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The Word of the Day Challenge is traditions.

Fandango’s FOWC is revenge.

Today’s offering is in the form of a villanelle.

As an introduction, I wanted to talk about how I was inspired to write this. On Saturday, I went to Hobby Lobby to take an art print that my older son got me for Christmas framed in their framing department. After making the arrangements, I walked around the store. Looking for their soy candle-making supplies – they don’t carry them anymore – I walked down an aisle that had every shape, size, color, substance of bead that you could imagine, all in neat little packages, hanging from hooks. At that moment it struck me that we took this nation away from its Native populations for little more than trinkets, upsetting their traditions that had been followed for hundreds or thousands of years. The beads lining the aisles represent that same encroachment that’s been allowed, encouraged, and profited from by the evil corporations and their elected lackeys. I couldn’t help but feel, what a fitting revenge.

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They say we sold it for beads

In 1626, The Island of Hills, to the Dutch

A lie, we lost it through nefarious deeds

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Swindle with Canarsees, out from under Weckquaesgeeks

For more than $24, but not by much

They say we sold it for beads

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Manitou’s blessings, subsumed by invasive weeds

Heaven’s destruction in their clutch

A lie, we lost it through nefarious deeds

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In 2018, in a multitude of greeds

Corporates import all kinds of junk and such

They say we sold it for beads

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Our factories idle, trade deficit bleeds

National debt to foreign owners exceeds crutch

A lie, we lost it through nefarious deeds

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Tribes lost this land to European needs

We’re losing to Global investors through greed’s evil touch.

They say we sold it for beads

A lie, we lost it through nefarious deeds

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I obtained some information about Manhattan’s “sale” through this very thorough article, written in 1959:

“The $24 Swindle”, by Nathaniel Benchley

Finally , this very interesting TED talk on the Manahatta Project: