Why am I not surprised? To be honest, too many events are glorified in history.

Columbus didn’t “discover” America. It was already there to begin with. (they FINALLY fixed this part of the textbook in the elementary schools). Thanksgiving is American holocaust. There are other facts out there about WWII; facts from the loser’s side. Man, America sure likes to make themselves look the best! Glad I’m not one of them!

I love this post! Good job chenli for finding it!
I agree; I don’t get why people are more “thankful” around Thanksgiving and “giving” around Christmas. We should always be thankful and giving in life! Not just when it’s the “special holiday time”.

I think a lot of people imagine that Thanksgiving is just about being thankful. They never stop to think what they are really thankful for. Yes, their life may be good and worth plenty of thanks, but do they wonder why?

Our socio-economic standing as people is directly related to the way our ancestors were treated. If you come from a predominantly white anglo-saxon protestant family, you are more likely to be middle or upper class because of how your ancestors benefited from the genocide of indigenous peoples and the theft of their land and livelihood.

However, if you have such indigenous roots, you are much more likely to be poor. Native subjugation is not an obscure thing that happened millions of years ago. Many people have grandparents or great grandparents who a) lived on reserves, devoid of agricultural ability because of the poor conditions of the land, and b) were forced away from their families in residential schools, meaning that one would have no long lineage to accrue wealth from.

And when people ignore that this genocide is exactly what they are being “thankful” for, it’s upsetting. Be thankful for your loved ones, your personality, and all you have, but remember where it comes from and who had to die for you to be where you are in society.

Thanks for the link chenli.
I’d like to look at the bright side by pointing out that at least there is a culture in the U.S. that would prefer to rewrite a brutal history into something pleasant & innocent rather than teach children the brutality and attempt to justify it (or, even worse, teach them to take pride in it) … but that bright side is just a bit too clouded by the fact that the U.S. is still ruthlessly murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women & children, and billions of innocent defenseless animals, for no good reason at all.

Holidays are for spending time with friends and family,yes there is evil in the history of it all but no one is celebrating others being hurt,they are celebrating love and family. In my family we are vegans so we do not participate in the genocide of turkeys in any way shape or form. And yes while I do give thanks all year round I am not able to spend time with my family everyday so the holidays are good to take that extra day for those specific reasons. I feel like you are majorly missing the point of the holidays,they are not for evil but for love.

Oh believe me, I know how disgusting a nation the US is. I went to Germany for awhile and it really hit home how greedy and wasteful we are as a culture and nation. There’s are lots of us that feel this way, but due to a multitude of reasons, most can’t leave.

Tradition is an excuse oft used by hunters. All thanksgiving reeks of is gluttony, death, and pointless reasons for big companies to make profits from the gullibility of others – not to mention my previous comments. I may not live in the USA, and thank god I don’t tbh. But I can see fully how Americans behave plenty, via news, forums, youtube and well, you’re the most arrogant nation on earth so it’s hard not to see how you act. Btw – You = general you, not you personally.

Seeing as you do not live in the US, you’re missing the fact that Thanksgiving is seen as a family holiday, and nothing more, in these present days. You’re on the money about the death of the millions of turkeys for this one day, but why should we completely forgo a family tradition, something we’ve grown up doing, when it can be made completely cruelty free?

I am of course talking about the American thanksgiving, and not any other that relates to religion. As I said, all year is had for giving thanks, and day is more of a reminder of the slaughter than any one measly meal under the guise of false pretences before the slaughter.

But it’s the 1621 Plimoth Thanksgiving that’s linked to the birth of our modern holiday. The truth is the first “real” Thanksgiving happened two centuries later.

In Winslow’s “short letter, it was clear that [the 1621 feast] was not something that was supposed to be repeated again and again. It wasn’t even a Thanksgiving, which in the 17th century was a day of fasting. It was a harvest celebration.”

Where Did Thanksgiving Come From?

American Indian peoples, Europeans, and other cultures around the world often celebrated the harvest season with feasts to offer thanks to higher powers for their sustenance and survival.

In 1541 Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his troops celebrated a “Thanksgiving” while searching for New World gold in what is now the Texas Panhandle.

Later such feasts were held by French Huguenot colonists in present-day Jacksonville, Florida (1564), by English colonists and Abnaki Indians at Maine’s Kennebec River (1607), and in Jamestown, Virginia (1610), when the arrival of a food-laden ship ended a brutal famine.

(Related: “Four Hundred-Year-Old Seeds, Spear Change Perceptions of Jamestown Colony.”)

But it’s the 1621 Plimoth Thanksgiving that’s linked to the birth of our modern holiday. The truth is the first “real” Thanksgiving happened two centuries later.

Everything we know about the three-day Plimoth gathering comes from a description in a letter wrote by Edward Winslow, leader of the Plimoth Colony, in 1621, Monac said.

It had been lost for 200 years and was rediscovered in the 1800s, she added.

In 1841 Boston publisher Alexander Young printed Winslow’s brief account of the feast and added his own twist, dubbing it the “First Thanksgiving.”

In Winslow’s “short letter, it was clear that [the 1621 feast] was not something that was supposed to be repeated again and again. It wasn’t even a Thanksgiving, which in the 17th century was a day of fasting. It was a harvest celebration.”

But after its mid-1800s century appearance, Young’s designation caught on—to say the least.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in 1863. He was probably swayed in part by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale—the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—who had suggested Thanksgiving become a holiday, historians say.

In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt established the current date for observance, the fourth Thursday of November.

By the way, I’m sure most Americans know about the mistreatment and murder of Native Americans. But this holiday really is about being grateful for waht you’ve got. Just like it was hundreds of years ago.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091123-thanksgiving-dinner-turkey-facts.html

Forgot to add, this image seems to hit the nail on the head for me.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdwah5MybU1qewacoo1_r2_500.png

Since someone saw to it that my post got deleted (and also sent a rude private message), I will post it here.

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/11/25/thanksgiving-celebrating-the-genocide-of-native-americans/?fb_action_ids=10151149301834211&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

You have all year and all your life to ‘give thanks’. The reality of the ‘history’ is not the fairy tale people have come to believe. It also means that genocide occurs for turkeys too. People should be educated on what these holidays are really about. It’s a shame USA has such a stark record of changing it’s history to suit it’s own agenda

I am glad we do not have this holiday in the UK. Enough turkeys suffer due to the Christmas holiday. In the USA they will suffer twice as much.

If you don’t like me posting what really happened, then don’t comment, ignore it, and stay blissfully unaware. But people have a right to know.