The meaning of Thanksgiving to the Native Americans

Discussion in 'History' started by Buddha12, Nov 22, 2012.

  1. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    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.

    By the 1670s there were about 30,000 to 40,000 white inhabitants in the United New England Colonies–6000 to 8000 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.”


    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 internal 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 US 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.

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  3. superstring01 Moderator

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    History is filled with the tragic and unfortunate reality of one bigger group of men toppling the regime of another and killing the subjects thereof. This is the lesson of history that is important to learn. Every history, on every continent, is filled with this bloody, rotten nastiness. It's our history and we should learn it. But, even celebrations today that are rooted in that foundational human flaw, should not be forever filled with grieving and rocking in dark corners for the shame we feel for the sins done in the past. We are not those people. Every human being living today is here because of the sins of their forefathers. Each of us is the descendants of victors who conquered, slaughtered and bred. We all stand on piles and piles of murdered people, raped women, burned cities. None of us is innocent. None of us can escape that past.

    So I fail to see the point of trying to besmirch a modern celebration of family, giving thanks and good food because of horrible things we did in our past. There are 365 days in a year, I promise you, every one of those days is the anniversary of a raped ancestor of yours, of a child murdered by someone in your past, of a boy taken into slavery. Since we cannot escape our past, it's a good thing that we can make something positive out of such chaotic destruction. Thanksgiving represents that.

    ~String
     
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  5. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    I'm only stating what history is, not trying to besmirch anyone. If we cannot state and remember what history was then we are doomed to repeat what happened before. If you felt I was trying to besmirch what history we know about, I'm truely sorry.
     
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  7. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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  8. superstring01 Moderator

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    Sorry. I reacted too quickly. But, I do get a little knee-jerky when it comes to this topic.

    I'm not advocating "forgetting the past", only a reminder that we can remember the past, appreciate the lessons while not wallowing in guilt over how we got here and what we do with our current lives.

    ~String
     
  9. LaurieAG Registered Senior Member

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  10. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    You mean, Catholics and Protestants alike were cruel to indigenous peoples (I mean, away from the Puritan colonies)? That would be consistent with the Spanish atrocities. If I had to guess, I would suppose that the French Catholics were less violent toward indigenous Americans, while known for cruelty to Africans (as were all European interlopers). If we counted all of the cultures vanished, from the Eskimo to the Guarani, I think it would just piss me off, and make me reach for a brewski to soothe my nerves. Then, noticing that (after the empties were cleared away from yesterday's bash) I have a choice between Guinness and Dos Equis, I might opt for the one that still has a faint trace of indigenous legacy.

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    Oh wait, good time use the oft-neglected smiley: :cheers::cheers:

    (I'm just now catching up on your link. Looks like a good read. Thanks!)
     
  11. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    You know nothing of the native spirit, you call yourself scientist. We need to turn a leaf all together for good nature.
     
  12. arauca Banned Banned

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    I know nothing of the native spirit , I will appreciate if you fill in a little so I can have some understanding.
     
  13. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    You lack understanding? This is a science forum.

    Fore your appreciation what do you know about spirits?
     
  14. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    Winds of Change is a quarterly magazine published by AISES. It is the premier nationally distributed magazine published with a single-minded focus on career and educational advancement for American Indian and Alaska Native peoples with an emphasis on STEM. In addition to the quarterly publication, Winds of Change releases an annual Special Top 200 College Issue that has come to be viewed as a crucial resource for students and college recruiters.

    Winds of Change is a proven valuable recruitment tool for corporations, government agencies, tribal and non-tribal businesses, and colleges and universities across the U.S. The editorial focus of this dynamically redesigned magazine honors tradition while exploring topics in STEM fields as well as health, education, business, and Indian culture.


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