ABOLISH THANKSGIVING*A THREAD* abt the ACCURATE history of this “Holiday” & tho many Native ppl still like having the day off & gathering to eat (as NTV culture is all abt connectedness & family). The name behind the Holiday needs to be erased & done away w/ as its triggering

Today is known as National Day of Mourning in many Native communities across the US & even recognized so in New England.

Thanksgiving? More like ThanksKILLING! Religious zealots called The Puritans began arriving by the boatload to “The New World”. Finding no fences around the land they decided for themselves that the land was free & considered it public domain..

..for anyone who wanted to settle there on it. But there was a problem this “free land” was occupied by a bunch of gunless Brown folks who didn’t speak the settler language.

Joined by other British Settlers the Puritans seized the land capturing strong young Natives for slaves & attempting to kill all the rest. A lot of Nations (specifically the Pequot Nation) weren’t alright with standing by..

..& letting their land be overturned & taken over by these white terrorists invading their inhabitants with mass murder weapons of gun powder & led and they decided to stand for their land and fight back best they could.

During this time of war over 700 Men, Women, & Children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual green corn festival (think the type of feast that people like to pretend that Thanksgiving is, your happy “Thanksgiving Celebration”).

In the late night hours of the night, the sleeping Pequot’s village was preyed on by the English Settlers who announced their arrival and communicated to the Natives a lying sign of peace if they came out of their fortress.

Those who came out, mostly men, were shot or clubbed to death immediately. While terrified women & children were burned alive inside.

The next day the man who the Settlers decided was to be “Governor” over the area where they were building their colony stated & declared a day of “Thanksgiving” as the Puritans & other English Settlers praised their God..

..& “shouted with Thanksgiving in their hearts” that the Lord had delivered them from the “Merciless NDN S*vages”. So because 700 unarmed Native men, women, & children had been murdered the name “Thanksgiving” came to be..

Cheered & encouraged by their victory the colonist started a massive raid going around attacking village after village of different Indigenous tribes, nations, & clans. The colonists quickly developed a system for their raids!

Women and children over 14 were to be sold into slavery while the rest were to be murdered. Boats were loaded up with as many as 500 slaves each, to be shipped off across the ocean. Bounties became set for NDN scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.

Following in that especially successful raid against the Pequot & others. The church folk announced a second day of Thanksgiving to celebrate their victory over the he*than s*vages.

During this 2nd feast of celebration, the hacked off heads of the Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Eventually even the peaceful Nations who had peace treaties with the settlers could not escape the madness of the genocidal raids.

There were so many almost weekly, massacres between 1620 & 1790 that President George Washington finally suggested that only one day each year be set aside for celebrating each & every massacre that happened throughout.

Years later in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency during the civil war, he declared that Thanksgiving Day be established as an official legal American holiday. On that same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.

That March resulted in not only many innocent Natives lives lost but also Abraham Lincoln publicly displaying the hanging of 38 Dakota men to show folks that America was boss & the NDNs lost.

The ACCURATE history of this Holiday doesn’t have the happy little fuzzy feeling associated with it as the one that they tell you in school where the Natives and Pilgrims all sit down peacefully together at one big feast.

As I said before at the beginning of this thread; many Native People still like having this day off & gathering together to share stories & even mourn. As my Great Grandmother Maggie Anne used to say every year:

”this is a sad day of genocide & we mourn for people like us who didn’t make it to be living Miracles as we did. We mourn but we will still eat because everybody have to eat after the funeral.”

You can still have the day off, you can still eat & be with family. PLEASE DO THAT! But please for the love of Creator DELETE the traumatic triggering name of this Holiday. Do away with “Th*nksg!v!ng”!