Not My Kind of Celebration........

Is there anyone else who cringes when they hear “Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!”

Every time I am told this I find myself making a conscious decision between taking the time to enlighten the well-wisher with some history of their country …..or just saying …..yes…U 2! Being a Native American (Mille Lacs Band of Minnesota Ojibwe) and living in the southwest (Arizona), I am amazed time and time again by the insensitivity of the people I interact with on a daily basis.

Now, I know that in American schools across the country, the history books tell a story of the Indians celebrating the harvest with their new Pilgrim friends.

Lets examine how this pumkin-pie fall festival day of family gathering came to be, shall we??

There once was a group of Puritans (extremist religious sect of their time) who considered themselves the “chosen elect” as defined in the book of Relevations. They considered any others who chose not to join them in their Holy war fighting Satan "the enemy".

You might be shocked (I was ) to read their 1623 Thanksgiving sermon, where praises were given to the Almighty for near destruction of the Wampanoag Natives from smallpox. It references how “the seeds” or children and men died. Did they even consider how these “savages” basically saved their white asses the first winter in “their” new world??

The intention of the Pilgrims when they decided to share their first Thanksgiving Feast (even though most of the food was provided by the Natives) was actually full of manipulation and self-protection.

You see, as far as they were concerned, this feast served a few purposes. First, they were no longer in debt. Second, it gave a false impression of being neighborly and not to be feared (until the rest of the boatloads of European settlers showed up on the shores).

Fast forward to the children of the first settlers as adults. A little thing called the King Phillip's War. Many Natives were raped, killed, sold into slavery, and systematically destroyed. Recognizing the success of the slave trade, (and running out of natives to sell), the settlers turned to Africa for new supplies of slaves.

Certainly, this is a very short and “readers digest” version of our countries history. But, perhaps it will plant the seed of diversity in the three people who read my blog. (LOL), and they will begin to tell the “real” story to their children. Maybe in time, our schools will begin to share the “ugliness” of what really happened during this period in history, rather than perpetuate the myths. I wish that Thanksgiving could be a time when Americans remember and honor the Native peoples who helped them survive and made this country possible. Perhaps someday, it will.

This year? I plan to spend my day feeding the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul

….and being thankful for my blessings.