#1 Native Americans Became infected With Small Pox The story of Thanksgiving is not the story we’ve been told throughout the years. In fact, the Pilgrims were not the first ones to encounter the Native Americans, that they named “Indians.” In 1614, English explorers were already in New England and captured Patuxet Indians, bringing them back to England to be used as slaves. They left behind a little token for those natives that managed to elude them ... smallpox. The disease wiped most of the population, leaving only one Patuxet man, Squanto. #2 Native Americans Taken As Slaves We hear so much about how Africans were taken here by boat load to be used as slaves in the south, but not as much has been made public in media outlets about the Indians who were our first slaves. Captured and taken to England, or used as slaves right on their own soil by the British Puritans. Families of men, woman and children had their lives changed forever, with complete disrespect for the land they called home. #3 Burned Native Villages When the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, they named the village Plymouth Rock, and so it went down in history that Plymouth Rock is where the United States began. Little is told about the Patuxet and Wampanoag natives who had already lived there for thousands of years, and the village already was named Patuxet. These natives had their homes destroyed, burned to the ground by the British who came over to see this land that the Pilgrims called paradise. #4 Pilgrims Were Not Really Allies with Native Americans The Pilgrims and the Indians were not really allies. While Squanto taught the pilgrims how to survive on their new land, the pilgrims were not as beholden to the Wampanoag Tribe as we hear in the history books. The Pilgrims, even though they had left England, were still under British rule. That is where there loyalty lied, and when the British arrived and put up a wall to keep the Indians out, they had no choice but to live within those confines. 5 Pilgrims Didnt Honor Treaty With Squanto In 1621, a peace treaty was made between England and the Wampanoag Nation, which basically said, we have your back if you have ours. Squanto represented the Indians and John Carver, the first governor of the colony, represented England. This peace treaty was thrown out the window, when British Settlers attacked and the Indians fought back. No one had anyone’s back and it was the British against the Wampanoag, with nothing to protect either side. #6 Pequot War The Pequot war erupted in 1634 between the Pequot Tribe and the English colonies. Hundreds were killed or imprisoned, then taken into slavery in the West Indies. By the end of the war, in 1638, over 700 Pequots were either killed or taken into slavery. The devastation took over three hundred and fifty years to remedy, and the Pequot had to build again along the Thames and Mystic Rivers in Southeastern Connecticut, their original homeland. #7 Miles Standish Orderd A Wall Built To Keep Indians Out Just days before what we all refer to as the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621, Miles Standish led Pilgrim troops to find the local Indian chief and behead him. He erected an 11 foot wall around the Pilgrim settlement to keep the Indians away from their reservation, and mounted five cannons up on a hill surrounding it. Standish then infiltrated the Indian camp, feigning friendship and proposing a trade, but then beheaded an Indian male named Wituwamat, mounting the head back at the Pilgrim reservation. #8 No Native Americans Invited to First Feast Even though the Indians helped the unprepared Pilgrims with their failed crops, and brought them food from their twenty acres of corn, they really were not invited to the Thanksgiving feast of 1621. Only one Indian was invited, one Indian named Massasoit, but he in turn invited his brothers and sisters from his tribe. This angered the Pilgrims, who were dining on duck or geese, but definitely not turkey. Massasoit and his fellow Indians brought five deer. #9 Green Corn Festival - The Real Thanksgiving In 1637, the Pequot Tribe had their annual Green Corn Dance, but it ended in tragedy when the English, aided by the Dutch surrounded the village and attacked. Shooting anyone who tried to escape, and burning down their houses, the English and the Dutch succeeded in eliminating over 700 Indians. The day was marked at Thanksgiving by the Governor of Massachusetts as a way to give thanks that they were able to accomplish such a mass elimination. That’s the real meaning of Thanksgiving. #10 The British Considered Native Americans As Unsanitary Heathens The British never liked the Native Americans, considering them to be heathens that were dirty and disgusting. Even with the help the Native Americans provided, and the treaty they signed, they didn’t consider them to be of equal human value to them. They treated them as such, by taking them into slavery, beheading them, and using their heads for show pieces. The Native American population suffered from their mass extinction at the hands of the British settlers. We should recognize the true story of Thanksgiving
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 08:40:34 +0000