Memories of learning about Thanksgiving in elementary school
conjure up thoughts of the feathered headdresses and pilgrim hats which we were
taught to make – cringe-worthy in hindsight, cute in concept. My elementary
school, like many others, was quick to emphasize the theme of friendship
between Native Americans and the European immigrants. “It was so nice of them
to teach our ancestors how to farm, wasn’t it, kids? If it wasn’t for the
kindness of Native Americans, we wouldn’t even be here!”
It wasn’t until late middle school that we found out that
the Europeans didn’t stay that friendly for very long. It wasn’t until high
school that we started learning about the multitude
of atrocities committed against the same people who, every November, we
celebrated our ancestors being saved by.
What a twist, right?
People have been arguing
about the celebration of Thanksgiving for years, whether they believe it is
a reminder of the genocide of Native Americans, or they think it is a
celebration of European survival in America. The thing is, since as it stands
the holiday is largely still taught to be a friendly event, it seems especially
ironic to be celebrating it this year.
Especially since, you know, people are still trying to construct a pipeline that
would endanger the water supply for millions of Native Americans while
desecrating sites they hold sacred. It wasn’t bad enough that Europeans
went and killed countless indigenous people, or forcibly relocated and confined
them to increasingly smaller areas or land, or even that they took children
from their Native American families and forced them into boarding schools in an
attempt to “civilize” them. No, their descendants still feel the need to frame
this holiday as innocent and pleasant even while still currently endangering
the lives of the other side’s descendants.
I get it. No one wants to teach their kids about genocide.
And I get it, it’s really easy to sit down with family and eat yourself into a
food coma when you aren’t affected by the violence that’s been perpetrated
against Native Americans since that fateful first Thanksgiving. But why
completely block out the rest of the narrative to focus on that one moment of
calm? Why pretend you’re thankful for what they did, when the day is going to
be spent watching parades and football while eating as much food as you can
find? Don’t Americans have enough holidays to spend time with family?
If you’re really thankful for the events that brought you to
where you are today – for the events that led to America being colonized –
consider donating or sending
supplies to the Camp of the Sacred Stones and the Red Warrior Camp, as the
Standing Rock Sioux, other indigenous Americans, and their allies fight to
defend what’s left of their land from the construction of the Dakota Access
Pipeline.
"the violence that’s been perpetrated against Native Americans since that fateful first Thanksgiving."
ReplyDeleteWell, no. If we're talking about New England, the first organized state-on-tribe violence was the Pequot War of 1633. (Someone else can fact check Virginia and the other colonies.)
The Puritans broke the Pequod's resistance by surrounding and setting fire to one of the two fortified villages, killing around 500 men, women, and children. The remaining Indians decided to flee west, only to be pursued by a mixed force of Puritans and Mohegans. Two weeks later, they were surrounded. The men slipped away while the women and children were enslaved. The Mohawks were were so afraid of the English that they killed the escapees and sent the heads back to Hartford.
This so horrified the remaining tribes that they did their best to avoid conflict for the next 40 years, when Metacomet formed a confederacy to fight King Phillip's War.