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#thanksgiving history
aut1sm-mess · 6 months
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Important
Good morning, evening, afternoon, or night. As most people know, today's Thanksgiving. A holiday with an absolutely DISGUSTING history that a good portion chooses to completely ignore. Because hey, why care about the millions of innocent people who died because of fucked up white people when we can just celebrate like this never happened.
This holiday is messed the hell up. When you eat your turkey and all the other weird food, think about this history take a moment to acknowledge the fact that both Canada and the U.S. are built completely off of land that was stolen from people who were here for thousands of years. Thanks, for taking the time to read this.
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Thanksgiving History
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
November 23, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday…but not for the reasons we generally remember.
The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest celebration together at Plymouth in fall 1621, but that moment got forgotten almost immediately, overwritten by the long history of the settlers’ attacks on their Indigenous neighbors.
In 1841 a book that reprinted the early diaries and letters from the Plymouth colony recovered the story of that three-day celebration in which ninety Indigenous Americans and the English settlers shared fowl and deer. This story of peace and goodwill among men who by the 1840s were more often enemies than not inspired Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, to think that a national celebration could ease similar tensions building between the slave-holding South and the free North. She lobbied for legislation to establish a day of national thanksgiving.
And then, on April 12, 1861, southern soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, and the meaning of a holiday for giving thanks changed.
Southern leaders wanted to destroy the United States of America and create their own country, based not in the traditional American idea that “all men are created equal,” but rather in its opposite: that some men were better than others and had the right to enslave their neighbors. In the 1850s, convinced that society worked best if a few wealthy men ran it, southern leaders had bent the laws of the United States to their benefit, using it to protect enslavement above all.
In 1860, northerners elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency to stop rich southern enslavers from taking over the government and using it to cement their own wealth and power. As soon as he was elected, southern leaders pulled their states out of the Union to set up their own country. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln and the fledgling Republican Party set out to end the slaveholders’ rebellion.
The early years of the war did not go well for the U.S. By the end of 1862, the armies still held, but people on the home front were losing faith. Leaders recognized the need both to acknowledge the suffering and to keep Americans loyal to the cause. In November and December, seventeen state governors declared state thanksgiving holidays.
New York governor Edwin Morgan’s widely reprinted proclamation about the holiday reflected that the previous year “is numbered among the dark periods of history, and its sorrowful records are graven on many hearthstones.” But this was nonetheless a time for giving thanks, he wrote, because “the precious blood shed in the cause of our country will hallow and strengthen our love and our reverence for it and its institutions…. Our Government and institutions placed in jeopardy have brought us to a more just appreciation of their value.”
The next year, Lincoln got ahead of the state proclamations. On July 15 he declared a national day of Thanksgiving, and the relief in his proclamation was almost palpable. After two years of disasters, the Union army was finally winning. Bloody, yes; battered, yes; but winning. At Gettysburg in early July, Union troops had sent Confederates reeling back southward. Then, on July 4, Vicksburg had finally fallen to U. S. Grant’s army. The military tide was turning.
President Lincoln set Thursday, August 6, 1863, for the national day of Thanksgiving. On that day, ministers across the country listed the signal victories of the U.S. Army and Navy in the past year and reassured their congregations that it was only a matter of time until the United States government put down the southern rebellion. Their predictions acknowledged the dead and reinforced the idea that their sacrifice had not been in vain.
In October 1863, President Lincoln declared a second national day of Thanksgiving. In the past year, he declared, the nation had been blessed.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, he wrote, Americans had maintained their laws and their institutions and had kept foreign countries from meddling with their nation. They had paid for the war as they went, refusing to permit the destruction to cripple the economy. Instead, as they funded the war, they had also advanced farming, industry, mining, and shipping. Immigrants had poured into the country to replace men lost on the battlefield, and the economy was booming. And Lincoln had recently promised that the government would end slavery once and for all. The country, he predicted, “with a large increase of freedom,” would survive, stronger and more prosperous than ever. The president invited Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands” to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving.
In 1863, November’s last Thursday fell on the 26th. On November 19, Lincoln delivered an address at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He reached back to the Declaration of Independence for the principles on which he called for Americans to rebuild the severed nation: 
​​”Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Lincoln urged the crowd to take up the torch those who fought at Gettysburg had laid down. He called for them to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The following year, Lincoln proclaimed another day of Thanksgiving, this time congratulating Americans that God had favored them not only with immigration but also with the emancipation of formerly enslaved people. “Moreover,” Lincoln wrote, “He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.”
In 1861, Americans went to war to keep a cabal from taking control of the government and turning it into an oligarchy. The fight against that rebellion seemed at first to be too much for the nation to survive. But Americans rallied and threw their hearts into the cause on the battlefields even as they continued to work on the home front for a government that defended democracy and equality before the law.
And in 1865, at least, they won.
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
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Read the whole thing.
History of Thanksgiving
Excerpted from Russell Means "Where White Men Fear To Tread"
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writerbeemedina · 1 year
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katiajewelbox · 1 year
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Happy Thanksgiving from Katia Plant Scientist!
Thanksgiving is a holiday from the USA that commentates a feast. This feast took place in what is today Massachusetts and was hosted by the British immigrants and the indigenous Wampanoag people in 1621. The first Thanksgiving was probably like the traditional village harvest lunch the British immigrants celebrated back home every autumn, but with new foods their indigenous neighbours taught them how to grow.
Thanksgiving is a controversial holiday for some because it can be seen as glorifying colonialism. The cosy Thanksgiving story taught to American schoolchildren distracts from the genocide later committed against Native Americans. The holiday can also be seen as simply a time to enjoy special dishes and time with family. I feel it is important to understand the historical significance of Thanksgiving however you and yours choose to celebrate the occasion.
Surprisingly, turkey would not have been on the menu because the Wampanoag people did not have domesticated turkeys and records from that time only mention wild game as the main dish. However, pumpkins and winter squash were probably at the first Thanksgiving served since these were local domesticated plants, and a key food source for surviving the harsh New England winter.
My squash harvest is 100% homegrown, including Winter Luxury and Baby Bear Pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) and Crown Prince, Ute, Anna Schwarz, Marina de Chioggia, Sweet Dumpling, Queensland Blue, Candy Roaster, Uchiki Kuri, and Peruvian Macre Zapallo winter squash (Cucurbita maxima).
Have a safe, peaceful, and delicious Thanksgiving!
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witchywitchy · 5 months
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The fact that we, Arabic-speaking average people(aka non-journalists), have to keep up with translating Palestinian posts from Arabic to English to avoid having Western Media/Pro-Zionists mistranslate on purpose, says enough about how we all lost trust in the media. From the "there's a list" guy who was standing in front of a calendar and condemning the days of the week, to the BBC's mistranslation of a freed Palestinian hostage's interview. I will try my best to keep translating whatever I can find, and I encourage my fellow bilingual/multilingual Arabs to do the same. It's already sad enough that Palestinian journalists and even children have to use English in videos instead of their native tongue in order to get the world leaders' attention.
Please keep speaking about Palestine.
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beggars-opera · 6 months
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Happy Thanksgiving click these donation links
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council
Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project
Aquinnah Wampanoag Cultural Center
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amnhnyc · 6 months
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Still feeling stuffed from your Thanksgiving feast? Meet the Guineafowl puffer (Arothron meleagris)! Instead of chowing down on turkey, this fish feeds mainly on the tips of branching corals. It gets round not by eating but to avoid being eaten, swallowing water to dissuade predators from attempting such a big bite. If it’s late to inflate, this fish also has bacteria in its body that can be toxic.
Photo: merav, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist
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yesterdaysprint · 1 year
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The Fresno Bee, California, November 29, 1923
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bfpnola · 6 months
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the org said they were reposting last year’s graphics, hence the change is date at the top. still extremely relevant!
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macaulaytwins · 6 months
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TSH Thanksgiving
Francis hosts at his country house, provides all the wine, is running around his house all day readjusting candleholders and throw pillows and the silverware so they are aesthetically placed to his liking, refuses to eat the sweet potatoes, steps outside with Henry after the main meal for a smoke (would have done it at the table if Julian wasn’t there), is dressed absolutely to the nines
Henry wanted to host at his apartment—as Julian is invited—but ultimately acquiesces to the country house for the space, isn’t much of a cook but says he’ll bring rolls from a bakery he enjoys, drives in on the day in question with Bunny, gives Francis his opinion on the decor if asked, reads in the sitting room until Julien arrives and the meal begins, carves the turkey
Richard rides with Francis, Camilla, and Charles to the country house the day before, brought canned cranberry sauce, stays out of the dining and living room because Francis is stressing him out, is the taste tester for the twins who are cooking the bulk of the meal, nurses a generous glass of bourbon all day, is the designated potato masher, made sure to meticulously iron his shirt
Bunny rides over the day of with Henry, insisted upon bringing stuffing because he doesn’t trust anyone else to make it the way he likes it, sneaks one of Henry’s rolls much to Henry’s annoyance, day drinks with Charles and Richard, was going to finish up on some homework before the meal but falls asleep in his chair, reaches across to grab sides instead of asking for them and almost catches his sleeve on fire
Camilla is in charge of making the sides so she makes green beans, stuffing (she likes her grandparents’ recipe more than Bunny’s), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and roast carrots, sneaks glasses of wine from Francis before the meal, excuses herself before Julian arrives so she can change into a nice blouse for the occasion, keeps up easiest with Julian’s topic changes, picked the music for the evening
Charles prepares the turkey, starts out cooking very meticulously but he gets more lax throughout the process with every drink refill, hovers over Camilla’s shoulder to make sure she got ingredient proportions right, keeps telling Francis that everything he adjusted looks the exact same as it did before, was going to go smoke with Francis but decided against it when Henry went out too (dramatic)
Julian arrives right at 4pm with a nice pumpkin pie that he did not make, compliments the table setup and pretends not to notice Francis’s shoulders slump in relief, gives the toast at the beginning of dinner, will change the conversation topic if it veers into something he finds disinteresting, leaves so he can be home at a crisp 9:30pm
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dreamingofep · 6 months
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I’m thankful everyday I have this man in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without him. 🖤
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originalhaffigaza · 3 months
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existennialmemes · 7 months
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In light of [gestures broadly to Reality] Thanksgiving is cancelled. No more thankfulness until we've dealt with The Horrors
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intersectionalpraxis · 6 months
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English subtitles the original creator of this video provided for folks, I am just transcribing them here:
Thanksgiving originally celebrated the 1637 Massacre of the Pequot tribe. English and Dutch pilgrims surrounded and shot the Pequot Natives. Women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burnt alive. "The rotting flesh could be smelled a mile away" John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day of Thanksgiving" after the slaughter. The remaining Women and children were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Following a successful raid against the Pequot, the churches announced a second day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the victory over the "Indian savages," Next thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your blessings, think about the thousands of natives that were murdered on these national holidays. Truth is
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