“Enough is enough,” exclaimed group leader Don Edchute. “There are now more than 600,000 non-indigenous Vermonters living on this land. It’s about time we put our foot down and finally put an end to this reckless immigration.”
Edchute is part of long line of Abenaki ancestry that has occupied the Vermont area since at least the 1600s, when its tribes first came into contact with European settlers.
“Our culture has survived war, disease, tribal conflict, cultural diffusion and even forced sterilization. I’m finally starting to suspect that these settlers have no intention of ever assimilating our beliefs and traditions,” he explained. “Hell, it took until 2011, 400 years after our first encounters with European settlers, for them to even grant us state recognition here in Vermont.”
It wasn’t until Edchute discovered Rutland First, a group of Rutland residents formed in opposition of the city’s proposed resettlement of 100 Syrian refugees, that he decided to form a group of his own.
“Basically, I suffered from a severe episode of what my ancestors referred to as ‘Aryoufukinkidnme,’ which roughly translates to ‘irony so thick that you begin to choke on it.’ I just knew I had to do something,” he told Seven Days. “I honestly thought these settlers were finally showing signs of real progress by inviting refugees of war-torn Syria into their community, but after stumbling across this Rutland First group on Facebook, I realized that some souls are just beyond saving.”
“These people cut down forests to build stores that inevitably close 20 years later, leaving behind rusty relics of failed capitalism on this once-sacred land,” exclaimed Jess McQuints. “They have turned healing and medicine into for-profit commodities. They have been poisoning their own water supply. I think it’s about time for them to pack it up and go home.”
Edchute clarified that he does not believe war, disease, forced sterilization or any other of the other challenges his ancestors faced would be effective ways to force the settlers out of Vermont.
“Despite their best attempts, our culture survived every deplorable effort that was made to eradicate it. I see no reason believe those same tactics would be effective against these settlers,” he said. “Clearly, we need to try something a little more drastic if we’re ever going to control the spread of their culture and fully restore our own.”
When asked what this radical new solution could be, Edchute simply replied, “an education.”
The Parmelee Post is a weekly series featuring tough investigative reporting on news that hasn’t happened. Yet.
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2016.
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Yes, let’s all get a really good evaluating “education” on the so-called “Abenaki” groups in Vermont. Let’s actually read the BIA Report and the previous State’s Report of 2002 Eva Jacob’s-Carnahan and the AG’s Dept, shall we, Vermonters?
Let’s see here: In a nut shell, and to make a long story short, the Swanton group led by Homer was started in fact by Ronnie Canns, you know, the son of politician Julius Canns who immediately went about advocating for the Homer group in 1992, never mentioned his son involved in creating that group in 1975 after he was in Concord, NH creating a group down there? Or how about the 4 Indians of Alburg being ancestors of Patsy St. Francis, Homer’s wife, when in fact, those 4 Indians mentioned in Alburgh Town Records were Akwesasne Mohawk men! Or how about the Chief of the Wabanacus Postcard Wiseman altered, because it was actually an Odanak Chief visiting his ancestral community of Missisquoi, not a Chief of the post 1975 group at all nor its members ancestors? Or how about the Phillips family member, Chief Stevens of the 2004 created group Nulhegan claiming his Phillips family were descendants of the Chief Philipp of ca. 1796 Upper Coos, NH area, when in fact his family is desc.’s of a Peter Phelps, a colored man who came from CT ca. 1790?! DNA testing proves this! Yes, let’s have that “education” about the fraudulent state granted and manipulated “recognition” of these pretender “Abenakis” by the Vermont Legislature and the two Governors, or was that three, counting Thomas Salmon back in Thanksgiving, 1976? Do you see the Abenakis laughing? I see the fake one’s laughing all the way to the bank!