Hollywood Lies, in rerun television ARE Autrocities on Native Americans!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Last edited Thu Nov 22, 2018, 11:39 PM - Edit history (3)

The New York Times
Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
By Maya Salam
Nov. 21, 2017

Not to rain on our Thanksgiving Day parade, but the story of the first Thanksgiving, as most Americans have been taught it, is not exactly accurate.

High school textbooks are particularly bad about stating absolutes because these materials “teach history” by giving students facts to memorize even when the details may be unclear, said James W. Loewen, a sociologist and the author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.”

The Mayflower did bring the Pilgrims to North America from Plymouth, England, in 1620, and they disembarked at what is now Plymouth, Mass., where they set up a colony. In 1621, they celebrated a successful harvest with a three-day gathering that was attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe. It’s from this that we derive Thanksgiving as we know it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html

Most Westerns from movies and television perpetuate a hideously misrepresented myth about actual history of interaction between Native American tribes and European settlers.

On edit: After posting a headline on the OP, which was almost identical to the New York Times headline, I changed it, slightly over 2 hours later (11:45 AM, MTZ) than the original Opening Post was first presented, in General Discussion.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

1. Deliberate Genocide against Native Americans

During Pontiac Uprising in 1763, Native Americans besieged Fort Pitt. They burned nearby houses, forcing the inhabitants to take refuge in the well-protected fort. The British officer in charge, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, reported to Colonel Henry Bouquet that he feared the crowded conditions would result in disease. Smallpox had already broken out.

On June 24, 1763, William Trent, a local trader, recorded in his journal that two Indian chiefs had visited the fort, urging the British to abandon the fight, but the British refused. Instead, when the Indians were ready to leave, Trent wrote: "Out of our regard for them, we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect."

Plains Indians kept track of the passing years by winter counts, pictures painted in spirals, often on the smooth inner hide of buffalo robes. Each tribe recorded its own version of what was important. But one event on virtually all Plains Indian winter counts was the “smallpox winter.” The smallpox epidemic of 1837–38 all but destroyed the Mandans and severely reduced the Arikaras and Hidatsas, who also lived in fortified villages along the Missouri River and farmed corn, beans and squash, with buffalo hunting as a sideline. The epidemic tipped the balance in favor of the buffalo-hunting tribes who didn’t farm and whose isolated bands weren’t as hard hit by the smallpox epidemic, in turn altering the world’s image of what an “Indian” looked like.

The epidemic of 1837–38 also spawned a narrative of deliberate white genocide against the original Americans: “smallpox in the blankets”—white Europeans and white Americans deliberately promoting the spread of smallpox among unsuspecting American Indians to clear them off the land.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. The New York Times article goes on to report:

Plymouth, Mr. Loewen noted, was already a village with clear fields and a spring when the Pilgrims found it. “A lovely place to settle,” he said. “Why was it available? Because every single native person who had been living there was a corpse.” Plagues had wiped them out.
It wasn’t just about religious freedom.

It’s been taught that the Pilgrims came because they were seeking religious freedom, but that’s not entirely true, Mr. Loewen said.

The Pilgrims had religious freedom in Holland, where they first arrived in the early 17th century. Like those who settled Jamestown, Va., in 1607, the Pilgrims came to North America to make money, Mr. Loewen said.

“They were also coming here in order to establish a religious theocracy, which they did,” he said. “That’s not exactly the same as coming here for religious freedom. It’s kind of coming here against religious freedom.”

From what I remember, Massachusetts pilgrims were first pushed out of England, because their brand of Christianity was too judgmental of other types of Christian worshipers.

[sir pball]

3. My HS Western Civ teacher put it succinctly..

Last edited Thu Nov 22, 2018, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

..they came for religious exclusivity, not religious freedom.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. Could we discuss lies about interaction between Native Americans and European settlers?

To honor Native Americans, with the truth about history, it might be nice to go with the main idea in the OP.

[sir pball]

8. You and anyone else who wishes to absolutely can..

..I was replying to your comment on why the Pilgrims came.

There's absolutely wheelbarrow loads of BS peddled about Thanksgiving, and good on you for bringing it up, but the nature of Internet discussions does mean that not all child threads are going to be entirely focused on the OP. Honestly I haven't the time to get wrapped up in the "main idea in the OP" today, but I did feel I could make a brief contribution to a tangential line of thinking.

Anyhoo, I need to go start making my dressing...a Southern wife expects much on Thanksgiving

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. Happy Thanksgiving! We can finish the discussion later. thanks for the kick

[Igel]

5. That's often the case.

When you can't do what you want and decide you need your own safe space, the last thing you want is to have your oppressors there. We understand that when it suits us.

Otherwise, the oppressed tend to make very good oppressors. We like to say that without power you can't really be racist (because racism is structural), but if you're bigoted and then get power, it's unlikely you'd suddenly say, "Ah, my days of being bigoted are over" and actually follow through on them.

Hence, the Puritans.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. I rarely ask for a 5th rec; but living in NM has made me more sensitive to Native Americans

[Iggo]

13. "...racism is structural."

Been saying it for years.

The system is racist. People are bigots.

[Igel]

6. Yeah, a plague did a number on the local tribe.

There were English traders out and about, as well as Spanish traders and Basque fishermen. Some had visited the area, according to documentation, a couple of years before. Some of the documentation about raiding grain stores involved abandoned villages. But the locals were in rough shape and still had armed adversaries to contend with. "All politics is local" is something we used to say, and that's from Massachusetts down to the collaboration the Spanish got at times in Mesoamerica.

It wasn't like Europeans were complete strangers to the indigenous population in New England. Trade routes went from areas north of Massachusetts to south of Mass. and included goods traded up in maritime Canada. It's even possible that the whole "plant a seed of corn with a fish" wasn't original with them. It was a widespread practice in northern Spain and the Basque country, not many other places, and one of the Native Americans in the area had been taken captive and been to, of all places, northern Spain. It wasn't otherwise attested in what little was recorded of Native American agricultural practices.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

12. How about eradicating the great herds of buffalo to starve tribes of the plains?

I might do another - more explicit - OP on this topic later.

[haele]

15. There is a theory that the Portuguese had been fishing off the Outer Banks since around 1000 CE

and they might have set up a arrangement with one or several native traders that were already used to trading up and down the Eastern Seaboard for the ability to come ashore at neutral ground and salt their cod for the trip back in exchange for a share of the fish.
Those native traders would likely have a stronger immune system and be able to deal with the Europeans without much of an issue, especially since the Portuguese who would have survived the fishing trip would not be bringing that much live virii or bacteria with them, or leave European goods lying around that could be carrying those virii or bacteria.

Haele

[Achilleaze]

9. Great Law of Peace - The Thanksgiving Address

[Jeffersons Ghost]

16. nice reply, thanks

[Achilleaze]

17. You are welcome. Great wisdom & beauty in this native way.

Every American should know about the native Thanksgiving Address

[malaise]

10. K&R

for truth

[Jeffersons Ghost]

14. thanks