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| Photo: National Day of Mourning in Plymouth 2025 https://www.tag24.com/justice/activism/indigenous-peoples-expose-thanksgiving-mythology-on-national-day-of-mourning-3443341 |
Thanksgiving – Discourse Concerning Western Planting
By Steve Melendez, Paiute, American Indian Genocide Museum
Censored News, Nov. 27, 2025
The English divide and conquer plan for America was written in 1578, twenty nine years before the founding of Jamestown in 1607. This was also long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620 and survived the winter with the help of Chief Massasoit and the Wampanoag Indians. Chief Massasoit had a son named, Metacom whose death best illustrates the guile behind the first Thanksgiving and the one celebrated 55 years later on Thursday, August 17, 1676. This is the one where Metacom’s head was brought to the Plymouth Colony entrance and displayed on a pole for over twenty years.
The Divide and conquer plan was written by the English preacher Richard Hakluyt for Sir Humphrey Gilbert who died at sea before ever reaching America. He was the English commander who would line the pathway to his tent with the severed heads of the Irish. Hakluyt entitled his plan, Discourse Concerning Western Planting. It read in part, “…Nothing is more to be endeavored with the Island people than familiarity. For so may you best discover all the natural commodities of their country, and also all their wants, all their strengths, all their weakness, and with whom they are in war, with whom confederate in peace and amitie, and known, you may work many great effects of greatest consequence…if change of religion or civil wars should happen in this realm, which are of great benefit…and to enter into amitie with the enemies of their next neighbors, and so have vent of their merchandize of England and also have vittel, or by means hereupon to be used to force the next neighbors to amitie…To plant upon a land in the mouth of some notable river…and traffic on the one or on the other side of the river, or both or the linking in amitie with one or other petty king, contending there for dominion…”
The plan was simple; make friends with one tribe and like the rider on the red horse of Revelation, cause war between the tribes. You see this in the Virginia Company choosing the mercenary, John Smith, whose main credential was beheading three Turks in Romania, to be one of the leaders of Jamestown. Time and again Smith urged Powhatan to ally with the English to fight their perceived common enemies. Knowing the secret plan, we now know that it wasn’t a gesture of friendship but a plan of annihilation.
In 1637, the colonists surrounded and burned six hundred sleeping Pequot men women and children. The Mystic River Massacre was in present day Groton, Connecticut. They were, of course, accompanied with Mohegan and Narragansett allies. The Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather, later said, “The soldiers set fire to the wigwams; and the fire consuming them, there were about six hundred souls brought down to hell in one day, by the wonderful success which the Lord gave unto the English army.” Obviously, he wasn’t concerned with evangelizing the natives. Genocide was framed as the providence of God. He later was on record as saying, “Among the early settlers, it was considered a religious act to kill Indians.” Richard Hakluyt saying civil wars among the Indians being of great benefit is far removed from Jesus giving the “Great Commission” to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
In 1676, fifty five years after Chief Massasoit brought venison, corn and other food to the first thanksgiving, the irony was lost on Cotton Mather’s father, Increase Mather when he said, speaking of Metacom, “His head being cut off, was carried to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole, on that very day when the solemn Thanksgiving was observed for our victories obtained over the heathen.” Later, after it had been displayed for over twenty years at Plymouth Colony, Preacher Cotton said, “I took off the jaw from the blasphemous exposed Skull of that Leviathan.” These three preachers, Richard Hakluyt and the father-son duo of Cotton and Increase Mather set the standard for genocide in the Americas, all in the name of God. As the Pilgrims unloaded the five cannons and positioned them on Fort Hill, were they aware that they were there to deceive, displace and destroy?
The English divide and conquer plan for America was written in 1578, twenty nine years before the founding of Jamestown in 1607. This was also long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620 and survived the winter with the help of Chief Massasoit and the Wampanoag Indians. Chief Massasoit had a son named, Metacom whose death best illustrates the guile behind the first Thanksgiving and the one celebrated 55 years later on Thursday, August 17, 1676. This is the one where Metacom’s head was brought to the Plymouth Colony entrance and displayed on a pole for over twenty years.
The Divide and conquer plan was written by the English preacher Richard Hakluyt for Sir Humphrey Gilbert who died at sea before ever reaching America. He was the English commander who would line the pathway to his tent with the severed heads of the Irish. Hakluyt entitled his plan, Discourse Concerning Western Planting. It read in part, “…Nothing is more to be endeavored with the Island people than familiarity. For so may you best discover all the natural commodities of their country, and also all their wants, all their strengths, all their weakness, and with whom they are in war, with whom confederate in peace and amitie, and known, you may work many great effects of greatest consequence…if change of religion or civil wars should happen in this realm, which are of great benefit…and to enter into amitie with the enemies of their next neighbors, and so have vent of their merchandize of England and also have vittel, or by means hereupon to be used to force the next neighbors to amitie…To plant upon a land in the mouth of some notable river…and traffic on the one or on the other side of the river, or both or the linking in amitie with one or other petty king, contending there for dominion…”
The plan was simple; make friends with one tribe and like the rider on the red horse of Revelation, cause war between the tribes. You see this in the Virginia Company choosing the mercenary, John Smith, whose main credential was beheading three Turks in Romania, to be one of the leaders of Jamestown. Time and again Smith urged Powhatan to ally with the English to fight their perceived common enemies. Knowing the secret plan, we now know that it wasn’t a gesture of friendship but a plan of annihilation.
In 1637, the colonists surrounded and burned six hundred sleeping Pequot men women and children. The Mystic River Massacre was in present day Groton, Connecticut. They were, of course, accompanied with Mohegan and Narragansett allies. The Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather, later said, “The soldiers set fire to the wigwams; and the fire consuming them, there were about six hundred souls brought down to hell in one day, by the wonderful success which the Lord gave unto the English army.” Obviously, he wasn’t concerned with evangelizing the natives. Genocide was framed as the providence of God. He later was on record as saying, “Among the early settlers, it was considered a religious act to kill Indians.” Richard Hakluyt saying civil wars among the Indians being of great benefit is far removed from Jesus giving the “Great Commission” to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
In 1676, fifty five years after Chief Massasoit brought venison, corn and other food to the first thanksgiving, the irony was lost on Cotton Mather’s father, Increase Mather when he said, speaking of Metacom, “His head being cut off, was carried to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole, on that very day when the solemn Thanksgiving was observed for our victories obtained over the heathen.” Later, after it had been displayed for over twenty years at Plymouth Colony, Preacher Cotton said, “I took off the jaw from the blasphemous exposed Skull of that Leviathan.” These three preachers, Richard Hakluyt and the father-son duo of Cotton and Increase Mather set the standard for genocide in the Americas, all in the name of God. As the Pilgrims unloaded the five cannons and positioned them on Fort Hill, were they aware that they were there to deceive, displace and destroy?
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