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Most Americans are familiar with the story of the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims came on the MayFlower to the “New World” where they had decided to create a society without harsh British Rule. They built homes, hunted, grew crops, and became a relatively successful society. One day an Indian tribe approached them with the gift of a turkey and thus began the peaceful interactions between Native Americans and new Americans. Or at least, that is what we have been taught to believe (Scholastic.com).
This story is exactly that... it is a story. In the early 1600’s the first of the settlers we know as the pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower. That is probably the only true fact about the Thanksgiving story. The individuals to come across
Nathaniel Philbrick opens his book by drawing a direct line from the early Pilgrim’s arrival on Plymouth rock to the building of America. He goes on to say, “Instead of the story we already know, it becomes the story we need to know.” Many of us growing up, myself included romanticize about the pilgrims in the light of the first Thanksgiving and we think about the Indians sitting down with the Pilgrims to take part of the Thanksgiving meal. Next, we believe the myth that everyone lived happily ever after.
When spring came Squanto helped the pilgrims by teaching them how to plant corn, how to find berries and nuts and how to catch fish. In 1921 the pilgrims and Wampanoag celebrated the first thanksgiving as part of their religion, and to celebrate their first successful harvest. George Washington once said, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty god, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and humbly to implore his protection and favor…” This relates to Squanto helping the Pilgrims with the phrase, “To be grateful for his benefits,” all the benefits Squanto brought changed the fate of the
In Jamestown, the settlers had to deal with the Powhatan Indians. The relationships with them were unstable. John Smith, whom was the leader of Jamestown, was captured by these Indians while he was on a little trip with some of his men. As he left two of his men, he came back to find them dead and himself surrounded by two hundred members of the tribe, finding himself being captured. “Six or seven weeks those barbarians kept him prisoner…” 87). After this event, the relationship only grew worse and there was constant fighting between the settlers and Indians. The Indians practiced many methods in capturing settlers such as “scalping” and other dreadful techniques. The settlers did many negative practices also which is the reason they fought so many wars and battles against each other. Later on, the Indians killed the English for their weapons that were rare to them. In contrast to the Plymouth colony, these settlers dealt with the Pequot Indians and the relations were much more peaceful for a certain time frame. At one point, one Indian was brave enough to approach them and spoke to them (in broken English). He taught them the ways of the land, and developed a peace with the man. The settlers from the Plymouth colony learned many ways to grow food from these Indians. “He directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish and to procure other commodities, and was also their
On this date November 25 “Marc Brown” wrote a book. The book Marc had wrote was Arthur's Thanksgiving.
Two men came to America for the good of their king to explore new lands for their king to control them or just simply they just failed to make a new life or to explore something new. These men create a town or village for people who come from their hometown to stay and settle themselves there.These did something great for this country, but they are so different from each other. One of these men is an explorer and other was a pilgrim. The pilgrims were the people who got along with the native Americans and also made the holiday Thanksgiving.
On September 6, 1620, 102 men, women and children from England boarded a small cargo boat called the Mayflower and set sail for the New World. The passengers left their homes in England in search of religious freedom from the King of England. Today they are known as "pilgrims."
Thanksgiving, traditionally, is a time of gathering families together to express our gratitude for one another over a large roasted turkey. According to the Huffington Post, one fifth of the total 235 million turkeys eaten in the United States are consumed on Thanksgiving Day (1). There are a number of different theories on how the turkey got its name. Some people say that Columbus thought that the land he discovered was connected to India which was known for having large flocks of peacocks. When he saw these strange large birds he thought they were related to the peacock family so he named them Tuka, which means peacock in the language of India (2). Others say that the name came from Native American’s calling them Firkee, which was later adapted to Turkey (2). Another theory is that the birds did not come directly from the New World to England. Instead, they came via merchant ships from the eastern Mediterranean Sea which were called ‘Turkey Merchants’ because a lot of the area was a part of the Turkish Empire at the time. Purchasers of the birds back home in England thought the fowl came from the area so they called them ‘turkey birds’ and soon after just ‘turkeys’ (2).
In Keillor’s “A Wobegon Holiday Dinner,” he describes both the present day realities of family Thanksgiving as well as the past history of his family’s Thanksgiving. Each circumstance, in the present day holiday, is unthinkably different from the next, whereas...
Loewen, James W. "The Truth about the First Thanksgiving." Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: New, 1995. 67. Print.
Rather than giving a somber dedication to the fallen Indians, present day America have already instilled in its society that it is a day for a feast – roasted turkeys, giving gifts, having a speech about what he is thankful for – and somehow eradicated the real reason why the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving. It should be noted that the creator of the event is violence and the greed for land and the desire for domination – all negative aspects of human life. The assumptions which arouse from the event is the peaceful agreement and big feast between the pilgrims and the Native Americans, as well as the propaganda that the Native Americans are savages which should be eradicated from the seized lands of the settlers (Archeology in Tennessee 2014). And because the audience are modern Americans, whose real history got wiped out with consumerism, capitalism and propaganda for the Native Americans, the truth revealed has become insignificant. But the event, in its significant element, has made it possible for America to capitalize the markets, and has used this event to further expand markets and products that are now associated with Thanksgiving – which is Black
Next month, we celebrate the holiday that commemorates the bond created by the native-born people of America and the European immigrants who came for a better life, otherwise known as Thanksgiving. Puritans had a difficult time in their settling process, which resulted in the loss of several lives to disease, dehydration, starvation, etc. It wasn’t until the Native Americans felt compassion for the Puritans, revealing it in the form of teaching them the ways of the land, that things started looking up for the Puritans. Four hundred years later, immigration remains to play a major role in our lives. In a country where the majority of its citizens are descended from immigrants, immigration reform can be a divisive topic.
Thanksgiving is one of the most cherished holidays in America. It is a time for family and a time for appreciation. From the time we start school we are taught about the story of the first Thanksgiving. In short we are taught that English men and women came from their homeland to America in hopes of a better life. We now call these men and women pilgrims. While in America the pilgrims meet what are now called Native Americans and they exchange food ideas and create a feast together. In "Deconstructing the Myths of the "First Thanksgiving" by Judy Dow (Abenaki) and Beverly Slapin the story that were all taught since grade school is challenged.
Thanksgiving is a time where we can really evaluate ourselves and be thankful for what God has given us. “The Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving” by Edgar Albert Guest is a poem that makes me ponder about giving thanks and relates to the Bible.
This is my Thanksgiving and other people’s Thanksgiving. I will be telling you guys the similarities and differences between my Thanksgiving and the people I talked to yesterday. This is just my introduction but I am just saying what the similarities and differences between other people Thanksgivings are.
The Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied all of the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who speaked hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large built terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper. seashells and soapstone.To this day, movies and television continue the stereotype of Indians wearing feathered headdresses killing innocent white settlers. As they encountered the Europeans, automatically their material world was changed. The American Indians were amazed by the physical looks of the white settlers, their way of dressing and also by their language. The first Indian-White encounter was very peaceful and trade was their principal interaction. Tension and disputes were sometimes resolved by force but more often by negotiation or treaties. On the other hand, the Natives were described as strong and very innocent creatures awaiting for the first opportunity to be christianized. The Indians were called the “Noble Savages” by the settlers because they were cooperative people but sometimes, after having a few conflicts with them, they seem to behaved like animals. We should apprehend that the encounter with the settlers really amazed the natives, they were only used to interact with people from their own race and surroundings and all of this was like a new discovery for them as well as for the white immigrants. The relations between the English and the Virginian Indians was somewhat strong in a few ways. They were having marriages among them. For example, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, many said it has a political implication to unite more settlers with the Indians to have a better relation between both groups. As for the Indians, their attitude was always friendly and full of curiosity when they saw the strange and light-skinned creatures from beyond the ocean. The colonists only survived with the help of the Indians when they first settler in Jamestown and Plymouth. In this areas, the Indians showed the colonists how to cultivate crops and gather seafood.The Indians changed their attitude from welcome to hostility when the strangers increased and encroached more and more on hunting and planting in the Natives’ grounds.