Indigenous People’s Day is Not About Your Guilt
An Abridged History of American Colonialism
In recent years the celebration of Indigenous People’s Day on the second Monday of October has been gaining momentum, serving as a direct replacement and condemnation of Columbus Day, in a movement to abolish the federal holiday; which is seen as an oversimplified telling of our national history, and a celebration of the oppressive nature of colonialism.
Christopher Columbus is credited with the discovery of the new world for making landfall in the Bahamas in 1492, but he was indeed responsible for inflicting horrific atrocities upon its native peoples, whom which he exercised a brutal tyranny over; initiating a failed attempt at slave-trade to Spain, as well as being partly responsible in sparking the eventual African slave trade to the Americas and the onslaught of the Spanish Conquistadors who decimated the native populations of South America in much a similar way the English and French would do in North America a century later; but oddly and uncommonly for the time, Christopher Columbus, was actually one of the rare few Imperialists who were punished for his crimes against humanity; as a mostly untold portion of his story involves him making another voyage back across the Atlantic, but this time in chains.
The re-purposing of Columbus Day seems like a small consolation if one examines another federal holiday just up the the calendar pipeline in the United States: Thanksgiving- which celebrates an even more oversimplified downplay of the horrors of colonialism- and that of numerous historical figures, not just one man.
History is Stranger Than Fiction
We all know the story of the Pilgrims of Massachusetts, who upon arriving on the Mayflower in Plymouth among the depths of winter by somewhat of an accident, were ill-equipped for survival in the rugged new world, and in the first few months of blistering cold many died. And of course, the plentiful legends of Native American saviors like that of Squanto in Plymouth follow, as they helped the first settlers the next spring, by teaching them the lay-of-the-land, showing them where to fish and hunt, and how to plant. And so, in a show of appreciation the Pilgrims in turn shared their bounty from what they had learned in an annual feast around the last harvest of the coming year, which was later to become known as Thanksgiving.
Now this is all fine and appropriate to teach children, and might be somewhat accurate, but as adults, leaving it at that is like telling a story with an incomplete beginning, no middle, and of course, completely omitting the end.
First, it was no accident; it is well documented that prospective settlements in North America were in fact well scouted out, especially those in and around the Massachusetts area. In the early going most trips to this area of the Americas were not permanent, but tourist visits, as the Natives would only allow temporary stays in their lands- as a trust was not established. These temporary visits were welcomed for trade purposes, as the Natives found the Europeans to be particularly ‘foolish’ (imagine that), as they would trade things such as Bottles and Bowls, which were seen by the natives (who didn’t have such objects) as modern marvels of engineering, for mundane objects such as a fur blanket to keep warm — to the Natives this would be like trading your iPhone for someone’s sock.
During this time there would be many visits along the coast of North America, and while some Native Tribes advocated cooperation with the settlers, which was seen as strategic and beneficial, other Native Tribes outright resisted; which resulted in encounters ranging from friendly and mild to hostile and violent — but in the end, both tactics would lead to a eventual eradication, persecution, and/or manipulation of the so called godless ‘heathens’ — a term used to dehumanize Native Americans in order to justify the horrible wrongs that would befall them by the hands of the European settlers.
And so our cookie-cutter version of the story goes that the “Pilgrims” were supposedly ‘refugees’ escaping religious persecution when they came to America, but that is not the truth. The Pilgrims and the Puritans who settled in Massachusetts were actually separatists, Orthodox Protestants who left Europe because of a conflict in faith with the Church of England (during the Reformation period in Europe), and its accused divergences from the pure text of the bible (hence, the term Puritans). Out of a growing dismay at the influence of the Catholic Church they sought to establish a new Theocratic state in the New World, full of people who shared a more rigid and pure biblical belief, where no one was free to interpret the holy book differently, or as they deemed, erroneously; so, the Pilgrims did not in fact sail for Freedom of Religion, or away from persecution, if anything, they sailed ‘against’ Freedom of Religion.
This is made self-evident in the words of John Winthrop, leader of the Massachusetts Bay Company and Colony, in which he denounced Democracy and declared only the most devout Christians were to be given a voice in the politics of the settlement by way of vote. “If we should change from a mixed aristocracy to mere democracy, first we should have no warrant in scripture for it: for there was no such government in Israel. A democracy is, amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government. To allow it would be a manifest breach of the 5th Commandment.” The 5th Commandment, of course, being to honour thy mother and father (an obedience and servitude based on seniority).
One of the prevailing myths pertaining to the conflicts between settlers and natives is that the Europeans simply mowed them over with their significant military superiority; however it is wholly untrue, the bow and arrow, while its use required a much higher level of skill, was a much more efficient, accurate and deadly weapon than that of the cumbersome muskets the European settlers brandished.
The biggest military advantage the European settlers had over the Natives was their beasts of burden, horses- as these animals did not exist in the Americas prior to their arrival- and allowed them to cover much more land at a faster pace, giving them an edge like that of the earlier conquistadors in South America- and this is where the Natives ingenuity proved itself, in response to the massive European steeds they invented the Bola, which was also seldom used in North America as well.
But ultimately, the Native American locals knew the lay of the land and could utilize guerrilla-warfare tactics (similar to those the American colonists enjoyed over the British in the Revolutionary War much later on), and the Natives had a better control of food and understanding of natural resources as well, which was ultimately the most decisive leverage in the early goings of the European/Native relationships in North America (and is quite literally the exchange of knowledge we celebrate on Thanksgiving).
Contrary to popular belief, the first permanent colonial-settlements in the New World were not established by way of force and conflict though…
The Wampanoag tribe, who occupied the areas in and around the Massachusetts Bay were among the first Native Peoples to allow a permanent settlement by Europeans. And they did so not only because of the benefit of trade, but as a diplomatic and strategic alliance; as a condition of allowing these settlements was that the Europeans would aid them in protection against the Wampanoag’s own enemies, their rival war-like neighbors, the Narragansett tribe.
And thus, between 1620–1630 the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies (which eventually merged) were founded.
But, the Europeans, unbeknownst to them, had brought something far more foreign, insidious and deadly than muskets or horses, something that the Natives simply couldn’t overcome…
The Noble Savage
The Noble Savage is a conceptualization attributed to some early colonialists views on the Indigenous Tribes of the Americas; a descriptor for the ‘pureness’, ‘innocence’, or even ‘Naivety’ of a less-evolved man, one who had not been ‘corrupted’ by civilization; illustrated by accounts of the famous Spanish Conquistador, Bartolome de la Casas, who described the Indigenous peoples as simple mannered and incapable of lying, as “natural creatures who dwelt, gentle as cows, in their terrestrial paradise.”
And it is a concept that bears to mind when considering our more appetizing Thanksgiving dinner-table fables, involving the Native hero, Squanto, who supposedly mentored and saved the earliest colonists from the harsh winters they’d befall in the Americas. For, as is an undeniable theme in our dressed up tales of these times, it doesn’t tell the true story.
Squanto was actually kidnapped in a colonialist raid long before Colonists ever permanently settled the Americas, and he was shipped off to England where he spent at least 10-years as a house-slave, learning English and European culture, before being sent back to North America to act as a liaison between the settlers and natives to improve relations.
But by the time he returned disease had decimated his peoples, and his home (Patuxet) was completely gone; the Europeans, most of whom had immunity to the pathogens and viruses they brought overseas with them, from being exposed to and surviving them as children back in Europe, had overrun the coastal lands of Massachusetts- as the natives, who were much more susceptible to these diseases, attempted to desperately flee the sick and infected only carried the epidemic with them, spreading it further in-land and effecting more of their own people, as a result.
And the Pilgrims/Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s disregard for the humanity of the Native Peoples was made bitterly obvious in John Winthrop’s famous attribution of the Smallpox epidemic that decimated the Native populations being a “gift from god, clearing the lands for his people.”
Our hero, Squanto, who had not much left when he returned home served his European masters dutifully from then on, as he was manipulated by European culture and social status, being given a home and riches within the Plymouth colony for those services, which was to use his native American heritage as a bridge of trust in undermining his own people in negotiations.
In the long story of it, the microbial diseases were not the only horrid-sickness brought forth by the European Settlers; the equally foreign Capitalist culture and the idea of ‘Personal Prosperity” began to take root in the minds and hearts of the Native American Peoples.
These ideals were completely new to Native Americans, as individuals did not enjoy rights of ownership of land- instead, all lands and possessions belonged to the “tribe” in a collective sense. And as this new monetary influence, or enlightenment of ‘individual interest’, was thrust upon them, treaties were drawn, and deals were made all across the coast of North America- more often than not benefiting the European settlers far more than the Native Peoples, especially regarding the sale of lands… which inevitably led to the formation and establishment of the 13-Colonies by 1650.
Revisionist History
The most famous of the Spanish Conquerors, Hernon Cortes, summed up the motives behind the Imperialist colonization of the Americas best when he is believed to have told the Aztecs, “I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.” For even the Pilgrims and Puritans, despite the religious connotations of our stories, and like all colonists of the time, were stricken by the fact that the Americas were the land of opportunity (even back then); for at the core of their ‘pilgrimage’ was a Monetary Interest (Capitalism). One that was no different than that of the settlers who formed the first successful colony in North America: Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
This expedition was more clear in its purpose however; as it was a business venture by the Virginia Company, a joint stock company based in England, that sought to capitalize on discovering gold in the New World, much like the Spanish Conquistadors did in South America almost 100 years before them.
Unfortunately for those who settled in Virginia there was no gold to be found and the colony almost failed; Captain John Smith, who is credited with saving the expedition, is believed to have said “We would rather starve than farm,”after being convinced to stay after finding that there was no gold and being faced with the harrowing difficulties of survival in the New World.
Going forward, similar stories of the Native Americans helping the Pilgrims are attributed to the Jamestown settlement, and it was through farming that the settlers in Virginia found their success, in the cash crop known as Tobacco, which had already been widely used among the Natives, but it was new to those back in Europe and sold like wildfire, which served to help remedy the absence of gold.
But the colony still faced a big problem with labor, the indentured servant program of European laborers was dwindling as the average survival rate was 1-year or less, so a contract of 7-years of servitude before being granted land and freedom in the New World became less and less appealing to potential migrant European workers.
Unable and unwilling to get the Natives to do their bidding as Native/Settler relations deteriorated in this area with a series of heinous conflicts, betrayals and massacres at the hands of both sides, such as Native Ambushes and deceitfully proposed ‘peace parlays’ by colonists in which they poisoned and assassinated tribal leadership in order to throw their Native American enemies into disorganization and disarray… the Virginia Company looked to the Royal African Company, another European business firm which did plenty of business sending African slaves to the tropical islands of South America earlier (thanks to the endeavors of Columbus and others), as beholden to the solution of their problem, and so they brokered a partnership, that sent thousands of African Slaves to North America to work the tobacco fields, and saved the financial-venture from eventual failure.
The English who settled North America were not unlike the Spaniards who settled South America before them, or the Frenchmen who settled even further North in what is now known today as Canada. All of the Europeans who came to America came under the prospect of gold and riches, and because of how the rest of the historical relationship with the Natives would dissolve or play out, plunder; as to the victor go the spoils, and so, as Winston Churchill so eloquently put it: “History is written by the victors.”
The short and sweet fairy-tales surrounding the settlement of America not only serves to erase their own vile nature, but they completely omit the hundreds of years of atrocities that occurred after the events attributed to Thanksgiving. As the further domination of the Native American peoples continued, all under a supposed Divine Right or Providence (if you ever wondered where the city of Providence got its name), fashioning the eradication and subjugation of Native Americans under the pretext of God’s natural order.
Over the course of the next few hundred years the Native American People would be caught up in the affairs of Europeans with harsh consequence; From the being caught in the crossfire of the French-Indian War and the Revolutionary War in the 18th-century (wars in which Native Tribes were heavily involved in- both of which ended in peace treaties that heavily excluded them), to suffering the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, and being continually persecuted and subjugated in the American-Indian Wars as the United States’ expanded Westward in their continued Manifest Destiny of the 19th-century — in a long drawn-out and complex history that is broadly downplayed and minimized in the horrific romanticism’s of “Cowboys and Indians” today.
The dehumanization of the Native Americans is put most heinously blunt in the words of American soldier and businessman, William T. Sherman, after the Civil War, as he spoke in reference to the subjugation of Native American tribes willing to embrace farming and settling on ‘reservations’, and the eradication of those Native Americans reluctant to change their nomadic lifestyle — during the United States’ annexation of the rest of the American territories during the Western Expansion en route to California:
“These men flocked to the plains, and were rather stimulated than retarded by the danger of an Indian war. This was another potent agency in producing the result we enjoy to-day, in having in so short a time replaced the wild buffaloes by more numerous herds of tame cattle, and by substituting for the useless Indians the intelligent owners of productive farms and cattle-ranches.”
The Imperialist colonialism that transpired in South to North America is one of the most purposefully misunderstood and misrepresented “blanks” in human history. Even to describe the original inhabitants of the New World as “Indians” is odd, confusing and historically inappropriate; the most accurate descriptor of these people would be “Americans”, but as we know, that would run counterproductive to future European interests in the region.
Anthropologists, scholars and archaeologists today not only have to navigate the already pressing difficulties of their profession in revealing the history of these ancient Native American cultures, but also, nearly 500 years of European settlers actively working against their aims, disguising one of the greatest genocides ever carried out, dehumanizing its victims, and dismissing their history (half of the history of the prolific ancient civilizations in the world!) as nothing more than the triflings of “incurable vicious savages- waiting for millennia -for Christian instruction,” as the first Conquistadors had described them.
Missing the Point
The onus of change may rest upon re-purposing the celebration of Columbus Day, but there is no better day more suited to be a celebration of “Indigenous People” than a day that is quite literally a celebration of a half-truth of Imperialism in the name of “giving thanks.”
The movement for a “Indigenous People’s Day” is not about demonizing historical figures or holidays, or that we should be Christopher Columbus Day sorry, or Thanksgiving Day sorry, for the atrocities of Imperialist Colonialism. For, wrapping a day in some misplaced and useless shroud of ‘shame’, ‘guilt’ and/or ‘remorse’ is not truly what Indigenous People’s Day should be all about, and is a sentiment that only creates division, and causes an aversion to the topic.
While the vast majority of the current population in the United States are descendants of Colonialists of a bygone age, and they recognize the faults of their ancestor’s times — Indigenous People’s Day is not about them, it’s about ‘Indigenous’ peoples; the peoples who crossed the Bering land-bridge, discovering America nearly 16,000 years before Christopher Columbus ever set sail; a people who played a significant (and often overlooked) role throughout our history, making our country what it is today… it’s about honoring the ‘aboriginal’ Americans in a form of long overdue respect and recognition… and who better to give “thanks to” than the original founders of this great land we now call home.
