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A DAY TO GIVE THANKS?
> by Ward Churchill
> Thanksgiving is the day the United States celebrates the fact that the>>
Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony successfully avoided starvation during
the winter of 1620-21.
>
> But from an American Indian perspective, what is it we’re supposed to be>
so thankful for?
>
> Does anyone really expect us to give thanks for the fact that soon
after the Pilgrim Fathers regained their strength, they set out to
dispossess and > exterminate the very Indians who had fed them that
first winter?
>
> Are we to express our gratitude for the colonists’ 1637 massacre of the>>
Pequots at Mystic, Conn., or their rhetoric justifying the butchery
by comparing Indians to “rats and mice and swarms of lice”?
>
> Or should we be joyous about the endless series of similar
slaughters that followed: at St. Francis (1759), Horseshoe Bend
(1814), Bad Axe (1833), Blue Water (1854), Sand Creek (1864),
Marias River (1870), Camp Robinson (1878)and Wounded Knee (1890), to
name only the worst?
>
> Should we be thankful for the scalp bounties paid by every English>>
colony — as well as every U.S. state and territory in the lower 48
– for proof of the deaths of individual Indians, including women
and children?
>
> How might we best show our appreciation of the order issued by Lord>>
Jeffrey Amherst in 1763, requiring smallpox-infested items be given
as gifts to the Ottawas so that “we might extirpate this execrable
race”?
>
> Is it reasonable to assume that we might be jubilant that our overall>>
> population, numbering perhaps 15 million at the outset of the European>>
> invasion, was reduced to less than a quarter-million by 1890?
>
> Maybe we should be glad the “peaceful settlers” didn’t kill the
rest of us outright. But they didn’t really need to, did they? By
1900, they already had 98 percent of our land. The remaining Indians
were simply dumped in the mostly arid and unwanted locales, where it
was confidently predicted that we’d shortly die off altogether, out
of sight and mind of the settler society.
>
> We haven’t died off yet, but we comprise far and away the most
impoverished, malnourished and disease-ridden population on the
continent today. Life expectancy on many reservations is about 50
years; that of Euroamericans more than 75.
>
> We’ve also endured a pattern of cultural genocide during the 20th
century. Our children were processed for generations through
government boarding schools designed to “kill the Indian” in every
child’s consciousness and to replace Native traditions with a “more
enlightened” Euroamerican set of values and understandings.
>
> Should we feel grateful for the disastrous self-concept thereby
fostered within our kids?
>
> Are we to be thankful that their self-esteem is still degraded
every day>> on cable television by a constant bombardment of
recycled Hollywood Westerns and television segments presenting
Indians as absurd and utterly dehumanized caricatures?
>
> Should we tell our children to find pride in the sorts of insults
to which we are subjected to as a matter of course: Tumbleweeds
cartoons, for instance, or the presence of Chief Wahoo and the
Redskins in professional sports?
>
> Does anybody really believe we should feel honored by such things, or by>
place names like Squaw Valley and Squaw Peak? “Squaw,” after all, is the>>
Onondaga word for female genitalia. The derogatory effect on Native
women should be quite clear.
>
> About three-quarters of all adult Indians suffer alcoholism and/or other>
forms of substance abuse. This is not a “genetic condition.” It is a
desperate, collective attempt to escape our horrible reality since
“America’s Triumph.”
>
> It’s no mystery why Indians don’t observe Thanksgiving. The real question
is why do you feast rather than fast on what should be a national day of>>
mourning and atonement.
> Before digging into your turkey and dressing on Nov. 23, you might
wish to glance in a mirror and see if you can come up with an
answer.>>
>
> Ward Churchill is professor of ethnic studies at the University of
Colorado.
