Thanksgiving: Celebrating the Genocide of Native Americans
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Nov 25, 2010 at 8:22 am
The sad reality about the United States of America is that in a matter of a few hundreds years it has managed to rewrite its own history into a mythological fantasy. The concepts of liberty, freedom and free enterprise in the “land of the free, home of the brave” are a mere spin. America was founded and became prosperous based on two “original sins”: First, the murder of Native Americans and theft of their land by European colonialists; second, slavery. This grim reality is far removed from the fairytale version of a nation that views itself in its collective consciousness as a virtuous universal agent for good and progress. The most recent version of this mythology was expressed by Ronald Reagan when he said that “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.”
In rewriting its own history about Thanksgiving, white America tells a Disney-like fairytale story about the English pilgrims and their struggle to survive in a new and harsh environment. The pilgrims found help from the friendly Native American tribe, the Wampanoag Indians, in 1621. But unfortunately for Native Americans the thankfulness of European settlers was very short-lived. By 1637, Massachusetts governor John Winthrop ordered the massacre of thousands of Pequot Indian men, women and children. This event marked the start of the Native American genocide which would take a bit more than 200 years to complete, and of course to achieve its ultimate goal, which was to take the land from Native Americans and systematically plunder their resources. The genocide, started in 1637, marks the beginning of the conquest of the entire continent until Native Americans were either exterminated for most, assimilated into white society for very few, or put in reservations to dwindle and die.
In other words, celebrating Thanksgiving is as if Germany had a day of celebration for the Holocaust. Thanksgiving is the American Holocaust. The original crimes of genocide and slavery are not limited to United States early history but have found an extension in the current policies of modern-day America. The systematic assault on other nations and cultures is still going on today under various pretenses or outright lies. The United States wars of empire are going on today more than ever before. They have left millions of people dead across the world in the course of American history, and they are still fought for the same reasons behind the Native American genocide and slavery: namely, to expand the wealth of the United States elite.
Defenders of Thanksgiving will say that whatever the original murky meaning of the holiday was, it has now become a rare chance to spend time with family and show appreciation for what one has. However, for most Americans today it is hard to be thankful. As matter of fact, unless you belong to the 2 percent representing the United States ruling class you should not be thankful at all. How can you be appreciative for what you have if you lost your house to foreclosure, don’t have a job and can’t feed your family? How can you be appreciative if you are a homeless veteran? How can you be appreciative living in a society with no social justice when you are poor or sick? Today rich celebrities and politicians will make a parody of what should be real charity by feeding the countless poor and homeless, and it will ease their conscience, at least for a while. But charity should not be a substitute for social justice, and just to ruin some people’s appetites before attacking that golden turkey; keep in mind that today we are celebrating a genocide.
Related Articles
Now really, to compare the Holocaust to the European expansion in North America? Not the same, not even close. One was a natural event where 2 cultures came into conflict and the stronger dominated, the other was a planned crime against hum…anity. Moronic, at best, to even use the one as an example of the other. Now go eat your Turkey and do some reading of history.
PS this is what happens when you have lax immigration controls.See More
right, the european colonists NATURALLY decided to massacre thousands of native americans.
darwinism at its best… really
i wouldve massacred them too if they were attacking and killing everyone i knew
i haven’t seen ignorance at this level for a very long time. how disgusting.
Well would you attack people who were squatting on your land? That’s all the Indians ever did. Maybe you should read some history that wasn’t written by American Expansionists who totally supported the ideal of Manifest Destiny.
you cant be so hateful and negative.Even the poorest most hungry person has something to be thankful for.Celebrate Thanksgiving as a way to honor how the Native Americans lived,what they believed in.Yes most american history is a lie and today many suffer,but even in times of great suffering,thanks can be found.
Right On!
I completely agree with this article. I understand the “let’s just be thankful for what we have” argument, but ignoring the TRUE history of this “holiday”, and misleading school aged children into believing this is a respectful day, is appalling. This is not about Native Americans and Pilgrims breaking bread. Be honest with yourselves…Native Americans were abused and murdered and we celebrate this while conning ourselves into thinking it’s about giving thanks.
It is EXACTLY as if the Germans were to celebrate the Holocaust. Only, here, Indigenous people are close to extinction. An entire race of people. It had nothing to do with a NATURAL EVENT. Natural? What is natural about MURDER, RAPE and the extinction of a group of people? I wish people would educate themselves.
This remake/rewrite of history is taught to our children and the lies will continue to spread. I agree with this article. It is deeper than just being “thankful” for things in your life. DO WE REALLY NEED A DAY TO BE THANKFUL???? No. Be thankful everyday. Celebrate holidays that dont include genocide.
Think about the millions of deaths, rapes, murders to men, children and women as you “be thankful” and “enjoy your turkey”.
Let us be thankful the “job” is not yet complete, although it is still in motion. There are up to one million natives left in the United States (although that number varies by definition of how much indigenous ancestry is needed to be considered Native American). http://www.americanwest.com/pages/indrank.htm
Many of these folks are still being persecuted today. The infrastructure is so bad on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, that a snowstorm that blew threw there recently has left 50,000 on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, but the corporate MSM is silent about this. http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010pine-ridge-appeal
Extraordinary steps are required to re-empower the first ones, including finally granting tribes not only a semi-autonomous status, but full independence. They predate the US and have a right to self determination.
The indigenous peoples rights movement is gaining steam. This issue is far from over. In many countries, including Canada, this movement is becoming a social and political force aggressively challenging the status quo and assertively demanding and standing up for their rights with direct action and militant commitment. Human rights, social justice, economic justice and full equality are not issues that can be swept under the rug by a couple hundred years of oppression and exploitation. These issues demand the attention of all humans. In order to ensure your own rights, you must fight for the rights of all.
Very informative, and I agree we shouldn’t paint a prideful fantasy of American history for our youth… BUT we also cannot change history, nor should we live the rest of our lives in guilt of decisions of our ancestors. If
However the author seems very negative and resentful. if this is such a burden to your soul and stops you from enjoying what you have, or makes you try and stop other people from enjoying what they have, then this is YOUR problem. Go out and help all those underprivileged folks, go to the reservations, do something besides making generalizations of the well-being of others!
Sometimes, it takes loss and hardship to appreciate what you have left. There are MANY poor people who appreciate life more than rich people.
So we did North American Aboriginals a favor? WTF kind of reasoning is this? Don’t worry about how you got something, just be thankful that you have it and it’s OK cause the poor people are happy anyway. This is one twisted way of thinking.
did you actually read the articles?? These are not just the sins of ancestors….these are atrocities that are still going on TODAY. These are the attitudes that allow the Native American people to still be mistreated today. The genocide continues…………
I agree with the article.
There’s nothing “thankful” about back-stabbing and stealing.
Also is November the 25th the only day people can remember to be thankful for everything. I mean, we there are the other 364 days of the year.
While yes, there were many atrocities committed against the Native Americans, there’s one sentence in this entire article that completely makes this entire article fairly invalid. The author states that 16 years after the original thanksgiving, that there were these massacres of native americans. Well, the pilgrims weren’t committing these atrocities on the original thanksgiving, but years later they were, yet we’re going to associate the atrocities with the celebration of thanks just because people committed them later? Granted bad deeds overshadow any good deeds, it’s a fact of life, but why do we find we need to have politically correct agendas for everything in life? I do say that we need to acknowledge that the atrocities have happened, and that we need to learn and grow constantly from our horrible past, but where does anyone get off saying that thanksgiving is like celebrating the holocaust? The holocaust was terrible, people died, but that event was entirely about killing, but Thanksgiving was about two groups of people coming together, that is what we focus on for thanksgiving. The atrocities happened later, yet this is all the European settlers are going to be remembered by, just in the same way that Germany is remembered for its atrocities in WWII, completely overshadowing all their contributions to the modern world before WWII. Do we throw away all progress made before bad things happen just because the bad things happened? No, we don’t. So seriously people, to be fair to everyone, put your focus on the issues individually rather than lumping them together with a holiday just to bring attention to a certain agenda that you have. You have a right to be upset about atrocities, but you also have the right to shut up and just let people celebrate a holiday that’s meant to be positive. Address the unfair treatment of Native Americans in the past in a different manner than trying to protest this day of thanksgiving.
OMG……These atrocities still persist. These are a people who are still being mistreated. All of their lands have been taken and sacred sites are being abused and demolished as we speak. There really is NOTHING for native americans to celebrate.
Pingback:
-3Amazing post. I made same connection with the holocaust on my blog, but traced it back to the Jewish extermination of the cultures already living in their promised land. Isn’t it justified by religion?
http://www.holyblasphemy.net/2010/11/recipe-for-disaster-thanksgiving-passover-and-the-history-of-racial-genocide-in-the-name-of-god/culture
Derek,
Thanks for posting the link to your excellent article establishing the same connection than I did between the Holocaust and the genocide of Native Americans in the Americas. Also, I didn’t want to bring it up in my article because my argument was very specific, but the current policies of Israel’s expansion by building thousands of illegal settlements in the occupy Palestinian territories amount to the sane thing in its principle than the American genocide. It is about ethnic cleansing, stealing land and resources (in the case of Palestine/Israel it is water). Keep up the good work, I bookmarked your site,
Thanksgiving is a wonderful event for all of us. Although we have to be thankful everyday for something, this is a day dedicated for being thankful and to think about all the great things we have in our lives!
Enjoy these unique days!
Yea.
All the different tribes lived in peaceful harmony, they sought out each other to help and enlighten each other, they did not take slaves, kidnap and rape each other’s women and keep them for themselves. They lived in harmony with nature and did not run herds of buffalo off cliffs to kill as many as possible, they did not encroach on each others land and fight to take it over. They did not wipe out or take over weaker tribes, or merge tribes together to get stronger to take over others…just saying.
Just a slight divergence from reality and your logic that Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag natives began a genocide of 200 million Native Americans. If it had been, the Puritans would have slaughtered the Wampanoag natives right then and there. Just a minor inaccuracy right? What happened 16 years later, lets just forget about that time frame and blame those damn Pilgrims for starting it off with sharing with the Native Americans. They should have shot their guests right? Lets not celebrate that they shared and actually peacefully coexisted with them.
Speaking of how friendly the Natives are and how they never cause trouble. The Iroquois completely wiped out every single last Huron indian. Where is the out cry about that? Oh yeah, it didn’t happen right? The peace loving Iroquois never hurt a single person ever. Native Americans were only peace loving naturalists victimized by the evil Europeans. Well we can thank them for tobacco, and they can thank us for smallpox which probably wiped out 190 million of those Natives. I don’t hear them apologizing for tobacco related deaths, why is that? Oh, and that 200 million number? Interesting how the US population only hit that in the last 50 years. Where did that number come from? I highly doubt they had the proper agrarian society with the proper infrastructure to support 200 million people.
Don’t you love apologists? Take your liberal arts degree and go back to school and read the rest of the history you absolutely missed. Comparing the Nazis treatment of Jews to the American treatment of Native Americans is brutal. You should get a job for Pravda, oh right, they don’t write like that anymore. Sorry
How can gay poverty kill Indian when they can not even Indian….the blue coats got her not the red knight.
Bye,
col. henry rutgers.
The Stone-age Asian invaders are getting what they did to the ORIGINAL white european NATIVES, genocide!! Noble savage my aunt tilly, pfooey. These people are even more backwards then the dear South-of-the-border almost stone-agers. Oh I forgot they invented brain surgery, shure like their modern heart surgery methods. What a Laugh, Are we talking about the same peoples? Or are you thinking of some fantasy Walt Disney or Peter Pan Red Man? You guys did hear of Kenewick man??
Pingback:
-2