How many Native Americans will 'celebrate' thanksgiving?

Question

And do you think that white people really understand the true history of that holiday?

Dear Larry.
I'm not talking about the 1621 myth of turkey dinners. I'm not talking about the 1621 reality of 'fowl'.
I'm talking about the 1641 "scalp day" thanksgiving celebration, instituted by the Dutch Governor, and other atrocities that were given the name "Thanksgiving" which celebrated the deaths and extermination of Native People's.

To UK sense...
My apologies for using the vernacular. Some people get picky about such things. Would it be better for you if I used the term "Aboriginal American"?
Then again, that's not the word that they use. Most Americans (Natives to you) don't look like the "aboriginal Americans". Has being here changed their DNA?

I'm also willing to bet that some people over here still fund the IRA. Do you plan on giving them their island back? Or at least self-rule? You boys have been losing a bit of that kingdom over the years though. Canada, etc.

Answer 1

Many holidays are tied to seasonal and related celestial events including Thanksgiving. As a person suspect of most organized religions and nations, I try to see past the cultural histrionics associated with holidays and see the shared events they represent. In this case, the shared event is the end of the agricultural season of plenty. We are slowly sliding into the winter season of scarcity and we need to consume some of the bounty from the harvest, never you mind the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders that afflict us now.
All of us, Native Americans and the rest of us recent immigrants, need not embrace the shallow lies of our faux history books to be thankful for living in a time when we will not starve in the winter; our children will almost certainly outlive us; and a simple cut will not spell our demise. It is also good to remember with humility and appreciate the sacrifices and suffering that others have gone through so that we can live as well as we do.
I now look forward to the winter solstice and celebrating the beginning of the end of the long night of that season, a holiday otherwise known as Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or Festivus.
As for the second part of your question, most “native born Americans” don’t even know the faux history, let alone the real history, of our modern holiday. They may share some vague recollection from grade school of nice pilgrims and friendly native Americans, but apart from these images they couldn’t tell you the myths of John Smith, Squanto and the Plymouth Colony.

Answer 2

The school system in Seattle wants the day celebrated as a day of mourning because of what happened after Native Americans helped the first settlers.

Answer 3

I am Siksika Blackfoot of The Blackfoot Nation and no today is a day of mourning for us. We do not celebrate a massacre and we don't need a specific day to give thanks, we do this everyday at every meal.
The only Native Americans that celebrate this horrid day are those that are 1/100 Native or have never truly lived the Native life. Those raise on the reservations are raised with the truth and are taught to honor our ancestors of all tribes and would never disgrace them by celebrating these tragedies.

Answer 4

I have a friend who is Native American just like me, and he tried to tell me that this should be a day of mourning.
However, I am not full blooded Indian. I am also French, and all my life I had no idea that you were supposed to treat this great day as a sad one. My family has always celebrated this day, and why should I stop just because of what my friend said?
I am thankful for so much in my life, why should I be sad today
?
This is a day of thanks, and Z if you are reading this, I love ya!

Answer 5

Most Natives I know will celebrate. We like turkey too, and it was a time of peace for us, not war. Some people of any group will fail to understand.

WE understand that most people have good hearts, and that most people are sad about what happened. We also understand that history cannot be undone, and we choose to honor the good parts of it.

Answer 6

I think not one native American should celebrate thanksgiving, they should celebrate thanks for taking (LOL) our land and food , thanks for teaching us what we always new white people ain't Sugar Honey Ice Tea ( LOL) well a very large few.

Answer 7

First off I was born and raised in Albuquerque and had a good number of Native American, or part Native American friends when I lived there. The ones I knew all worked jobs,
(normally for the Federal Government... most jobs in NM are Government related) drove pick up trucks, celebrated Thanksgiving, and the only time they got sad or upset on Thanksgiving was when the Dallas Cowboys won. They wore no more, and no less, Indian jewelry than any other New Mexican, and had no respect for the "Native American Activists". When the bozos cut the foot off the Don Juan de Onate statue most all of the Native Americans regarded it as stupid and sily. As was said at the time "Give me a break -- it was 400 years ago. It's O.K. to hold a grudge, but for 400 years?''

By asking this question it sounds like you have been sold a politically correct load of bull.... not unlike the fake "Cheif Seattle" quote that was floating around a few years ago. From living in New Mexico for 30 years I can tell you that the "Inidan Activists" have a larger following amongst over-educated, psuedo-intelectual white liberals than they do amongs "real Indians".

You need to know that there is good money to be made being a perpetually pissed off Indian Activist... and it doesn't involve getting up early in the morning or lifting heavy things, or even having to get a degree. If you have the right "look" and proclaim yourself an Indian Activist and make yourself available to TV reporters who need an interview or story, there are a lot of flaky white baby-boomers who have more money than sense, (many of whom moved to Santa Fe from California or New York) that will give you money and invite you to trendy parties so they can show their friends how "socially aware" they are. (They also spend huge sums on "socially aware" and "cutting edge" art that is generally pretty bad, but it shows off their "social conscience" better than just giving the money to a womens shelter or a Native American Charity).

These flaky but rich whites will also pay ridiculious sums of money to "authentic Native Americans" for anything that is "authentic Native American" and or "spiritual". (The flaky whites almost always say they are "spiritual but not religious"... which is code for "I want to sound deep, but not actually give up drinking, or drugs, or stop cheating on my (third) wife, or even bother to READ something like Bonhoffer or C.S. Lewis, much less St. Augustine.) In any case, the "Activist Leaders" aren't in it for any sort of cause (like they expect the entire population of the US is going to go get on boats and go back to Ireland?) they are in it for the money, the attention, and the impressionable young college girls that follow them around. You need to know this before you believe everything, or anything, they say.

As for the "true history" of the holiday, There are only two primary sources for the Thanksgiving story.The first is from Governor William Bradford's history of the Plymouth Colony.

"They begane now to gather in ye small harvest they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings against winter, being well recovered in health & strenght, and had all things in good plenty; for some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, & other fish, of which yey tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer ther was no wante. And now begane to come in store of foule, as winter aproached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degree). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they took many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corne to yt proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not fained, but true reports.


"William Bradford. "Bradford's History Of Plimoth Plantation." Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers... 1898. p. 127

The other is from Mort's Relation...by Edward Winslow
"Our Corne did proue well, & God be praysed, we had a good increase of Indian Corne, and our Barly indifferent good, but our Pease not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sowne, they came vp very well, and blossomed, but the Sunne parched them in the blossome; our harvest being gotten in, our Governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a more speciall manner reioyce together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst vs, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with some nintie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed fiue Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed upon our Governour, and upon the Captaine, and others. And although it be not alwayes so plentifull, as it was at this time with vs, yet by the goodneses of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."


E.W., Plymouth, in New England, this 11th of December, 1621. in A RELATION OR Journal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in NEW ENGLAND, by certaine English Aduenturers both Merchants and others. LONDON,Printed for John Bellamie,..1622. pp. 60-61.

Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
George Morton, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, and Robert Cushman (Dwight B. Heath, ed.)

List Price: $9.95
Paperback: 96 pages
Publisher: Applewood Books, 1986
ISBN: 0918222842


I'd bet dollars to donuts you haven't read any of them one.


Oh... I got your message... Plymouth Colony never had a Dutch Govenor and never had a "scalp day" (perhaps you are thinking of something that took place in New York where there was a Dutch Govenor for a time??) . In any case I don't see how a tangental relationship that you have constructed with non-related events alters the "true meaming" of the holiday that celebrates not just our relationship with our Lord, but historically documented events that took place at Plymouth in the early 1620s. One might as well complain about how Pope had priests, women, and children murdered during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, ruins Thanksgivng...or that the fact one third of the Jamestown Colony was wiped out by an Indian attack on Good Friday 1622 ruins the "true meaning of Easter". None of that has to do with the American Holiday of Thanksgiving either.


Even assuming that what you say is true, I fail to see how this has anything to do with either the American traditon of Thanksgiving that we celebrate, or the holiday that was perpetuated by Presidents Washington and Lincoln in their proclaimations of Thanksgiving.

I'm glad to hear you read St. Augustine... although how much you retained seems quite suspect... in any case I had assumed from your question you were between the ages of 14 and 16.