By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

It’s a Hard Time to Be Giving Thanks "The Europeans were able to conquer America not because of their military genius, or their religious motivation, or their ambition, or their greed. They conquered it by waging unpremeditated biological warfare."
-- Howard Simpson

"Considering that virtually none of the standard fare surrounding Thanksgiving contains an ounce of authenticity, historical accuracy, or cross-cultural perception, why is it so apparently ingrained? Is it necessary to the American psyche to perpetually exploit and debase its victims in order to justify its history?"
-- Michael Dorris

"European explorers and invaders discovered an inhabited land. Had it been pristine wilderness then, it would possibly be so still, for neither the technology nor the social organization of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries had the capacity to maintain, of its own resources, outpost colonies thousands of miles from home."
-- Francis Jennings

It is difficult in these troubled times to give thanks, but millions of people in the U.S. will do so on Thanksgiving. However, the story that most families will tell and reflect upon is far from the truth about how this nation was settled. In fact, with nearly all of America’s reasons for invading Iraq proving to be fabrications, the true tale of the invasion of North America is particularly disturbing.

Thanksgiving Day dinner (Photo courtesy Idaho Panhandle Health District)

This story is taught today in thousands of classrooms across the nation, and around the world, and is ingrained in most people’s consciousness. Unfortunately, the entire story, from start to finish, is a complete lie.

The true story will likely leave you feeling bruised, betrayed, and unsure of what to believe. If that is the case, revel in the feeling, since challenging the assumptions we all hold dear is the first important step of developing critical thinking skills.

Louisiana kindergarten students enact a Thanksgiving Day pagent. (Photo courtesy Natchitoches Parish Schools)

When people began moving, the microbes that they evolved with moved along with them. Before the arrival of Europeans, the inhabitants of North and South America were remarkably healthy. But along with the Europeans came their illnesses and their livestock and the native inhabitants were now exposed to the many diseases that can be passed back and forth between those animals and humans - anthrax, tuberculosis, cholera, streptococcus, ringworm and various poxes.

The British and French had fished in Southern New England for some time before the Pilgrims landed in 1620. It is likely that they came in contact with the Indians at that time. The native inhabitants had no resistance to the diseases brought by the Europeans and within three years, a plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of coastal New England!

This death rate was unknown in all previous human experience. For comparison, the Black Plague in the 1300s killed about 30 percent of Europe’ s population.

This piece of history is usually omitted from most textbooks, yet these plagues, which ravaged the Indian population for the next 15 years, set the tone for the relationship of the European settlers with the indigenous people of America.

The English settlers inferred from the plague that God was on their side in taking over the land. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, wrote that the plague was "miraculous." He said, "God hath thereby cleared out title to this place." Is it any wonder that our political and military leaders of today ask for God’s blessing and protection as they go to war to kill?

Between 1520 and 1918, there were 93 epidemics among Native Americans.

Congressional Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 1, 1777 (Photo courtesy Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress)

Prior to the arrival of European invaders, the native population of North and South American was 100 million in 1492. The entire population of Europe at the time was 70 million. If colonists had not been able to take over lands that the Indians had already cleared and cultivated, and if the Indian population had not been devastated by disease, there might not have been any colonization at all.

By 1880, the Indian population was 250,000, a drop of 98 percent.

It is quite likely that the Pilgrims knew well of these plagues. In fact, pretty much everyone knew about them. Ziner, in the book “Squanto,” wrote that before the Mayflower sailed, King James of England gave thanks to “Almighty God in his great goodness and bounty towards us” for sending “this wonderful plague among the savages.”

Few Americans know that the persecuted Pilgrims numbered only about 35 of the 102 settlers aboard the Mayflower, which was headed for the new Virginia colony. It is believed by some historians that it is possible that the Pilgrims bribed the Mayflower captain to drop them off in Massachusetts. Some say they may have even hijacked the ship. In any case, the non-Pilgrim majority, who had joined the ship because of the economic opportunity afforded by the Virginia tobacco plantations, were quite upset at being taken someplace else.

Historians, in their search for a story that told the mythical beginnings of American culture, probably chose to omit facts about the Pilgrims story rather than tell the tale of Virginia. In Virginia, the British took the Native Americans prisoner and forced them to show the colonists how to farm.

James W. Loewen, in his revealing book “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” says, “in 1623, the British indulged in the first use of chemical warfare in the colonies when negotiating a treaty with the tribes near the Potomac River, headed by Chiskiack. The British offered a toast ‘symbolizing eternal friendship,’ whereupon the chief, his family, advisors, and two hundred followers dropped dead of poison.”

The Pilgrims choose their site at Plymouth because it had beautifully cleared fields, recently planted corn, and excellent water supplies. The Pilgrims did not start from scratch in the wildness, but used a common practice of the European invaders of appropriating Indian cornfields for their initial settlements. This is why so many of the names of East Coast towns end in “field.” Every field represented thousands of murders.

The Indians who created and lived in this new Plymouth were mostly dead from the plagues, so they provided little opposition.

The Pilgrims robbed graves, stole what they could find in abandoned Indian homes, and filled their larder with the harvest of a dying culture’s labors.

The reasons for the lies about the origins of Thanksgiving go deep into culture, psyche, and religion and is covered in depth in Loewen’s book. But one thing is for sure - the true history of Thanksgiving reveals some very embarrassing facts, to say the least.

The most remarkable part of the story may be that the Pilgrims did not even introduce the tradition of Thanksgiving in America. The fabricated story of the Pilgrims was not even included in the holiday until the 1890s. The term “Pilgrim” was not even used until the 1870s.

Logs and sawmill on the Menominee Indian Reservation, Wisconsin as recorded on an old postcard. (Photo courtesy Penny Postcards from Wisconsin)

The myth of Thanksgiving has created a false sense of self in Americans that has done great damage throughout the world. It has resulted in children being planted with the seeds of racial hatred and white superiority. It is an insult to us all, especially since most Americans are ignorant of the truth, even though the facts about the grave robbing, Indian enslavement and murder, and the plagues, were common knowledge among the settlers of New England.

Loewen gives us excellent reasons why we should seek out the truth of American history. If the conflicts of the true story were revealed, he says, then “students might discover that the knowledge they gain has implications for their lives today. Correctly taught, the issues of the era of the first Thanksgiving could help Americans grow more thoughtful and more tolerant, rather than more ethnocentric.”

We can redefine Thanksgiving for ourselves and our families. We can make it a day when we not only give thanks for the bounty we have received, but a day when we acknowledge the injustices that have been and are being perpetrated on so many people and animals in the world. After feasting, we could choose a way for our families to help lessen the suffering of some creature somewhere in the world, animal or human.

We must remember these tragedies as we shape the new millennium. With genetically engineered bacteria, crops and animals being created every day, are we risking a biological devastation like the Indians experienced?

As the U.S. carries out plans to dominate the Middle East, are we repeating the sins that began this nation?

We must examine how we are using this stolen gift of a nation. As life support systems crumble and species become extinct every day, can we really say we have learned anything in the last 500 years?

Happy Thanksgiving.

RESOURCES

1. Read "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James W. Loewen to learn about more surprises in American history. Buy a few copies and give them to elementary school teachers in your community. If you have children, make sure your child’s teacher has one. Visit a website devoted to this book at: http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/

2. Read the Indian Country Newspaper at: http://indiancountry.com/

3. For many perspectives about Native Americans and the environment, check out: http://www.cnie.org/NAE/

4. Learn about ongoing harassment of native and indigenous people around the world at: http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/pagea~1.htm

5. Check out the Indigenous Earth Sciences Project at: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~eriggs/IESP/

6. Read a powerful international perspective on the terrorism against the U.S. in Briton's "The Independent" at: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=94254

7. Find alternative sources for information to understand the complexity of world events. Visit: Peace Brigades International at: http://www.peacebrigades.org/index.html
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at: http://www.napf.org
War Resistors International at: http://www.wri-irg.org/en/index.htm
PeaceNet at: http://www.igc.org/home/peacenet/
The Nonviolence Web at: http://www.nonviolence.org

8. Many of the world's despots, dictators, and terrorists were trained by the United States at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia. Follow the protests against this U.S. sanctioned school for terror at: http://www.soaw.org

9. Find out who your elected representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them you will not tolerate the continued exploitation of indigenous people throughout the world. You can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle and the author of "Healing Our World," A Journey from the Darkness Into the Light," available at: http://www.xlibris.com/HealingOurWorld.html or your local bookstore. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at: jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com}