The true history of Thanksgiving

Tavarus Pennington, Editorials Editor

Every November, countless American families feast over a table of delectable “thanksgiving” foods. This is a tradition meant to signify the peace, common ground, and friendly communion found between the Europeans that migrated to the Americas and the Native Americans. This tradition has unfortunately whitewashed hundreds of years of oppression and racism against Native peoples.

The idea that the first Thanksgiving meal had between the Europeans and Native Americans in 1621 was the signal of lasting peace between the two peoples is grossly ignorant of the subsequent actions taken by the colonial settlers.

When the Pilgrims and Native Americans first brushed shoulders, it was out of necessity not graciousness. The Pilgrims approached the local Native tribes because they couldn’t figure out how to farm the land that was new to them and thus relied on using the Natives as the invaluable source that they were as a means of achieving their goal of colonizing the land that was already widely occupied. History has cast a bright smile on events such as this and I urge you to remove the veil and recognize reality.

The Pilgrims usefulness as it pertained to farming American lands was not the first instance of white men using Native American peoples. In the periods of slavery that came about over the next few centuries after the original Thanksgiving feasts, Native Americans were used as slaves same as African Americans were at the time. The reason it was on such a smaller scale for the Natives was because the Native American population was facing new diseases like chickenpox that Europeans brought over and thus saw a massive increase in the mortality rates of their peoples. In addition to this, the Trail of Tears which was endured during Andrew Jackson’s 1820’s presidency was also an independent cause for a population decrease among Natives which was a reason they weren’t utilized as much as African Americans as far as being slaves. The widespread displacement of a culture did not do the health of Native peoples well and slave owners only wanted to purchase slaves that were strong and healthy.

The actions taken by the Pilgrims against Native Americans were not evident of a conducive and positive relationship between the two parties and it truly never was. The idea that Native Americans and Pilgrims are around a table together in peace, love, and positivity is a misrepresentation of the events that actually transpired between the two.