As I post this, it’s the beginning of our nation’s annual Thanksgiving Celebration time. I guess that means that we are all supposed to be “thankful” to (and for) something. And, I confess that I am, personally, quite grateful to have (and have always had) family, friends, colleagues, etc., whom I have enjoyed working, playing, and being with. I appreciate that my life has been (for the most part) reasonably comfortable and that (at least so far) I’ve never had to worry too much about having adequate food to eat, clothing, shelter, etc. I’ve even been able to believe that I could say that I (and those I care about) were reasonably safe and secure, physically, financially, etc. I AM quite thankful for these things.
But, I also find it appropriate to note that this situation is (and was) only truly possible because a whole lot of people, going back to my earliest (known) forbearers on this continent (some of whom were part of the Plymouth Colony and arrived in this land on the good ship, Mayflower) weren’t always all that polite to those who were here before ANY Europeans arrived. Now, I’m NOT ashamed of that, I’d like to believe that they weren’t intentionally “impolite,” but I do recognize that, while they were acting in the manner which they had been taught to believe was quite proper and correct, History, and contemporary standards of behavior, suggest that what they did was sometimes worse than questionable.
Yes, I DO believe that when folks say that the United States is a country of “immigrants:” 1.) that’s only true if we ignore “discovering” the presence of the people who we now THINK crossed (does that count as “immigration?”) to this landmass on what we BELIEVE was a “land-bridge” from what we now call Siberia a long time before anyone on the European continent even thought of heading in this direction; and, 2.) that we don’t bother to look very closely at the way those “first people” were treated by the Europeans who came to the Americas (North, Central and South) beginning around 1500, and continuing through a period extending until well after 1900. Those ARE rather “fuzzy” dates, but I think they encompass the majority of the timeframe pretty well.
I believe that it’s fair to say that the “European immigration” to the Americas was, largely, sparked by the desire to capture and utilize the “wealth” (arable land, crops, lumber, minerals, etc.) of this land, as well as to provide a place for population spread (with the accompanying chance to increase personal wealth, at least for some). I think it can be said that the “conquest of Central and South America (which started early and lasted a long time) was encouraged by the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies so that they could gain all sorts of wealth (and were, only partially justified by the notion of spreading the “one, true” religion, as well).
My sense is that, in North America, about which I have considerably more information (and which will, be my real focus), that while the British monarchy was certainly anxious to gain additional wealth, much of the incentive for colonization was based more on private, commercial interests, although (of course) with the approval of the Crown. The colonial period was a time of considerable religious controversy in Britain, so some religious groups were anxious to obtain freedom for THEIR religious beliefs and practices and to avoid conflicts with the “established” (that is, approved by the Monarch) religion. Those conflicts would, eventually, be significant parts of the causes for the English Civil War, the beheading of Charles I, the establishment of the Commonwealth, and the, eventual, Restoration of the British monarchy.
Those conflicts would lead several groups of people to seek a place where they could practice their religion the way they wished with minimal monarchistic influence, thereby providing fodder for groups of businessmen to recruit colonists from among them to go to this foreign land and to try to establish permanents communities there. Those colonies only had to supply the trading companies with the various materials that the sponsoring merchants wished to sell in Europe, especially Britain. If they did that, the colonists would gain reduced interference from the “approved” religious authorities.
The way I see it, with the advantage of looking back on history, is that this process would, quite inevitably, create a significant cultural conflict between the “native” populations (which had their own ideas about how the land, etc., should be “utilized”) and the colonists, who had quite different ones (based, obviously, on the practices and traditions of Europe).
There is evidence that some of the “local populations” (at least in North America) were not immediately hostile to the European immigration, but the immigrants (without, I am quite sure, having any intention of doing so) introduced European diseases (like smallpox and others) which the “locals” (obviously) had no inherited defenses for, so many of them died, and the colonists started following European agricultural habits, putting up fences, etc., which was NOT the sort of thing the “locals” did, nor did they seem proper to them. After all the “locals” tended much more towards living off the land as it was, rather than forcing the land to be productive to, their needs. So, they were more likely to travel around the neighborhood to hunt and rely on the plant life which nature provided, rather than engage in “farming” as Europeans thought of it. The colonists also, almost certainly because their “sponsors” required it, TOOK MUCH MORE from the land (animal, vegetable and mineral) than they actually needed, so they could export it back to Britain, to satisfy their sponsors’ need to profit from their investment. This was also NOT how the “locals” took care of the land. They (almost certainly) figured that the land was there for them to USE, not for them to “OWN.” After all, the land, forest, sea, etc. WAS (and they probably felt should remain) as their Deities had made it for their use. This meant that the idea of believing that one could just “get everything they could” out of the land to which they had exclusive rights was quite foreign to their way of thinking, at least based on the modest studies I have made.
When you add into this the conflicts between the European-based religious groups (ALL of whom were quite sure that “only they” were the “one, true, correct faith” (which was the cause of MANY of the issues and hostilities among those groups, both then AND as the actual colonies were formed) with the fact that the religious beliefs and practices of the “First People” were quite different from ANY of these European-based religious notions, it’s easy to see that conflicts were almost certain to arise, as they certainly did.
What we call “Thanksgiving” (whether you are of the Virginia or the Massachusetts following) was eventually established as a U.S. holiday supposedly to recognize the early survival of the earliest colonials honoring their God for the fact that they hadn’t all died in trying to establish a permanent settlement. Tradition has is (and it appears that it could well be true) that at least some members of some of local “native” tribes were invited to participate in these “festivities,” but it seems unlikely that they would have understood much about what the point was.
As colonization spread, so would the conflicts over all sorts of land use as well as population pressure from Europe. These conflicts, would eventually (after many wars, much death and a great deal of bad feeling) lead to the “benevolent, Christian-dominated” U.S. government: 1.) largely confining the “natives,” to the extent possible, to “reservations,” which may, or may not, have had any relationship to those people’s ancestral homelands, and which were, frequently, land no “white” man wanted, because it was deemed “unproductive”; 2.) trying to “civilize” them by forcing their children into boarding schools, where they were forbidden to use their own languages, practice their own religions, or display any respect for their traditional cultures; 3.) basically, teaching them that their ancestors were “uncivilized pagans;” and, 4.) telling them that they should be grateful that the “benevolent” government was doing about everything it could to destroy their traditional culture, so that they could become “fit” to become a part of “proper” society. WE now know (as they, of course, were always aware) that these steps also included, in a fair number of cases, allowing various physical and sexual perversions to be practiced on those children while they were “under the care” of government-authorized “teachers,” (who were, in many cases, members of the clergy,) and a good many deaths of those children.
That’s NOT the whole, nor the only, picture, I know, but I confess that, as a descendant of some of the original Mayflower colonists, who are considered by many to be the founders of this at least quasi-religious-based “thanksgiving” celebration, I find it difficult to suggest that this “celebration” really serves the purpose for which it was intended (the honoring of a Deity for taking care of His people) when it would lead to the sort of results of which we are now aware. It would seem that this sort of ceremony is mostly a device to honor the “civilization” (that is, the “Europeanization”) of North America, rather than a religious ceremony to thank a Deity for some people’s survival in a hostile environment. Or, of course, as an excuse to start the Christmas shopping season, which would have appalled my Puritan ancestors.
The Plymouth Colonists, of course, would eventually merge with the Massachusetts Bay ones, and the combined group ended up producing the Salem Witch Trials which, as best I can figure it (based on what I believe to be true), included 3 of the “afflicted;” 6 who were actually executed; 10 who were accused, but not executed; and, 7 who served as judges; all of whom were, in some manner, related to me). Since these were, essentially, religious crimes tried in courts of an, essentially, religious nature, these facts might explain my reluctance to accept the notion that ANY religious system can be considered as the only “proper” one, since EVERY religion I know anything about seems to believe that IT is the closest to the One True, ABSOLUTE” truth. But, I digress.
One can, of course, apologize for the practices of trying to “civilize” the “First Peoples” by suggesting that the colonials, and early citizens, were only following the “revealed truths” of the time (which were also used to justify slavery) so, perhaps, there is SOME reason not to be too harsh with our ancestors, but I still find it hard to accept the many “blind spots” which are required to completely exonerate them. This is especially true, in my opinion, because so many people still wish to excuse religious prejudice, racism, and all the rest of it as perfectly acceptable, because THEIR religion (whichever one they support) is, of course, the “one, true, correct, proper one.” I think that, if the “Golden Rule” (You know, the idea of “doing unto others, etc.), IS as common across as MANY religious practices, as I have been led to believe (and I think it is), the behaviors practiced by our ancestors (along with many others at various times and places) was WRONG for them, and, they STILL aren’t RIGHT today!
I’m not against your being appreciative to whatever Deity you choose for whatever “blessings” you feel the need to be “thankful” for on this occasions. I do have some reservations about having this sort of occasion be a “National Holiday,” which appears to be in violation of the “Church and State” principle (which, in MY opinion, is one of the, if not THE, most important parts of the Bill Of Rights). You ARE entitled to YOUR religious beliefs and practices, but you are NOT entitled to dictate what I have to believe and honor. Nor do I have any right to dictate such to YOU. I firmly believe that’s what our nation’s founders intended.
I plan to return in a couple of weeks with my annual “Holiday Greetings” issue of this blog. Then, I plan to be off until after the new year begins, since Christmas comes on a Wednesday this year and I don’t plan to post that day, or on the New Year’s Day that’s a week later. Besides, that’s a time for family and friends and I plan to take advantage of it with some of my family and friends.
I hope you have an enjoyable “Thanksgiving” holiday. (Might as well call it what everybody does, even if it seems a bit un-PC to me.) Don’t eat TOO much and enjoy the crowds in the stores selling the stuff we ABSOLUTELY MUST have for the next round of holidays. I remember working at Wick’s Department Store in Bloomington one holiday season. It was enough to make me appreciate store clerks a lot more than most people seem to do. I urge you to be polite to them, they WILL appreciate it.
Oh, well, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.
🖖🏼 LLAP,
Dr. B
But, I also find it appropriate to note that this situation is (and was) only truly possible because a whole lot of people, going back to my earliest (known) forbearers on this continent (some of whom were part of the Plymouth Colony and arrived in this land on the good ship, Mayflower) weren’t always all that polite to those who were here before ANY Europeans arrived. Now, I’m NOT ashamed of that, I’d like to believe that they weren’t intentionally “impolite,” but I do recognize that, while they were acting in the manner which they had been taught to believe was quite proper and correct, History, and contemporary standards of behavior, suggest that what they did was sometimes worse than questionable.
Yes, I DO believe that when folks say that the United States is a country of “immigrants:” 1.) that’s only true if we ignore “discovering” the presence of the people who we now THINK crossed (does that count as “immigration?”) to this landmass on what we BELIEVE was a “land-bridge” from what we now call Siberia a long time before anyone on the European continent even thought of heading in this direction; and, 2.) that we don’t bother to look very closely at the way those “first people” were treated by the Europeans who came to the Americas (North, Central and South) beginning around 1500, and continuing through a period extending until well after 1900. Those ARE rather “fuzzy” dates, but I think they encompass the majority of the timeframe pretty well.
I believe that it’s fair to say that the “European immigration” to the Americas was, largely, sparked by the desire to capture and utilize the “wealth” (arable land, crops, lumber, minerals, etc.) of this land, as well as to provide a place for population spread (with the accompanying chance to increase personal wealth, at least for some). I think it can be said that the “conquest of Central and South America (which started early and lasted a long time) was encouraged by the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies so that they could gain all sorts of wealth (and were, only partially justified by the notion of spreading the “one, true” religion, as well).
My sense is that, in North America, about which I have considerably more information (and which will, be my real focus), that while the British monarchy was certainly anxious to gain additional wealth, much of the incentive for colonization was based more on private, commercial interests, although (of course) with the approval of the Crown. The colonial period was a time of considerable religious controversy in Britain, so some religious groups were anxious to obtain freedom for THEIR religious beliefs and practices and to avoid conflicts with the “established” (that is, approved by the Monarch) religion. Those conflicts would, eventually, be significant parts of the causes for the English Civil War, the beheading of Charles I, the establishment of the Commonwealth, and the, eventual, Restoration of the British monarchy.
Those conflicts would lead several groups of people to seek a place where they could practice their religion the way they wished with minimal monarchistic influence, thereby providing fodder for groups of businessmen to recruit colonists from among them to go to this foreign land and to try to establish permanents communities there. Those colonies only had to supply the trading companies with the various materials that the sponsoring merchants wished to sell in Europe, especially Britain. If they did that, the colonists would gain reduced interference from the “approved” religious authorities.
The way I see it, with the advantage of looking back on history, is that this process would, quite inevitably, create a significant cultural conflict between the “native” populations (which had their own ideas about how the land, etc., should be “utilized”) and the colonists, who had quite different ones (based, obviously, on the practices and traditions of Europe).
There is evidence that some of the “local populations” (at least in North America) were not immediately hostile to the European immigration, but the immigrants (without, I am quite sure, having any intention of doing so) introduced European diseases (like smallpox and others) which the “locals” (obviously) had no inherited defenses for, so many of them died, and the colonists started following European agricultural habits, putting up fences, etc., which was NOT the sort of thing the “locals” did, nor did they seem proper to them. After all the “locals” tended much more towards living off the land as it was, rather than forcing the land to be productive to, their needs. So, they were more likely to travel around the neighborhood to hunt and rely on the plant life which nature provided, rather than engage in “farming” as Europeans thought of it. The colonists also, almost certainly because their “sponsors” required it, TOOK MUCH MORE from the land (animal, vegetable and mineral) than they actually needed, so they could export it back to Britain, to satisfy their sponsors’ need to profit from their investment. This was also NOT how the “locals” took care of the land. They (almost certainly) figured that the land was there for them to USE, not for them to “OWN.” After all, the land, forest, sea, etc. WAS (and they probably felt should remain) as their Deities had made it for their use. This meant that the idea of believing that one could just “get everything they could” out of the land to which they had exclusive rights was quite foreign to their way of thinking, at least based on the modest studies I have made.
When you add into this the conflicts between the European-based religious groups (ALL of whom were quite sure that “only they” were the “one, true, correct faith” (which was the cause of MANY of the issues and hostilities among those groups, both then AND as the actual colonies were formed) with the fact that the religious beliefs and practices of the “First People” were quite different from ANY of these European-based religious notions, it’s easy to see that conflicts were almost certain to arise, as they certainly did.
What we call “Thanksgiving” (whether you are of the Virginia or the Massachusetts following) was eventually established as a U.S. holiday supposedly to recognize the early survival of the earliest colonials honoring their God for the fact that they hadn’t all died in trying to establish a permanent settlement. Tradition has is (and it appears that it could well be true) that at least some members of some of local “native” tribes were invited to participate in these “festivities,” but it seems unlikely that they would have understood much about what the point was.
As colonization spread, so would the conflicts over all sorts of land use as well as population pressure from Europe. These conflicts, would eventually (after many wars, much death and a great deal of bad feeling) lead to the “benevolent, Christian-dominated” U.S. government: 1.) largely confining the “natives,” to the extent possible, to “reservations,” which may, or may not, have had any relationship to those people’s ancestral homelands, and which were, frequently, land no “white” man wanted, because it was deemed “unproductive”; 2.) trying to “civilize” them by forcing their children into boarding schools, where they were forbidden to use their own languages, practice their own religions, or display any respect for their traditional cultures; 3.) basically, teaching them that their ancestors were “uncivilized pagans;” and, 4.) telling them that they should be grateful that the “benevolent” government was doing about everything it could to destroy their traditional culture, so that they could become “fit” to become a part of “proper” society. WE now know (as they, of course, were always aware) that these steps also included, in a fair number of cases, allowing various physical and sexual perversions to be practiced on those children while they were “under the care” of government-authorized “teachers,” (who were, in many cases, members of the clergy,) and a good many deaths of those children.
That’s NOT the whole, nor the only, picture, I know, but I confess that, as a descendant of some of the original Mayflower colonists, who are considered by many to be the founders of this at least quasi-religious-based “thanksgiving” celebration, I find it difficult to suggest that this “celebration” really serves the purpose for which it was intended (the honoring of a Deity for taking care of His people) when it would lead to the sort of results of which we are now aware. It would seem that this sort of ceremony is mostly a device to honor the “civilization” (that is, the “Europeanization”) of North America, rather than a religious ceremony to thank a Deity for some people’s survival in a hostile environment. Or, of course, as an excuse to start the Christmas shopping season, which would have appalled my Puritan ancestors.
The Plymouth Colonists, of course, would eventually merge with the Massachusetts Bay ones, and the combined group ended up producing the Salem Witch Trials which, as best I can figure it (based on what I believe to be true), included 3 of the “afflicted;” 6 who were actually executed; 10 who were accused, but not executed; and, 7 who served as judges; all of whom were, in some manner, related to me). Since these were, essentially, religious crimes tried in courts of an, essentially, religious nature, these facts might explain my reluctance to accept the notion that ANY religious system can be considered as the only “proper” one, since EVERY religion I know anything about seems to believe that IT is the closest to the One True, ABSOLUTE” truth. But, I digress.
One can, of course, apologize for the practices of trying to “civilize” the “First Peoples” by suggesting that the colonials, and early citizens, were only following the “revealed truths” of the time (which were also used to justify slavery) so, perhaps, there is SOME reason not to be too harsh with our ancestors, but I still find it hard to accept the many “blind spots” which are required to completely exonerate them. This is especially true, in my opinion, because so many people still wish to excuse religious prejudice, racism, and all the rest of it as perfectly acceptable, because THEIR religion (whichever one they support) is, of course, the “one, true, correct, proper one.” I think that, if the “Golden Rule” (You know, the idea of “doing unto others, etc.), IS as common across as MANY religious practices, as I have been led to believe (and I think it is), the behaviors practiced by our ancestors (along with many others at various times and places) was WRONG for them, and, they STILL aren’t RIGHT today!
I’m not against your being appreciative to whatever Deity you choose for whatever “blessings” you feel the need to be “thankful” for on this occasions. I do have some reservations about having this sort of occasion be a “National Holiday,” which appears to be in violation of the “Church and State” principle (which, in MY opinion, is one of the, if not THE, most important parts of the Bill Of Rights). You ARE entitled to YOUR religious beliefs and practices, but you are NOT entitled to dictate what I have to believe and honor. Nor do I have any right to dictate such to YOU. I firmly believe that’s what our nation’s founders intended.
I plan to return in a couple of weeks with my annual “Holiday Greetings” issue of this blog. Then, I plan to be off until after the new year begins, since Christmas comes on a Wednesday this year and I don’t plan to post that day, or on the New Year’s Day that’s a week later. Besides, that’s a time for family and friends and I plan to take advantage of it with some of my family and friends.
I hope you have an enjoyable “Thanksgiving” holiday. (Might as well call it what everybody does, even if it seems a bit un-PC to me.) Don’t eat TOO much and enjoy the crowds in the stores selling the stuff we ABSOLUTELY MUST have for the next round of holidays. I remember working at Wick’s Department Store in Bloomington one holiday season. It was enough to make me appreciate store clerks a lot more than most people seem to do. I urge you to be polite to them, they WILL appreciate it.
Oh, well, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.
🖖🏼 LLAP,
Dr. B
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