The Massacre for Which Thanksgiving is Named

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NDPP
The Massacre for Which Thanksgiving is Named

The Massacre for which Thanksgiving is Named:

http://www.nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/190/

"As difficult as it may be for non-Indians to realize the corruption of [North] American Institutions, such as universities, or to recognize the hypnotic effect of propaganda and hegemony, it may be far more difficult for them to mitigate the shadow side of their own cultural histories..

Michelle

Can I ask a (possibly ignorant) question?  Do American Thanksgiving and Canadian Thanksgiving come from the same tradition and celebrate the same thing?  I guess what I mean is, are the roots of both the same?

I googled it and found something on Wikipedia (an extremely poor source for anti-oppression issues) and there seems to be several things they say about Canadian Thanksgiving - a harvest festival similar to ones in Europe and in First Nations traditions, influence from American Thanksgiving, etc.  And also some celebrations for safe landing after a long voyage by European explorers.

There were other links too, including some indigenous celebrations of Thanksgiving.

But this is the one I found most interesting - An Anti-Thanksgiving for Aboriginal Awareness

 

Unionist

Michelle wrote:

Can I ask a (possibly ignorant) question?  Do American Thanksgiving and Canadian Thanksgiving come from the same tradition and celebrate the same thing?  I guess what I mean is, are the roots of both the same?

As far as I know, "Canadian" Thanksgiving was a straight copy from the U.S., just as "Labour" Day in September was.

After WWI, however, the British Empire/Commonwealth (including Canada) came to mark Armistice Day as a holiday, which the U.S. did not. Canada decided to move Thanksgiving from November to October, so as to avoid the duplication. That's the story as I remember it - I'll look for some research to back it up.

It has nothing to do with harvest or religion or anything else. It's a celebration of colonial conquest.

 

autoworker autoworker's picture

It doesn't do much for the poor turkeys, either.

Michelle

Okay, thanks Unionist.

Pogo Pogo's picture

Well the internet seems to put up four streams.  First the English explorers, starting with Martin Frobisher.  Second the French explorers/settlers.  Third the European and First Nations harvest traditions.  Fourth was the American tradition, particulary from the Loyalists.

To me it looks it can be whatever you want it to be.

Unionist

I've often wondered about the term "explorers". I think an "explorer" would explore. If she found something, she'd observe, make notes, pictures, maps. If she found people, she'd greet them nicely, ask permission to visit, observe, make notes, pictures, maps...

Then go home.

Oh yeah, that part...

NDPP

The Toxic Legacy of Christopher Columbus

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15485

"What differentiates the slaughter of natives by bloody massacres that wiped out whole tribes, as the Conquistadores swept across the south west or the Puritan massacre of the Pequots, in the fiery hell they designed for those God helped them destroy, from the razing of Fallujah by the American forces as they leveled the city to the ground and in the process scorched and seared the residents in the unforgiving fire of white phosphorous?

What has changed since Medieval times? What process is discernible but the technology of death? The racist mindset clamped on the brain by arrogance of belief in white superiority remains firmly in place,  justifying what the soul knows in its silence to be merciless slaughter that needs no God to trumpet its evil.."

jfb

"It's a celebration of colonial conquest."

So I will reiterate my off-colour joke of the day as told to me by a friend who is First Nations, when I wished them Happy Thanksgiving: Theire reply: Happy First Nations' steal their land day.

This person also provided another insightful historical anidote: The first welfare line was the "pilgrams". Laughing

Fidel

[url=http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/First_Thanksgiving_LMTTM.html]... Thanksgiving, Red Eyes, Invisibility of Racism[/url]

 excerpted from the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

 

Quote:

Further west, so many Pawnee Indians were sold to whites that Pawnee became the name applied in the plains to all slaves, whether they were of Indian or African origin. On the West Coast, Pierson Reading, a manager of John Sutter's huge grant of Indian land in central California, extolled the easy life he led in 1844: "The Indians of California make as obedient and humble slaves as the Negro in the south." In the Southwest, whites enslaved Navajos and Apaches right up to the middle of the Civil War.
Intensified warfare and the slave trade rendered stable settlements no longer safe, helping to deagriculturize Native Americans. To avoid being targets for capture, Indians abandoned their cornfields and their villages and began to live in smaller settlements from which they could more easily escape to the woods. Ultimately, they had to trade with Europeans even for food. As Europeans learned from Natives what to grow and how to grow it, they became less dependent upon Indians and Indian technology, while Indians became more dependent upon Europeans and European technology. Thus what worked for the Native Americans in the short run worked against them in the long. In the long run, it was Indians who were enslaved, Indians who died, Indian technology that was lost, Indian cultures that fell apart...

 

So much for the great white pioneers. They tookover existing settlements, and they harvested crops abandoned by the people they were exterminating fom the new world.

Star Spangled C...

Michelle wrote:

Can I ask a (possibly ignorant) question?  Do American Thanksgiving and Canadian Thanksgiving come from the same tradition and celebrate the same thing?  I guess what I mean is, are the roots of both the same?

I can't give you an exact answer to this, Michelle, but I can note that Canadian Thanksgiving is the same day as Columbus Day down here, so I'm assuming there's at least some connection - the date for both holidays must commemorate some specific event, whether Columbus landing in North America or something else.

Makwa Makwa's picture

autoworker wrote:

It doesn't do much for the poor turkeys, either.

Rant redacted.  The quip is in poor taste, to say the least.  That's all.

George Victor

Ronald Wright's What is America:A Short History of the New World Order (and it is very short, with notes making up the last third of it) should be required reading in all schools as grounding on the true meaning of Columbus - secondary schools, not elementary. 

As for the Canadian Thanksgiving...I believe Unionist's ongoing research might find that it is a creation of the Canadian Manufacturer's Association in cahoots with a desperate but benevolent Mackenzie King making use of growing Canuck opinion (I recall from somewhere). 

Charter Rights

The Canadian Thanksgiving coincides with the Haudenosaunee Harvest Cerermonies....Thanksgiving....You don't suppose we stole it from them like most other appropriation of their culture....

RosaL

I am somewhat hostile to Thanksgiving for reasons I won't go into and I would derive some satisfaction if I thought the Canadian celebration derived from the American holiday, and evidently I'm not the only one. Nonetheless, I suspect Harvest Festivals are almost universal. I also suspect that the Canadian holiday has its roots in the English celebration, which itself has pre-Christian, pagan roots. There's still scope for anti-colonialism here and a certain amount of leeway as well for those who want to claim they're celebrating a pagan festival. 

 

I say this every year. Doubtless I'll say it next year, too Wink

KenS

I'm inclined to think/guess that both the Canadian and US versions derive form those universal [at least to northern hemisphere] harvest festivals.

And that the racist colonial mythology was layered on- perhaps even with an after the fact historical rewrite, with essentially no real events with First Nations peoples. For example- some of the local indegenous folk being invited on an individual ad hoc basis as would befit the actual relationships of the times.... rather then the mythological reciprocal community to community get together of received "history".

Tom day

 Shayari makes it so simple, fill your emotions into it and guess what your  love accepts you whole heartedly.In todays fast paced and stressful lifes,it is important to seek some sort of entertainment or stressbuster.  Hindi jokes  are an easy way of releving Stress.Ha..................................ha.......................ha ha?////////

 

Moderator note: spam link removed.

MegB

Spam.

Maysie Maysie's picture

And another spammer. Mods notified.

Slumberjack

Seems to be an awful lot of them these days, doesn't there?

Caissa

How do they slip across the borders?

Slumberjack

I haven't the foggiest, but what I do know is that none of their products seem to work.

MegB

Slumberjack wrote:

Seems to be an awful lot of them these days, doesn't there?

Tell me about it ... you're just seeing the ones who get past the gatekeepers.

Closing this spam-magnet.

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