The timeline along with basic knowledge of the Pilgrims’ and Puritans’ religious beliefs exposes the fact that historically speaking, Thanksgiving was literally about gratitude for genocide.
Furthermore, low population counts of the Pequot in more recent years point to how the Separatists', or Pilgrims', or Puritans' crime of genocide almost destroyed the Pequot population, for which the white Europeans felt gratitude. The English, who no doubt formed an American Colony in New England, claimed First Nations’ land as theirs by the Doctrine of Discovery, which is still in effect today as federal law. But the land couldn’t be seized by “discovery” without exterminating the indigenous tribes. To be accurate, the word genocide was not created until 1944 by Raphael Lemkin; nonetheless, the word is appropriate. The Doctrine of Discovery legally applied to the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England, but not to the Pilgrims in New Plymouth. While the Doctrine of Discovery is still being applied in modern times, what was the difference?
No Doctrine of Discovery -
Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny. p. 47.
Thus it became necessary for the Pilgrims to enter into a mutual assistance pact with the Wampanoags. To the pilgrims, this became their "deed of cession," authorizing them to seize unspecified acreage.
- or, Doctrine of Discovery,
The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the US Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held "that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands." In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished.
It was all the same in both of their usages. There was no difference.
(Bold mine)
Patent Granted by King Henry VII to John Cabot and his Sons
...to find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians...
And that the before-mentioned John and his sons or their heirs and deputies may conquer, occupy and possess whatsoever such towns, castles, cities and islands by them thus discovered that they may be able to conquer, occupy and possess, as our vassals and governors lieutenants and deputies therein, acquiring for us the dominion, title and jurisdiction of the same towns, castles, cities, islands and mainlands so discovered;...
To be accurate, Roger Williams tried to make a difference, in good conscience he stated:
Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny. p. 48.
"We have not our land by patent from the King, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such receiving it by patent..." For his radical ideas Williams was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635."
Now that all that is stated, let us go to why Thanksgiving was literally about gratitude for genocide.
First, the Pilgrims landed in Wampanoag controlled land in 1620.
Norton, Katzman, Escott, Chudacoff, Paterson, Tuttle. "A People & A Nation." Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 52-53.
The Pokanokets (also called Wampanoags) controlled the area in which the Pilgrims settled, yet their villages had suffered terrible losses in the epidemic of 1616 - 1618. To protect themselves from the powerful Narragansetts of the southern New England coast (who had been spared the ravages of the disease), the Pokanokets decided to ally themselves with the newcomers. In the spring of 1621, their leader, Massasoit, signed a treaty with the Pilgrims, and during the colony's first difficult years the Pokanokets supplied the English with essential foodstuffs.
Yet, where were they beforehand and why did they set sail?
Norton, Katzman, Escott, Chudacoff, Paterson, Tuttle. "A People & A Nation." Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 52-53.
Separatists were the first to move to New England. In 1609 a group of Separatists migrated to Holland, where they found the freedom of worship denied them in Stuart England. But they were nevertheless troubled by the Netherlands' too - tolerant atmosphere; the nation that tolerated them also tolerated religions and behaviors they abhorred. Hoping to isolate themselves and their children from the corrupting influence of worldly temptations, these people, who were to become known as Pilgrims, received permission from a branch of the Virginia Company to colonize the northern part of its territory.
Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
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.”
Also, the Pilgrims never called themselves Pilgrims. They were separatists, Mr. Loewen said. The term Pilgrims didn’t surface until around 1880.
How would the Puritans and Pilgrims dehumanize the American Indians?
(Bold mine)
Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny. p. 49.
The fact is that to the Puritan, the Native American was the instrument of Satan. For Cotton Mather the Indians were "doleful creatures who were the veriest ruins of Mankind, who were to be everywhere on the face of the earth"; and even Roger Williams, the great friend of the Indians, said they were devil - worshippers.
By labeling all of them satanic. Consequently, the European invasion brought a whole new level of violence to the native tribes,
Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny. p.75 - 76
...But tribal rivalries and wars were relatively infrequent prior to Puritan settlement (compared to the number of wars in Europe)...Neither would have increased if it were not that a colonizing European nation was asserting political jurisdiction, in the name of God, over indigenous New England societies...When thus threatened with the usurpation of their own rights, as native tribes had been threatened years before by them, Puritans came to the defense of a system of government that was similar, in important ways, to the native governments that they had always defined as savage and uncivilized...
and out of that heightened violence came the massacre for which Thanksgiving is named.
Thanksgiving Day Celebrates A Massacre
William B. Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chairman of the Anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, says that the first official Thanksgiving Day celebrated the massacre of 700 Indian men, women and children during one of their religious ceremonies. "Thanksgiving Day" was first proclaimed by the Governor of the then Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men, women and children who were celebrating their annual Green Corn Dance...Thanksgiving Day to the, "in their own house", Newell stated.
- small snip -
-----The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day.....For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won."
Source
Jump 129 years to 1621, year of the supposed "first Thanksgiving." There is not much documentation of that event, but surviving Indians do not trust the myth. Natives were already dying like flies thanks to European-borne diseases. The Pequot tribe reportedly numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had reduced their population to 1,500 by 1637, when the first, officially proclaimed, all-Pilgrim "Thanksgiving" took place. At that feast, the whites of New England celebrated their massacre of the Pequots. "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots," read Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop's proclamation. Few Pequots survived.
books.google.com/…
According to the Massachusetts Records of 1676-1677 a day was set apart for public thanksgiving, because, among other things of moment, "there now scarce remains a name or family of them (the Indians) but are either slain, captivated or fled."
"In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians
were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them."
"It may be demanded...Should not Christians have more mercy and
compassion? But...sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents.... We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."
-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana
See more here: Thanksgiving - Day of Mourning - No More Fables of Unity for Political Expediency
And now the Tr*mp Administration and the fascists have something more to be grateful for: “the Trump administration’s decision to take their reservation away.” The Doctrine of Discovery is still being applied in modern times, “A week before Thanksgiving, members of the same tribe who helped the pilgrims survive 400 years ago stood before the nation’s Capitol Building.” What’s the difference between then and now?
A week before Thanksgiving, members of the same tribe who helped the pilgrims survive 400 years ago stood before the nation’s Capitol Building. But instead of celebrating, they spoke out against the Trump administration’s decision to take their reservation away.
Yesterday morning over 200 members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, their allies, and supporters marched from the National Museum of the American Indian to the Capitol. They sang traditional songs, chanted slogans and held signs speaking out against the Department of the Interior’s September 7 announcement revoking the trust status of 321 acres of Mashpee land.
“What we’re seeing is a direct assault and attack on Indigenous people’s sovereignty,” Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said. “And sovereignty’s a powerful word.”
Happy Th*nksgiving.
“I call out to this country,” she said, “get out of the muck and mire and join the nations of the world, around the planet, that recognize the rights of Indigenous people to live as the Creator intended. That is our call to action: get out of that pit.”