The first "Thanksgiving" holiday was celebrated after the slaughter at Mystic Rock. The later "thankgiving" holidays were also proclaimed, again and again, after massacres of natives - thanking God that they now had even more land without all those dirty non-white people on them.
The conflation of "thanksgiving" with "that one feast day we had when the natives were nice to us because they didn't know us, before we started deliberate genocide" is a much more modern mistake.
"A mass giving thanks for having finished a boat trip" is not the same as the declaration of a celebration by secular authorities.
The only reason to even attempt to call what the Spanish did "Thanksgiving" in any related sense is to whitewash history and forget that the root of the holiday is puritans being genocidal lunatics, thanking their cruel and capricious God for helping them slaughter women and children.
Does Thanksgiving only count if it's secular or it's declared by secular authorities? Because American Thanksgiving wasn't and isn't.
Even if you want to say English folks were the first people to celebrate Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving celebration still predates the earliest recorded Indian massacres by about 2.5 years (see Berkeley Hundred).
No one's trying to whitewash history here. I certainly don't need you to give me a history lesson on the fucked up origins of my country, thank you very much. But your dating on the first Thanksgiving celebration is still a bit off.
First settlers to survive and not dissapear off the planet arrive in Virginia around 1607. Their charter says they have to celebrate an annual day of Thanksgiving. Since they arrived in August, let's assume they celebrated that first year.
The first Anglo-Powhatan war didn't start until 1610. Even if you want to bump up the date of first conflict a couple of years earlier, it still means the very first Thanksgiving celebrations didn't involve Native Americans.
Now, all the mythology that followed about "good" Indians who helped White people, yeah, I have a problem with that. The root of the holiday is, as you said in your post, harvest festivals which both Puritans, Pilgrims, and indigenous people celebrated before they all met each other.
The first settlers to survive and not disappear off the planet actually arrive in Florida in September of 1565. Hooray for little-known Spanish history!
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theweaselking
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 06:47 pm (UTC)The conflation of "thanksgiving" with "that one feast day we had when the natives were nice to us because they didn't know us, before we started deliberate genocide" is a much more modern mistake.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:14 pm (UTC)The only reason to even attempt to call what the Spanish did "Thanksgiving" in any related sense is to whitewash history and forget that the root of the holiday is puritans being genocidal lunatics, thanking their cruel and capricious God for helping them slaughter women and children.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:19 pm (UTC)Does Thanksgiving only count if it's secular or it's declared by secular authorities? Because American Thanksgiving wasn't and isn't.
Even if you want to say English folks were the first people to celebrate Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving celebration still predates the earliest recorded Indian massacres by about 2.5 years (see Berkeley Hundred).
No one's trying to whitewash history here. I certainly don't need you to give me a history lesson on the fucked up origins of my country, thank you very much. But your dating on the first Thanksgiving celebration is still a bit off.
p.s.
Date: 2008-11-27 07:28 pm (UTC)First settlers to survive and not dissapear off the planet arrive in Virginia around 1607. Their charter says they have to celebrate an annual day of Thanksgiving. Since they arrived in August, let's assume they celebrated that first year.
The first Anglo-Powhatan war didn't start until 1610. Even if you want to bump up the date of first conflict a couple of years earlier, it still means the very first Thanksgiving celebrations didn't involve Native Americans.
Now, all the mythology that followed about "good" Indians who helped White people, yeah, I have a problem with that. The root of the holiday is, as you said in your post, harvest festivals which both Puritans, Pilgrims, and indigenous people celebrated before they all met each other.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-11-29 03:48 am (UTC)or in honor of the season.. applesauce.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-12-01 03:31 am (UTC)/shudder
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-12-01 05:35 pm (UTC)Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-12-01 08:42 pm (UTC)Spanish settlers didn't count to weaselking though so I gave him some that did.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-12-01 11:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 06:29 pm (UTC)So there, or something.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 03:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 03:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 04:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:36 pm (UTC)O wait.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-27 11:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-28 04:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 03:29 am (UTC)