Third (and final) installment: the origins, purpose and meaning of the American holiday of Thanksgiving
(See November 14 & 15 posts for the first two parts of this series)
Another interpretation of Thanksgiving
For many Native Americans, however, Thanksgiving is a much more complicated day: a time to reflect upon the violence of colonial history, and on centuries of dispossession from land, language and culture.
For many Native Americans, however, Thanksgiving is a much more complicated day: a time to reflect upon the violence of colonial history, and on centuries of dispossession from land, language and culture.
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| https://zinnedproject.org/materials/native-american-activism-1960s-to-present/ |
The holiday
first came under sustained public attack by Native American activists in 1970.
State officials vetted the text of an oration that Frank B. James, a Wampanoag
leader, was slated to deliver at a banquet celebrating the 350th anniversary of
the Mayflower's landing.
“Deeming James's impassioned narrative of stolen lands and broken promises off-key for the occasion,” writes Jane Kamensky, the Harry S. Truman Professor of American Civilization, in an article she published in Common-Place, the state leaders “promptly rescinded their invitation to break bread with him, thus inverting the very mythic, ancestral feast they were gathered to commemorate.”
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| By jjron - Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19571461 |
James and other indigenous leaders staged a ritual of their own, covering
Plymouth Rock with sand on what became the first National Day of Mourning.
Decades later, this annual commemoration of "un-Thanksgiving" continues on Cole’s Hill, above Plymouth Rock. It is organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE).
Such struggles over the holiday are hardly new, Kamensky notes. “Politics has always marched in the Columbus Day parade and taken a place on the Thanksgiving menu alongside the turkey, the stuffing, the kimchi, the kugel and more.”
Decades later, this annual commemoration of "un-Thanksgiving" continues on Cole’s Hill, above Plymouth Rock. It is organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE).
Such struggles over the holiday are hardly new, Kamensky notes. “Politics has always marched in the Columbus Day parade and taken a place on the Thanksgiving menu alongside the turkey, the stuffing, the kimchi, the kugel and more.”
for another perspective on Thanksgiving, visit
(A reflection on the American holiday of Thanksgiving from Brandeis University, ... tomorrow, Thanksgiving:
A Native American View)
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