A Secret Thanksgiving Wish
Thanks to Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoags who had signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims earlier in the spring, the new Americans were able to plant, tend, and harvest their first crop with little trouble. It wasn’t much. A peck of corn meal a week for each family (a peck is eight dry quarts) during the winter along with some salt fish. They supplemented this with wild fowl they hunted and trapped. All in all, barely enough on which to survive. But considering their hardships suffered during the previous year, it seemed bountiful enough that they were able to entertain and feed 90 Wampanoags and the entire colony for a week of feasting.
These were hardy, determined people who put up with difficulties almost all of us today would never survive. We forget that these first Pilgrims made something out of absolutely nothing with just a few tools and the sweat of their brow — and a nice assist from the Wampanoags, who had their own selfish reasons for helping. A devastating plague — probably an extremely virulent form of smallpox that the Wampanoags caught from French traders — reduced their numbers dramatically, leaving them vulnerable to their enemies, the Narragansett tribe. No doubt Massasoit eyed the Pilgrim flintlocks with more than a little envy.
Later, there would be war and betrayal, conquest and subjugation. In those first years, both sides profited handsomely from their relationship. But when history’s course was finally run, and white settlers in North America had their way with the native peoples, the curtain was eventually drawn on the rich and varied cultures of an ancient civilization.
Yes, it was a sad, tragic, and ultimately stupid turn of events. But those who feel it necessary to remind us of these transgressions never seem to hold any admiration at all for the extraordinary people who crossed an ocean in yacht-sized and leaky wooden ships, endured deprivations most of us would never survive, performed backbreaking manual labor of which they were unaccustomed, and — with the help of Native Americans who felt they needed these powerful strangers as allies as much as they were needed — lived to celebrate a bountiful harvest, giving thanks to their God for his mercy and providential intercessions.
For 364 days out of the year, you can get in my face about how beastly we were to the Indians and how guilty I should feel about the cultural genocide perpetrated against them by earlier white Americans. Rail on if you must about the injustice of it all, the horrid massacres (eagerly reciprocated on many occasions by the other side), the forced conversions to Christianity, and the dastardly reservation policies that finished by stealth what earlier attempts to wipe native peoples off the map failed to do.
But one day out of the year — the day we set aside to give thanks for what we have and the great good fortune to live where we live — I want to remember and celebrate the achievements of the Pilgrims. Their story is an American story — one of courage, of faith, and of an abiding belief in each other that allowed them to overcome more than a generous providence should have allowed.
As the great grandson of one of the last full blooded Lene Lenapes, I want to thank you for your great veiwpoint. All correct.
Only can add that all entitlements should be cancelled immediately, starting with so-called “Indians” whose chief has a name like Bob Schwartz who bears an alpine head and thorax — all except Soc.Sec of course, that’s mine.
Eventually we will deal with it in this way: 1) we didn’t do anything to the Indians; 2) nothing ever happened; 3) so what? That is how everyone else thinks. No nation or people that are identifiable as such has not done something really really bad to someone else. Outside of the west, all that is not remembered for one day. Nor is it regretted. There is no guilt. Such a thing is inconceivable. The past is a haze of glory and our people are God’s perfect people.
The requirement of perpetual guilt is a killer of a people. Either you die or you reject the guilt and the underlying premise on which the guilt is based. Increasingly, for a white person to be liberal you must agree that you and your entire culture is loathsome. That may be the burden that kills liberalism. And the guilt makes others hate us. Those who admit no guilt are not resented. China gets very little flack because of Tibet or for killing muslims. Naive people say China will have a problem because of what it is doing to muslims. China will not have any difficulties there. China will simply not put up with it. It will kill. People will submit.
One of many traits that distinguishes the west from the rest is we admit guilt and responsibility and say we did this or that wrong. We take blame for what we did and for what we did not do. We are ashamed of how different we are from the rest of the earth. Life has always gone on with most people living what today we regard as intolerably “oppressive” lives. At a certain point, europeans decided that they were oppressed by their own religion and culture and traditions and they had to break free. The rest, as they say, is history. And having decided that for ourselves, we applied to the rest of the world. Slavery had to end everywhere. We would make sure no one ever got smallpox again. Bush made it his lifes work to reduce aids in africa (with scant appreciation). He was going to bring representative democracy to Iraq (that has had some success but not appreciated). Now some liberals are trying to change the lives of women all over the globe, trying to free them from their husbands and fathers, from their custom and religion. Will it work? We object to people doing things to each other that they never objected to, neither the perpetrators, nor the victims. And no we are not perfect. Never will be. Furthermore every one thing we do that we think is good has a bad impact on something.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I thank God that my ancestors had nothing to do with the early migration to America, they were busy pillaging in other parts of the world. So.. my native American ancestors were not tainted by them…. All in all, I am totally innocent of any crap that went on … Oh, and we didn’t own any slaves, and what ever else you can think of!
Well, anyway, no matter what really happened or the reasons, in those early years of the French and Mayflower people, who are we to hold grudges about what other people did hundreds of years ago? The pilgrims were damned lucky that anyone took pity on them for any reason…lucky people! to come here completely unprepared for “anything” is …”when you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”…
I believe that to blame anyone for what “anyone’s” ancestors did is just..stupid. there is no other word but..stupid.
I believe it proves ignorance and unwillingness to accept responsibility for our own actions and always looking for someone else to blame.. because pehpas YOU chose NOT to work to better yourself.
I chuckle at people always wanting something for nothing…simply because they “are”…because their ancestors had a problem, they depend on this background to “not” achieve and say how down trodden they are..bull$#!t yeah but, yeah but, bull.
Have a gobbly Thanksgiving and I thank God “i didn’t do it”… and quit whining. Smile, eat, drink be merry!!!! be thankful!!!
thankful that this isn’t 1621.
I wish to go through the entire holiday without anyone mentioning that Native Americans have nothing to be thankful for and it’s my fault.
Great. Then on next Holocaust Memorial Day I also want to go the whole day without hearing about the suffering of Jewish people, or how my people are responsible for it. LOL. Heaven forbid you talk about the people your ancestors exterminated to bring you this wonderful country. That would be a downer on par with talking about all the people you’re responsible for killing in the needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that you support. That’s really contrary to the American way; responsibility interferes with buying stuff and having a good time, our birthright.
Having to explain the orign of Thanksgiving to an 8 year old and nearly three year old grand daughters, my version is of course more simple and kind (to all sides and everybody involved). In the future, each year as long as I’m here, I will add to the story. I will try each year to bring the truth to the matter. There are several books that address this period in our history, but are suitable only for adults or actually those that value and study America’s history.
But for now, the story I tell and the videos I let them watch are of the kinder more happy kind. But be assured they will be taught that history is not what Disney nor children’s books and videos portray. The truth sometimes is hard but like you understand, it necessary and beneficial to those that make the effort to find and understand.
Have a great and understated Thanksgiving.
Papa Ray
West Texas
U. S. of A
Bite me German. It’s so easy for the likes of you to determine what’s “needless”. I bet you think a war that ended 64 years ago was “needless” too.
Papa Ray. Every once in a while, I happen upon a commenter here not worthy of heaping scorn upon. Rather, quite surprisingly all respect is due.
just maybe those pilgrims were the only ones listening to gods voice, and the wampanoags might’ve heard it to. anyway thank God for his blessings and for having sent those pilgrims to build a nation for everyone on this earth to have a seat at the table. we can argue about place settings and chair size later. God bless America
http://monazimba.bloguez.com/monazimba/745977/
uh, not the whole fault for the small plague would income to the French, also to english settlers, (the french were avoid by Indians)… but the Pilgrims assassinated the next sachem Metacomet
Hey Magoo! Too bad we missed you.
Although Metacomet’s severed head did grace the walls of Plymouth Colony for many years, he wasn’t exactly assassinated. He thought that his brother had been poisoned by the English and was also figuring out that it was either them or us. So he started King Phillip’s War, raised hell and killed a lot of people, but eventually lost and was killed by another Indian in the employ of the English. Obviously, there is a lot more to the story, but then, we don’t want to be spoiling Mr Moran’s turkey dinner.
german magoo, thanks for reminding us of how stupid people can be. And thanks, speaking of hate, for the display of your own. Do you feel a little better about yourself, that’s what your mindless outburst was about, wasn’t it?
Maybe we could do a short bit about the Iroquois being slaveholders of conquered tribes, the ones they didn’t drive off their lands or exterminate?
Ah, but that would muddy the waters a bit, you might have to think, it might deprive you for a moment laying guilt on others. Which you may start to wonder why is so important to you?
As for the war, dial up the people who get a free pass from the media, the islamists. They can give you a hint about the necessity of the war they started. The one which you can bet your ass is going to be continued for years if they have any say in the matter.
The one which even your hero The O will have to continue.
Keep your cheap aggression and cheaper moralizing to yourself pal. And don’t choke on any turkey bones.
America, we permit our kids to be taught, was racist, oppressive, genocidal, colonialist, exploitive and, what the hell, let’s toss in sexist and homophobic, from the evil day it was first discovered. I really don’t care what foreigners say about us, but fellow Americans who say this need to have the living cr@p kicked out of them.
The peoples who crossed the Bering Strait and settled in North America 1,000 years before the Europeans came, lived basically the same in 1620 as they did in 620. There was little or no progression. Had the English not fled to America/Canada when they did, someone else would have eventually come to settle the land. Had they been from a non Judeo-Christian country, no doubt there would be no Indians alive today to feel guilty about.
Anyone who brings up the sufferings of the natives should be forced to watch the “what have the romans ever done for us” segment from Life of Brian until they understand.
What have the Europeans ever done for the natives?
The past is past. Today the descendants of the mostly nomadic tribes that once wandered the land enjoy the fruits of modernity. Like dentistry. With local anasthesia. Like not having to wonder if they’re going to be able to bring down enough game to feed their families. Like not having to worry about dieing in some senseless intertribal war. Like natural gas heating and air conditioning. Oh, and in some states exclusive rights to set up casinos.
Every living thing progresses at the expense of some other living thing. From bacteria to bears, from plants to people.
It is the way of things.
Humans alone have decided this is bad, and something for which we must apologize. How naive and arrogant we are to believe that just because we have begun to define the natural order, we are somehow removed from it.
Today and every day let us give thanks for those beings, human and otherwise, who depend on us and upon whose lives we depend. It all evens out in the end. Mitakue oyasin.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Peace to all who seek it.
Wapiti Joe
Thanksgiving?
What do the Indians have to be thankful for?
And its all your fault.
There Mr. Moran, I did’nt want to disappoint you on this holiday.
Hey speaking of turkeys. The Lions unveilled their new motto …Guess what it is….
“Wait till next year !!!! ”
Happy Turkey day. Enjoy your Schlitz….
Happy Gobble GOBBLE Day! Im no GRINGO SO ALL U INDIAN GIVER’S STOP whoo whooing:)
My Thanksgiving wish is to have five part Yupik children living in the White House in January 2013.
American Indians in North America have benefitted from the colonization by the English, Dutch, German, French, et al. The greatest gift has been peace, no more warfare between tribes. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. And, of course, like all other Americans and Canadians, American Indians have benefitted from liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My hats off to the pilgrims!
The communists and their sympathizers want to destroy the United States and Canada, Western civilization in general, in order to come to power as the organized group in the chaos. They lie incessantly about how dreadful the U.S. and Canada are, attacking even language, like the use of “Indian” to refer to the inhabitants of the Americas before Christopher Columbus discovered America, and their descendants. “Indian” has been the term since 1492, 517 years, and is as good a name as “Greek,” for the citizens of Hellas. “Native American” is ridiculous, since anyone born in the Americas is a “Native American.”
Happy Thanksgiving!
another chuck: wrote
America, we permit our kids to be taught, was racist, oppressive, genocidal, colonialist, exploitive and, what the hell, let’s toss in sexist and homophobic, from the evil day it was first discovered. I really don’t care what foreigners say about us, but fellow Americans who say this need to have the living cr@p kicked out of them.”
Sorry to disappoint you but we WERE most of those things, certainly by current standards; the real question is, what to make of it?
I’m thankful for the fact that we are in a nation where people can vote for anyone for any reason, even what I consider dumb @$$, raci$t$, dimwitted, socialists, uneducated reasons.
“NFL play 60″ a new racists commercial by The O.. (Obama not oprah…)
Obama would never have made it as a mayflower boy.
A very nice article that accurately portrays the early settlers. They did not come here to steal or subjugate the local natives. They came for religious freedom and to build a new society. They were less than a 100 people not 40 million.
At that time the Indians were doing to each other what people all over the globe were doing. Steeling horses and conducting raids on their neighbors. War and hunting were their major pass times. I guess it was wrong for us to stop all that. YOur tribe had no title to any lands. It was yours if you could keep the neighboring tribes from taking it.
So the white man lands and the revisionist historians say we stole it. Yet if you read the record we bought most of the land we took. Many natives assimilated into the white culture and many stayed on reservations that are still located all over the country. It was hardly an extermination or an attempt at genocide that today’s revisionists try to portray it as. Their way of live is no longer viable in today’s world. In reality the American Indian should give thanks that the white man did arrive. They no longer live in fear of attack, dying of hunger, the cold or diseases from the French.
Toronto Girl, your posts are among the most sensible, month after month. As for me, I am thankful for the absence of the pestiferous Mr. Pelto. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
21. Dwight
What to make of it is right because the federal government is still not observing in full treaties made with various native tribes. All one has to do is look up “Cobell vs. Salazar” to examine the latest way that the Department of The Interior is attempting to stiff Indians in the West despite court rulings that have gone against the government. Maybe we can’t undo history but maybe we can do right by the descendants of the native peoples of this country. It’s a simple matter of keeping our word.
So, Mr. Moran, I don’t mean to ruin your Thanksgiving and I hope not to and you are right, your Irish ancestors were as maligned and colonized as the native people here in the USA. But remember, the Irish were able to finally able to reclaim most of their country. Even if we can’t undo the ruination of so many peoples it would be nice if we can make sure of the preservation and advancement of the rest.
I did have quite a few ancestors in “the colonies” back then, (no pilgrams). I too am fed-up with the bashing of the settlers and making martyrs of indians who regularly fought with, and killed, each other.
just slightly OT I’ll tell you who are like Turkeys who cant wait for Christmas and Thanksgiving and that is Gays, Lesbians and ‘Wimminns Rites’ groups who are Islamophiles.
Moran’s post reminds me why I am not a conservative, and I don’t care for liberals neither. Nobody’s blaming you Moran for the destruciton of Native Indian culture, and not all white Americans’ ancestors were responsible for the theft of their land, the breaking of treaties (hey there’s gold in them hills, screw you Injuns and whatever agreements we made, we want the gold!), massacring them and wilfully destroying their culture, and giving them nothing but hopelessness and despair in return, but many ancestors of white Americans were responsible, because it happened see?
The ones who are infected through and through with guilt here about the tragic destruction of the Native Americans are people like Moran and other conservatives who think just like him. How else to explain his reactionary indifference, his straw-man claptrap (I was not responsible, my ancestors were starving in Ireland). Who here even bothers reading up on the real history of the Americas (not just the US but Canada, Mexico and central and South America) and what was nothing less than a genocide, and its effects remain with us. How could they not? Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, the trail of tears, don’t bother with any of that, doesn’t bear thinking about.
The stealing of Native American children from their parents by forcing them into white schools far way from their own communities, where they were beaten if they spoke their native tongue, literally forced to adopt the white man’s ways by bullying state violence. The fact that in the land of the so-called free Native Americans faced harrassment and arrest from govt officials for practicing their own religious rituals and ceremonies, well into the twentieth century – who cares? Not my fault, my ancestors were starving in Ireland or working the docks of Glasgow etc. Doesn’t change the tragedy of what happened, which Moran doesn’t even want to think about, because it undermines his and his fellow conservatives’ notions about America as the land of freedom and hope and equal opportunity and the rest of that crock of s***. Talk about guilt.
They no longer live in fear of attack, dying of hunger, the cold or diseases from the French.
That’s why they were our alliees during the indian wars LMAO
someone talk abour “revisionism”, I can’t say your view is revisionist, it never changed since French fought your war of independance, you used them, and you past them under your char, I guess it’s an old habit by yours, even Obama assimilate it !
Moran, I’m a descendant of whites, native Americans, and slave owners. Since I happen to have a brain, I am also conservative. Your post sounds defensive and weak. The fact is, no one alive today had anything to do with humanity’s inhumanity to humanity in the past, getting us all as off the hook as your starving Irish ancestors. But remembering history is always a good thing, particularly for those who benefit from prior brutality of all types. If you are weak minded enough to take offense, and feel the need to offer defensive comment, I submit you go back to conservative school and get more comfortable with the fact that history is always written by the winners (and you are not responsible for this).
Sorry ,Larry, The noble american savage was just as much an opportunist as the white settlers. Their true sin was lack of organization. Why else would the great sachem of the Huron upon meeting white people for the first time(Cartier) ask if he could borrow their weapons to make war on his enemies the Ojibwa. There was plenty of stupid on both sides.
The “natives” here in North America when the Europeans arrived were neither indigenous nor the first residents. All the “native” tribes present in 1492 were of Siberian descent. That wasn’t always the case. DNA tests from the earliest sites show ethnic diversity. People from Polynesia, Australia, Southeast Asia (and possibly elsewhere) predated the Siberians. So where did they go?
Well, the Europeans explorers and settlers are demonized in part for having superior military technology, guns. The Siberians, too, had a superior military technology, the Siberian spear point. If the Europeans are guilty of genocide, so are the “Native” Americans.
Of course this doesn’t even touch the warfare between the Siberian tribes.
There’s so much BS about the “natives”, not the least of which is the noble savage fantasy. The natives eagerly embraced all sorts of European things from the horse to fabrics to guns to whiskey and women.
Oconostota, aka, Cunne Shote, Cumnacatogue, Warrior of Chota, Stalking Turkey, was a great Cherokee warrior chief for most of the 18th century. He traveled to London, met the king, and married Lucy Ward, former lady-in-waiting to the Queen. He treasured his eyeglasses and from some reports he had an alcohol problem later in life.
I’m a Jew and have no great fondness for Europe, but in the struggle for the American continent, the Europeans were no more guilty than the natives.
fred suggs
“I’m a Jew and have no great fondness for Europe, but in the struggle for the American continent, the Europeans were no more guilty than the natives.”
I’m a Jew too and what you wrote is tantamount to saying that the Europeans were no more guilty of the Holocaust than the Jews. Simply disgusting and a whitewash of history. Thanks though for reminding me why I am not a conservative, you, Moran and ‘anonymous’ and other reactionary apologists for the wholesale destruction of Native American culture and the people themselves, their way of life and the theft of a continent.
I’d hate to hear what you people have to say about slavery, engage in apologetics for that too?
I’m a Jew too and what you wrote is tantamount to saying that the Europeans were no more guilty of the Holocaust than the Jews. Simply disgusting and a whitewash of history.
Apples and submarines, my friend. The two do not equate at all. The noble savage you so admire, prior to the white setters arrival, made war on each other at every opportunity with much fanfare and great enthusiasm. White settlers were alternately convenient allies and even more convenient victims. After the firestick had discharged its one shot the new white people were easy targets. Plus they had cool stuff. The dominating ethos of virtually every native american tribe was based on intertribal warfare. Our native american brothers were anything but fair dealers and wise stewards of the planet.
Ah, but that would muddy the waters a bit, you might have to think, it might deprive you for a moment laying guilt on others. Which you may start to wonder why is so important to you?
Yes, its been proven that if the people you commit genocide against weren’t as pure as driven snow, then you can do whatever you want to them. The Nazis were of like mind, since those damn Jews were guilty of usury, then why should anyone care what happened to them. Oh, what’s that you say, that not all of them were guilt of usury? Yeah, that’s what I thought. As for the retarded poster who went by Anonymous, where in the equation does it say that the native americans had to be “fair dealers and wise stewards of the land”. This is the most retarded form of hypocrisy and muddled thinking I’ve happened on in a while. Apparently, you can kill anyone you like as long as they aren’t perfect people–and what’s more you can never be called a murderer for saying so! You’d only be a murderer if they were innocent people. What douchebags. I don’t need to know whether native americans buggered bears of the wazoo to know that Europeans deliberately persecuted them, hunted them down and put them on reservations. What you’re arguing is that you can basically kill anyone you like as long as you can find some dirt on them after the fact; and that’s exactly how the Nazis thought. Chapeau, douchebags.
15. Nate:
The Indians in the US also enjoy the largest single recipients of federal handouts than any other group; and they choose to live predominately in abject poverty. Simply visit the Crow Reservation for a taste. Goes to show the “victiim” and retribution system doesn’t work.
The idea of the essential nobility of the Indians does not survive even a cursory knowledge of actual Indians. John Keegan, in his magisterial “History of Warfare,” remarks that of all the societies he studied, none raised sadism to the cultural and religious level of Meso- and North American Indians.
I remember the date I took to “Dances With Wolves” being outraged at the traitorous Pawnee scout for the cavalry. She didn’t take it real well when I pointed out that this character was based on history, because the noble Dakotas had spent the last generation or so trying to exterminate the Pawnee, who doubtless figured the cavalry was preferable if not necessarily desirable.
This doesn’t excuse a history of European-Indian relations which is not at all pretty, but it is patronizing to scrutinize one side while giving the other a pass on what was an occasionally sordid history. An occasionally sordid history is what pretty much everyone has.
Of course, way back when I was in college and law school and getting involved in those endless and pointless political arguments, my usual reply to “What about the Indians?” was, “They still need pitching.”
What douchebags. I don’t need to know whether native americans buggered bears of the wazoo to know that Europeans deliberately persecuted them, hunted them down and put them on reservations. What you’re arguing is that you can basically kill anyone you like as long as you can find some dirt on them after the fact; and that’s exactly how the Nazis thought. Chapeau, douchebags.
With absolutely no provocation whatsoever, right? You’re proof of the accuracy of godwins law. You know why the Anasazi built their village in cliffs? Because they were being battled to extinction by other tribes. Cliffs are easy to defend.
Stone age warrior cult people, meet preindustrial merchantile people.
38. Anon
Persecuted?? Please. So now our forefathers are equated with Nazis? My aren’t you a genius, you must live in a cliff.