The True History Of Thanksgiving

The True History Of Thanksgiving

Many people believe that the tradition of Thanksgiving originated when the Pilgrims arrived and Native people helped them to survive their first brutal winter. We were taught in school that the settlers invited the Indians to a big feast of brotherhood as a way of thanks.

This is not the case.

Keep in mind that the first settlers were not in Plymouth, MA but in Virginia.

The people that arrived on the big ship in Massachusetts were adventurers and Separatists. They were people who were looking for adventure and religious freedom. Two very different types of people.

The Native people were not afraid with their arrival since the shipped contained women and children. They knew that warring people would not bring women and children, but still they stayed to themselves and watched and didn't interfere.

They watched as the settlers diminished that winter from 100 to 51 and then they went to help them to survive.

There was a peace treaty signed between the Indian chief and one of the settlers. It was called the Treaty of Friendship.

After the people survived the harsh winter, they took their guns out and starting shooting up every animal they saw to have a feast. The Indians heard so much gunfire and worried that they were in trouble so they ran to them. They saw that they were safe but that they were killing so many animals. Since the Indians were there they were invited to eat with them and they feasted for 3 days. But they were not invited to attend beforehand as thanks; they were already there.

After that, the Indians continued to help them, but the settlers questioned the way they did things. The Indians were nomadic. They lived in one camp for the winter, another for the spring, another for the fall. The settlers thought they were not utilizing the land well. They wanted to own it. The Indians didn't understand ownership of land; it was there for all to live on. They believed in caring for the land. It was important for them that they respected nature and made sure it was sustainable so that plants and animals could continue to flourish. The settlers began taking their land and resources.

The adventurers had to take back objects to Europe as payment. They began stealing from the Native people and kidnapping them and bringing them back to Europe as slaves. Then they began massacring the Native people, but the Indian chief signed the peace treaty and would not fight back. He kept his word. Many Indians died from the massacres and from the illnesses these people brought from Europe that they had never been exposed to and didn't have the immune system or understanding to fight off.

It wasn't until the Chief passed that his son began fighting the settlers in defense. He lost his life battling. They took his head and put it on a stake and paraded it through their town boasting how they had defeated the Indians and how they were superior to them. The feasted and had their Thanksgiving that they had acquired so much land. They kept his head on the stake for 45 years.

Adventurers back then believed in Manifest Destiny. They believed that it was their destiny to obtain as much land as possible. They believed that showed their power and dominance.

Thousands of Native American people died from small pox and other illnesses they contracted through trading objects with the settlers. Thousands died from the massacres. Thousands died when they were forced to leave their lands because they wouldn't accept Christianity and of course, thousands perished when they made the march west of the Mississippi during the time of known as the Trail of Tears. The military forced the Native people to march hundreds of miles to an unknown place with all their belongings, including women, elderly, and children.

The population of Native people has greatly diminished and much of the culture has been lost especially due to the Christian boarding schools set up to rid Indian children of their culture.

President George Washington tried to create the Thanksgiving holiday as a way for people to give thanks and pray, but it was never connected to Native Americans. It never caught on.

Then President Lincoln created the Thanksgiving holiday as a way to reunite the American people after the Civil War. This was probably when turkeys were introduced as the Native people and early settlers did not feast on turkeys but venison, lobsters, clams, eels, berries, corn, corn bread, and corn porridge.

Then later President Roosevelt decided that Thanksgiving should always be the last Thursday of November so that it would encourage people to go shopping for Christmas. This was the beginning of shopping after Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

This is the true story of Thanksgiving.

Native people and early settlers did not live peacefully together and give thanks together at a big feast.

Today many Native Americans live in reservations in the poorest parts of the US. Some people do not even have running water which is hard to imagine in the US. For Native Americans, Thanksgiving is known as a National Day of Mourning. It is a day of remembrance about their ancestors. It is not a day of thanks.

If you from another country, know that the United States was founded on taking away land and culture from people who lived here 12,000 years before.

If you are a parent in the US, teach your children the true history of Thanksgiving.

If you are a teacher, teach your students true American history, not only in elementary schools but in also in middle schools, high schools, and colleges because we aren't taught the true history in schools, we have to search for it.

This Thanksgiving in addition to giving thanks which I hope you do every day, think “What can I do to be more sustainable? How can I use less resources and help support the Earth? How can I help Native Americans? And how can I help to bring people into unity?

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