History, Events And Facts

Novena Day 29: The Sorrowful Mysteries The End of the World As We Know It I welcome Thanksgiving as a harvest festival and as family together time. In a little bit we will head to my brother’s with pies and squash and prepare for stories and laughter.  But I know for the indigenous peoples of this land this is no day of celebration. By the time the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth (about fifteen minutes from where I grew up on the coast of Massachusetts) there were already 100 million dead in North and South America. One hundred million dead. Columbus brought to the “new world” murder, slavery, rape, ecocide, plagues, torture, and genocide on a scale it is almost impossible to imagine. I remember first reading in college the accounts of the Jesuit priest Las Casas who accompanied him. “We killed the men, violated the women, slaughtered the babies, and made them all good Christians,” was repeated throughout the text…and from one place to another.  I can remember feeling queasy and o...