This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Overlooking the chilly waters of Plymouth Bay, about three dozen tourists swarmed a park ranger as he recounted the history of Plymouth Rock — the famous symbol of the arrival of the Pilgrims here four centuries ago.
Nearby, others waited to tour a replica of the Mayflower, the ship that carried the Pilgrims across the ocean.
On a hilltop above stood a quiet tribute to the American Indians who helped the starving Pilgrims survive. Few people bother to visit the statue of Ousamequin — the chief, or sachem, of the Wampanoag Nation whose people once numbered somewhere between 30,000 to 100,000 and whose land once stretched from Southeastern Massachusetts to parts of Rhode Island.
Long marginalized and misrepresented in the American story, the Wampanoags are braced for what’s coming this month as the country marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and Indians.
But the actual history of what happened in 1621 bears little resemblance to what most Americans are taught in grade school, historians say. There was likely no turkey served. There were no feathered headdresses worn. And, initially, there was no effort by the Pilgrims to invite the Wampanoags to the feast they’d made possible.
Just as Native American activists have demanded the removal of Christopher Columbus statues and pushed to transform the Columbus holiday into an acknowledgment of his brutality toward Indigenous people , they have long objected to the popular portrayal of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving’s hidden past: Plymouth in 1621 wasn’t close to being the first celebration
For the Wampanoags and many other American Indians, the fourth Thursday in November is considered a day of mourning, not a day of celebration.
Because while the Wampanoags did help the Pilgrims survive, their support was followed by years of a slow, unfolding genocide of their people and the taking of their land.
To learn the history of the Wampanoags and what happened to them after the first Thanksgiving, a visitor has to drive 30 miles south of Plymouth to the town of Mashpee, where a modest, clapboard museum sits along a two-lane road. Outside, there’s a wetu, a traditional Wampanoag house made from cedar poles and the bark of tulip poplar trees, and a mishoon, an Indian canoe.
Inside the three-room house sits Mother Bear, a 71-year-old Mashpee Wampanoag, hand-stitching a deer skin hat. She’s lived her whole life in this town and is considered one of the keepers of the Wampanoag version of the first Thanksgiving and how the encounter turned into a centuries-long disaster for the Mashpee, who now number about 2,800.
That story continues to get ignored by the roughly 1.5 million annual visitors to Plymouth’s museums and souvenir shops. The Wampanoag museum draws about 800 visitors a year.
Paula Peters, a Mashpee Wampanoag who is an author and educator on Native American history, said “we don’t acknowledge the American holiday of Thanksgiving … it’s a marginalization and mistelling of our story.
‘The Great Dying’
The Wampanoags, whose name means “People of the First Light” in their native language, trace their ancestors back at least 10,000 years to southeastern Massachusetts, a land they called Patuxet.
In the 1600s, they lived in 69 villages, each with a chief, or sachem, and a medicine man. They had “messenger runners,” members of the tribe with good memories and the endurance to run to neighboring villages to deliver messages.
They occupied a land of plenty, hunting deer, elk and bear in the forests, fishing for herring and trout, and harvesting quahogs in the rivers and bays. They planted corn and used fish remains as fertilizer. In the winter, they moved inland from the harsh weather, and in the spring they moved to the coastlines.
They had traded — and fought — with European explorers since 1524.
In 1614, before the arrival of the Pilgrims, the English lured a well-known Wampanoag — Tisquantum, who was called Squanto by the English — and 20 other Wampanoag men onto a ship with the intention of selling them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. Squanto spent years trying to get back to his homeland.
During his absence, the Wampanoags were nearly wiped out by a mysterious disease that some Wampanoags believe came from the feces of rats aboard European boats, while other historians think it was likely small pox or possibly yellow fever.
Known as “The Great Dying,” the pandemic lasted three years.
By the time Squanto returned home in 1619, two-thirds of his people had been killed by it. The English explorer Thomas Dermer described the once-populous villages along the banks of the bay as being “utterly void” of people.
In 1620, the English aboard the Mayflower made their way to Plymouth after making landfall in Provincetown. The Wampanoags watched as women and children got off the boat.
They knew their interactions with the Europeans would be different this time.
“You don’t bring your women and children if you’re planning to fight,” said Paula Peters, who also runs her own communications agency called SmokeSygnals .
Powhatan and his people: The 15,000 American Indians shoved aside by Jamestown’s settlers
The Wampanoags kept tabs on the Pilgrims for months. In their first winter, half died due to cold, starvation and disease.
Ousamequin, often referred to as Massasoit, which is his title and means “great sachem,” faced a nearly impossible situation, historians and educators said. His nation’s population had been ravaged by disease, and he needed to keep peace with the neighboring Narragansetts. He probably reasoned that the better weapons of the English — guns versus his people’s bows and arrows — would make them better allies than enemies.
In the spring of 1621, he made the first contact.
“It wasn’t that he was being kind or friendly, he was in dire straits and being strategic,” said Steven Peters, the son of Paula Peters and creative director at her agency. “We were desperately trying to not become extinct.”
By the fall, the Pilgrims — thanks in large part to the Wampanoags teaching them how to plant beans and squash in a mound with maize around it and use fish remains as fertilizer — had their first harvest of crops. To celebrate its first success as a colony, the Pilgrims had a “harvest feast” that became the basis for what’s now called Thanksgiving.
The Wampanoags weren’t invited.
Ousamequin and his men showed up only after the English in their revelry shot off some of their muskets. At the sound of gunfire, the Wampanoags came running, fearing they were headed to war.
“One hundred warriors show up armed to the teeth after they heard muskets fired,” said Paula Peters.
Told it was a harvest celebration, the Wampanoags joined, bringing five deer to share, she said. There was fowl, fish, eel, shellfish and possibly cranberries from the area’s natural bogs.
In his book, “This Land Is Their Land,” author David J. Silverman said schoolchildren who make construction-paper feathered headdresses every year to portray the Indians at the first Thanksgiving are being taught fiction.
The Wampanoags didn’t wear them. Men wore a mohawk “roach” made from porcupine hair and strapped to their heads.
Darius Coombs, a Mashpee Wampanoag cultural outreach coordinator, said there’s such misinterpretation about what Thanksgiving means to American Indians.
“For us, Thanksgiving kicked off colonization,” he said. “Our lives changed dramatically. It brought disease, servitude and so many things that weren’t good for Wampanoags and other Indigenous cultures.”
At Thanksgiving, the search for a black Pilgrim among Plymouth’s settlers
Linda Coombs, an Aquinnah Wampanoag who is a tribal historian, museum educator and sister-in-law of Darius, said Thanksgiving portrays an idea of “us seeming like idiots who welcomed all of these changes and supports the idea that Pilgrims brought us a better life because they were superior.”
Mother Bear, a clan mother and cousin of Paula Peters whose English name is Anita Peters, tells visitors to the tribe’s museum that a 1789 Massachusetts law made it illegal and “punishable by death” to teach a Mashpee Wampanoag Indian to read or write.
She recounts how the English pushed the Wampanoag off their land and forced many to convert to Christianity.
“We had a pray-or-die policy at one point here among our people,” Mother Bear said. “If you didn’t become a Christian, you had to run away or be killed.”
Wampanoag land that had been held in common was eventually divided up, with each family getting 60 acres, and a system of taxation was put in place — both antithetical to Wampanoag culture.
Much later, the Wampanoags, like other tribes, also saw their children sent to harsh Indian boarding schools, where they were told to cut their long hair, abandon their “Indian ways,” and stop speaking their native language.
Paula Peters said at least two members of her family were sent to Carlisle Indian school in Pennsylvania, which became the first government-run boarding school for Native American children in 1879. Its founder, Civil War veteran and Army Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, was an advocate of forced assimilation, invoking the motto: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
Mother Bear recalls how her mother’s uncle, William L. “High Eagle” James, told his family to destroy any writings he’d done in their native language when he died. He didn’t want them to get in trouble for having the documents.
‘Still fighting for our land'
Frank James, a well-known Aquinnah Wampanoag activist, called his people’s welcoming and befriending the Pilgrims in 1621 “perhaps our biggest mistake.”
In 1970, he created a “National Day of Mourning” that’s become an annual event on Thanksgiving for some Wampanoags after planners for the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower landing refused to let him debunk the myths of the holiday as part of a commemoration. By then, only a few of the original Wampanoag tribes still existed.
“We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people,” he wrote in that speech .
In the 1970s, the Mashpee Wampanoags sued to reclaim some of their ancestral homelands. But they lost, in part, because a federal judge said they weren’t then officially recognized as a tribe.
The Mashpee Wampanoags filed for federal recognition in the mid-1970s, and more than three decades later, in 2007, they were granted that status. (The Gay Head Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard are also federally recognized.)
In 2015, about 300 acres was put in federal trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag under President Barack Obama. That essentially gave them a reservation, although it is composed of dozens of parcels that are scattered throughout the Cape Cod area and represents half of 1 percent of their land historically.
But President Donald Trump’s administration tried to take the land out of trust, jeopardizing their ability to develop it.
Mashpee Wampanoag tribal officials said they’re still awaiting final word from the Department of the Interior — now led by Deb Haaland, the first Native American to head the agency — on the status of their land.
Some tribal leaders said a potential casino development would bring much-needed revenue to their community. But without the land in trust, Mashpee Wampanoag council member David Weeden said it diminishes the tribe’s sovereignty.
“Four hundred years later we’re still fighting for our land, our culture and our people,” said Brian Weeden, the tribe’s chairman and David Weeden’s nephew.
The Wampanoags are dealing with other serious issues, including the coronavirus pandemic. The tribe paid for hotel rooms for covid-infected members so elders in multigenerational households wouldn’t get sick.
Even before the pandemic, the Wampanoags struggled with chronically high rates of diabetes, blood pressure, cancers, suicide and opioid abuse. In the expensive Cape Cod area, many Wampanoags can’t afford housing and must live elsewhere.
They also worry about overdevelopment and pollution threatening waterways and wildlife.
“The land is always our first interest,” said Vernon “Silent Drum” Lopez, the 99-year-old Mashpee Wampanoag chief. “It’s our survival.”
‘I’m still here’
When she was 8 years old, Paula Peters said, a schoolteacher explained the Thanksgiving tale. After the story, another child asked, “'What happened to the Indians?'"
The teacher answered, ‘Sadly, they’re all dead.’”
“No, they’re not,” Paula Peters said she replied. “I’m still here.”
She and other Wampanoags are trying to keep their culture and traditions alive.
Five years ago, the tribe started a school on its land that has about two dozen kids, who range in age from 2 to 9. They learn math, science, history and other subjects in their native Algonquian language . The tribe also offers language classes for older tribal members, many of whom were forced to not speak their language and eventually forgot.
“We want to make sure these kids understand what it means to be Native and to be Wampanoag,” said Nitana Greendeer, a Mashpee Wampanoag who is the head of the tribe’s school.
At the school one recent day, students and teachers wore orange T-shirts to honor their ancestors who had been sent to Indian boarding schools and “didn’t come home,” Greendeer said.
In one classroom, a teacher taught a dozen kids the days of the week, words for the weather, and how to describe their moods. A math lesson involved building a traditional Wampanoag wetu. Another involved students identifying plants important to American Indians.
There are no lessons planned for the 400th anniversary of Thanksgiving, Greendeer said. If the children ask, the teachers will explain: “That’s not something we celebrate because it resulted in a lot of death and cultural loss. Thanksgiving doesn’t mean to us what it means to many Americans.”
This year some Wampanoags will go to Plymouth for the National Day of Mourning. Others will gather at the old Indian Meeting House, built in 1684 and one of the oldest American Indian churches in the eastern United States, to pay their respects to their ancestors, many of whom are buried in the surrounding cemetery. Plenty of Wampanoags will gather with their families for a meal to give thanks — not for the survival of the Pilgrims but for the survival of their tribe.
“History has not been kind to our people,” Steven Peters said he tells his young sons.
“Children were taken away. Our language was silenced,” he said. “People were killed.” Still, “we persevered. We found a way to stay.”
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The ungrateful heathens were which guys?
Pretty obvious, but whitewashing history is the name of the game.
Exactly, the Native American's policy of Open Borders, apparently, didn't serve them well.
For the Wamapong it didn't but most tribes didn't have open borders.
It seems as if the whole East Coast was open.
should've under cooked the turkeys for the pilgrim table...
I'm a direct Mayflower descendant. The pilgrims, some of which were my family, came here fleeing persecution. They very likely would have all perished had it not been for the kindness of the Wampanoag people. This could have been the beginning of a wonderful civilization, a blending of the lore of the Wampanoag and the technology of the English but, being the puritan zealots that they were, they instead chose to commit the same type of religious persecution that they came here to escape. It's kinda sad really.
And that is the type of discussion we should be having today. Not to 'prosecute' the past, per se but to properly comprehend what happened in an all-out effort to see that those things never happen or are limited in the present and future! Instead, some want to get their "asses up on their shoulders" and take umbrage at the indefensible. When and where humility, agreement, and if possible correction is more appropriate.
I thought Tisquantum of the Paxtuxet tribe was the pioneer behind the first Thanksgiving?
Not sure what happened 400 years ago is relevant today.
How about 2021 years ago?
5x more irrelevant...
It is to my family. My father told me that his grandmother used to grieve at the death of her people. Just like my mother's family grieves at the death of those who died in the German camps. It's all relevant so that we don't repeat it.
The Romans invaded my ancestral lands, banned our gods and enslaved us. It's happened to all of us.
The Romans invaded my ancestral land and stole the holy Torahs. Jews don't forget. The Roman Jews have a holiday to remember this.
okay then, how old am I? we've talked about it a number of times. j/k
I suppose it is to moosh nooshes, others with a brain in their heads do find it revelent, you know history and all that stuff.
especially moosh noosh birthers...
No good deed goes unpunished...
They sat and watched for months as the Pilgrims almost starved to death and then made contact with them once it was clear they would survive and thought their guns would be useful to protect them from the predatory Narragansetts. Seems more of an act of self interest than anything else.
Sure, they could have tried to do what the Naucets did to the French sailors who were shipwrecked a couple years earlier on Cape Cod and either enslaved or executed the Pilgrims, but they likely felt the cost was too high given the Pilgrims' firepower. They made the choices they thought were in their best interest, just like every other tribe and the Pilgrims did. They believed the guns of the pilgrims were better to have on their side as they struggled with the Narragansetts
Or we could have done what the fine people of Wisconsin did to the Sac and Fox when they murdered them when they were trying to return to their homeland. Massacred between 850 and 1400 in the Mississippi River. It's called the Bad Axe Massacre in case you're interested and what was left of the tribe they drove them out of Wisconsin.
One can always depend on you to try the strawman or whataboutism.
Lol. We can play the massacre game all day. I'm not the one peddling, simplistic fake history so pointing out that both sides engaged in massacres isn't a problem to me. I believe in honest history, not creating myths of perfect victimhood. Just keep playing the victim card and deny all agency to the Indians. I'm sure the actual Cape Indians would be shocked to learn how powerless and impotent they were, unable to do anything but be passive victims of the pilgrims.
Never did play the victim, I suppose to you stating facts is playing the victim it seems you're quite good at that.
Indians were fighting to save their homeland, whites were engaged in invading and killing us. So there is that, but fighting to save your homeland probably isn't something that fits for you.
Oh, and of course there was the ''Walleye Wars'' of the 1980/90s are you familiar with that tussle? or were you one of the whites that attacked Indians for following their treaty rights?
What means this attack upon native people who did a good deed to starving, desperate, people? There are always motivations, nuances, and dynamics spanning the spectrum usually involved in human interactions else we would only be insular people far and away from one another! When we delve into history and a singular event, we do not glom all experiences into it making. For that is not how this or that event happened!
Tell me something Sean. Were the Irish victims of the English? Which day do they commemorate, Guy Fawkes Day, or Bloody Sunday? Maybe you should read the book: Narratives of Commemoration: Identity, Memory, and Conflict in Northern Ireland 1916–2016. Those were your people who were treated like crap. Do you tell them to stop considering themselves as victims?
Sure. If you read this article and don't think it's about playing the victim, there's not much I can say.
fighting to save your homeland probably isn't something that fits for you
No, whining and pining over what happened hundreds of years ago doesn't really fit me. My life isn't controlled by what happened to my ancestors. I don't spend my days wishing that 900 years ago Rory O'Connor had starved Strongbow into submission in Dublin and how much better my life would be living in a pre modern world. They lost and the modern world came to Ireland. The world moves on. Even if they had won, the idea that they could have maintained a closed, premodern society for very long as the world went on around them is preposterous. I can't imagine "Regretting" a supposed act of humanity hundreds of year later, especially since it ultimately made no difference. At the end of the day, I'm quite happy sitting here inside my heated house on a cold and rainy day rather than sitting in the rain worrying about a possible cattle raid.
are you familiar with that tussle?
I was in Iowa when that happened.
They were victims. I'm not a victim. Thanks to their sacrifices I was born in a country of unlimited opportunity. England doesn't owe me for their suffering.
But. . .IS THERE UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITY even from a human possibility scale available here? For we have people in this present moment competing with innocent people over their stuff, and our states are striving with other states to demean them and take away its decency and reputation, and finally it serves no good purposes to persuade (convince) people to forget past racial indignities, damages, violences, and tears when similar attitudes of old rise up in political party forces that behave insular, and demonizing of the 'other.' When you attempt to instill inferiorities and oppressions in the guise of politics.
That's not putting past wrongs away, it is not growth and development, it is simply replacement and swapping out!
As much as anywhere on earth. Nothing is perfect, and never will be, but this is about as good as humanity as ever done.
But that doesn't answer what happened in 1980/90 since that wasn't my ancestors, it was me.
So you are not familiar with the state that you now reside in? For someone that seems to talk about history I'd say that sounds strange.
Let's just say that the state of Wisconsin lost a major court battle over it.
Oh, the governor of WI apologized for the Bad Axe massacre. So I guess that some people actually recognize that history and don't think that it's whining.
But it has certainly been effected by it. You might not be sitting in your heated house on a cold and rainy day if it weren't for both the sacrifices your ancestors made as well as those they may have sacrificed to create our modern society. To simply dismiss what happened hundreds of years ago as irrelevant is to be intentionally obtuse. It is also callously inhuman to not appreciate the many lives lost, families broken, native tribes and peoples forced to leave their homelands and often hunted down and killed as well as all the humans enslaved to create this supposed white Christian utopia. If everyone decided to stick their heads in the sand then society would almost certainly risk repeating many of the worst parts of our past. The wise appreciate history and learn from it and pass it on, warts and all, to future generations like building blocks on which they can continue to build a more perfect union.
Yes, that's my point. They lived very hard lives and thanks to them, I don't have to.
o simply dismiss what happened hundreds of years ago as irrelevant is to be intentionally obtuse
So when I got a bad grade in school, was that the Queen's fault? If I screwed up a job, do I blame the House of Lords? Should I demand Cromwell's descendants reimburse me?
Believing that our actions are controlled by what happened to different people hundreds of years ago is intentionally obtuse.
I don't think it's ideal for blood feuds to be passed down for generations. I think that makes a pluralistic democracy impossible. But I can see how those who believe one's racial identity defines existence would prefer a balkanized America where we spend our lives obsessing over and avenging the wrongs done our ancestors by someone else's ancestors.
If everyone decided to stick their heads in the sand then society would almost certainly risk repeating many of the worst parts of our past.
Get that strawman!
he wise appreciate history and learn from it and pass it on, warts and all, to future gene
No shit. That's what I do.
That's great. Justice prevailed.
WI apologized for the Bad Axe massacre
Great. I'm sure the descendants are now able to move past what happened to their GGGGGG grandparents.
Point, set, and match.
It did in the court of law but unfortunately, the people of WI were still attacking NA years after the court decision.
You could ask them but probably being driven from your homeland and given a bare unproductive land thousands of miles away tends to stick with you. And of course, that barren land was again taken when oil was discovered.
It's good that the governor of WI did apologize to the Sac and Fox at least some in WI have the moral fortitude to admit to the slaughter and feel some remorse and of course, some don't.
Everyone's ancestors have been driven from their land at some point or another. Mine were.
overnor of WI did apologize to the Sac and Fox at least some in WI have the moral fortitude to admit to the slaughter and feel some remorse and of course, some don't.
Did the Dakota ever apologize for slaughtering hundreds of Minnesotans in 1862? Or do they lack the moral fortitude?
Since you brought it up did the state of MN the US Army ever apologize to the Dakota for breaking the treaties, trying to starve them to death and killing them during and after the war?
Actually, the Governor of MN did and there have been many ''peace and reconciliation'' meeting between the Dakota and MN. In fact every year a number of NA travel by horseback from SD to Mankato MN and along the way stay on white ranchers land.
There is a park in Mankato MN dedicated to just that.
So the answer is yes from both sides, Dakota and White Minnesotans.
Seems that there is some moral fortitude on both sides in MN.
We're not living our 'best lives' when we cheat, diminish, demean, demonize, extinguish, objectify, and oppress other states and other citizens of our land. That is not our 'best' under any reasonable measurement or standard! BTW, add in a 'cup' of dismissiveness to this bad mixture! We are one! (If and when we can ever get it right!) That's when the world will truly see our exceptionalism in action!
Of course England doesn't owe you anything. You live here. How about all the Irish Catholics that live there? Were they not victims until late? Apples to Apples Sean.
This is a discussion about people who were abused, past and present, and still, live here. Please stop with the deflection.
you make it sound like there's some sort of logic collective race guilt. Fine, if you want to claim it ends when you are forced to emigrate, i won't argue.
How about all the Irish Catholics that live there? Were they not victims until late
They are victims to the extent they were victimized. A 70 year old man who was interned by the British 50 years ago is a victim of the British government. His great granddaughter born in 2020 not so much. Victimhood, no like guilt, is not inheritable. It's one of the fundamental principles of our society that you are not responsible for the sins of your father. I'd hate to see us devolve to a society where that is true.
This is a discussion about people who were abused, past and present, and still, live here lease stop with the deflection
This is a discussion about something that happened 400 years ago, 150 years before America even existed. We are 15 generations removed from this and most have ancestors on both sides of the "oppressor/ oppressed" line so to pretend it's the same people is just silly.
Where's the apology from the Dakota?
Sean, you know nothing about your own people, which is kind of sad.
The British tried to get rid of anything Celtic, including the Scottish and the Welch. They tried to obliterate their culture and their language. This is something that is carried into just a few years ago.
Anyhow this was not about collective guilt. It was about the history of Thanksgiving, which is hardly accurate. I think facts should be facts. Apparently, if you shake up any part of history for you, you find it offensive. Well, I find fake history equally offensive.
Spare me Perrie, I know more about Irish history than you likely know on any subject. I can speak extemporaneously on the statute of Kilkenny and its effects for as long as you care to listen. My knowledge goes a lot deeper than "England Bad".
My refusal to approach race like a Nazi comes from actually understanding histroy and how silly it is that people today have some sort of inherited guilt for the actions of some of their tens, if not a hundreds of thousands of ancestors who were alive in the 17th century.
t was about the history of Thanksgiving
Yet, you just claimed it was talking about people suffering today.
I think facts should be facts.
So do I. And if I ever get a fact wrong, call me out on it. But your opinions on racial guilt that transcends generations isn't a fact, it's an opinion that I find odious.
Well, I find fake history equally offensive.
Obviously not..
It would seem that the reconciliation meetings would be an apology, but that's just me and a number of white Minnesotians.
This article is about the false narrative of Thanksgiving and not the Dakota war. Nor was it about the NA and the French which you brought up.
It would be strange, to say the least, that the Dakota would apologize for their treaty being broken, payments were due not made, starving and then being killed when they rebelled and driven from MN and in fact many killed after the war was over. Or the 38 plus 2 that were part of a public hanging after a so-called trial which was a sham from start to finish.
But here they are still giving an effort to find mutual ground with those from MN.
The Thanksgiving narrative is totally false and I would think that a person that claims to be a stickler for accurate information would want the record set straight, but all you seem to be able to do is accuse people of whining, which seems to be your MO.
No Sean, you spare me. I actually grew up in England, so I know a lot more then you will ever know about their attitudes.
Oh geeze, Nazis now. No one is talking about race. Not one person here said, white person bad. They were talking about history. You interjected race, not me.
Yes, because you made it sound like this was ancient history. Was this not your words?
And then you hit me up with this?
OK you want to play that game? Just last year the US government was not going to honor standing treaties.. and then there is all the living Indians who were abused by the Chruch as children. So, do the living count?
Well, I find fake history equally offensive.
Then prove any of this wrong.
I don't know. Seems you're no worse for the wear. Comfortably retired and doing very well from what you've posted here on NT.
Besides, that knife cuts both ways. I've seen drift nets full of long dead fish in our Grand Traverse Bays back in the day. Back before the fishery collapsed.
So screw all the sport fisherman. Just let the fish die in the nets .......
No, you don't know. My current situation has nothing to do with what transpired with me in the past, especially in the Walleye Wars of WI and MN.
Not sure what your point is since drift/gill net fishing was not the point in MN and WI.
Grand Traverse Bay has been commercially fished for decades and currently, the 2000 Decree is being reviewed for renewal between the state, tribes, and non-Indian commercial fishermen.
Yes i do
And yes it does. I had several NA friends who relied on fishing for their livelihood. Yours clearly didn't
The point is bad behavior and treaty violations swing both ways. My friends would have never done that and actively fought their fellow tribe members who did.
The commercial fisherman weren't the one leaving drift nets out. They got caught doing that they could lose their fishing license and livelihood. Tribal members? Not so much ....
Another assumption on your part and a bad one at that.
When the courts backed natives in the fishing wars they were attacked by non natives now that is bad behavior.
Some natives use gill net and some don't. You realize don't you that it's not illegal for them to do so?
LOL, so you're the Great Karnac.
Well, since we are are talking about Ireland and the Irish people, I have no idea why you think that's relevant.
I'm more than familiar with the atrocities the English have inflicted over the last almost 900 years. It's because I am intimately familiar with what happened that I think it's preposterous to hold myself up as a "victim" knowing what they went through. No stolen victimhood from me.
You interjected race, not me.
You claim this about people who are still suffering because of what happened in 1620. They weren't alive in 1620. Their parents weren't alive in 1620. How are they suffering unless you believe suffering is somehow passed down biologically through the generations?
No one is suffering today because of what happened in 1620 unless they make the choice to be.
ause you made it sound like this was ancient history.
1620 is ancient history.
as this not your words?
Yes, the people who were victimized are victims. Those who weren't aren't. Victimhood is not passed down biologically.
s all the living Indians who were abused by the Chruch as children. So, do the living count?
Any Indian who was abused is a victim. But someone who wasn't abused, isn't a victim just because they are an Indian too.
hen prove any of this wrong.
I'm still waiting for you to prove how victimhood is passed through generations.
So no apology for the atrocities than.
Erecting a monument to those who committed the atrocities is not an apology. Or do you believe putting up a statue of General Miles would be the appropriate way to apologize for Wounded Knee?
say the least, that the Dakota would apologize for their treaty being broken
I would think the apology would be for slaughtering women and children.
would think that a person that claims to be a stickler for accurate information would want the record set straight
I do want the record set straight which is why I provided information left out of the article.
Show me where I said that. I said that history got the story wrong. It often does. Washington didn't chop down a cherry tree, Nathen Hale didn't say that he regretted that he had but one life to give to his country, and there was no midnight ride of Paul Revere.
What I did say is that Indians are still suffering today, because it was YOU who brought up victimhood, and made it sound like it was ancient history. The fact that Indians are treated poorly now was what I was talking about. I mean really, Sean, what would you know about being Indian now?
And don't give me the victimhood generation thing, because I never said it. You did. All I did is say that still was going on into the 1990's and even till last year treaties are not always being honored and that is our government doing that.
I am curious about two points you delivered: 1. "Victimhood." 2. The quote above.
Potent and powerful or not, those Native Americans may have been; what does that have to do with pilgrims coming into their 'home' (with weaponry) bringing new diseases, sickness, and death?
How is one not beset upon when overwhelming numbers and force multipliers are in play?
History's 'mistakes' can reconstitute themselves in the present or future if not properly 'stewarded.' And yes, properly 'stowed.'
Right this very instance, there is a 'backward-looking' system of justice activity taking place in Georgia: The Ahman Aubrey trial where the legal institution has just reasoned it 'sufficient' to diminish itself by allowing a modern day return to a white majority jury deciding a case involving three white men killing a young black man.
That should not be allowed to happen in 2021!
Yes, it is the past RESURRECTED and PLAYING ITSELF OUT RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES.
Just one example of history moving to repeat itself. There are many other incidents of men and women doing immersive "deep-dives" into the well of history to try to restore former and dead behaviors to modern day 'glory.'
Now you've jumped to SD, Ok let's go with that. The US has numerous statues/monuments, cities, towns counties named after Indian Killers. The most prominent would be President Andrew Jackson and his killing of Indians, Trail of Tears, and those messy moments in US history. You could throw that real charmer, Junipero Sera, and the missions/freeways and statues named after him.
And then there is old Christopher Columbus.
You claim this about people who are still suffering because of what happened in 1620. They weren't alive in 1620. Their parents weren't alive in 1620. How are they suffering unless you believe suffering is somehow passed down biologically through the generations?
How's this for a hint?
Concluded during the nearly 100-year period from the Revolutionary War to the aftermath of the Civil War, some 368 treaties would define the relationship between the United States and Native Americans for centuries to come.
The treaties were based on the fundamental idea that each tribe was an independent nation, with their own right to self-determination and self-rule. But as white settlers began moving onto Native American lands, this idea came into conflict with the relentless pace of westward expansion—resulting in broken promises on the part of the U.S. government.
Did the Irish/Scots sign "treaties" with the English only to have the English IMMEDIATELY break the treaties? Pretty sure they did on a few, but definitely not on the scale of the U.S. government against the Indian Tribes where the U.S. government had broken EVERY SINGLE TREATY, al 368 of them, made with the Indian tribes/nations.
Having your lands taken? No infrastructure? No housing? No education? No electricity? No water? No hospitals/medical? Government told how to govern based on a Congressional Act written by "white" guys? No occupations available to work in? No modes of transportation? Land not arable? No capacity for grazing? Not receiving royalties for natural resources guaranteed by treaties? Can't write a will for your heirs? No place to shop on the Rez?
The above paragraph is just a small example of the EVERY DAY causes for "victim-hood" - the EVERY DAY actions/activities ALL 574 Federally Recognized Indian Tribes/Nations have to live with/fight against.
Yeah - they weren't alive/around in 1492 when the jackazz, who was lost, landed on the Dominican Republic and called it India. But, when all the jackazz's friends/relatives/country men followed the idiot's travels, (gasp) the "white" world suddenly found new territories that they wanted and they took - WITHOUT PERMISSION of the residents who had been in/on those territories for over 10,000 years.
1.5 Billion acres of lands STOLEN/TAKEN/ABSCONDED by the dominant "white" society because the "white" guys just couldn't settle for the fact that others wanted to stay on THEIR lands, practice THEIR traditions and religions and maintain THEIR heritage as bona fide independent governments. Having the population in the U.S. by the ORIGINAL inhabitants reduced from over 110 million people in the 1400's to just under 223,000 in 1950 because of genocide/massacres/murders/rapes - but, they weren't victims them so I guess that means they aren't victims now?
Yeah - 1620 was a major starting point of the "victim hood" created by the "white" guys when they started their "treaty making" to take what they wanted without giving in return. And, excellent examples are stated above - lands, infrastructure, housing, education, medical, etc..
Did the lords use prima nocturna with newly wedded girls?
There isn't a group, tribe or population that hasn't been conquered, enslaved and slaughtered at some point. It's part of the sad history of our planet. I sure am glad we have become a little bit more civilized.
I will be celebrating our progress as a species with a Bourbon Red Heritage turkey this year.
You are correct, but obviously, you have never been to Scotland or Wales. There is no love lost for the crap that the English did to them. They don't celebrate Guy Fawkes Day either. They don't forget either, nor should they. The English did this where ever they went. Bringing it here was just a natural progression for them, but as a person, who oddly enough has all of this in their background, I truly understand how Indians feel. It is not a happy day for them. Just a reminder of what they lost.
Enjoy your turkey.
I often wonder what life would be if we could have kept our gods and land, but despite that I will enjoy the turkey and the progress we've made as a species. It's what a day of thanks has become to most even though the origins may have been darker that portrayed in history.
Morning Perrie...your history is also our history and it has been repeated all around the world by white man... From here, New Zealand the Pacific, Africa etc.. repeated time after time..
The English, Dutch, French, Spanish all carbon copies of each other... White man was superior and wiped all before...much to our own detriment and the devastation and tragedy of the Original Keepers of their lands...
Shona,
Oh for sure Australia shares a common history. Most of it not good.
To forget is to repeat again.
About the only thing that made whites "superior" was the technology of their weapons and methods of killing. Sadly, they were deficient in most other areas.
Was it the English or was it the Normans ?
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I am with you, human history sucks. I am primarily of German ancestry. My ancestors were shit on a lot and did a lot of shitting themselves, it’s just human history. The natives were doing it to each other well before the Europeans arrived, only difference is the Europeans just did it better with the help of smallpox.
It sucks but there is no point I dwelling on it, live life today and try to do the best you can and make things as good as you can today.
I will agree with you. But insist that some in our society and politics are not doing the best they can today; they are stirring around in "old shit" all the time!
Yep.
They say a good definition of insanity is repeating the same error over and over again and expecting a different result.
Another good one is accepting blame for something you had nothing to do with. Complete lunacy.
Hind sight is always 20/20.
Wow. My people know something about that attitude and treatment too! Let's just get it out: Those "White people" who did such laws as this-they were not good people. They were not well-intentioned. May have been down-right evil!
Surely, these White people were scared and fearsome in a new land, but there is no excuse for passing laws to make and keep people of color inferior in mind and spirit. Then, in furtherance, treat their generations as inferior even when it is clear they are finding their "true North" in the world!
BTW, I very much appreciate this article and its discussion here. It is. . . cathartic. . .and I didn't even feel it coming when it was impressed on me to write! Moreover, no! This is not about making today's White 'family' feel bad about how they came to be here, or about what prior Whites did to others mercilessly. People of Color are strong, resilient, peoples. We simply want the truth to be treated as what it is! We're been lied to for so damn long, or. . . omitted.
Tell the truth. . . let 'chips' fall where they may. Then, we can all recognize each other's positives and negatives as it should be. Without one man or woman being "so suchey much" we can 'level off' and start the healing processes of growing-up together. . . for the good of future children.
People. . .at the end of the day. . . we're (humanity) are what matters and we have no business "contesting" until we drive each other into the ground or sea! Ultimately, no matter race or ethnic grouping, we've selected to remain here under a banner: "American." And that being a component part of humanity.
I am going to let our White 'family' in on something. Come closer. . . _Black people, and other peoples of color, in general, do not hate White people (for what was done in the past). . .what is confusing to peoples of color is this, nevertheless:
White People, why do so many of your numbers contest, compete, condescend, or seek to oppress. . .Us?
Why can't we understand consistency in your dealings with us? That is, why can't you relax in our company, in our shared humanity, why must there perpetually be this "sticking out like a sore thumb" trait in many of your numbers towards peoples of color?
Psst: We can't (it would be foolish) drop our guard ('rocks') until, as 'brothers' and 'sisters,' you drop those patronizing tendencies we constantly have impressed upon us or that emanate from you! (You are not superior, per se, of anyone. The whole of humanity shares in making the best of humanity!)
I am truly sorry if you feel that most whites are patronizing to you and other people of color. I can't recall ever having addressed you in such a manner, and would be ashamed of myself had I done so. Please point out my mistakes so I may learn from them.
Ah dear Sister you are a virtual friend, indeed! I feel relaxed and "stretched out" in your presence. Because in you I find no 'guile.' You and many others do (as many others do not) 'tell it like 'tis! And, dear lady I heart you for it. (Smile.) BTW, if you ever feel it needful or helpful to build me up by being critical of something I share - "let it go." If I agree with the perspective, I will certainly state it, if I do not I will work to explain why I can not oblige. (Chuckles.)
Sister, as you certainly know, in 'America' we absorb from one another. Have can we not? We are 'blended' and 'knotted,' and 'drawn together' in our day-to-day experiences. That there are people in our country who work 'long-hours' and "life-long" to lock out certain citizens or types or classes of the citizenry using rhetoric, policies, institutions, or politics ruins the consistency of the 'cooking.'
Yeah, I just talked to an Apache guy in my class yesterday (4 more weeks til I am sworn!) about Native American history and thanksgiving and whatnot, and he agreed that it isn’t as bad or quite the way some people see it. It sucks yes, but the natives weren’t some utopian commune, they were just as warlike as every other mother fucker on earth. They had their war seasons, they had slavery etc.
He agreed that the natives just got fucked because of disease, the number of Europeans, and guns. It sucked for them, but really wasn’t much different from why they were already doing to each other. It’s just human history, some are conquerors, and others are conquered.
I mean, can we use presentism to say that yeah, a lot of the shit that was done by the Europeans and later Americans was fucked up? Of course. Should it be repeated? Nah. But is bitching about it or demanding apologies or reparations from people who had nothing to do with it, by people who had nothing to do with it, going to make anything better? Nah.
Acknowledge the past and try to be better.
Tell that to those who want to argue about the past. Whether Black people were stupid, dumb, uneducated, unsophisticated, or whatever. . . what so-called, "civilized people" did in exploiting them into slavery made it worse.
Even so, let's not ignore the present fact that existing today are some Whites who like generations of some Whites still think their human "property" was stolen from them by the Government of the United States -namely, they want their human property back!
Those folks are sets of issues that keep on, hell, never stop 'giving'!
Good morning CB. Having grown up on the AZ/Mexico border, obviously the major ethnic population was, surprise, Hispanic! Growing up, I could count the number of Black families in my small town on less than one hand. Having been raised by my maternal grandmother who was herself of Mexican and Chiricahua Apache extract, she raised me and my siblings to always respect other's and to try to treat as we would expect to be treated. I raised my children to do the same. Due to some genetics from my father's European ancestry, I am somewhat fair skinned and have been sometimes able to slip under the radar so to speak. I grew up exposed to my share of racism in a border town run by a small white minority. Well, sorry to rant. You have a good day Sir.
You know, it's kind of funny that you can see some conservatives diligently working to shift the focus off past historical transgressions, onto a new framework of political differences. Now, some conservatives have a 'hard-on' for screwing democrats (aka: socialists/communists) as being the problem with our citizenry. The new bigots in our country say, say, they do not hate minorities, but absolutely dislike in the strongest terms. . . wait for it. . . the other 'party.'
The political party (only two matter) with all the people of color embracing inside of itself: That party! It's the trouble with 'merica!