Thanksgiving Day: Native American Mass Killings
Originally posted on November 27, 2013
We were taught in elementary school that Thanksgiving originated from the day the Pilgrims and Native Americans had a feast which created a national day of gratitude. What if someone told you that Thanksgiving is the official day the U.S. celebrates the survival of European invasion that resulted in the death of millions of Native Americans?
When the Europeans arrived to America, the Native Americans welcomed them. The Europeans grew in number and began to steal land. When the Native Americans declared war, the Europeans had the advantage because they had guns. The year 1637 marks the beginning of the Native American Genocide. Guns and disease was used to kill them off. The Europeans even gave them blankets as “gifts”. Little did the Native Americans know, the blankets were filled with small pox disease. The Native Americans that remained were assimilated into white society and the rest were places on reservations.
An article, Thanksgiving: A Holocaust For Native Americans says the Thanksgiving that colonial Puritans — a group of religious fundamentalists — practiced was originally thanking god for the slaughter of Native Americans by colonial swords and diseases. There were many such Thanksgivings.
In 1637 a faction of Puritans occupied an area that is now Connecticut with the aid of British and Dutch colonial forces. In the pre-dawn hours they slaughtered more than 700 adults and children of the Pequot Tribe, who had gathered for their annual Green Corn festival. The next morning the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” for the occupier’s murder of the native population.
The first Thanksgiving feast between the Pilgrims and Native Americans was in 1621 with the Wampanoag and 121 English colonist led by 28 puritans that landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Squanto, Samoset, and sachem Massasoit were the only Native Americans invited. They brought 90 tribes-people and most of the food. Squanto and Samoset taught the colonist how to hunt, fish and grow crops. The colonist eventually killed off the Wampanoag.
After the colonialists’ victory against Wampanoag they declared a “day of public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy.”
A documentary titled, The True Meaning of Thanksgiving also reveals that a “Thanksgiving” dinner was held after every successful massacre. According to the documentary, President George Washington suggested that only one “Thanksgiving” dinner should be held each year. The documentary was submitted to the Festival de Cannes 2008 for review.
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