Native Americans, other than window dressing.As a result of this lie, a tradition of debunking has arisen that unfortunately relies on other lies. I tackle on of these, but the initial lie is addressed along the way in an indirect manner.Many of those who attempt to debunk generally accepted history (the historical facts as well as the interpretation of those facts) strike the pose of skeptical and critical thinkers even though they’re merely parroting bunk that they’ve swallowed whole: that it fits their weltanschauung is apparently all the proof they require (I think the kids call this “confirmation bias”).An example of this is the claim the first “Thanksgiving" (with a capital “T,” immediately implying a false link to the modern holiday that’s generally more trouble than it’s worth) was in commemoration of the Mystic Massacre in the Pequot War and that every thanksgiving in the 13 colonies for the next 100 years, as well as the modern Thanksgiving holiday, are also in commemoration of said 1637 massacre.A large problem with this claim is that those making it seem to misunderstand the notion of “thanksgiving.” Devout Christians use to be (and maybe some still are) absolutely nuts about giving thanks to their God (“giving thanks…thanksgiving,” get it?). Reading through the rather small amount of extant contemporary documentation of the early Colonial period of what would become the U.S. of A., we find mention of prayers of thanks being given to God. Every mass, including those of the Anglican Church (since this all about the Anglos, right?), is a thanksgiving (among other things) unto God for…well, whatever it is that the attendees are supposed to be thankful.And officially sanctioned (by church or civil leaders) “days of thanksgiving” were not uncommon occurrences among the English settlers in the Colonial era of the United States: they pronounced them before they ever got to the U.S. and started buying land from the locals, which is of course the start of all the drama.(The holding of land in perpetuity seems to have been an alien notion to the locals, a likelihood that some extreme apologists for the English and other European settlers ignore, just as the good faith attempt to purchase the land from the locals tends to be ignored by the extreme demonizers of the European settlers. I’ll try to steer my opinion-micating towards the center as much as I can, with the caveat that this is not supposed to be an apologia for the Mystic Massacre, nor of any other acts carried out against or by any Native Americans: I am talking about “just the facts, ma’am.”)BEFORE THE INTERNET: “MY RESEARCH IS AUTHENTIC…IT IS FIRST HAND. IT IS NOT HEARSAY.”Spoiler alert: It’s hearsay.We could start in 1933 (see the appendix if you care), but we’ll start with a 1977 UPI story that Newspapers.com shows was picked up by newspapers throughout the U.S. (including the Boston Globe, though they didn’t write it up until a year later, nonetheless still giving William B. Newell’s age as 84).Here’s the version that appeared in Montana’s Billings Gazette of November 24, 1977:INDIAN ISLAND, Maine (UPI) — The first official Thanksgiving wasn't a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children, an anthropologist says.Due to age and illness, his voice cracks as he talks about the holiday, but William B. Newell, 84, speaks with force as he discusses Thanksgiving."Thanksgiving Day was first officially proclaimed by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men, women and children who were celebrating their annual green corn dance—Thanksgiving Day to them—in their own house," Newell said in a recent interview."Gathered in this place of meeting they were attacked by mercenaries and English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building," he said.He based his research on studies of the Holland Documents and the 13-volume Colonial Documentary History, both thick sets of letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king in England, and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s."My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay.”Newell, a Penobscot Indian, lives on a reservation near Old Town. He has degrees from Syracuse and the University of Pennsylvania and is listed in two regional editions of Who’s Who.He’s a former chairman of the University of Connecticut anthropology department and has advised museums on primitive art.Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the Indians at what is now Groton, Connecticut rather than a celebration with them.“The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day, thanking God that they had eliminated those 700 men, women, and children, that they had wiped out the Pequots.“For the next 100 years every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor or president was to honor a bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won,” he said.He said the image of Indians and Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was “fictitious," although Indians did share food with the first settlers.Note that Newell does not present the documentary evidence nor give adequate citations to check it: he only claims that it exists somewhere in the midst of a large body of material. This is, in fact…(drum roll)…hearsay!II. “IT IS DOCUMENTARY”Spoiler alert: It is not documentary, it is fabricated.Although the article does not give sufficient information about Newell’s sources to locate the alleged evidence that would support his “first Thanksgiving” claims, it turns out that it’s unnecessary to wade through daunting mountains of material in search of those nuggets, as the “sources” are irrelevant or possibly nonexistent:SOURCE 1: “the Holland Documents”If this refers to a published work, it would seem to refer to Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, Procured in Holland, England and France by John Romeyn Brodhead (O’Callaghan, E., editor and translator, Weed, Parsons & Co., Albany,1856). Although that seems the work that most closely fits the bill, none of the four documents from 1637 (the year of the Mystic Massacre and the supposed “first Thanksgiving”) mention the war between the English settlers and the Pequots nor Thanksgiving. In fact, only one of them dates from after the Mystic Massacre (p. 104):“September 2. Resolution of the States General to commission William Kiest, Director of New Netherland.”If, on the other hand, “Holland Documents” is supposed to indicate some loose Dutch documents that didn’t make it into that volume, it’s worth repeating from the introduction of the book that, with a few exceptions, “none of the records from Director Minuit’s administration, from 1633 to 1638, nor of director Van Twiller’s, from 1633 to 1638, have been preserved.”Perhaps Mr. Newell picked up some long lost Dutch documents at a church jumble sale and, as any true scholar would do, decided to refer to their contents while otherwise keeping their existence a secret to maximize his credibility. (I’M BEING SARCASTIC.)SOURCE 2: “13 Volume Colonial Documentary History”I can find no reference to any work with anything close to the rather prosaic, if not downright generic, title "Colonial Documentary History" other than in the internet scribbling parroting Newell’s claims. If anyone can help me out here, I’d be greatly appreciative, but it seems as though it wouldn’t be out of character for Newell to have severely misrepresented, or even fabricated a source.SOURCE 3: “Private Papers of Sir William Johnson”Sir William Johnson was indeed appointed British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but not in the “mid-1600’s”: he was appointed in 1756; having been born in England around 1715, almost 80 years after the Pequot War and subsequent day of thanksgiving for its conclusion. He didn’t even arrive in the Colonies until 1738, so he would have missed every single one of the100 years of subsequent Mystic Massacre Thanksgiving celebrations supposedly ordained by governors and presidents, though he probably wouldn’t have noticed them any way, since he was in New York.(And just what “presidents” are supposed to have ordained anyThanksgivings from 1638 to 1737?)III. HOW MANY FIRST THANKSGIVINGS WERE THERE, ANYWAY?Even with the extant records as spotty as they are, there are enough pre-Mystic Massacre thanksgivings that you will probably get bored reading about them and skip ahead if you don’t just give up on reading this post altogether.Since it’s all about the dastardly Anglos, we’ll discount the relevance of claims of French and Spanish “thanksgivings” in the territory that is now the U.S.A. (e.g., the 1541 mass performed in Palo Duro Canyon by Father Fray Juan de Padillo of the Coronado expedition). (What, you’re going to go to Mobile, Alabama for Mardi Gras, like a shmuck?)As mentioned, thanksgiving observances (as well as their counterparts, days of humiliation and of fasting) were a regular part of the religious lives of both Separatists (Plymouth Colony) and Puritans (the later Massachusetts Bay Colony) before, as well as after, they arrived in the English colonies of the New World.Extant records of the early Colonial Period are scant, so we have no way of knowing when and where all of them were observed. Wikipedia claims that "Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607," giving Ann Morill's book Thanksgiving and Other Harvest Festivals as the source of the information. I haven’t read the book, so I don't know what sources she cites and am therefore in no position to weigh in on this claim, though it hardly matters given the number of other easily verifiable thanksgivings prior to the 1637 thanksgiving (that which Newell claimed to have been the first).A 1619 thanksgiving was observed on the occasion of a group of English settlers arriving in Virginia on the Margaret from Bristol, in accordance with the directions from the journey's underwriters to Captain Woodleaf. Especially of interest is that, unlike every other thanksgiving of the era (nb), it was supposed to be observed annually thereafter:"wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perputually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god."(1)The annual observance of this day of thanksgiving in Berkeley Hundred only lasted a few years owing to a disruption in the settlement by the Powhatan Confederacy (this disruption was also known as “The Indian massacre of 1622”). The observance was more or less revived in 1958 according to an article in the Washingtonian by Matt Ditz.(2)There's no extant indication that the 1621 feast by Pilgrims and Indians at Plymouths (which wasn’t even promoted as a precursor to the modern Thanksgiving holiday until the 19th Century, but let’s leave that alone for the moment) was declared a day of thanksgiving by any authorities, civil or ecclesiastical. This has allowed great latitude for those (and they seem to be legion) who want to argue about where (and whether) it qualifies in the chronology of New World thanksgivings, and is also the reason why poorly-researched articles “debunking” the “first Thanksgiving,” with or without specific reference to Newell’s claims, will probably continue to multiply (because that’s what the Internet does).Be that is it may, William Bradford's journal (eventually published in the mid-19th century as (History) of Plymouth Plantation) states that in 1623, heat and drought from the third week in May to the middle of July prompted "a solemne day of humilliation, to seek ye Lord by humble & fervente prayer, in this great distress." The "gracious and speedy answer, both to their owne, & the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them," of evening showers "without either wind, or thunder, or any violence...caused a fruitfull & liberall harvest, to their no small comforte and rejoycing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiveing.”(3)[Incidentally, this is the "Free Enterprise First Thanksgiving" that has become a contentious conservative counterweight to the Mystic Massacre/Pequot War First Thanksgiving claim; I think that anyone reading Bradford would have to admit that the promoters of the ”Free Enterprise Thanksgiving" are essentially correct in the main thrust of their claim, contrary to the fuzzy editorial naysaying of various media, including the NY Times (oh, how the mighty have fallen!), even if those promoters play more than a little loose with the facts.][Bradford clearly believed that the colony’s abandonment of collectivism and parceling out of land was a crucial component to the success of that year’s harvest, but it was the also crucial favorable weather—being outside the control of humans, clearly the bailiwick of their God—for which thanks to that supernatural being were being given.][Some of the “Free Enterprise Thanksgiving” promoters have resorted to fabricated proclamations, which demonstrates that neither of the farther ends of the political spectrum has a franchise on fabrication.]N.b. that this 1623 “thanksgiveing” predates the Mystic Massacre, supposed impetus for the “first Thanksgiving,” by 14 years.Bradford briefly mentions the 1621 feast, though he makes no mention of “thanksgiving” in relation to it.Nonetheless, at least one late 19th Century edition indexes that passage as “First Thanksgiving,” most likely thanks to the popularity of Jane Austin(4)’s 1890 novel Standish of Standish— a formative part of the process that eventually made the Pilgrims and Indians into prominent symbols of the modern Thanksgiving holiday, which is what makes any negative feelings of Native Americans about Thanksgiving relevant, though the righteousness of any resentment tends to be be diluted when backed up by different baloney, such as Newell’s claims.Bradford’s journal also mentions the Pequot War, including 1637’s Mystic Massacre, but without mention of any thanksgiving for the campaign that included the Mystic Massacre nor for the conclusion of the Pequot War. In fact, the only one other mention of a designated thanksgiving/thanksgiveing/thanks-giving observance other than the “Free Enterprise Thanksgiving” I’ve found in the entirety of his journal appears in a letter from John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (see below) that Bradford includes, noting the June 19, 1633 thanksgiving on Massachusetts Bay Colony caused by Christopher Gardener(5), an alleged adulterer and…gasp! choke! Roman Catholic.The single mention Bradford makes of thanksgiving observances in Plymouth Colony from 1620-1648 perhaps demonstrates how rare they were in the Plymouth, as opposed to other colonies, or might indicate that he didn’t consider thanksgivings especially noteworthy in and of themselves, which may have been indicative of the general attitude of the Plymouth Colony.Having established a verifiable, “official” thanksgiving in New England (Plymouth, no less) in 1623, let’s move forward to the establishment off the Massachusetts Bay Colony (especially pertinent since it was their soldiers were involved in the Mystic Massacre, despite claims of Plymouth Colony and Dutch involvement by SJWs garbling their copypasta).John Winthrop was Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for twelve of the years from 1630 and 1649 (he was appointed in 1629 while in England, but did not arrive in the colony until 1630). In his journal, which was eventually published as The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, he records a number of thanksgivings in that colony from the time off his arrival.(6)July, 8. 1630: “We kept a day of thanksgiving in all the plantations.”February 22, 1631: “We held a day of thanksgiving for this ship[the Ambrose]’s arrival, by order from the governor and coincil, directed to all the plantations”November 11, 1631: “We kept a day of thanksgiving at Boston.”Jun 13, 1632: “A day of thanksgiving in all the plantations, by public authority, for the good success of the king of Sweden, and Protestants in Germany, against the emperor, etc., and for the safe arrival of all the ships, they having not lost one person, nor one sick among them.”September 27, 1632: “A day of thanksgiving at Boston for the good news of the prosperous success of the king of Sweden, etc.,' and for the safe arrival of the last ship and all the passengers, etc.”June 19, 1633: “A day of thanksgiving was kept in all the congregations, for our delivery from the plots of our enemies(7), and for the safe arrival of our friends, etc.”August 4 of 1634: “At the court, the new town at Agawam was named Ipswich, in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to our people which took shipping there, etc.; and a day of thanksgiving appointed, a fortnight after, for the prosperous arrival of the others, etc.”Moving ahead to the Pequot War, there was indeed (and unsurprisingly) a day of thanksgiving declared after the successful (from the English perspective) attack on the Pequot fort at Mystic on May 26, 1637:June 15, 1637: “There was a day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for the victory obtained against the Pequods, and for other mercies.”Winthrop also noted the thanksgiving for the successful conclusion of the war:October 12, 1637: “A day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for our victories against the Pequods, and for the success of the assembly; but, by reason of this latter, some of Boston would not be present at the public exercises.”These are both also noted in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. The thanksgiving after the campaign that included the Mystic Massacre:At “A Quarter Court, houlden at Boston,the 6th Day of the 4th Mo, @1637” [June 6 (8)], tucked in among tidbits such as the relation of John Sweete being punished for shooting Colonel Endecots “woolfe dog,” Edward Seale being sentenced to the whip for “beastly drunkennes,” and “Willi: Baulston being “licensed to keep a house of intertainment” at which he could sell “claret and white wine as is sent for,”“The 5th day of the next weeke, being the 15th of this month, was appointed to be kept a day of thanksgiveing in the several churches/“(9)Note that the Mystic Massacre took place on May 27,1637; it was decided on June 6 to hold a day of thanksgiving on June 15. So much for Newell’s claim that,”The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day, thanking God that they had eliminated those 700 men, women, and children, that they had wiped out the Pequots.”]Also, The Pequot War was also not yet over: mention is made of another proposed thanksgiving in regard to the Pequot War is noted twice in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England:“Gen: Court, by Adiornmt from 3: 17:, the First of the 6xt Mo, called August, 1637(10)… The Court did intreat the magistrats to treat with the elders about a day of thanksgiveing upon the returne of the souldiers, & the souldiers to bee feasted by the Townes” (11)Perhaps no further mention appears in the civil records because it was left up to the church’s elders. Be that as it may, the other thanksgiving that Winthrop noted in regard to the Pequot War appears in the record of “the General Courte, holden at Newetowne, the 26th of the 7th Mo (12), @1637”:“The 12th of the 8th m. (13) was ordered to bee kept a day of publicke thanksgiving to God for his great m'cies in subdewing the Pecoits, bringing the soldiers in safety, the successe of the conference, & good news from Germany.” (14)As far as I can ascertain, there’s no record or any credible indication anywhere of it being made a permanent and annually observed holiday, nor of any law being based to codify the thanksgiving, as later bunk-spreaders have felt free to claim.Given the stridency of Newell’s claim, it’s worth noting that neither account of the October thanksgiving gives the occasion of victory in the Pequot War as the sole reason for the thanksgiving ; the “assembly” to which Winthrop refers is the Synod convened at Newton on August 30 to deal with the issues occasioned by Anne Hutchinson’s unorthodox teachings - but I digress.IV. THE GREEN CORN FESTIVALHow to have a Green Corn Dance without any corn.Newell’s claim that the Pequots were “celebrating their annual green corn dance—Thanksgiving Day to them—in their own house," adds a dash of diabolical irony to the notion that Thanksgiving Day commemorates the Mystic Massacre. For some subsequent self-styled “authorities” (i.e., people who saw something on the Internet and repeated it) this has morphed into the notion that the concept of thanksgiving was stolen by the Anglos when they massacred the Pequots, despite the fact that the English, among other post-Colombian arrivals, were just as familiar with the notion of thanking supernatural beings for boons received.The Green Corn Dance/Ceremony/Festival is observed by various Native American groups and, as one might guess from the name, is a “first fruits” observance. May 26 is rather early for such an observance in what is now Connecticut, where the early harvest of sweet corn is approximately July 15, according to the Connecticut Harvest Calendar(15).For what it’s worth, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation held their 27th annual revived Feast of Green Corn and Dance (Schemitzun) on August 25 and 26 this year, two months after May 26. (Maybe global warming is causing later harvest dates than in 1637 or something: you tell me.)As Newell states in the introduction to his book, Crime and Justice Among the Iroquois Nations (16), “Since there were no Indian historians we only have one side of the story.”None of the extant sources of that said mention the Green Corn Dance or any other festival taking place at the Pequot fort at Mystic, so the only source for the claim that a Green Corn Dance was taking place at the Mystic fort when the English attacked seems to be Newell’s imagination.Some of who have followed in his footsteps have felt appropriately free to interject their own imaginary details, as shall be seen.V. THE INTERNET GIVES HOKUM A NEW LEASE ON LIFEA compact version of the UPI story from 1977 appeared a few years later in the Akwesasne Notes newspaper (Vol. 12 Number. 3, Late Summer Issue, August 1980, page 16’s “Short Notes,” under the title “THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE.”This was posted verbatim (outside of a few typos) on “The People’s Paths” website (17) with the addition of some additional information on the Mystic Massacre (note that Newell did not specifically state that he was talking about the Mystic Massacre, so the author seems to have been the first to figure out that it was the only historical event to which Newell could have been referring), with the incorrect claim that it was witnessed by “William Branford” (sic).Mention is then made of the Jamestown Colony and Powhatan, concluding:“The Jamestown Colony may be the source for the tradition of Indians under the leadership of Powhaton joining with early settlers for a dinner and helping those settlers through the winter. There were no pilgrims of puritans at Jamestown, however. The present Thanksgiving may therefore be a mixture of the tradition of the Jamestown dinner and the commemoration of the Pequot massacre. The celebration of Thanksgiving as an official holiday possibly roots in the Pequot massacre, while the imagery is of Jamestown with pilgrims, images misused.”[Note that this “possibly”—with no indication of how possible it is, nor why—eventually becomes “certainly” in subsequent Internet-erations.]The post carries the byline: "Research compiled, October 19, 1990 by Johyn Westcott and Paul Apidaca.”André Cramblit, who posted the article on The People’s Paths website (and whose name is frequently linked with repostings of it), doesn’t recall when he did so but told me that it “was just an article I found on the web and shared.”The earliest version of the People’s Paths website captured by the Internet Archives was from 2000, and the first version with “THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE” was captured in February of 2001.Assuming that the 1990 copyright date is correct (though there seems no reason to assume that it is), the source would have been a print article somewhere (since 1990 was a year before the world wide web) that someone posted (making a few uncorrected typos in the process), perhaps on a website that’s now defunct, that Mr. Crambit saw and reposted as an item of interest.Paul “Apidaca” probably refers to Dr. Paul Apodaca, an Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies who specializes in Folkore, Mythology, American Indian studies and California, Southwestern and Mexican culture. He has no recollection of Newell’s claims or the 28 year old article that made its way to the People’s Path website 17 or more years ago, but has known John (not “Johyn”) Westcott, for many years and hazarded a guess that it might have been primarily Mr. Westcott’s work and that his [Dr. Apodaca’s] credit might have been given from advising Westcott in some capacity.In the course of a genial and stimulating conversation, Dr. Apodaca related a concise history of thanksgiving/Thanksgiving as he teaches it, with appropriate emphasis rather than overreaching claims placed on the Pequot War and King Philip’s War (a later conflict which was apparently supposed to have prompted “THE FIRST THANKSGIVING” before Newell’s claims that the earlier Mystic Massacre prompted “THE FIRST THANKSGIVING”: see two paragraphs below).There are a number of entries on Native American websites that repeat Newell’s claims. This is not surprising, since many of these sites seem to exist for any authorized person to post whatever they like, being more akin to 4 Chan than peer-reviewed studies: as mentioned, the ““THANKSGIVING DAY CELEBRATES A MASSACRE” article pops up pretty frequently among them, as well as other miscellaneous nooks and crannies of the Internet.A noteworthy post on Native American sites that exists apart from this stream of buncombe is Karen Nelte's "History of the Modern American Thanksgiving" (History of the Modern American Thanksgiving) from 2001, which is a soundly researched examination of the development of “thanksgiving” into “Thanksgiving” (and would have saved me a lot of search time had I discovered it earlier).It contains the statement that she's seen "many descriptions of Thanksgiving that both claim that it was started by the Pilgrims in 1621 who were on friendly terms with the Wampanoag, and together with this talk of peace and friendship, quote the 1676 proclamation of thanks for victory in King Philip's War and claim that proclamation as the first Thanksgiving proclamation." Since the Pequot War predated King Philip’s war, the unblinking acceptance of Newell’s claims have apparently made King’s Philip’s War’s an also-ran in the revisionist “First Thanksgiving” sweepstakes.By early 2003, the Journal of History website (which has been in operation since at least 2000) posted the UPI story as it appeared in one or more of the original newspaper editions , apparently as part of posting the entire Fall 2002 print version of the JOH (18), and states that they copied it from Healing Global Wounds (19), Fall, 1996, which was a reprint from the Community Endeavor News (20), November, 1995.[Incidentally, the table of contents for this Fall 2002 issue of the Journal of History is worth a peek, as it shows that Editor-in-Chief Arlene Johnson was not a fan of the mundane: other articles include "Bush's Satanic Worship Winter Solstice-Sedalia, Colorado By Stew Webb" and "Illuminati Defector Details Pervasive Conspiracy: Satanic Cult Plans 'Fourth Reich' By Henry Makow, Ph.D.”]VI. THE DANGERS OF UNDERGRADS DOING RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET“Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre: Is All That Turkey and Stuffing a Celebration of Genocide?”, credited to “Laura Elliff, Vice President, Native American Student Association”(21) was published on November 20, 2002 and made its way to the world wide web in July of the next year (22).She seems to have drawn from the source of the “Thanksgiving Day Celebrates A Massacre” post on The People’s Path, or from that post itself. There are a few differences: she seems to be the first to change “mercenaries and English and Dutch,” where “mercenaries” presumably refers to the Native Americans who were enemies of the Pequots and came along because ti was the only action that Friday night (I have been unable to verify whether they were paid and it doesn’t mater much to me, but according to Bradford they mocked the Pequots as they burned, something that seems to get left out of the recounting of those who wish to only use broad strokes in their rendering of history) to “mercenaries of the English and Dutch,” the meaning of which is clearly open to interpretation.Very significantly, she’s the first writer I’ve found to specifically state what Newell hinted: “It was signed into law that, ‘This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.’” Subsequent writers have felt free to invent and quote from their own proclamations, some of them in rather comic Ye Olde Englishe.Elliff is clearly passionate, but her passion leads her to impetuous implications and haphazard reasoning.(I’m more than willing to cut her an appropriate amount of slack for her confusing the simulation of critical thinking with actual critical thinking, as she was an undergraduate at the time—sophomores are allowed to be sophomoric—and I assume that this piece was not submitted for academic credit. My attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful, not that it really matters since she’s likely to not recall much about something she wrote in college 16 years ago.)Here is a substantial portion of her piece in bold, with my comments both bracketed and italicized to minimize confusion. (The whole article can be easily found on a number of current sites by searching for “Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre”).The reason why we have so many myths about Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition.[ALL traditions are invented, even if you believe they started with a burning bush named “I am that I am,” or a Man Called Horse With No Name for that matter: it’s not as though any of them existed before human consciousness and we just discovered that they existed as “traditions,” unless you want to claim that natural phenomena such as seasons and the migration of birds are “traditions.” I would also contend that her glib analysis of cause and effect is erroneous. While traditions, “invented” or otherwise, can help create myths, they do not necessarily do so: myths can also cause traditions.]It is based more on fiction than fact.[So the author writes before delving into fiction—very nice.]So, what truth ought to be taught?[I’d suggest, for starters, not teaching fiction as “fact.”]In 1637, the official Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence.[This, as previously demonstrated, is a falsehood: stating it matter-of-factly doies not transmute it into “fact.”](Some people argue it formally came into existence during the Civil War, in 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed it,[Starting a tradition which every subsequent president of the U.S. followed until FDR established Thanksgiving as an annual, national holiday in 1941. Despite this clear evidence, it’s implied that anyone who maintains this is merely “arguing” against the baseless claim that “In 1637, the Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence.”]which also was the same year he had 38 Sioux hung on Christmas Eve.[The execution to which she refers actually took place on December 26 of 1862, which (do the math!) was the prior year. It would still be an irrelevant rebuttal to Lincoln’s proclamation of a national, rather than localized, Thanksgiving Day even if there was, as seems to be implied, some sort of connection between the two events.][And while Lincoln, as Commander in Chief, can certainly be said to be ultimately “responsible” for the mass execution, but the phrasing in the article implies that he personally ordered it. This makes it worth noting that Lincoln actually commuted the death sentences of 264 of the prisoners who’d been convicted and sentenced in the military tribunal that acted as a kangaroo court after the conclusion of the Dakota War.]William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children." In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."[None of the original articles about Newell’s claims that I’ve been able to find include this supposed quote from the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (Winthrop) nor the quote of the supposed law that was signed by unspecified parties, nor have I encountered them anywhere else other than in reiterations of Eliff’s article.]Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the "Thanksgiving dinner" was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.[It’s not clear how she come to these “true” conclusions; the former is an opinion for which a substantial argument might be made, but the latter is pretty squirrelly: does she really think that the Mystic Massacre would be better remembered if not for the marketing off the Pilgrim and Indian First Thanksgiving Feast?]Was Thanksgiving really a massacre of 700 “Indians"?[This rhetorical question doesn’t make any sense, so I’m not sure what the author is trying to say: a thanksgiving declared for something is not the same as the thing itself.]The present Thanksgiving may be a mixture of the 1621 three-day feast and the "Thanksgiving" proclaimed after the 1637 Pequot massacre.[Ummm…yeah, I suppose it “may,” despite the lack of evidence that the thanksgiving proclaimed after the Mystic Massacre has much of anything to do with the modern holiday. (Similarly, I “may” be the King of Sweden). However, since the first Presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving to mention the Pilgrims came from Herbert Hoover, it would be a hard argument to make.]Although the Independent Media Center/Progressive Activism in Bloomington-Normal website is defunct [still viewable via the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine”], this seems to have been the ur-source of many copied versions of Elliff’s article that have given Newell’s claims a new lease on life.In 2005, Elliff’s article was reposted on the Milfuegos blog (23).On November 26, 2008, it was posted on “Circle of 13: Recommended daily allowance of insanity, under-reported news and uncensored opinion dismantling the propaganda matrix.” (24)November 22, 2009, saw it pop up on the Republic of Lakotah website(25), which is frequently credited as the source by subsequent copypasta chefs, such as ace reporter Maddie Diemert of the Minnesota State University, who cites that version in her 2017 “breaking news” version of Newell’s then 40-year-old fabrication of “the REAL first Thanksgiving"(26).Among other apparent uses of Elliff’s article as a source is a passionate screed by Glen Ford (not to be confused with Glenn Ford of The Big Heat fame any more than Jane Austin is to be confused with Jane Austen) entitled “No More American Thanksgivings” that appears on the Black Agenda Report website (27) and is dated November 23, 2016, but which originally appeared in the November 23, 2003 (funny how this Thanksgiving origin scholarship seems to be seasonal) issue of Ford’s Black Commentator. In it, the error of Bradford being present at the Mystic Massacre from “Thanksgiving Celebrates a Massacre” is repeated (a minor error, but one which makes tracing the vector of disinformation easier) as well as the statement, “‘This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,’ read Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic Thanksgiving Day was born,” in which the wording of the Governor’s supposed proclamation mirrors Elliff's (Ford also mentions the Independent Media Center as a source for another bit of information he tosses out in his wake.)S. Brian Wilson’s blog entry for November 21, 2012, “The Defining and Enabling Experience of Our “Civilization” — Genocide and THE THANKSGIVING MYTH” (28) is ”slightly edited version of essay originally published November 2005,” which repeats both the Bradford as eyewitness mistake and the fabricated Winthrop proclamation.VII. TAKING IT TO THAT NEXT LEVELWhether she was building on Elliff or someone else, Susan Bates outdid everybody, including Newell, in her oft-reproduced post “THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING,” which the Internet Archive captured in February 2004 on the Manataka Amewrican Indian Council website(29). She claims that not only was the Mystic Massacre the occasion. for the First Thanksgiving, but that annually observed thanksgivings were declared after “every successful massacre” until the thanksgiving calendar was so full that apparently no one was working and Washington finally condensed them all to one Thanksgiving (for Indian Massacres) Day:“Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.“The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre.”In addition to her other historical confusion, Ms. Bates seems to have confused the head of the chief of the Pequots, Sassacus, which was delivered to the English by the Mohawks with whom Sassacus had sought refuge, with the head of Metacomet (a.k.a. King Philip), which was indeed removed from his corpse and displayed on a post at the entrance to Plymouth at the conclusion of King Philip’s War almost forty years later, in 1676. (For what it’s worth, this was not some special barbarity that the English Colonists were practicing on the Natives, as decapitated heads of convicted traitors were still displayed on London Bridge at the time)As for miscellaneous decapitated heads being used for footy, this seems to be the product of her imagination rather than her confusion.VIII. I READ IT ON THE INTERNET, SO IT MUST BE TRUEIn 2008, the broken mystic blog(30) claimed, “it is strongly argued by many historians that the Pequot Massacre led to the “Thanksgiving” festivities.” As evidence for this, a link is provided to someone’s regurgitation the Elliff piece with some additional junk found on the Internet thrown in(31), none of it any kind of argument by any kind of historian that the Pequot Massacre led to modern Thanksgiving festivities.“Should We Rename Thanksgiving ‘National Ethnic Cleansing Day’?” pondered Christopher Moraff on the PhillyMag website in 2012 (32) in a piece that repeats Newell’s claim (without crediting him) of the first Thanksgiving being in honor of the Mystic Massacre and claimed that, “For decades after the Pequot Massacre, annual religious ceremonies and thanksgiving fast days were dedicated to its memory.”In 2013, the Huffington Post site posted Nicole Breedlove’s “Happy National Genocide (Thanksgiving) Day!”, updating it in 2014 (33), wherein she states,“The New York City public education system told me what Thanksgiving was all about. I was very careful to regurgitate what they taught me when tested so I wouldn’t get a failing grade.” Then she gives a very abbreviated but nonehteless garbled version of the Pequot War before regurgitating the UPI Newell story. (The 2013 version had a link to Elliff’s piece on the Republic of Lakotah website.)The cherry on top is her statement, “I am very thankful, pun intended, that I learned about the origins of this holiday. It is a reminder that history can be rewritten and if told enough times eventually becomes the truth!”And thanks for contributing to that process, Ms. Breedlove!I haven’t seen anything substantially new or different on subsequent regurgitations on various blogs, tweets, but a completely unverified claim that appeared in newspapers 40 years ago is still going strong, with additional misinformation that it’s accumulated along the way, all thanks to the Internet!To end on an upbeat note, I’d like to quote from John Two-Hawks post on the Native Circle site that repeats Newell’s claim and a lot of others that have accumulated around it, but concludes with, “Let us face the truths of the past, and give thanks that we are learning to love one another for the rich human diversity we share.”(34)Attempting to abide by such a sentiment is much more worthwhile (and difficult) than reading (or misreading) history merely as a means assuring oneself of one’s own righteousness and others lack thereof. Disagree if you like.APPENDIX: WHO WAS WILLIAM B. NEWELL, ANYWAY?The telephone tree branching out from UPI feed has inspired so much additional b.s., especially on the Internet, that some have questioned the accuracy of William B. Newell stated credentials, his tribal affiliation (if any), and even if was a real person.None of which really has any bearing on the veracity, or lack thereof, to the claim that Thanksgiving Day is a more or less direct outgrowth of the Mystic Massacre, which is why I’m appending this to the tail end of my post.William Benjamin Newell was born December 17 of 1892 in Boston and was also known as “Rolling Thunder II”(35) (although by the time he started popping up in various newspapers in relation to his lectures or press announcements, he was often noted as being known as “Rolling Thunder”).He was the son of Penobscot Louis Belmont Newell (a.k.a. Chief Rolling Thunder, leader of the “Kiowa Indian Medicine Company traveling Medicine and Wild West Show”)(36) and full-blooded Iroquois Louisa Stump (“an expert shot and traveled with the Kiowa Medicine Company for a time” and called “the Prairie Flower” by Buffalo Bill Cody (37)—sorry for the digression, but this minutiae is rather more interesting to me than much of the significant history that people insist on getting wrong anyway).Louis Belmont Newell “claimed that his mother was a Kiowa Indian, then that his father was Kiowa, but at other times he claimed only to have been adopted by the Kiowa http://Tribe….As to him or his parents being born in North Dakota, this was probably just good PR to promote himself to the public as Kiowa. To friends in New York, he spoke of his father as a Penobscot guide on Moosehead Lake in Maine. There is no evidence to date to indicate that either parent was anything other than a Penobscot from Maine.”(38)One especially skeptical soul commented that William Benjamin Newell was stated to be a Penobscot in the widely regurgitated Mystic Massacre Thanksgiving piece but claimed to be a Mohawk elsewhere (as he does in his book: “Wiliam B. Newell, TA-IO-WAH-RON-HA-GAI (Mohawk Band Number 15794) If I understand correctly (from Mr. Newell’s book(39), in fact), tribal affiliation among the Iroquois is matrilineal, so despite Newell’s father being a Penobscot, he would be eligible for enrollment as a Mohawk, (who were part of the Iroquois Confederacy) rather than Penobscot. (If I’m wrong, someone please tell me.)As for the claim in a December 5, 1937 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle(40) and elsewhere that Newell was “born of a full-blooded Kiowa father and Iriquois mother,” he may well have been confused the conflicting claims that father Louis Belmont left behind when he married another woman not long after Louis Benjamin’s birth.In regards to the claim of William Benjamin’s Penobscot affiliation in the 1977 UPI story, perhaps since he was at the time staying on the Penobscot reservation on Indian Island, Maine, for whatever reason (most likely familial, as there is a long history of Newells there), it was less complicated for him to identify as a Penobscot there. Or something.Newell seems to have knowingly misrepresented his academic credentials, however, beyond the degree of inflation that seems not uncommon to that world.His first teaching position was reportedly at the Fort Trumbull branch of the University of Connecticut, New London, 1946-1949(41). Whoever put together that posthumous Internet CV claims that Newell was the “department chairman sociology and anthropology” there, which may have been an attempt to make sense out of Newell’s claim that he was the chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, as it’s been widely noted on the Internet (and elsewhere) that there was no separate department of anthropology at the U of Connecticut until much later: 1969, in fact.(42)The Fort Trumbull campus in New London, was a temporary, two-year campus that was open September 1946 to June of 1950.(43) It seems doubtful that a satellite campus, and a junior college at that, would have its own department head, or that they would give the position to someone with a Master’s Degree and Newell’s lack of experience if they did.Then again, I can find no reference to department heads at the U of Con ever being referred to as “chairmen” (nor “chairwomen”) so perhaps Newell felt justified in both making up a title and assigning it to himself.In the midst of teaching at the Fort Trumbull satellite campus, he taught at the U of Florida as an associate professor of sociology in 1947 and as a visiting associate professor/acting head department sociology in the summer of 1948.(44) The “acting head” of the sociology department for the summer of 1948 also sounds to me like a self-conferred title, as though he was hired as a visiting associate professor while the usual sociology professor was on vacation and decided that made him the acting head, but that is, of course, conjecture.At any rate, Newell never seems to have been a full-time, tenure track professor, which is the least one qualification one would generally expect of an actual head (or “chairman”) of an academic department of a university.Newell became certified as a Florida public school teacher in 1950 and taught at Brandon High School from 1954 to his retirement “on the advice of his doctors” in 1959. (45)In a June 17, 1963, Windsor Star article (datelined Montreal), it’s stated that Newell had “returned to his birthplace” of Caughnawaga, “having retired as a university professor in Tampa.”(46) His aforementioned book, the only publication of the Caughnawaga Historical Society (of which he was the founder and president; he may have been the only member, as far as I know), was copyrighted the next year and published the year after that. For the most part, it’s a credible compilation and analysis of sometimes contradictory second-hand information, though some might be put off by his thesis that civilization causes crime (which is likely to be ridiculously obvious or simply ridiculous, depending on one’s orientation) and his still-slightly ahead of his time Indian Flower Child editorializing.Among his accomplishments in the non-academic world were his service with the 42nd Infantry Division in World War I, missionary work (representing the Presbyterian or Episcopalian Church, depending on the source) to the Seneca Indians on the Cattaraugas Reservation of New York from 1924-1928., and numerous lectures given in museums as well as to meetings of culture clubs, Rotaries, Lions’ Clubs, starting no later than 1926 and going strong at least until 1940.According to contemporary newspapers, his topics included “Indian Problems,” “The Art of the American Indian,” “Indian Plants,” and “The Cultural Influence of the Indian on Modern Life.”UP (before they were UPI) picked up one of his lectures (or the promotion he was giving for one) in 1933 and sent it out, datelined “Philadelphia.” The Daily Notes of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, ran the story under the headline “Modern Social Life Old Stuff for Indians” (used by every other paper that picked up the story) with their own snappy subhead, “Nudism, Companionate Marriage, Plucked Eyebrows are Customs.”It includes:“Thanksgiving Day was celebrated nine times a year among the Indians, Newell asserted, and, contrary to general belief, the first American Thanksgiving Day was an occasion for giving thanks because the Puritans succeeded in setting fire to a log house where 700 Indians were celebrating a Thanksgiving of their own. The Puritans, according to Newell, killed 180 Redmen who tried to escape from the burning building. The others perished in the flames.” (47)So Newell had actually been making this claim in 1933 (or earlier), when it was treated as a mere curiosity. In 1977, it may have (correctly) seemed to him that he could get some more attention out of it by reviving the claim more stridently. Did he even ever believe it to be objectively true, or was he merely exercising a familial penchant for showmanship while championing a cause that was dear to him?I suppose all that can be said for certain is that the nonsense men spread lives after them, as long as the nonsense has the right symbolic resonance.Finally, I’m compelled to say that in the early stages of my research, I regarded William B. Newell as a fairly typical old crank. While researching the man, especially reading the many appearances he made in the press through the years, I have come to appreciate his historical significance, as a link from the era of the Wild West and Indian Medicine shows of his parents to modern Native American activism.Smyth of Nibley papers, NYPL Digital Collections, Copy of Instructions geven to Captayne Woodleefe“The First Thanksgiving Took Place in Virginia, not Massachusetts,” November 18, 2015, The First Thanksgiving Took Place in Virginia, not Massachusetts | WashingtonianBradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 170 (footnote) p. 355, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1898, p. 355An American author, no relation to the co-author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies“Sir Christopher Gardiner, and Thomas Morton, and Philip Ratcliff, (who had been punished here for their misdemeanors,) had petitioned to the king and council against us…accusing us to intend rebellion, to have cast off our allegiance, and to be wholly separate from the church and laws of England; that our ministers and people did continually rail against the state, church, and bishops there, etc.” (Winthrop’s Journal, May 1933)All quotes from Winthrop’s journal are from the an electronic version of the 1908 publication of it, edited by James Kendall Hosmer by Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY: http://www.noblenet.org/salem/reference/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Original-Narratives-of-Early-American-History-Winthrops-Journal-vol.-1.pdfSee note (5)June is called the fourth month because the British officially regarded the year as starting on March from some time in the Twelfth Century until the Calendar Act of 1750, which also (finally) put Britain on the Gregorian calendar, was enacted in 1752. The dates I have provided outside of these two quotes are the Gregorian calendar modern equivalents, as per those given by the editors of the published versions of Winthrop’s journal.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.197-199, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveMeaning the 12th of August. See note 8.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.200 Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveSeptember. See note 8.Meaning the 12th of October. See note 8.Shurtleff, Nathan, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol I, Boston, 1853. p.204. Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England. Printed by order of the legislature : Massachusetts (Colony) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveConnecticut Harvest Calendar crop harvest calendarCaughnawaga Historical Society, Montreal, 1965Thanksgiving Day Celebrates A MassacreFrom the Journal of History, Fall 2002, The Journal of HistoryI can find references to anti-nuclear testing protests in the 1990's called "Healing Global Wounds," but no reference to to any newsletter or other publication put out by an affiliated organization. Be that as it may (since not everything is on the Internet, hard as that may be to believe), there may have been some republication of the piece from Community Endeavor (assuming the Journal of History's reference is correct) in some sort of publication. According to the HOME - Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth website (Who We Are), HOME founding member Jennifer O. Viereck was involved with the Healing Global Wounds Alliance, 1991 – 2000. Anyone who cares enough to trace the provenance of this article from its initial appearance to its current lease on life on the Internet should be able to get in touch with her easily enough.According to the Library of Congress, "Community endeavor: planetary news involving personal involvement" was published in Grass Valley, CA from October 1993-September 1997 (for three years prior, it wax published in Nevada City, CA). Also according to the LOC, the Shields Library of UC Davis has copies.(About Community endeavor : planetary news involving personal involvement. [volume] (North San Juan, Calif.) 1989-1997), if anyone wants to put in the extra legwork to expand on this to make a Doctoral Thesis on Vectors of Transmission of Pre-Internet to Internet Folklore or some such. Just send me a copy, please.The Illinois State University NASA, as confirmed by John K. Wilson (see note 21).The first appearance of this article was in The November 20, 2002, issue of the Indy, an independent newspaper for the Bloomington-Normal area put out by a “registered student organization at Illinois State University.” This issue of The Indy was posted on http://indy.pabn.org, the website of the Independent Media Center of the Progressive Activism in Bloomington-Normal, on July 25, 2003 by John K. Wilson, who was also founder and co-editor of the Indy (and is therefore sometimes credited in addition to Laura Elliff in subsequent appearances on the Internet, since apparently almost NOBODY is paying attention to what the hell they’re citing).MilfuegosCooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving MassacreCooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving MassacreA history of ThanksgivingNo More American Thanksgivings | Black Agenda ReportThe Defining and Enabling Experience of Our "Civilization" -- Genocide and THE THANKSGIVING MYTHTHE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVINGThe Truth About Thanksgiving: Brainwashing of the American History TextbookThe Thanksgiving Day Massacre...Or, would you like Turkey with your genocide?The Real History of Thanksgiving / The Philly PostHappy National Genocide (Thanksgiving) Day!First Thanksgiving MythSideshow World, Sideshow Performers, Medicine Show from around the world. For those requiring extra documentation, William B. Newell’s WWI draft registration can be viewed at William Newell Image 1Sideshow World, Sideshow Performers, Medicine Show from around the world.IbidIbidNewell, William B., Crime and Justice Among the Iroquois Nations, Caughnawaga Historical Society, Montreal, 1965. The concluding passage gives a well-executed taste of the editorial flavor of the work: “A study of Iroquoian culture might point the way to the future peace and happiness of the world. If we analyze the present world situation we readily come to the conclusion that the European races and their descendants are even as barbarous, cruel and inhuman as they were when America was first discovered…Modern races are far more blood thirsty than they were 300 years ago. More crime exists, more criminialoids are born every day, the mental capacity of the human race is slowly degenerating. The mad race to nowhere is dangerously near an end.”p. 8A, “Boro Indians Plan to Form Social Body”William B. NewellStave, Bruce M. Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits: Creating the University of Connecticut 1881-2006, University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, p.171Stave, Bruce M. Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits: Creating the University of Connecticut 1881-2006, University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, pp. 62-54William B. NewellThe Tampa Times, June 9, 1959, p. 5, “Brandon High Teacher Retiring” by Grant Blump. 2, “Winnie Now Full Member”The Daily Notes of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, October 20, 1933, p. 10