The Truth of Thanksgiving

In the spirit of thanks giving I think it’s important to explore its history. In 1492 Christopher Columbus first landed in the Bahamas and encountered Native Americans. He immediately referred to them as an inferior race and wrote "They all go around as naked as their mothers bore them; and also the women.” He also said that "they could easily be commanded and made to work, to sow and to do whatever might be needed, to build towns and be taught to wear clothes and adopt our ways." He imprisoned thousands of Native Americans, he raped their women murdered their children and enslaved their men. The Pilgrims didn’t invent Thanksgiving.

When the Mayflower arrived on Plymouth Rock, they had only one slave left that had survived small pox and his name was Squanto. Squanto taught the pilgrims to grow corn and fish, he also helped them create a peace treaty with the Wampanoag tribe that resided on the land. The Native Americans in that part of the country already had a rich tradition of marking the fall harvest with a major fiesta. After the puritans first harvest they stole the Native Americans tradition and held a feast of their own to celebrate. At which the Puritans gave the Indians gift baskets, infected with small pox beginning the plague. After seeing the thousands of dead natives that the plague killed. The newly appointed Governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop, declared a day of thanks giving. Thus thanking god for killing over 700 savage, Native American, Men, Women and children.

King James of England, decades later called the deaths of millions of Native Americans "this wonderful plague." He thanked God for sending it. The puritans came by the thousands to claim land that the Natives weren’t even claiming as theirs. They said the land belonged to the earth and the pilgrims felt they were doing the natives a favor by killing them and abolishing this idea.

Major revisions to our history books, make heroes out of murderers. Our nation thinks of turkey As a Hallmark façade, in the same category as Santa and the Easter Bunny. The Native Americans invented holistic medicine, crop burning for fertilization and lived a life without pollution. This scared us, they didn’t believe in our God, they had rituals we couldn’t understand and so we killed them or colonized them and made them conform to our ways. Now most Indian reservations, are fueled by casinos and revenue from drugs.

We began as caveman living as nomads off nothing, developed technology and with it came power and greed. Now we have almost made extinct the people that know how to utilize best, our earth resources, with out damage to the Mother Earth. We don’t think about throwing trash on the ground or the truth behind thanksgiving anymore because it’s easy. We leave lights on and drive cars out of convenience because we cant see the bigger picture anymore. We have let the fascist puritan’s beliefs multiply and divide into the existence that is our reality today. I for one am going to give thanks on this thanks giving for those who have been forgotten but genuinely believed the earth was a sanctuary to be worshiped and protected and died because of those beliefs.

Tara Beach