The war on Thanksgiving
The annual war on Thanksgiving begins. Via Orbusmax, the Seattle schools are using the holiday to indulge in oppression studies 101:
Dear Seattle Public Schools Staff:
We recognize the amount of work that educators and staff have to do in order to fulfill our mission to successfully educate all students. It’s never as simple as preparing and delivering a lesson. Students bring with them a host of complexities including cultural, linguistic and social economic diversity. In addition they can also bring challenges related to their social, emotional and physical well being. One of our departments’ goals is to support you by suggesting ways to assist you in removing barriers to learning by promoting respect and honoring the diversity of our students, staff and families.
With so many holidays approaching we want to again remind you that Thanksgiving can be a particularly difficult time for many of our Native students. This website http://www.oyate.org/resources/shortthanks.html offers suggestions on ways to be sensitive of diverse experiences and perspectives and still make the holiday meaningful for all students. Here you will discover ways to help you and your students think critically, and find resources where you can learn about Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective. Eleven myths are identified about Thanksgiving, take a look at #11 and begin your own deconstruction.
Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time
Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.
Look, I’m all for truthful, historically accurate lessons about Thanksgiving. But the “diversity”-peddlers’ agenda is not about historical accuracy. It’s about guilt-mongering and institutional racism indoctrination. One American Indian teacher struck the right balance last year:
Even American Indians are divided on how to approach a holiday that some believe symbolizes the start of a hostile takeover of their lands.
Chuck Narcho, a member of the Maricopa and Tohono O’odham tribes who works as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles, said younger children should not be burdened with all the gory details of American history.
“If you are going to teach, you need to keep it positive,” he said. “They can learn about the truths when they grow up. Caring, sharing and giving — that is what was originally intended.”
But that wouldn’t fit into the Blame America narrative, would it?
Tear up your kids’ construction-paper headdresses pronto and prepare for an Unhappy Un-Thanksgiving.
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Trackbacks
- Seattle School District: “Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time” : The American Pundit
- Seattle School District: “Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time” : The American Pundit
- Seattle School District: “Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time” : The American Pundit
- Stop The ACLU » Blog Archive » Thanksgiving: A Time of Mourning
- Feministe » The War on Christeastgivingdayoween
- WHEN WILL IT END!!!!!!!!!!!! : Petulant Rumblings
- The Holiday Wars - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought
- Radio Left
- WTW: The War On Christmas Has Started Begins Early — Pirate’s Cove
- discarded lies - hyperlinkopotamus
- The Tuesday Twonkizoids « Obi’s Sister
- Thanksgiving as a Bitter Reminder
- The RWNM: Lost in the High Weeds of War Metaphors » Comments from Left Field
- Balloon Juice
- TARGET: THANKSGIVING! | The Moderate Voice
- TARGET: THANKSGIVING! | The Moderate Voice
- A War on Thanksgiving « Kevin’s Korner
- Moonbattery
- » Forget the War on Christmas, here comes the War on Thanksgiving » Leaning Straight Up » Blog Archive »
- Smart Remarks » Blog Archive » War on Thanksgiving
- TARGET: THANKSGIVING! · New York Articles
- KontansPlace » Blog Archive » Myths of Thanksgiving and political correctness
- Shouldn’t Every Day be Thanksgiving? « Obi’s Sister
- The Rogues Gallery » Blog Archive » War
- carolina charlotte ford north
- carolina charlotte ford north
- There’s a War On everything these days « Blunt Object
- Radical Outtakes » Things Taken Day
- November, 2007 Archive « Right Minded Online
- Can’t liberals be thankful for anything? « Right Minded Online
- Lying Media Bastards » The War on Giblets
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Some of us. Not all of us.
Keep in mind, that guilt over stolen land has motivated many “scientists” to lessen the land claims of various tribes.
Yes, humans have moved about the planet for centuries. But not all of us had to use “the land bridge” to get here.
Tarahumaras in Northern Mexico (my father’s side) didn’t. Dineh (Navajos) on my mom’s side did.
A certain amount of accuracy is required to discuss us with some intelligence. There are enough of us here in this forum to make this caveat worthwhile.
Also keep in mind that there were no “En Dios” (Columbus’ Archbishop of the Fleet de las Casas’ name for people they first encountered) before Columbus landed.
We were just “the people”- which many of our tribal names meant literally.
Dineh- the People. Tarahumara- the People.
“en Dios” meant literally “in God” because of the hospitable nature the first crews encountered by “the People”.
It was a Catholic projection of a name to characterize the spirit of the people the explorers encountered.
We didn’t “exist” as Indians before Columbus.
I have that little carboard merchandiser assigned to me now where I live.
But it doesn’t mean anything. My given name and my clan do.
The rest defines me based on what i am not for others who are not me.
Make sense? These are things we teach our kids so they can be who they really are.
No resentment over it. That was a tough lesson. But once learned, there is prosperity and abundance in ways that are unimaginable.
Stay tuned. The world is turning upside down and changes are afoot that will amaze even the most skeptical.
aJ- Throw down your drumstick and back away slowly. Good boy. Now, let go of the pecan pie. Okay. Put your hands where i can see em!
You are so true blue, dude.
Proud to know ya.
There is plenty to give thanks for on thanksgiving and they can take all this PC bullcrap and shove it.
Thanks bear, ditto back atcha…
Image: feebz people watchin at the Malkin bus terminal.
Nice post at 91 bear.
As to your question, are you busting my onions or posing a sincere inquiry? Have you read the book?
#98
Thank you, Bear, for the education and enlightenment. I often find that a great deal of my knowledge come from being corrected. Therefore, my sincere thanks.
I had been talking about feelings I’ve had while growing up. As a mature adult, I recognize that I will never finish growing up, just I will never finish learning.
A smart man knows how much he knows. A wise man knows how much he does not know. An enlightened man knows that he can never know how much he does not know. The road to enlightenment is not a doorway to step through but a path leading forever to the horizon.
Thus I am created, an Eternal Apprentice.
… but how did you like my statehood idea?
Look, what you Liberal guilt-ridden apologists don’t see, is you are still doing EXACTLY what you blame those big, evil Europeans of doing. You blame the Europeans of coming here, forcing their will on the poor, unsuspecting and trusting natives, doing their best to convert them into their way of thinking, and if they don’t then they were treated horribly, had all their rights removed and/or killed.
how is that different that forcing your anti-Thanksgiving, anti-Christmas views on the school children and others who only want to celebrate a time honored American tradition? You are spitting on what many people in this country look forward to and enjoy. You are telling just as many lies about how evil and horrible the New Colonists were as people did by portraying all colonists in black clothes, buckle hats and high-fiving the smiling Indians in their feathered head dresses. You go to school, make children feel horrible about celebrating Thanksgiving, make them feel guilty of their little paper hats and turkeys and then spread you brainwashing garbage to them so that they go home very confused and forcing their parents to deal with the mess you made, possibly ruining the holiday for them. If they don’t go along with what you are selling, they are then ridiculed and made out to be horrible people, feeling guilty about the very fact they are even alive, let alone eating a turkey dinner with Aunt Mabel and Grandpa Zebulon.
Just look at what you have been saying here. Does it make you feel superior? Look at how many of you who are not Injun are here talking all about what Indians, believe and what they like, dislike, want etc. Contrast that with the things you were saying in the other threads about racism etc. Not much difference. You have here several peoplle, myself included, who are anywhere from 25% on up “Native-American”. Are you going to feed your crap to us? It ain’t gonna work. Are you going to tell me how horrible I am for celebrating Thanksgiving? Maybe you would like to call me a race-traitor like Condi, Powell and others?
Tell you what. It is a pretty big country. Chances of you running into people you want to avoid are slim. Chances are also that no one is going to force-feed a big plate of turkey and mashed potatos next Thursday either.
If you do not believe in the holidays, and you wish not to celebrate it for whatever reason, then by God don’t. However, keep your opinions on this holiday as well as the others to yourself. Stop trying to force others to bend to your will, your horrible Europeans…I mean Liberals.
If you are just so offended by the sight of a cornucopia, a child in a construction paper hat, a Christmas Tree, a Manger or any other decorations which are there for the person who put it up’s enjoyment, then I recommend you seek help and find out why you are so controlling and filled with hate that holidays that celebrate love and togetherness as well as beauty in decorations send you into such fits of rage as well as why you have such a need to be so controlling of other people’s thoughts, beliefs and actions. It really is a mental disease and you should be treated before you have a stroke.
Keep your filthy stinking hands off my holidays.
The spanish had managed to kick the muslims out of Spain just prior to Columbus’s transatlantic voyage to the new world.
The spanish mission system in California arguably owes a lot of its most barbaric traits to Spain’s experience of the muslim occupation.
You guys know what I am finding absolutely AMAZING and heartwarming about the community at this site?
The large number of
Indians/American Indians/Tribesmen/whatever
who are each far and away more
Open-Minded, Patriotic, Loyal US Citizens
than all the “progressives” who claim to represent them COMBINED!!!
And the Icing on this is how many turn out to be Veterans, thus demonstrating more Courage, Backbone, and Integrity than all these
progressiveshippies will ever know (or even understand).From the execrable Wiki article on Sequoyah:
Since I am an anti-PC person,
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
#105
RetFireman, that was perfectly stated.
As much as these “progressives” claim to support the First Amendment, and hide behind it, they do NOT want you to read it. If you did, you would read:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercize thereof;”
They don’t want you to read it, because it would become painfully obvious that they have been VIOLATING it again and again.
They force THEIR beliefs as the official state religion, making it illegal for anyoen ELSE to freely practice their relgion.
In fact, every time there has been a court ruling concerning “seperation of church and state”, that ruling becomes a law respecting an establishment of religion which prohibits the free expression thereof.
Naturally, they will argue that the First Amendment concerns Congress making laws, not the Courts.
Right, exactly, because the Legislative Branch is supposed to make laws, not the Judicial Branch. Ever here of the Seperation of Powers Act?
I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the LAST thing any of us want is for any of THEM to represent us. We don’t need ANYONE to represent us at all. Just keep going to the casinos. That is thanks enough.
BTW…how many of these “progressives” do you think are out there trying to, once again, reneg on treaties when it comes to casinos? Let’s just say they aren’t so supportive when it comes to finding a loop-hole in the treaties that allows the individual tribes and nations to finally support themselves on the crappy lands they were given.
Well, dakine, I am intent on peeling the onion a little bit.
What did you find fascinating about this book on systematic killing?
I’m curious.
Reminded me of Army Spc. Lori Piestewa.
#108
Thank you as well, Prime Director!
My knowledge is really growing tonight!
My thought, if you wish to pursue, was to have ALL the tribes throughout the entire United States become a single State with 2 Senators and a whole LOT of Representatives.
It is an amuzing thought because the Democrats would be confronted with an overwhelming number of people they CLAIM to defend and who are each more Patriotic than the entire DNC.
It’s a fun fantasy of mine to see the Dems become a minority as the new Congressmen would join the Republicans in supporting the country.
Ah … pipe dreams … and I don’t even smoke.
#8 see-dubya…. good laughs.
“Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship
Tell that to the residents of Roanoke, VA who were the first white settlers in America and who disappeared a few months after setting up a colony – most likely murdered by indians.
I am sick to death of hearing the native American’s skewed, unhistorical, and factually challenged narrative of white “conquest” of America.
Anyone who has ever read Jared Diamond’s seminal work “Guns, Germs, and Steel” knows that the story of the clash of civilizations and cultures in America has been played out dozens, probably hundreds of times in human history. Those civilizations with the superior technology and political organization (not to mention the deadliest germs) always eradicated the technologically inferior peoples.
And while we’re at it, perhaps we should start asking native Americans what happened to the people who were already here when their ancestors got here.
An exhaustive linguistic study comparing native american languages with those in Siberia and Asia shows that there were at least 3 seperate migrations of Asians across the Berring land bridge in the last 14,000 years.
What happened to the Clovis people who arrived around 9,000 years ago? Who did they murder and steal lands from? And the ancestors of the Sioux (who actually originated on the east coast) and other indians who displaced the Clovis civilization?
We don’t hear much about those days now do we?
The whole history of the human race is one of migration – out of Africa with waves of people conquering and being conquered as successive generations of humanity became more sophisticated and organized. The clan became the tribe which became tribal confederations until the nation state was born – right around the time of Columbus.
I will argue with anyone that the sins of white people or no greater or any less than those of the indians and their ancestors. There were plenty of depredations to go around on both sides.
If they want to mourn, let them mourn for the people they destroyed 6000 years ago during the last great migration and whose people became the indians as we know them today
As an American Indian, your PC designated role is to be a living indictment of the United States, a degraded object of pity and revulsion.
Indeed, zorro. I’m looking forward to it!
And if someone starts in with woeful tales of “oppression” just rub your thumb and index fingers together and tell ‘em -
“You know what this is? – I’m playing the world’s smallest violin just for you.”
Works for me.
I’m sorry Tim this really does’nt offend me but why do Americans have the bad habit of labeling racial classes with American? I was born in this country, I am 1/2 Senaca part of the Six Nations of the Iroquoi and my Scottish ancestor’s came to this country in 1683 so what label can you actually put on people, am I a Scottoquoi American or am I a Iroquttish American.
See my point since I do not live on a reservation I choose to simply be called American and that’s what all of you are if you are citizen’s of the U.S.
Okay, first, to all the American Indians here, I know you don’t need anyone to defend you, but please indulge me.
Rick,
Although I agree with every part of your thesis (matches my own),
I do feel the need to correct one thing.
It is not the Native Americans who are putting up the stink.
In fact, reading the comments here, it’s easy to see them arguing the other side. It is the new “progressive” hippies who are responsible for this mess.
That’s it, the rest of what you say is spot on.
Just wanted to make sure the blame is assigned correctly.
Thank you.
Oh darn, I guess I’m a baaaaad teacher. I told the students last week that Thanksgiving is a holiday we can all celebrate, no matter what our religion!
Foolish me.
Did you mean to say exactly that?
I agree, The Indian’s were not an innocent party in any form of the word they had their bad actor’s as well.
Rick you’ve been watching to much of the History Channel.
As if it is all one voice saying the same thing in the same way at the same time for the same reason.
Are you taking exception to the crap that is out there? Or are you making us into a monolithic group?
I feel your pain though.
I am sick to death of factually challenged non-Indians looking to encapsulate legitimate issues of Indian people based with silly terms in the way that you are doing here right now.
Not all of us deal in factually challenged “narratives”.
Diamond’s “seminal” work has been a joy shot for those interests needing a last word on land rights in order to somehow delegitimize native land claims around the USA and Canada.
Try Ani’s seminal work YURUGU for a different presentation of the same direction of thought. It pre-dates Diamond by about 10 years.
Diamond has served others’ purposes ably. Doesn’t make him evil. It just shows he isn’t exempt from the Heisenberg Principle.
Like the entire class of land bridge theories and “proofs” that every single band of Indians weren’t here before some other group was here over 6 millenia ago.
The bottom line for our Nation of Laws- the United States: the Treaties have not been honored and the stakes for doing so have only gotten higher.
Can the United States of America step up? Or will it hide behind its front men who obfuscate the issues that are important and vital to Native people sovereign nations with legitimate claims to lands won by warfare and other means of political survival- just like the USA?
stepping out of the Malkin bus terminal just long enought to tell bear, great post above. I am in awe!
#119
Blind_Mule, I understand and agree with your sentiment completely. My little anecdote shows my own internal combat against this trend. It seemed to me that people were alwasy intent on labelling others. In my time growing up, I heard and watched the evolution of the vernacular to include terms like American Indian, African American, Italian American, Polish American, Irish American, Irish Catholic, et cetera, et cetera, …
Personally, I just call myself a mutt.
aw shucks, feebz.
bear1909:
Sorry to take off on a tangent here, but I’m just curious— is it a common belief among Dineh, et al that the land will once again be returned to its rightful caretakers, as the Lakota believe? I had the opportunity to spend a little time in South Dakota a couple of summers ago, and just got sort of the ‘tip of the iceberg’ on history of Native America in the Black Hills region. It was fascinating to hear accounts of the great flood and Bear Butte’s significance for survival, the coming of the White Buffalo, prophecies that have been uncannily accurate in modern perspective, etc. These are the kinds of tribally unified things I wish our history classes would mention, along with historically accurate accounts of pre-Anglo America and its transition into where we are today.
I think it is possible to still present information about all of these things AND the origin of Thanksgiving without painting a gory and oppressive picture, but I think facts should be a part of the education about this and other holidays. I have no problem with varying perspectives on a lot of things kids are learning in school today, as long as it is truthful and balanced. I remember hearing the ‘Sunday school’ version of Thanksgiving when I was four or five, and the more graphic details around 8th grade or so. It did not change my perception that the intent of Thanksgiving was to put differences aside and give thanks for what we have in this world.
One can cherry-pick and distort any historical or political event to find the bad in it, if you so desire. People have done that with the Bible, environmental care, energy production, emancipation of the slaves in the late 1800’s, the use of nuclear weapons to end WWII, and the list goes on and on. It seems to me like a small minority of ‘doom and gloom’ folks are responsible for trying to lay guilt at our feet for anything and everything that has ever happened in the history of mankind. Why do we have to start this guilt process with elementary school kids? The heaviest guilt they should bear at that age is that they hid their peas under their plate so they wouldn’t have to eat them.
As a native Indian, Many Indians I know are proud veterans of US.Forces and we take part in many celebrations such as Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. We also understand what it would have been like if we had been conquered by Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan and believe me we are glad that never happened. I personally am thankful and also vigilant of contempory domestic and foreign enemies who would love to change our way of life for the worse.
garyt,
Thank you and all the other Veterans.
This post is for you:
Heroes vs Villains
Villains are willing to sacrifice others for themselves.
Heroes are willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
To all those Heroes who:
Fight to Defend us,
Protect and Serve us,
Rush into danger to Rescue us,
Thank you, all Brave and Noble Heroes!
Thank You for our Lives!
Thank You for our Liberty!
Thank You for our Freedom!
Thank You for Everything we have!
We will NEVER forget you!
Dineh and Apache speak a similar language, and we are very different from the main bands of the Lakota nation. Some think we are just plain weird. Our spirituality focuses on the minutiae of being in right relationship with a multitude of elements in nature.
The Lakota milieu is very appealing to Americans because it has many similarities to the “redemption” model of Judaism and Roman Catholicism, and certain archetypal symbolisms.
We are a little more impenetrable. Not a judgement, just my experience of walking both roads in ceremonies and healing practices.
My uncle Alvin taught me to hide lima beans in my napkin on my lap. I never got caught. When my mom was getting ready to cross over she told me that she taught Alvin how to do that because her baby brother hated lima beans. She carried the Dineh blood in our family. Dad carried the Chiricahua/Tarahumara lines.
Nice tangent. Any time!
A little Thanksgiving humor at the end of the (very long and thoughtful) evening:
Why is Groundhog’s Day becoming more popular than Thanksgiving with most Americans?
Because with a groundhog, you get FOUR drumsticks!
Fred! I love that joke. When I lived in Southern Illinois, my neighbor, used to have a pop at the G-hog every year. From his second story window, ol Paul would sit there behind the sheers with his shotgun. The G-hog would come out of the hedgerow across our property.
I’d always end up goin about my business after waiting to see if he’d bag em or not. WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOOM!
followed by an “Ah, SSHHHHHHugar”
Ol Paul- livin for them drumsticks.
Let’s see, free land, sovereignty, unlimited gambling without taxation….
Yes, I think these “oppressed” Native Americans have done quite well for themselves.
re: #98 bear1909
Aha! I guessed right.
Me? A smidgeon of Cherokee (great-great-grandmother, father’s side)
The lore is fascinating, no matter what tribe or nation!
I saw something on PBS of all places, that there were people around in North America before Clovis. All the nutty leftist scientist gave him all kinds of grief and a death threat or two. Now they are starting to believe him.
The most amazing part is that they didn’t spin it on global warming which PBS seem to try to do for just about ever show.
So was it Clovis killed off these people then Native Americans killed off Clovis?
How about a new Thanksgiving, for the
day the Americans beat all the Liberals to death and got this country back to the way it should be, without all this nonsense.
bear (#131): I think that may be why the SD experience was so fascinating— lots of familiarity between stories of creation and history. I guess it’s hard to tell at what point Christian mission work became ingrained or intertwined with Native culture. I was just curious. I suppose it would be ignorant for me to expect every tribe to have the same beliefs and cultures. Just crossing state or county lines around here today puts you in a completely different world, it seems like (though the moonbattery seems to be a constant everywhere I go). Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family (a week early).
Burner (#137): I don’t want to get myself into trouble with MM by agreeing with that suggestion, so I’ll just say
If something doesn’t give soon, I suspect we WILL find ourselves at a boiling point someday in America. I guess the comforting thing in my mind is that more Conservatives own and know how to use firearms than their Liberal counterparts…
In our expansion across the continent, we did more than merely conquer the Indian tribes. We also removed the mighty French, Spanish and Russian Empires, with the British Empire barely hanging on. “An empire of liberty,” declared Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase. We indeed have much to be thankful for.
The statement:
is a bald-faced lie. I read the entire page and it offers not a single “suggestion on ways to be sensitive…” All it does is attack Thanksgiving (and attack very poorly at that). The entire website is nothing more than an anti-American screed.
Not only that, but…
The story of the Europeans vs. the Native Americans is the story of an advanced civilization with greater firepower meeting a less advanced and militarily weaker civilization. The stronger civilization conquers the weaker and takes their stuff and their land. It is called the history of mankind (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Franks, Huns, Cherokee, Crow, Normans, Saxons, Japanese, Mongols, Russians, Germans, etc…) But, honestly, more Indians were killed accidentally by disease than intentionally by firearms. Blaming the White Man for that is like blaming Europeans for the Black Plague.
And if you want to know a little about who the Indians killed to take over America in the first place (who, we find through facial reconstruction, looked more like a “European accountant than a Paleo-Indian hunter”), well, you were almost out of luck. Native Americans groups tried to claim his bones and not let anyone else look at them. Google “Kennewick Man,” or read the Wikipedia article about him.
There is no one around to tell us about the beautiful culture of the Kennewick Man’s people because, apparently, the Indians killed them all. And then their descendents tried to hide the evidence that they even existed.
Are you kidding? You are kidding, right? Do you have any idea as to what it took to get that? Considering even now, tribes have to fight tooth and nail to get these casinos, to keep the Feds out etc., to fight the individual states against being taxed etc. When we were given the worthless land, forced to fend for ourselves fighting against the latent racism that survives even today…by the looks of that post…no one had an issue with the taxes. then the tribes found a loophole in the treaties and exploited it. people came to the casinos in droves and for the first time in the history of this country, the Native Americans were able to not only become self-sufficient, but they take the profits and spread them evenly amongst all members of the tribe. they no longer have to have less health care and hospitals than third-world countries, their education system is no longe lacking etc. however, as soon as the Feds and regular people caught wind of the fact that the Indians were doing good, well they can’t have any of that and the normal sour grapes set in. Now, all of a sudden, they are screaming that the tribes need to pay money to the states, counties and feds in taxes and other exhorbitant fees. this is the same treaty bashing that has been going on for centuries.
Free land? Are you kidding? While people in this country are crying over how the Japanese wer sent to internment camps and had to give up their businesses and such, what do you think the entire Reservation thing is? I suggest you do a little research into this “free land” theory of yours and see just how great the land was that was forced on the tribes and how they were forced to remain on them.
then again, i guess you probably didn’t know that as early as less than a hundred years ago, indians were still being hunted and killed for their land and just because they were indians. So much so that entire rolls of tribes were destroyed in order to hide the identifications of native Indians to protect their and their families lives.
That is some serious ignorance you are spouting there Hoss. I think you should be very careful what you say.
I will, however, give you the benefit of the doubt that you were being fascitious and not actually that ignorant. But I doubt it.
The difference is there’s an intolerable level of speculation involved in even formulating your accusations, much less responding to them; while the predations suffered by American Indian tribes at the hands of the State happened within recent historical memory, with ample evidence to back up the assertions of wrongdoing.
Why blame the English?
A little history, Rusty.
Columbus was an Italian working for Spain.
On April 7, 1528, the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition spotted land north of what is now Tampa Bay.
In 1530, Hernando de Soto became a regidor of Leon, Nicaragua, and led an expedition up the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula
In May 1539, De Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 surviving horses at Charlotte Harbor, Florida. On May 8, 1541, de Soto’s troops reached the Mississippi River after traveling through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.
De Soto died on May 21, 1542. The expedition decided it was too much of an undertaking to build ships to get to the Spanish holdings in The Gulf of Mexico, so they proceeded overland from The Mississippi River to the colony at Mexico City, and were turned back by the hostile terrain and lack of water and villages to raid in what is now southern Texas. They eventually built small boats and reached Mexico by hugging the coast.
De Soto was instrumental in forming the aggressive and hostile relationship between the Natives and Europeans
Several areas the expedition crossed were depopulated by the diseases carried by the members of the expedition.
De Soto’s men were, at the same time, the first and the last Europeans to experience the prime of the Mississippian culture.
St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish in 1565. Attempts at colonization using palisaded settlements are found throughout the Southeast as far North as North Carolina.
These settlements failed and surviving troops and settlers pulled back to St Augustine.
Jamestown, located on Jamestown Island in the Virginia Colony, was founded on May 14, 1607.
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America beginning in 1620. Their landing in December 1620 precluded planting and harvesting their own crops. There was much starvation in the Colony in winter 1620-21. The first ‘Thanksgiving” was a harvest festival in 1621 to celebrate having harvested food for the winter. The celebration included Native Tribes that had helped the Colony survive the year.
This would seem to indicate that almost 80 years elapsed from the introduction of La Raza and English settlement.
By the time the American Colonies expanded beyond the Alleghenies and Appalachians the Woodland and Mississipian civilizations had been gone for near 200 years. Long empty and overgrown villages were found throughout the West and Northwest as the Territories East of the Mississippi were known in the 16th – 18th Centuries. As a side note, imagine the first Eurpoean to see and understand what Cahokia had been.
#142
RetFireman,
This is exactly why I came up with the idea of all the tribes uniting to become a state. Each reservation would get its own Representative in the House. Then Congress would have to deal with a HUGE number of you guys affecting the laws of this country. I’d grab a beer, sit back, watch, and chuckle menacingly.
Tim: Not a good idea. Land claims, treaties, sovereignty. Connect the dots. Do your homework and stop with this. Very annoying. Show some respect.
We, the present people of the United States of America, did not take the indians’ land, did not own slaves and did not take land from the Mexicans. We are descendants of the oppressed of Europe and all other parts of the world. We are descendants of slaves not just here in America but from around the globe. We are decsndants of all peoples who came here for freedom to thrive and “pursue happiness”. In that spirit the descendants of even the Clovis people can rejoice and give thanks for the richness of our diversity. Happy Thanksgiving!
According to William M. Osborn in his book, “The Wild Frontier: Atrocities During the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee,” Americans killed 7,193 Indians during the Indian wars, ie from first contact through the end of the 1800s. Seven thousand out of a population of about two million is not a genocide except in the fevered rhetoric of the radical Left. The Indians, by contrast, killed 9,156 Americans. Isn’t it interesting that the Indians killed more Americans than vice versa and yet there is no talk about a European genocide.
Osborn also notes that the New York Times of the 1800s blamed Indian atrocities on injustices perpetrated by the white settlers. So even back then, the NY Times was blaming America first.
I feel sad for the children of our country. They are the ones who are paying the price for our ignorance. Seriously what kind of childhood these liberals must have had. I can’t help but wonder what awful things were done to them around the holiday time frame that they hate it so.
As for myself I remember the holidays starting at about Thanksgiving as being a magical wonderous time regardless of if my Dad was laid off from work or not. I always get a warm feeling when I think of my elementary school days making all of those projects you used to take home to mom, and stringing popcorn around the Christmas trees in the classroom (of course eating as much as possible without the teacher seeing). And yes we made construction paper headresses and turkeys traced from you hand. My favorite movie is “A Christmas Story.” Ralphie is a good representation of what I as like as a kid around the holidays. Why is it so wrong for us to let our kids feel like that too?
Kids today apparently get to enjoy none of this and we wonder why they become so cynical by the age of ten and are having sex on the playgrounds assuming they get recess anyways. Liberals give our children nothing to look forward too. I dont even know why we call them liberals anymore when they should be called socialists. I bet they wouldnt be opposed to a “Che” tree in the classroom with little rifle ornaments hanging from it.
I have not been blessed with my own family yet, but if it happens I can assure you I will do everything to replicate my childhood experiences for my children, the rest of the year they are mowing the lawn and doing yardwork!
We’re thankful year to year (and day to day) without worrying about why a national day of Thanksgiving was appointed. Our Marine in Iraq has Indian blood (not sure what % as it’s on his father’s side and quite diluted by now.) The last time we saw him was two years ago on Thanksgiving. We pray the world will be a better place this time next year.
I’ve looked back at my family tree on my mother’s side and see plenty of end points marked as ‘Killed in Indian Massacre’.
In the end Indians killed Settlers and Settlers killed Indians. It’s not as one-sided as the PC libs lead the kids to believe.
Thanksgiving isn’t about this history but is a celebration of the cooperation between Indians and Settlers. Perhaps if that spirit would have held, there’d have been less killing.
Bear (and all others on this site),
Please accept my apologies.
It was not my intention to annoy, but to think of a way to give your people a greater voice.
I meant no disrespect, but actually thought I was showing respect.
Thank you for correcting me.
Subject dropped permanently, now that I know better.
—Tim
Sorry, all, for the misquoting above.
The Preview wasn’t working properly.
I will make another attempt.
Bear (and all others on this site),
Please accept my apologies.
It was not my intention to annoy, but to think of a way to give your people a greater voice.
I meant no disrespect, but actually thought I was showing respect.
Thank you for correcting me.
Subject dropped permanently, now that I know better.
—Tim
Thank God I live in Eastern Washington, now, and not Olympia or Seattle anymore.
Here, our public school Kindergarten teacher is our farming neighbor and she teaches Thanksgiving right.
And, thank God that I hunt my own wild Turkey.
The question I have to ask is who did the “native” Americans take the land from when they got here?
And the tribes had no difficulty at all dealing death and slavery to the other tribes, look up the Comanches for example. The other tribes hated them for their war nature and cruelty.
As un-PC as it is, all this is called “conquest” and neither the red man nor the white man is a stranger to it.
And we’re next in line because the illegals and the jihadis are here.
At least the Indians were willing to fight and die for what was theirs.
And another thing – I am part Potomac Indian. The Potomacs were part of the Powhatan Confederacy headed by Chief Powhatan in Virginia, and the Powhatans were part of the Algonquin empire if that’s the right word. Their territory stretched from North Carolina up through New York to Canada and as far west as Ohio.
So who held these lands when the Algonquins came?
Image: Bear1909 laughing hysterically squirting coffee out of his nose.
You’re joking right?
Funny isn’t it that there is a low estimate of nearly 2,000 Indian men women and children dying on the “Trail of Tears” death march? No “fevered” Leftist made that statistic up.
One post civil war action by the US Army against the Navajo, where we were rounded up, kept out in the elements through winter and fed only coffee beans and dry rice, killed over 800 of us.
Toss in county by county euthanasia programs of the elderly and sick, courtesy of US Cooperative Extension Service, and sterilization of Indian women, you will find the stats you quote to be outright silly.
Oh, don’t forget stuff like this: in 1954, in Vermont, scalp bounty laws were still on the books. $5 per scalp.
Source material for the book cited uses extrapolation (from first contact) based on a very very very very low population estimate.
Population stats of Indian nations have long been a subject of contention.
There are agendas, very powerful agendas, of vested interests who *need* the population statistics to be *lower* than whale poop in order to invalidate land claims that are still in the courts. And these are not agendas of “fevered” Leftists.
Revisionist history is a necessary evil when it comes to American Indians.
And since when, may I ask, has the term genocide ever referred to the casualties of an invading force, civilian or otherwise?
To speak of it in those terms renders the term about as useless as the term “torture” has become.
What does it cost anybody to search for the truth exhaustively about what happened? We have to do it. Why don’t you?
Come to think of it, scratch that last question. It only makes me crazy.
I am a registered Cherokee – have my Certified Degree of Indian Blood card from the Bureau of Indian Affairs – and I DIG THANKSGIVING! In fact, I grew up in Cherokee country (rural Adair County, Oklahoma), and I’m trying to think of any Cherokees I knew who saw Thanksgiving as a day of mourning. Nobody is coming to mind. We always had great Thanksgiving holidays (and still do). I am sure most American Indians have a wonderful time on Thanksgiving.
When we look at our history, we can’t help but have a sense of pride that the Cherokees have survived and thrived – given everything that’s happened in the past. I honestly believe that a vast majority of American Indians attach a strong sense of pride to their heritage, rather than a dismal sense of victimization.
Oh, don’t worry. I am sure the miracle of DNA testing will unearth the ancestors of some blue blood stock trader from Connecticut who arrived here 2 million years before Christ was born.
First time for everything I guess. Very nice post at #142 RetFireman…I agree with just about all of it.
Well said at 158 bear.
What concerns me about things like this is not just attacks on holidays. We see these, and get a chance to respond. It’s what we don’t see, the day in day out anti-American brainwashing that goes on in the public schools, that is the concern. As a party, we need to focus on elections and issues that directly influence our schools, because if we lose there, we’ll eventually lose everywhere.
Math check:
Hang on. The first Thanksgiving was in 1621. Okay, 2007 minus 1621 = 500?! Ah, public school. Gotta love it.
On Thanksgiving I give thanks for our human race to have one more day to get closer to the truth about ourselves- who we are, why we do what we do, and how capable we are to excel our wildest expectations.
I am about to cross the Bay Bridge. It will be my first chance to see the oil spill and the cleanup. Tragedy and ingenuity side by side.
Have a good day.
And, Michelle, if you are reading, thank-you for providing this forum to interact with our fellow Americans.
All right then.
I wrote this a year ago:
NATIVE AMERICANS: *Peacefully waving their arms in the air, worshipping nature, giving hugs to everyone, feeding birds and deer out of their hands, and singing cheerful Native American songs. There’s a big rainbow in the sky.*
NATIVE AMERICAN #1: Hey, what’s that in the horizon?
NATIVE AMERICAN #2: It looks like a big canoe!
*Music gets sinister and dark clouds fill the sky. The boat lands near the shore and Pilgrims in their black outfits clamber off the boat.*
PILGRIMS: Squee! We’re finally in America!
NATIVE AMERICANS: Welcome, White Christian Men and Oppressed Women, to our humble land.
MILES STANDISH: YOUR humble land? I think not! All your land are belong to us!
NATIVE AMERICANS: Huh? We’re just pacifist, pan-sexual, Gaia-worshipping vegans! Why can’t we all just get along?
*The Pilgrims pull out their laser weapons and begin shooting every Native American in sight. They also shoot deer, birds, and every darn living thing they can find. Then they start ruining the environment.*
GENERIC PILGRIM: Looky, I just fried this here weird looking bird. *Pulls off turkey leg and takes a bite.* It sorta tastes like chicken!
MILES STANDISH: Excellent! Let’s have a feast dedicated to praying, eating meat, watching football, and promoting capitalism. We’ll call it…Thanksgiving!
*Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles as all of the Pilgrims laugh wickedly.*
SURVIVING NATIVE AMERICANS: Quick, we must flee to Oregon with our tofurky! Eeek!
Th’ End
Approved by the San Francisco School Board.
(And I guess Seattle too!)
Here’s a good article from down under regarding PC and Christmas…
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22761386-2,00.html
The best quote is:
“We are talking about little kids who do not understand that “ho, ho, ho” has any other connotation and nor should they.”
Again….are people really offended by these things or are the offended because someone told them they should be?
LOL!!! I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke or if you’re serious but it’s absolutely hilarious either way.
You guys are the best. Seriously, don’t ever change!
swwweeeett… same as mine. I’ll take that one
Other than that however… nahh
I’m late to this discussion, but have immensely enjoyed the thoughts of the descendants of America’s earliest peoples. Growing up in Calif. we had little exposure to the natives (OTM’s really got very little attention). Ran onto an article some years ago by Dr. Yeagley at Badeagle.com. Though, to my knowledge, I can claim no blood ties, I find Dr. Yeagley worthwhile reading. Having the opportunity to live P/T in an area close to the Crow Nation and other notable tribes, IMHO the most vocal people on how the reservations should conduct themselves are either non-natives or blood ties so minimal it’s close to nonexistant. That argument has never stopped the do-gooders from interferring. Whenever I visit I’m seeing many more young people leave the reservations armed with their college educations and dreams, in spite of the do-gooder’s hopes to make them victims.
The war on Christmas/Thanksgiving or any other holiday we hold dear is not simply against those brought or celebrated by Europeans. It’s against anything called patriotism, love of country, and shared family values.
24KLady, this rocks! My mother’s family and my fathers did not live on reservations. There are millions of us in this country who didn’t.
My Great Grandad, Juan Ramon, left the Four Corners area in the early 1900s before the government solidified its reservation programs to manage the area tribes.
He moved the family to Los Angeles where it was safer for the kids to be “Mexicans” (he and his 11 kids spoke fluent Spanish) than Navajos. And the family blossomed. Artists, musicians, teachers, doctors, farmers, ranchers etc. Great GranDad kept the family together through the Great Depression and the Second World War. They came out of that era dirt poor like many Americans. But he was clear: reservation life would have destroyed the family like it has destroyed so many.
Many survive reservation life. Many do not. It is a romanticized life in many ways to outsiders. When I go onto reservation lands here in California for ceremony and mentoring work, the pain is palpable. Casinos do little to ease that pain. It isn’t something that outsiders comprehend. But it is the reason so many of us leave to get educated and employable- to breathe the air of our dreams.
We all walk the same Red Road- but our journeys are different, as different as the spirits in each one of us.
We Navajos believe that to walk with the belief in our own goodness, based on the ways we find to stay in balance with ourselves, Earth, and all the creatures and spirits of the land, is to walk in something we refer to as “Beauty”.
We are not saints. We live human lives. Our ways humanize us. Our ways keep us strong.
Not all of us believe in our ancestral teachings. But to do so is our way to strive to be a two-legged that fulfills its purpose.
It is a Way, a means of psychic and spiritual survival. And it is coherently grounded in Earth. It is culture- the tie that binds us to our origins, that allows us to live in this constantly changing brave new world we are a part of.
Sometimes, the walk takes us through destruction, war, pain, violence, disease, death and suffering not of our own choosing- but those are part of this Fourth World we live in.
We have our ways that we teach to the Littles so they can be recognizeable to the Ones Who Left Us Here, the same ways we older ones have learned.
Nothing else matters. This is why we are here. This is why We are everywhere- for the Mighty Unborn.
So, this Thanksgiving, I am grateful that the People-warts, pain, wackiness and all- are still here.
Testing one two three
ahhkay- there it is.
Why are you saying this?
I am an Oklahoma born and reared, fully assimilated Native American “Injun”, who had ancestors on both sides of the 19th century Indian Wars. I have chosen to move on.
I was severely castigated on another forum by “white men” who were determined to defend the sensitivity of us ignorant redskins because I would not join the crusade to force all schools with “Indian” mascots to change their image in the name of political correctness.
My interpretation and, in some instances, personal knowledge is that these schools adopted Redskins, Indians, Braves, Warriors, tribal names, etc because they symbolize bravery, strength and unity and, in many cases. were actually schools for Indians on Indian lands.
Apparently, there are “Native Americans” who take offense at Indian themed mascots. I know lots of Indians but all take pride in the recognition instead of seeing it as an insult.
It’s a non-issue for me and my Family,
lonewolf. Glad you brought it up.
There are bigger fish to fry in this world.
I agree with what Mr. Narcho said. However, the whole history between settlers and Native Americans has been misrepresented on many occasions.
The concept of “stealing” land is an old argument. I am a multi-racial person who grew up on the edge of a Native American reservation in South Dakota. There is no phrase in the local Lakota language that means “own the land”. And this notion was not isolated amongst the Lakota. So, how can you “steal” when no ownership is involved?
How about this for a change of venue: The Native Americans were just as guilty in their fate, if you will, as the settlers. There is undeniable archaeological evidence that tribes all over the Americas fought and fought, often to the point where entire tribes would be wiped out. They continued this even as droves of immigrations from Eurasia arrived on their doorstep. Ironically, the EXACT same thing is happening in Europe, but that’s another topic.
There’s an old saying that civilizations die from suicide not from murder. There’s another one, too: a society cannot be conquered from without before it is conquered from within.
One last point I would like to share with you all is something you’ll probably never find in a history book. One of the reasons the Natives were defeated was because of their arrogance. Oh, yes, you’ll get the usual run-around of racist and what-not if you dare to say so, but the TRUTH is that many tribes thought they were superior to everyone else. I kid you not, I’ve seen this described before in great detail. There were Native tribes who believed that their TRIBE, not so much race, was superior to every other human being.
Just imagine that concept being taught in high schools and universities. So many liberals would go crazy.
Thank you bear for a very moving comment. My great
uncle was also a teacher. Everything I ever learned
about the Cherokee I learned from him until he passed. He always said to give thanks that his parents
were too smart to get “caught” and walked to OK on
the Trail of Tears. They went into the hills as guerillas
instead of being included in the three removals. He had no patience with the hippy types that thought if
they hung around the 6′5″ tall handsome white haired Cherokee they could absorb some sort of
Indian “vibes”. I will not repeat what he would say
though I never heard him swear, ever, he had some
very pertinent and cutting words for fools.
He used to talk about the Peace Woman that lived
outside the village and mediated arguments. Seems
to me that we could all use such a person these days. He also taught us that there was no Cherokee
chief..instead, there was the Beloved Person. Would
that we could think of our leaders in those terms.
Give thanks for all of our differences because if we
were all alike it would be a very dull world ( and we
could have been born moonbats!)
TXRose: You are very welcome and thank you for your words.
Thanks a whole lot.
Minor point here, STLuigi, among the many correct ones you make. When treaties were signed with the US Federal Government, promises made with councils of chiefs by US government officials, but then reneged upon, I think this might suggest some kind of foul play.
The treaties created a legal basis for tribal control of lands, or ownership. When the treaties were broken, it set the stage for what has been referred to as theft.
The treaties were not based in Indian culture (to use a very convenient shorthand here).
The treaties were the US government’s way of bringing various Indian sovereign nations under its control.
It is correct that the concept of “owning” land parcels was not in the lexicon of respective tribes.
But that is not the basis for allegations of theft.
The bases for theft allegations are the treaties themselves- a negotiated legal document of the United States of America.
Let’s ask some critical questions of this position.
How does the “from without-within” argument explain the use of sterilization of Indian women to exterminate future generations?
How does this position explain the wholesale removal of Indian children from their parents and put in boarding schools where they are forbidden to speak their language(s) or practice their “religion” under threat of severe corporal punishment?
How does this position account for refusal of the conquering Nation to allow the conquered people to live on lands agreed to be afforded them by the legal treaties drawn up in accordance with the conquering Nation’s own body of laws?
How does this position account for the legalized killing of Indian people through bounty laws?
My point here is this: trying to explain away what happened in the Americas to its indigenous people is a simple activity to debunk.
What purpose does it serve to apply tactical generalities about the Roman Empire or the ancient Greeks to populations most historians of record, anthropologists, and cultural experts
have yet to understand?
How would it help say a non-Indian high school student understand why here in the Bay Area there were fields of bones found under the slab foundations of the WW2 factories built here in the 40s?
Or how would it help that same student understand why a major university here in Berkeley has a dilemma on its hands regarding the actual remains of ancestors that belong to living real live Mono, Yokut, Pomo, Ohlone and other Indian families. These remains are “on file” with the University archivists.
The “defeated from within” position does not explain the absolute domination that has occurred and continues to occur.
Are we not a nation of laws? To ask if it is so, does this constitute whining or an inability to get over it?
I think not. I call it patriotism: belief and adherence to the founding ideals of this Great Nation.
Bear #171 – had to take time out to do magic in the kitchen, but want to thank you for sharing your insights and personal knowledge to the discussion. Your contributions bring back memories of scattered things I’ve read but over time tucked away in the gray cells. Sadly, our educational system fails to give us the very dots needed to connect them. Your Little Bear is a very fortunate child.
Thanks to MM for hosting the sight and all that offered their thoughts tonight as well.