Avoiding your family THANKSGIVING

[blabbate]

I never denied that the early Europeans attacked the Native Americans. However, the native Americans did take pity on the pilgrims and feed them and that is the basis of the holiday.

Thats a LIE!

{snip Pequot massacre}

http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/thanksgiv.html

Ugh. The Pequot massacre was more complicated than that, and had little to nothing to do with Thanksgiving as we know it. The massacre as reported by the victors was horrible, yes, and was part of a war essentially forced by the colonists (though the Pequot and the Mohegan had been at odds for at least a decade by that point, the colonists didn't need to get involved). The massacre did not involve the Dutch, but did include the Narragansett and the Niantic, who were the "mercenaries" mentioned. However, to their credit, they abandoned the fight once it became clear that the English were using total war tactics. The Pequot killed were mostly women and children because Sassacus had taken the warriors to make a raid on Hartford, not because they were gathered for a festival. And Winthrop declared a day of thanksgiving not because of this particular battle, but because it marked the end of the Pequot War as a whole.

 

It's doubtful that "for the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory," for several reasons. First, we didn't have any presidents for the next 100 years, so that's silly and biased to even include. Second, this was a victory of significance mostly just for the Puritans, not for other colonists or even for the Pilgrims. In fact, the Pilgrims refused to send assistance. Third, this was just one thanksgiving declaration among many. Winthrop himself had already celebrated a day of thanksgiving in 1630 when his ships arrived safely at the colony. Jamestown held an earlier one in 1619, and Charlestown a later one in 1676, which was giving thanks for a reduction in indian attacks. The latter was the first "official" thanksgiving, in that it was declared on record by a governmental authority. However, all of these were religious thanksgivings, not the harvest feast we're familiar with. And finally, Mr. Newell's credentials are unsubstantiated. UConn has no record of him ever teaching in any department. The Department of Anthropology didn't even exist there until 1971, but nobody remembers a Newell.

 

The first official November thanksgiving was in 1730 by decree of Gov. Belcher and was specifically giving thanks for, among other things, the health of the royal family, peace with the natives, and a plentiful harvest. His later decree in 1749 and Washington's in 1789 were similar, though the latter focused more on God and government and less on the royals (obviously). Washington had earlier declared days of thanksgiving in 1776 and 1777, but these were very specifically about the Revolutionary War. Each of these was more peacefully religious and harvest-based, and none had anything to do with the Pequot or conflict with anyone except the British. Also, none of them started a tradition. It wasn't until 1863 that the tradition was established, thanks to Lincoln and Sarah Hale, though it still remained mostly religious. Over time we've attached the Pilgrims and the feast to it.

 

Thanksgiving as we know it is a religious declaration conflated with a harvest festival and associated with questionable imagery from a celebratory feast held in 1620. There's nothing that associates it with the Pequot massacre in particular any more than with Washington's Valley Forge declaration or Jamestown's 1619.

[zinzen]

Seriously why the hell did you know all that? Just wondering.

[blabbate]

Seriously why the hell did you know all that? Just wondering.

I don't know it all off the top of my head, but the interweb is a wonderful research tool. I do know that the Pequot massacre is frequently cited as evidence that Thanksgiving is a horrible, Native American-hating, genocidal holiday, and that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Yes, the Europeans and colonists did terrible, unforgivable things to the native people, and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that the Pilgrim feast imagery represents the whole of colonial-Native American relations, but there's no direct connection between the massacre and the holiday.

[RAINRA]

That is why this Thanksgiving I am not just thinking about the Turkeys but also the Native Americans

[zinzen]

Ok I hate the murder of cool turkeys a lot, and dont even get me started on the horrible things whitey did to the great people native to this land, with their awesome traditions.

But here is a great idea for tomorrow.

Pick something you love, and be THANKFUL for it... just an idea

[FormicaLinoleum]

I just use the day to get together with family and eat a lot. We don't give thanks for anything, or think about anything related to the so-called reason for the holiday.

[bodybag]

No one else has mentioned football! This is all about football. X-mas is about basketball!

[veggieprincess]

Joe Connelly... owner of Veg News told me that the original Thanksgiving meal was Vegan. I would've loved to have listened to the whole story about that, but we had just finished a long dinner and I had 2 glasses of wine so my A.D.D. was kicking in big time... DAMN! Seriously... I'm going to have him finish that story next time I see him.

 

Just wanted to add that my die hard meat eating family ate entirely Vegan this year because of Sierra and I. There weren't any Tofurky leftovers. Everyone ate the whole thing and loved it. It was a great Thanksgiving :0)

[vivalasvegans]

Oh VP that's really interesting, I'm gonna do some research on that.

 

We got another meat eater into the vegan thanksgiving tradition this year too. Second year in a row!

 

Soon we shall rule the world...

[xveganjoshx]

Yo suckaz, my Thanksgiving rocked! My family is not vegan but they made a ton of vegan food. I asked them if they could keep the carcass in the other room, and just serve themselves onto their plate prior, as I didn't want to look at the turkey since it makes me sad. They respected my wishes. We even did a non-denominational grace, my family is Christian but I could really give a toss about religion, and they respected that. Last thanksgiving, my aunt (whose a born again psycho) singled me out and had the only atheist/agnostic there say grace, it was so awkward and innappropriate (ETA: I thanked mother earth, lol, and she said after I was done "And thank god and jesus" something like that. I LOLed. ). So this Thanksgiving was very good!