Good day Inky Buds as you know tomorrow is Thanksgiving, or at least in my area it is, which brings all kinds of goodies and delicious homemade food. Many of you are probably familiar with the story of Thanksgiving and how it came to be, especially if you live in the USA. The whole rundown of the "tale" is that the pilgrims landed on Plymouth, befriended the native tribe living there, and had a nice happy-pappy time with a feast to show celebrate their newfound friendship. The American school systems never failed to fill numerous generations of children's minds with this notion. The schools and teachers have children perform festivities, plays and little cute arts and crafts to commemorate the holiday.
Now I will give you something that schools didn't teach you about Thanksgiving. It was essentially a mass genocide that occurred during the night, and the pilgrims had a feast to celebrate the harvest, and the eradication of the Wampanoag Native Americans. It looks like you are going to have a side of reality with your mashed potatoes and gravy tomorrow. Today's post is going to be a big, much needed dose of truth that many people remain unaware of today.
I'll start off this topic with a personal experience about how I found out the truth. It was a couple of years back and Thanksgiving was drawing near. My mother told me and my siblings about the tragedy that occurred that day, via a news article. I remember feeling a strong sense of resentment and anger when I heard this news. Of course, I was. Everything I've been taught about this subject was a lie, and I possibly can't even trust the American school system to give me or future generations the unfiltered truth.
This isn't the only time in which schools have given the wrong idea about historical matters and figures. Christopher Columbus is a perfect example of that. For a very long time, he was conceived to be the person who discovered America.
In reality he was looking for India, he thought the Native Americans were Indians, which is why many people still call Native Americans "Indians". Not only that, but he also slaughtered and enslaved many indigenous people that lived in the places he landed, as well as spread disease to the natives. According to Progressive.org:
"In 1492, the Spanish sailor Christopher Columbus embarked on what he believed would be a pathway to riches in India. Landing on the shores of the Americas, Columbus did not think twice about what he believed were an inferior people who should be held as slaves, guides, even as dog food for their ongoing exploits. Consider these words from Columbus himself: “These people are very unskilled in arms . . . with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.”
Yeah, he is not the trail-blazing explorer that many Americans were taught he was. Luckily these truths are coming into the light and out of the shadows, but children are still being taught these lies. It was just days ago when one of my siblings were learning about historical figures in history like presidents, and unfortunately this pillaging monster was on the list. The homework asked my sibling what Christopher Columbus was known for, to which they had to choose from the multiple choices. I grimaced at what the homework was putting into my sibling's mind.
It was lying in an "acceptable" form, practically propaganda. The truth of Thanksgiving also fits under this label. You probably think I'm exaggerating, don't you? I'm not saying that the teachers themselves are responsible for these pretenses of American history, they just follow the curriculum given to them. According to socialsci.libretexts.org: "In the U.S., each state, with the individual school districts, establishes the curricula taught. Each state, however, builds its curriculum with great participation of national academic subject groups selected by the United States Department of Education."
So that's a whole board to decide what schools are teaching and deciding to hide and leave out. That's more than a simple mistake or something to let slip by. There are many people in a room, similar to a focus group, being given the responsibility on what to teach the children of today. They make to conscious decision to keep the truth about the history a secret, that was only spread out recently. They are pretty selective about what is being taught not only in historical events, but also based on ethnicity.
According to Forbes.com: "Most American children are not taught the savage raping, killing, and pillaging that Natives endured during this time. Another criticism of many primary and secondary schools’ curricula is that very little is taught in school about the history and culture of the Native community in general. In fact, around 87% of state-level history standards do not mention Native history after 1900. Let alone teaching students the tremendous impact Native people have had on contemporary US society. Due to the severe erasure of Native history, Thanksgiving has been whitewashed, and many have been taught an incomplete and, in some cases, inaccurate understanding of what happened."
I find this believable, and I hate that this has happened. While things have progressed over the years with representation, there still not much on Native American representation other than their Heritage month. This sincerely makes me upset since they are just one of the many cultures that were oppressed, and experienced mass genocide at the hands of the white man.
I am going to go deeper into this tragedy, but first we must hear the story of Tisquantum, the translator for the English. You might better know him as Squanto. He was a part of the Patuxet tribe, a branch of the Wampanoag Confederacy. This tribe was located in present day Plymouth. Little is known about his early life, but his tribe was resourceful. The men would travel up and down the coast to fish and hunt, while the women harvested beans, squash and corn. Before the early 1600's, the Patuxet people had a generally friendly relationship with the European settlers, which didn't last too long.
At a certain point in his youth, Squanto was captured by English explorers and taken to Europe, where he would be sold into slavery. But many wondered how he was taken in the first place. According to allthatsinteresting.com: " The most widely accepted theory is that Squanto and 23 other Native Americans boarded the ship of Captain Thomas Hunt, who put them at ease with promises of trade before setting sail. Instead, the Natives were held captive aboard."
This would be where his life changed. He picked up English during his experience, while the Patuxet people were furious because of the kidnappings, but they couldn't do much. The village would eventually be wiped out because of the diseases the explorers brought with their crew.
Squanto and the other captives were likely sold by Thomas Hunt in Spain. Miraculously, he somehow made his way to England. By some statements, Catholic friars were the ones to help Squanto out of captivity. Once he was a free man, he began to master the language.
According to allthatsinteresting.com: "Mayflower Pilgrim William Bradford, who got to know Squanto very well years later, wrote: “he got away for England, and was entertained by a merchant in London, employed to Newfoundland and other parts. It was in Newfoundland that Squanto met Captain Thomas Dermer, a man in the employ of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, an Englishman who helped found “the Province of Maine” back on Squanto’s home continent."
In 1619, Gorges sent Dermer on a trade mission to the New England colonies. Dermer employed Squanto as an interpreter. As they were approaching the coast of Squanto's home, Demer noted: “some ancient [Indian] plantations, not long since populous now utterly void.”
Squanto's village got ravaged by disease that the settlers brought with them.
Sometime in 1620, Dermer and his crew were attacked by the Wampanoag tribe. Dermer and 14 of his men successfully escaped, meanwhile Squanto was taken captive yet again by the tribe.
It wouldn't be until early 1621 that Squanto would encounter the pilgrims. At the time, the Wampanoag was cautiously observing a new group of English arrivals. These pilgrims suffered many hardships throughout the winter, but the Wampanoag were still hesitant to approach them. They had good reason too, any natives who attempted to befriend them had ended up being abducted and taken away from their homes like Squanto.
Eventually, according to the accounts of a pilgrim named WIlliam Bradford: "a Wampanoag named Samoset “came boldly amongst [a group of pilgrims] and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand but marveled at it.”
Samoset conversed with the pilgrims and eventually brought to their attention that there was another man (Squanto) who could speak better English than himself. With the assistance of Squanto as interpreter, the Wampanoag chief Massasoit negotiated an alliance with the Pilgrims, with a promise not to harm each other. They also promised to aid each other in case of an attack by another tribe.
Bradford himself even described Squanto as "a special instrument sent of God."
Squanto made many efforts to prove himself valuable to the pilgrims not just in communications, but also as an expert on sustaining resources.
He taught the pilgrims to cultivate crops to get them through the next harsh winter in Massachusetts.
As an expression of their gratitude, the Pilgrims invited Squanto and around 90 Wampanoag to join them in a celebration of their first successful harvest in what they called the “New World.” Which was a feast to celebrate Squanto and the Wampanoag.
Squanto then developed a reputation for being manipulative and power hungry. He wanted to become higher in social status. At one point, the Pilgrims actually appointed another Native American advisor named Hobbamock to keep an eye on him in case of mutiny.
It would be easy enough to see him trying to get revenge on the group that enslaved him. On top of that, Squanto was aware of how valuable he’d become to the Wampanoag as the Pilgrims’ closest ally.
As Bradford put it, Squanto “sought his own ends and played his own game.”
He used his power of the English language to his advantage, by threatening people who displeased him, and demanding favors for pleasing the pilgrims in any ways they asked.
By 1622, according to Pilgrim Edward Winslow, Squanto had begun to spread lies among both the Native Americans and the Pilgrims:
“His course was to persuade the Indians [that] he could lead us to peace or war at his pleasure, and would oft threaten the Indians, sending them word in a private manner we were intended shortly to kill them, that thereby he might get gifts for himself, to work their peace; so that whereas divers [people] were wont to rely on Massasoit for protection, and resort to his abode, now they began to leave him and seek after Tisquantum [Squanto.]”
In the end Squanto overstepped his bounds by spreading lies that the Chief was plotting with enemy tribes, which as you can imagine, the Wampanoags weren't happy about that.
Squanto had to take shelter with the pilgrims, who were wary of him but couldn't betray their ally by handing him over to certain death by angry Native Americans. This was futile since in November of 1622, he succumbed to a disease.
The reason I brought up Squanto is because he is recognized as a helpful Native American that marked the beginning of their "friendship."
Meanwhile in England, word spread about the new paradise that was the new world. Religious zealots called that were the Puritans began arriving boat by boat. Since there were no fences, they thought that it was public domain. That's when everything began going downhill. As soon as those Puritan came along. As I've said before in my segment about the Salem Witch Trials, don't trust the Puritans.
Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back.
There are obvious problems to this. They just arrive on this land and decide not to abide by the rules that were already set there by the alliance that was made by Squanto and the Wampanoag.
According to Iloveancestry.com: "The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought. In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration."
But it doesn't stop there. In the early dawn hours of the day, the sleeping Native Americans were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them outside. Those who went outside were shot or clubbed to death, the frightened women and children in their longhouses were burned alive.
Cheered by their “victory”, the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England.
Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.
Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of Thanksgiving to celebrate victory over the heathen savages.
Heathen savages? I have several things to say about this awful, racist notion.
How are Native Americans savage? They were just minding their own business until a bigoted bunch of people took their lands and decided that they didn't like the people living there. It is unfair to me, and it is very ignorant that you eradicate an entire group of people because they are savages.
A heathen isn't just an uncivilized person, it also means somebody who doesn't follow a widely accepted religion like Christianity. Native Americans didn't follow their religions since they had their own teachings and followings. This reminds me of the Spanish Inquisition, where many people were forced into different religions.
I find it pretty silly that the English settlers found many other ethnic groups uncivilized, meanwhile in London these people are throwing human excrements in the streets, so that everyone is walking all over other people's business. Literally all other people had the mind to get rid of it in other areas, not in the streets that many people frequented. Plus, Native Americans bathed frequently, unlike the English who smelled awful according to some accounts. According to History.com: "When the Mayflower pilgrims arrived in Plymouth in the early 17th century, they didn’t smell terrific, according to Native American accounts. Unlike the Wampanoag, these Europeans didn’t bathe regularly. A surviving member of the Patuxet nation named Tisquantum (or “Squanto”) even tried and failed to convince them to start washing themselves, according to a 1965 biography. These idiots actually thought bathing made them sick. I know that science wasn't advanced enough in that time, but couldn't they figure out that they smelled better when they did bathe? Who's really the uncivilized savage?
Here's a bit more about this history I found disturbing. During the feasting, they hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts — where it remained on display for 24 years.
I have some pretty big opinions about this topic and just the entire history behind the pilgrims and "founding fathers." These people shouldn't be praised for bigotry and racist point of views. The people who landed here do not deserve to be called founding fathers, nor do their descendants deserve entitlement over anyone. I am passionate about this topic because I feel strongly about how so many things could be propaganda and we don't even realize it. It is all just filtered out, why else would this knowledge barely be found, instead of being told as it is from the very beginning.
It is a terrible loss of people because of mindless segregations. Today, Indigenous people in America celebrate National Day of Mourning, which honors the innocents that were killed and lost. It takes place on Cole's hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. My family and I celebrate Thanksgiving in remembrance to all the people that were killed on that fateful day many years ago.
These injustices make me so angry. We are all the same on the inside and our skin color shouldn't determine our worth, status, or level of respect given. I believe the conception that skin color does affect how people are treated is incredibly selfish and there are still more hurdles for us to go over to reach complete unity and acceptance. Pay gaps are an example of this. As an example, here are the numbers:
As you can see here, the pay gap is pretty wide. It has been made that a Hispanic only makes a couple of cents compared to a white person making the full dollar. While some of the gaps are closing, like the gender pay gaps, these racial gaps prevent us from moving forward because of white supremacy's influence on the USA.
In conclusion, history has a lot of things wrong with it and a lot of it is told differently, instead of how it happened. I believe that the children in school should learn the truth, not these "happy" lies.
I hope you've learned something Inky Buds. I know today's topic was a bit long, believe me it took a while, but this was a lot of history I wanted to explain.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy your (Un)Thanksgiving🍂🍗!
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