Reflections of Fidel
Hugo Chávez' speech
(Taken from CubaDebate)
AN unprecedented meeting had taken place in the United States Capitol building between a group of legislators from the fascist right of that country and leaders of the Latin American right and pro-coup oligarchy. In that meeting there was talk of the defeat of the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.
The event took place a few days prior to the meeting of the hemisphere's defense ministers in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where President Evo Morales made his energetic condemnation on November 22.
But that meeting was not about a slanderous media campaign – a regular feature in imperialist politics – but conspiratorial activity that, without any doubt, would lead to inevitable bloodshed in Venezuela.
Given my experience over many years, I do not harbor the slightest doubt as to what would happen in Venezuela if Chávez were to be assassinated. It would not have to be part of a prior plot against the president; a mentally deranged person, a drug addict, or the violence unleashed by drug trafficking in the countries of Latin America would suffice to generate an extremely grave problem in Venezuela. Analyzing such an act from the political point of view, the activities and habits of the reactionary oligarchy that owns powerful media corporations and is encouraged and financed by the United States, it would inevitably lead to bloody clashes in the streets of Venezuela, which are the clear intentions of the Venezuelan opposition, infused with hatred and acts of violence in full view.
Guillermo Zuloaga – the owner of a television channel opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution and a fugitive from Venezuelan justice – is one of the conspirators who took part in the meeting of Congress members called by Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – the latter of Cuban origin and a Batista affiliate – known to our people as the loba feroz (the big bad wolf) due to her repugnant conduct during the kidnapping of [Cuban] Elián González and her refusal to hand the child over to his father. The Republican Congresswoman is a symbol of hatred of and resentment against Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and the other member countries of ALBA; it is virtually certain that the U.S. Congress will appoint her chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee; she was a defender of the Honduran coup government, repudiated by the majority of the countries of America.
The Bolivarian government of Venezuela was faced with a grave and provocative challenge. It was a really delicate issue. I asked myself what Chávez' reaction would be. The first energetic response came from Evo Morales in his brilliant and sincere speech made available to our people today. Two days ago, Tuesday the 13th, it was announced that Chávez would address the issue in the National Assembly.
The meeting was called for 5:00pm and it began almost exactly on time. The speeches made there were energetic and to the point. All of the activities lasted barely two hours and a few minutes. The Venezuelans had taken the problem very seriously.
Chávez began by mentioning the names of the many people present and, after joking with the new Kata world champion and about the game between two professional baseball teams, began to develop his subject:
"…I am really, really, really going to be brief. It has been said, tell me, that document read by Deputy Roy, thank you Roy, Roy Daza, for that reading, that document, not only in defense of Venezuela, as has already been said here –Eva [Golinger] said it. No, we are coming out in defense of the human homeland; one could even say, in defense of human possibility.
"I brought some books [...] This was the same copy, it's already a bit worn, that I lifted up there in the United Nations: Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival: the Imperialist Strategy of the United States – I am still recommending this book, Noam Chomsky. Eva mentioned it and reminded us of this great man of political thought, of creative thought, of philosophy, of the struggle for humanity.
"I have here the continuation of it, Failed States: the Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Here, right here, Chomsky poses the thesis that the first failed state in this world is the U.S. state, a failed state, a real threat to the entire planet, to the entire world, to the human species."
"Here, there is one part of the interview, of the conversations, where Chomsky is reflecting on Latin America and on Venezuela, in a very valiant, very objective and generous manner, defending our revolutionary process, defending our people, defending the right that we have and are exercising to make our own way, as all the peoples of the world have, and the yankee empire has not recognized that right and is attempting to disregard it.
"In the very same Federal Capitol – I believe that's what it's called – in the very same Washington, a summit of terrorists met, installed itself; a summit, a mob – as the Argentines would say, and we Venezuelans also talk of mobs – a real mob of criminals, swindlers, terrorists, thieves, scroungers, met there and, moreover, they were backed by 'prestigious' establishment figures, from the establishment, not only the Republican extreme right currents, but also from the Democratic Party and – as has been said here, Eva said it, Roy said it in the marvelous document he read, a state document, a national document – they openly launched a threat against Venezuela, against the countries and the peoples of the Bolivarian Alliance.
"Our greetings from here to Evo Morales, a valiant compañero, comrade, and to the people of Bolivia.
"Our greetings from here to Rafael Correa, a valiant compañero, comrade, and to the Ecuadorian people.
"Our greetings from here to Daniel Ortega, that comandante president, valiant compañero, comrade, and to the people of Nicaragua.
"Our greetings from here to Fidel Castro, to Raúl Castro and to that valiant Cuban people.
"Our greetings from here to all the peoples of the Caribbean, to Roosevelt Skerrit and to the people of Dominica, valiant leaders; Saint Vincent & the Grenadines; Ralph Goncalves, Spencer, to the peoples of the ALBA, of the Bolivarian Alliance, to their governments, to our governments and, of course, from here, to the indomitable people of Venezuela, our commitment and our call to unity and to continue battling for the future of the homeland, for independence, whose original constitution – as our president, Cilia said – here it is, the original constitution of 200 years ago.
"We are already entering 2011, let us prepare ourselves from all points of view: the spiritual, political, moral, to commemorate the 200 years of that first Congress, of that first constitution, the first in Latin America, of that birth of the First Republic, the birth of the Venezuelan homeland; much more than just July 5, it is going to be all of 2011 and the beginning of the revolutionary war of independence first commanded by Miranda, then BolÃvar and the great men and women who gave us the homeland.
"The document read by Roy Daza begins by quoting a phrase of BolÃvar's in a letter to the agent Irving, a U.S. agent who came here to reclaim those ships that BolÃvar and his troops seized on the Orinoco because the United States was sending in weapons and supplies.
"It's nothing new, Eva, everything that you are exposing here about sending millions of dollars, logistical support, it's nothing new. No. Already back then the U.S. government was sending weapons and military supplies to the Spanish imperialist troops. And that is famous. That fact has been compiled, in part, by that fine Cuban writer Francisco Pividal, in another book that I constantly recommend: BolÃvar, pensamiento precursor del antimperialismo. It can be read in one go. And there is a combination of extraordinary quotes here. You already pointed to one.
"But in parts of these letters from BolÃvar to Irving – I think it was the last one that he sent to him – when Irving was already beginning to threaten him with the use of force, BolÃvar says: I am not going to fall into provocation, not even in language. I merely wish to say to you, Mr. Irving' – it's written here, I'm going to paraphrase it, because it is the idea, it is the dignity of our father, BolÃvar, that is being imposed, what is of importance in this hall full of magic, full of symbols, full of homeland, full of dreams, full of hope, full of dignity – BolÃvar says to him: 'You should know, Mr. Irving, that more than half or half' – it was 1819, almost one decade of war to the death had passed – 'or almost half of Venezuelan men and Venezuelan women have died in the struggle against the Spanish empire, and the other half of us left here are anxious to follow that same road even if Venezuela should have to confront the entire world for its independence, for its dignity.'
"That was, that is BolÃvar, and here we are, his sons, his daughters, MarÃa, disposed to the very same thing. The world should know that, we are disposed to the very same thing. If the yankee empire, with all its power, which we're not taking lightly, no, we have to take it seriously – as Eva well recommended to us – decides to attack, continue attacking and openly attacking Venezuela in order to try and halt this revolution, here we are prepared, understand that, mister empire and its personifications, that here we are disposed to the very same thing: for everyone to die for this homeland and its dignity!
"It should be asked, that summit of terrorists which met in Washington, some Venezuelans, Bolivians, genocidal people – as one good journalists asked in an interview yesterday – it would be good to know what passport these criminals are using, where they entered, if some of then are on INTERPOL's code red. They arrived sweet and easy and they arrived and were walking about the streets of Washington, being wined and dined. For that reason, Noam Chomsky is right. I repeat with Noam Chomsky: the U.S. state is a failed state that is acting beyond international laws, that respects absolutely nothing and, moreover, feels that it has the right to do so, that it doesn't have to respond to anybody. It is a threat not only to Venezuela and to the peoples of the world, but to its own people, a people that are under constant attack from that anti-democratic state.
"Look, here is just a summary. Wikileaks, you know it, right?
"What is this lady representative, fascist, going to say, the one who calls us, Evo, Correa and me, bandits? She's the bandit, she is a bandit and a Venezuelan court could well apply for the extradition of that bandit for committing crimes and conspiring, and many other charges, against the sovereignty of our country. She is a bandit. All that remains is to point the finger at her before the world, and the other bandits.
"What would those bandits say about this, for example?
"I read:
"'What will the U.S. Parliament have to say about these reports, about these documents that were secret and which have now been published on this Wikileaks page? What does Wikileaks mean? like Chávez Candanga.
"'On March 15, 2010, Wiki Candanga made public a Department of Defense report dealing with various leaks made by this website in relation to U.S. interests and proposed a number of ways to minimize it: a video of the murder of journalists.' I have here some of the documents, they are public. It remains to be seen if some authority in the United States takes an initiative in the face of these crimes, or these alleged crimes, right? I'm no judge to determine that, alleged serious crimes committed by citizens of its country, civilian, military, by its government.
"I read: 'On April 5, 2010, Wikileaks published a video in which U.S. soldiers can be seen murdering the Reuters reporter, Namir Noor-Eldeen, his assistant and nine other people. It can clearly be seen that none of those present were showing any signs of attacking the Apache helicopter from which they were being fired on. Although the Reuters agency has asked for the video on numerous occasions, that was denied to them until Wikileaks obtained this unpublished video which put the military apparatus of the United States in checkmate.'
"Well, put in checkmate is a saying, right? At least morally.
"Once again, what would the United Nations say? What would happen if that should take place in some of the ALBA countries? What would happen? What would the OAS say, what would the United Nations Security Council, the Human Rights Council? What would the infamous International Court of Human Rights say? So that we can see the double standard by which human rights are measured here, respect for life, terrorism and all those phenomena.
"Daily logs of the war in Afghanistan, July 25, 2010, were also published. Documentation of the war in Iraq. Listen to this sentence: On October 22, 2010 – just a few days ago – Wikileaks published on its web page a compendium entitled Iraq War Logs, containing 391,831 documents leaked from the Pentagon, about the war in Iraq and its occupation from January of 2004 to December 31, 2009, which reveals, among other issues, the systematic use of torture; the figure of 109,032 dead in Iraq, 61,081 of which were civilian, 63%; 23,984 'enemy' labeled as insurgents, 15,196 'host country' Iraqi government forces. What a way to visit a country! And 3,771 'friends' dead, coalition forces. The documents reveal that, over the course of six years, on average, 31 civilians died everyday.
"Who is investigating this? Who is accountable for this? No, it's the empire, the failed U.S. state. I read this phrase: 'These documents which are organized chronologically and by categories describe lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.' Enough details for an investigation.
"What will the U.S. Congress say about this? There's our ambassador to Washington. Are you still the ambassador there? Yes, you are the ambassador. As far as we know, they've said nothing, right?
"It says here, 'most entries have been written by soldiers and intelligence officers listening to reports radioed in from front line deployments.
"'Civilian victims of the coalition forces. At the same time – it says here – 'large numbers of attacks and deaths have come to light caused by troops firing on unarmed drivers, based on the fear that they might be suicide bombers.
"'A detailed report of how a child was murdered and another wounded when troops fired on the car in which they were traveling. As compensation for the attack, the family was paid 100,000 afganis, for a dead child, 1,600 euros.' Capitalism pays, 20,000 afganis, 335 euros for the wounded child, 10,000 afganis, 167 euros for the vehicle. And, in the reports, all of these are called 'small tragedies,' 'small tragedies.' This is the great threat, the greatest threat facing the planet today.
"The yankee empire, no doubt, has entered a period of political and economic decline, and above all ethical decline, but who can deny its great military power, which, combined with other factors, turns this, the most powerful empire in the world's history into a much greater threat to our peoples. What can we do? It has been said as well: unity, unity and more unity.
"As of January, is the U.S. Congress going to be extremely right wing? Well, the Venezuelan Parliament, as of January 5, will have to be extremely left wing.
"And I call upon the deputies elected by the people, by the popular movements, the social movements, the revolutionary parties; you have a big commitment, as of January 5.
"It is truly unheard of, and Eva will remind us. How is it that we continue to allow this? Having this Constitution, which cost so much, how many years of struggle, how much sweat, how much blood, how much effort, here it is clearly established - it was there in the first Constitution as well – we are a sovereign nation – at the risk of them once again calling us the foolish nation or the foolish revolution – or if we want to use more popular language, la revolución pendeja? How are going to allow political parties, NGO's, counterrevolutionary individuals to go on being financed with millions and millions of dollars by the yankee empire? And they're walking around over there, completely free to abuse and violate our Constitution and attempt to destabilize the country. I am imploring you to create a very severe law to prevent this. That has to be the way in which we must respond to the empire's aggression, the empire's threats, radicalizing our positions, not weakening absolutely anything, adjusting positions, establishing our point of view, consolidating revolutionary unity. Not just a parliament, much more to the left, much more radically to the left, we need a much more radically left government, an armed force – General Rangel, Chief General, we are promoting him on Saturday, November 27, Air Force Day – much more radically revolutionary, with the people.
"There is no place in our civilian ranks, in our military ranks, for vacillation. No, one line, radicalize the revolution! And this crude, treacherous bourgeoisie needs to feel it. This Venezuelan bourgeoisie, with no shame, no homeland, needs to feel it, needs to know that it is not acceptable for one of their most well-known representatives to go to the very Congress of the empire to attack Venezuela and continue to operate a television station here. Imagine something like that, something like that! The Venezuelan bourgeoisie needs to know that this aggression against the people is going to cost it dearly and not be parading around up there.
"I remember РJos̩ Vicente Rangel, and Maduro, and compa̱ero are here, thank you for joining us Рwhen, during the Betancourt government, deputies of left parties were arrested, without trial, no charges filed, with no proof whatsoever, they were taken to prison, denied parliamentary immunity.
"Within a few weeks, a group of deputies from the extreme right will enter this hall. Well, they will only need to be reminded that there is a Constitution. Just as the Communist Party, and many others, were banned here, in his time and they disregarded the parliamentary immunity of many deputies, with no proof, others left for the mountains, like the great Fabricio Ojeda, who renounced his seat and went to the mountains to shed his blood for the revolution and for the people. I cannot imagine that this dignified Parliament would allow, with the popular forces having the majority representation, the extreme right wing to come in here and try to subvert constitutional order. I assume, I am sure, that the state will activate all necessary mechanisms in defense of the Constitution and of the law, in the face of the acts of aggression which are to be expected.
"Finally, the threat… What did they call it in the terrorist' event? 'Threat in the Andes?' Right, Nicolas? Danger in the Andes, sounds like the title of a movie. Danger in the Andes; there should be a warning of danger in the world, an alert rather, the danger is worldwide.
"Right now, there is a situation, at this very moment, there on the Korean peninsula. When I left to come here, the news was still confusing, how confusing, the sinking of that South Korean ship, the Cheonan; but later evidence emerged that the ship was sunk by the United States. Now, on that small island, on that peninsula divided by the yankee empire, invaded, ravaged for years, there is a tense situation, some bombs, some dead, some wounded.
"Fidel Castro has been warning for some months of the grave dangers of a nuclear war. Just a while back, I was there, once again, and he explained to me, developing his thoughts – we know it very well already, of course – there's nothing better than dialogue – and he said to me: 'Chávez, any stray shot there in that region, full of weapons of mass destruction, atomic weapons, could escalate into a war, which would be at first, conventional…;' but he's convinced that it would escalate straight away into a nuclear war, which could mean the end of the human species. So, it's not the danger in the Andes, Washington's lackeys, the danger is worldwide.
"Here in Venezuela, as Eva said, a light was lit, and in Latin America, another was lit and one more and others were lit. We can say today – not Venezuela, no – Latin America is the continent of hope and the yankee empire cannot shut the doors of hope.
"To us, Venezuelan men and women, it has always fallen to us, for some reason, or reasons of different kinds, to be the vanguard in these struggles, over centuries.
"I see over there Miranda's portrait, Bolivar's and over there MartÃn Tovar y Tovar, Carabobo, and Roy has read all of that and stated passionately: 'It runs here, in our genes, in our blood.' He was paraphrasing Mao, the great helmsman.
"That empire, that failed state which is the United States, despite its immense power, despite its threats, is going to end up a giant paper tiger and we are obliged to become real steel tigers, little steel tigers, invincible, indomitable.
"Madam President, I promised to be brief and I said it at the beginning and I repeat: I believe that everything that needed to be said here was said by Eva Golinger, brave woman and this brave gentleman deputy Roy Daza, and compiled in this document which I understand is to be circulated throughout the four corners of Venezuela and beyond, throughout Latin America.
"I thank you for your invitation to this event, I appreciate the gesture and, just as one more, I join this gigantic battalion, to put it that way, in the defense of Venezuela, in defense of our Venezuela homeland.
"Looking at the picture, the monumental work by Tovar y Tovar is more than a picture; one sees the infantry there, the cavalry there. Let us be inspired: Infantry, ready the bayonets, at the double! Calvary, charge! in defense of the Bolivarian homeland, of the Bolivarian Alliance of our Peoples!
"Down with the yankee empire!" he exclaimed finally, with vivas for ALBA, the homeland and the Revolution.
There is not the slightest doubt that Chávez, a military professional but much more inclined to persuasion than force, will not vacillate in preventing the pro-imperialist and anti-patriotic right from provoking deceived Venezuelans against the public forces in order to make blood flow in the streets of Venezuela.
In Bolivia and in Venezuela, the imperialist mafia has received a clear and energetic response, one that possibly, it was not expecting.
Fidel Castro Ruz
November 25, 2010
6:34 p.m.
Translated by Granma Internationalprivateer military .. war to make profit...
welcome to the 19th century.
depravity
unbecoming.
instead work and party fearless, join hands and celebrate in peace and great consciousness.
The Puritan colonists of Massachusetts embraced a line from Psalms 2:8.
"Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."
* * * * * *
It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early colonists at Plymouth — by giving thanks to the Christian God who supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The real meaning of all that, then and now, needs to be continually excavated. The myths and lies that surround the past are constantly draped over the horrors and tortures of our present.
Every schoolchild in the U.S. has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of their land by European colonialists–and of the ruthless ways of capitalism.
This piece is intended to be shared at this holiday time. Pass it on. Serve a little truth with the usual stuffing.
* * * * *
In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast, delivering 102 exiles. The original Native people of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox behind. Three years of plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of the coast, destroying most villages completely.
In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast, delivering 102 exiles. The original Native people of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox behind. Three years of plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of the coast, destroying most villages completely.
The Europeans landed and built their colony called "the Plymouth Plantation" near the deserted ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived–he had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. Squanto spoke the colonists' language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch fish until the first harvest. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.
These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. The first Virginia settlement had been wiped out before they could establish themselves. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the settlers not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace.
John Winthrop, a founder of the Massahusetts Bay colony considered this wave of illness and death to be a divine miracle. He wrote to a friend in England, "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection."
The deadly impact of European diseases and the good will of the Wampanoag allowed the settlers to survive their first year.
In celebration of their good fortune, the colony's governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast of thanksgiving after that first harvest of 1621.
How the Puritans Stole the Land
But the peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the Puritans would have 15 years to establish a firm foothold on the coast. Until 1629 there were no more than 300 settlers in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of Plymouth: Boston and Salem. For 10 years, boatloads of new settlers came.
And as the number of Europeans increased, they proved not nearly so generous as the Wampanoags.
On arrival, the Puritans and other religious sects discussed "who legally owns all this land." They had to decide this, not just because of Anglo-Saxon traditions, but because their particular way of farming was based on individual–not communal or tribal–ownership. This debate over land ownership reveals that bourgeois "rule of law" does not mean "protect the rights of the masses of people."
Some settlers argued that the land belonged to the Indians. These forces were excommunicated and expelled. Massachusetts Governor Winthrop declared the Indians had not "subdued" the land, and therefore all uncultivated lands should, according to English Common Law, be considered "public domain." This meant they belonged to the king. In short, the colonists decided they did not need to consult the Indians when they seized new lands, they only had to consult the representative of the crown (meaning the local governor).
The colonists embraced a line from Psalms 2:8.
"Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."
Since then, European settler states have similarly declared god their real estate agent: from the Boers seizing South Africa to the Zionists seizing Palestine.
The European immigrants took land and enslaved Indians to help them farm it. By 1637 there were about 2,000 British settlers. They pushed out from the coast and decided to remove the inhabitants.
The Shining City on the Hill
Where did the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies of Puritan and "separatist" pilgrims come from and what were they really all about?
Governor Winthrop, a founder of the Massachusetts colony, said, "We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." The Mayflower Puritans had been driven out of England as subversives. The Puritans saw this religious colony as a model of a social and political order that they believed all of Europe should adopt.
The Puritan movement was part of a sweeping revolt within English society against the ruling feudal order of wealthy lords. Only a few decades after the establishment of Plymouth, the Puritan Revolution came to power in England. They killed the king, won a civil war, set up a short-lived republic, and brutally conquered the neighboring people of Ireland to create a larger national market.
The famous Puritan intolerance was part of a determined attempt to challenge the decadence and wastefulness of the rich aristocratic landlords of England. The Puritans wanted to use the power of state punishment to uproot old and still dominant ways of thinking and behaving.
The new ideas of the Puritans served the needs of merchant capitalist accumulation. The extreme discipline, thrift and modesty the Puritans demanded of each other corresponded to a new and emerging form of ownership and production. Their so-called "Protestant Ethic" was an early form of the capitalist ethic. From the beginning, the Puritan colonies intended to grow through capitalist trade–trading fish and fur with England while they traded pots, knives, axes, alcohol and other English goods with the Indians.
The New England were ruled by a government in which only the male heads of families had a voice. Women, Indians, slaves, servants, youth were neither heard nor represented. In the Puritan schoolbooks, the old law "honor thy father and thy mother" was interpreted to mean honoring "All our Superiors, whether in Family, School, Church, and Commonwealth." And, the real truth was that the colonies were fundamentally controlled by the most powerful merchants.
The Puritan fathers believed they were the Chosen People of an infinite god and that this justified anything they did. They were Calvinists who believed that the vast majority of humanity was predestined to damnation. This meant that while they were firm in fighting for their own capitalist right to accumulate and prosper, they were quick to oppress the masses of people in Ireland, Scotland and North America, once they seized the power to set up their new bourgeois order. Those who rejected the narrow religious rules of the colonies were often simply expelled "out into the wilderness."
The Massachusetts colony (north of Plymouth) was founded when Puritan stockholders had gotten control of an English trading company. The king had given this company the right to govern its own intdrnal affairs, and in 1629 the stockholders simply voted to transfer the company to North American shores–making this colony literally a self-governing company of stockholders!
In U.S. schools, students are taught that the Mayflower compact of Plymouth contained the seeds of "modern democracy" and "rule of law." But by looking at the actual history of the Puritans, we can see that this so-called "modern democracy" was (and still is) a capitalist democracy based on all kinds of oppression and serving the class interests of the ruling capitalists.
In short, the Puritan movement developed as an early revolutionary challenge to the old feudal order in England. They were the soul of primitive capitalist accumulation. And transferred to the shores of North America, they immediately revealed how heartless and oppressive that capitalist soul is.
The Birth of "The American Way of War"
In the Connecticut Valley, the powerful Pequot tribe had not entered an alliance with the British (as had the Narragansett, the Wampanoag, and the Massachusetts peoples). At first they were far from the centers of colonization. Then, in 1633, the British stole the land where the city of Hartford now sits–land which the Pequot had recently conquered from another tribe. That same year two British slave raiders were killed. The colonists demanded that the Indians who killed the slavers be turned over. The Pequot refused.
The Puritan preachers said, from Romans 13:2, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." The colonial governments gathered an armed force of 240 under the command of John Mason. They were joined by a thousand Narragansett warriors. The historian Francis Jennings writes: "Mason proposed to avoid attacking Pequot warriors which would have overtaxed his unseasoned, unreliable troops. Battle, as such, was not his purpose. Battle is only one of the ways to destroy an enemy's will to fight. Massacre can accomplish the same end with less risk, and Mason had determined that massacre would be his objective."
The colonist army surrounded a fortified Pequot village on the Mystic River. At sunrise, as the inhabitants slept, the Puritan soldiers set the village on fire.
William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth, wrote: "Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them."
Mason himself wrote: "It may be demanded…Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion? But…sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents…. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."
Three hundred and fifty years later the Puritan phrase "a shining city on the hill" became a favorite quote of conservative speechwriters.
Discovering the Profits of Slavery
This so-called "Pequot war" was a one-sided murder and slaving expedition. Over 180 captives were taken. After consulting the bible again, in Leviticus 24:44, the colonial authorities found justification to kill most of the Pequot men and enslave the captured women and their children. Only 500 Pequot remained alive and free. In 1975 the official number of Pequot living in Connecticut was 21.
Some of the war captives were given to the Narragansett and Massachusetts allies of the British. Even before the arrival of Europeans, Native peoples of North America had widely practiced taking war captives from other tribes as hostages and slaves.
The remaining captives were sold to British plantation colonies in the West Indies to be worked to death in a new form of slavery that served the emerging capitalist world market. And with that, the merchants of Boston made a historic discovery: the profits they made from the sale of human beings virtually paid for the cost of seizing them.
One account says that enslaving Indians quickly became a "mania with speculators." These early merchant capitalists of Massachusetts started to make genocide pay for itself. The slave trade, first in captured Indians and soon in kidnapped Africans, quickly became a backbone of New England merchant capitalism.
Thanksgiving in the Manhattan Colony
In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first "scalp bounty"–his government paid money for the scalp of each Indian brought to them. A couple years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a friendly tribe. Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated, skinned alive and forced to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed. Then Kieft hired the notorious Underhill who had commanded in the Pequot war to carry out a similar massacre near Stamford, Connecticut. The village was set fire, and 500 Indian residents were put to the sword.
A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed in the churches of Manhattan. As we will see, the European colonists declared Thanksgiving Days to celebrate mass murder more often than they did for harvest and friendship.
The Conquest of New England
By the 1670s there were about 30,000 to 40,000 white inhabitants in the United New England Colonies–6,000 to 8,000 able to bear arms. With the Pequot destroyed, the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonists turned on the Wampanoag, the tribe that had saved them in 1620 and probably joined them for the original Thanksgiving Day.
In 1675 a Christian Wampanoag was killed while spying for the Puritans. The Plymouth authorities arrested and executed three Wampanoag without consulting the tribal chief, King Philip.
As Mao Tsetung says: "Where there is oppression there is resistance." The Wampanoag went to war.
The Indians applied some military lessons they had learned: they waged a guerrilla war which overran isolated European settlements and were often able to inflict casualties on the Puritan soldiers. The colonists again attacked and massacred the main Indian populations.
When this war ended, 600 European men, one-eleventh of the adult men of the New England Colonies, had been killed in battle. Hundreds of homes and 13 settlements had been wiped out. But the colonists won.
In their victory, the settlers launched an all-out genocide against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government offered 20 shillings bounty for every Indian scalp, and 40 shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave any Indian woman or child under 14 they could capture. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful" Indians of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts–and were sold onto slave ships.
It is not known how many Indians were sold into slavery, but in this campaign, 500 enslaved Indians were shipped from Plymouth alone. Of the 12,000 Indians in the surrounding tribes, probably about half died from battle, massacre and starvation.
After King Philip's War, there were almost no Indians left free in the northern British colonies. A colonist wrote from Manhattan's New York colony: "There is now but few Indians upon the island and those few no ways hurtful. It is to be admired how strangely they have decreased by the hand of God, since the English first settled in these parts."
In Massachusetts, the colonists declared a "day of public thanksgiving" in 1676, saying, "there now scarce remains a name or family of them [the Indians] but are either slain, captivated or fled."
Fifty-five years after the original Thanksgiving Day, the Puritans had destroyed the generous Wampanoag and all other neighboring tribes. The Wampanoag chief King Philip was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole in Plymouth, where the skull still hung on display 24 years later.
The descendants of these Native peoples are found wherever the Puritan merchant capitalists found markets for slaves: the West Indies, the Azures, Algiers, Spain and England. The grandson of Massasoit, the Pilgrim's original protector, was sold into slavery in Bermuda.
Runaways and Rebels
But even the destruction of Indian tribal life and the enslavement of survivors brought no peace. Indians continued to resist in every available way. Their oppressors lived in terror of a revolt. And they searched for ways to end the resistance. The historian MacLeod writes: "The first `reservations' were designed for the `wild' Irish of Ulster in 1609. And the first Indian reservation agent in America, Gookin of Massachusetts, like many other American immigrants had seen service in Ireland under Cromwell."
The enslaved Indians refused to work and ran away. The Massachusetts government tried to control runaways by marking enslaved Indians: brands were burnt into their skin, and symbols were tattooed into their foreheads and cheeks.
A Massachusetts law of 1695 gave colonists permission to kill Indians at will, declaring it was "lawful for any person, whether English or Indian, that shall find any Indians traveling or skulking in any of the towns or roads (within specified limits), to command them under their guard and examination, or to kill them as they may or can."
The northern colonists enacted more and more laws for controlling the people. A law in Albany forbade any African or Indian slave from driving a cart within the city. Curfews were set up; Africans and Indians were forbidden to have evening get-togethers. On Block Island, Indians were given 10 lashes for being out after nine o'clock. In 1692 Massachusetts made it a serious crime for any white person to marry an African, an Indian or a mulatto. In 1706 they tried to stop the importation of Indian slaves from other colonies, fearing a slave revolt.
Celebrate?
Looking at this history raises a question: Why should anyone celebrate the survival of the earliest Puritans with a Thanksgiving Day? Certainly the Native peoples of those times had no reason to celebrate.
The ruling powers of the United States organized people to celebrate Thanksgiving Day because it is in their interest. That's why they created it. The first national celebration of Thanksgiving was called for by George Washington. And the celebration was made a regular legal holiday later by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war (right as he sent troops to suppress the Sioux of Minnesota).
Washington and Lincoln were two presidents deeply involved in trying to forge a unified bourgeois nation-state out of the European settlers in the United States. And the Thanksgiving story was a useful myth in their efforts at U.S. nation-building. It celebrates the "bounty of the American way of life," while covering up the brutal nature of this society.
