Do you really know the the story behind Thanksgiving?? It may not be all what you may think take a look at our series and see if you find things you may not have known...Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving really. It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders” as the supremely white American holiday; some may say the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. There are many myths and misconceptions surrounding the people responsible for the American Thanksgiving tradition. Contrary to popular opinion, the pilgrims didn't wear buckles on their shoes or hates. They smoked tobacco and drank beer. And, most importantly, their first harvest festival and subsequent "thanksgiving" weren't held to thank the local natives for saving their lives.
Do you know there are public schools in America today actually teaching that? Do you think that most parents today know little more about history than their kids do? Some textbooks, in their discomfort with open discussions of Christianity, say as much. Yet, there is no way to divorce the spiritual from the celebration of Thanksgiving- at least not the way the Pilgrims envisioned it, a tradition dating back to the ancient Hebrews and their feast of Succoth and Passover.
Those who are indigenous to this land we call “The United States of America” have been long misrepresented and pushed out of American history textbooks in favor of glorifying those who now rule this nation and represent the dominant culture. What kind of democracy are we when education institutions and teachers refuse to mention the fact that 10 to 30 million Natives were killed at the hands of European invasion and colonialism? What is the point of having a “free market of ideas” when selective and biased history is being taught to our children?
There is no other way to put it, but erasing the memory of an entire race of people through distorted history is a systematic way of deceiving and lying to our children. Not only are we presented with biased history, but we are also subjected to an ever-growing culture of capitalism, in which commercialization of an ambiguous holiday merely pulls us away from facts and meaning. Through the guise of innocence, capitalism is constantly telling us to consume because consumption equals “happiness.” Tomorrow is not “Black Friday” for nothing. The Pilgrims came to America for one reason-to form a seperate community in which they could worship their God as they saw fit. They had fled England because King James I was persecuting those who didn't recognize theChurch of England's absolute civil and spiritual authority.
And as children dress up as Pilgrims and Natives to reenact the romanticized version of history, they are not only perpetuating stereotypes, but more importantly, they’re being embedded with lies. What do they really know about the Pilgrims and the Natives? Consider a high school history textbook called “The American Tradition” which describes the scene quite succinctly:
After some exploring, the Pilgrims chose the land around Plymouth Harbor for their settlement. Unfortunately, they had arrived in December and were not prepared for the New England winter. However, they were aided by friendly Indians, who gave them food and showed them how to grow corn. When warm weather came, the colonists planted, fished, hunted, and prepared themselves for the next winter. After harvesting their first crop, they and their Indian friends celebrated the first Thanksgiving.
This patronizing version of history excludes many embarrassing facts of European history. As stated by James Loewen, author of "Lies my Teacher Told Me?" many college students are unaware of the horrific plague that devastated and significantly reduced the population of Natives after Columbus’ arrival in the “new world.” Most diseases came from animals that were domesticated by Europeans. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, which was later “spread through gifts of blankets by infected Europeans.” Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans didn't have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox wouldeffectively wipe out enitre villages with very little effort required by Europeans. Why is it important to mention the plague? It reinforced European ethnocentricism which hardly produced a “friendly” relationship between the Natives and Europeans. To most of the Pilgrims and Europeans, the Natives were heathens, savages, treacherous, and Satanic. Upon seeing thousands of dead Natives, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, when the Pilgrims landed in the New World, they found cold, rocky, barren, desolute wilderness. To be continued....
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