Thanksgiving AKA They Started It

I'm by no means a genius.  One of the hallmarks of intelligence is recognizing you don't know everything.  There are a lot of stupid people out there though and sometimes I can't help but get pissed off.

The Thanksgiving controversy is one of those things stupid people love to keep going on about.  Cuz the white man's evil, yall.  Everything is whitey's fault and don't you forget it.

But are you sure you know what really happened?

Here are the facts:  The Pilgrims fled persecution in England.  They came to the Americas.  It really sucked.  Some Natives helped them out a bit but not that much.  Then the Pilgrims built houses. The Natives got pissed off.  There was a war that lasted a really long time.  The Natives lost.

Now's the part where you call me racist and tell me to check my privilege, but all I did was tell you an accurate account.  See, there are tons of myths out there, cute stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better and justify a lame holiday, but the truth is, there never was some sort of bonding experience between the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Europeans who settled here.  There was always tension and mistrust. That's human nature.  But the Pilgrims didn't rape and pillage their way on shore.  That's the Spanish you're thinking of and they're a whole different group.  And that's the kicker.  See the US (as in the original 13 colonies that would eventually become the US) was founded primarily by the British and Dutch.  They didn't come here to rape and pillage.  They came here to live and they didn't come here to steal land.  They didn't know it was stealing because landowner rights were different between the way it was in Europe and the way the Natives thought about it.  They simply didn't know land that didn't have anything on it could belong to someone and the two sides couldn't communicate with eachother to work something out.

The Pilgrims were fleeing persecution and they honestly were just looking for a safe place to live.  For the most part, the two sides didn't hang out.

They didn't speak the same language.  I've mentioned numerous times how important communication is.  Well it's true. Had they have been able to understand eachother, the Pilgrims would have known more about the Natives' culture.  The Natives in turn would have known why the Pilgrims were there.  There might have been some sort of truce worked out.  They could have bought land.  Instead, each side made decisions based on the limited information they had.

Yes there was a translator but he learned english after being captured by people who weren't the Pilgrims but looked enough like the Pilgrims that he could easily accuse them of being the same people.  If you think he didn't hold a grudge and some racism, you're full of it.  Even if he was a saint, he was translating two languages who are not similar in any way.  Now, knowing human nature, it's highly likely his translation skills were iffy.  So no. Neither side had the ability to effectively communicate and that's where the problem was.

The Pilgrims didn't know the Natives considered the land their property.  There was no one living on it and in Europe that meant it was free game.  When the Natives saw them building houses, they got pissed off at having squatters.

The Natives picked a fight with someone more advanced and stronger than they gave them credit for.  The fight got ugly.   It didn't stop more Europeans from coming to the New World.  It just made sure they wouldn't trust the Natives.

And let's not kid ourselves. The Americas were not some sort of Nirvana before the evil white man came.  The Native tribes warred with eachother.   Some of them even practices cannibalism.  Imagine if you with your smart phone met someone who walked around naked and ate people.  You would think they were savages too.  Don't lie.  You would think with all your technology you  were better than they were.  Don't lie.

We can debate whether or not the Pilgrims had any right to move here in the first place but that would be stupid.  Like arguing that those modern humans you claim came out of Africa had no right to leave Africa in the first place or that we have no business diversifying our neighborhoods because minorities have no right to move to white suburbs.  People move.  That's what humans do.  That's supposedly how we populated the planet.  So stop with your bullshit about invasions.  This country was not invaded.

If we had been able to communicate better, we could have bought the place.  America may be a smaller country but the war between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples would never have happened.

Hindsight is always 20/20.