Beginning with the Mille Lacs Indian Museum Lonetree claims that the exhibitions “present a rich, ongoing history, but it does so in a manner that avoids challenging or difficult topics, specifically, the impact of colonization” (Lonetree 35). Lonetree also claims the avoidance of hard truths of colonization is often the case in museum interpretation of native history. For Mille Lacs, there was an attempt to portray the Native population in both a historical and contemporary context, but in the end the exhibition fell short from what Lonetree deemed an effective exhibition regarding…
Judy Dow's critique of the Thanksgiving myth provides a credible examination of the holiday's complexities, grounded in her perspective as an Abenaki scholar and educator. Dow questions the necessity of teaching the Thanksgiving narrative in schools and critiques the perpetuation of stereotypes through pageants and feasts. She draws on her own heritage and expertise as an Abenaki scholar to challenge the myth of "The First Thanksgiving" and offers alternative perspectives on the holiday's origins. Dow's background as an Abenaki scholar and educator lends credibility to her analysis of the Thanksgiving narrative. Her critique is rooted in a deep understanding of indigenous perspectives and challenges the dominant narrative perpetuated in education.…
Politics, governance and leadership, play an enormous role in the day to day living of all societies, and communities all over the globe, from back in historic times to the modern world. In the book “Mayflower: a story of Courage, Community and War”, by Nathaniel Philbrick; there is a detailed account of how political events and complications contributed to the relationship between the Wampanoag people and the pilgrim settlers from Europe. The two communities engaged in both mutually beneficial and dangerous unstable relationships. These relations contributed to the changing of the entire region. For instance, the Wampanoag people provided means for the pilgrims to resettle and survive in the New England region while the pilgrim people resettled themselves as a regional power. The Pilgrim alliance with the Wampanoag people led to the emergence of a powerful political entity in politics of the tribes of New England (Philbrick 172).…
“A Native American Thanksgiving”, written by Beverly Cox and Clara Sue Kidwell, is an informational article including recipes, all relating to Native American culture. They begin this piece by dating back to the earliest known facts of “Thanksgiving” between the Pilgrims and the Indians. Cox and Kidwell set out to show the reader the real meaning behind this holiday. Pointing out that Americans only give thanks once a year, they go in depth about the Native American’s beliefs of giving appreciations. Indians would give credit and acknowledgment to the spirits of nature throughout the year in hopes for generosity in upcoming hunting and planting seasons, considering farming was an important part of Indian life. This material allows Cox and Kidwell…
The stories Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress and A Patriot’s History of the United States have a greater difference than they do similarities. Each story has a different tale of how Native Americans were treated by the Europeans. One story told of gallons of bloodshed, torture, enslavement, and overworked Indians, while the other one told of glorified Europeans here to help their fellow man. Even though, both stories had their differences; they do tell of a similar time in which explorers reach the New World and start to establish colonies. The explorers also tried to convert the Indian tribes to Christianity.…
When Europeans returned to America in the 1600's to develop permanent settlements, Native Americans reintroduced to them planting techniques and crops, such as corn and tobacco, that would revolutionize the early colonies economies and diet allowing them to grow and flourish and making them an important aspect of "American" culture (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey 15). Additionally, Native Americans shared in the celebration of the first Thanksgiving with the Plymouth pilgrims (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey 52), a holiday still important and beloved today.…
I’m inscribing this piece while sitting amongst family, on the holiday known by the US populace as “Thanksgiving”. A holiday represented in schools as a historical incidence of harmony, mutual respect, and gay allotment between Native Indians and whites, during the U.S. colonization era. In actuality, it is a grossly exaggerated, unashamed falsehood, portraying a day wherein sophisticated, blissful pilgrims shared their crops with ill-mannered, half-naked savages. This illusion is merely one in thousands of its kind, in a plethora of cock-and-bull stories being fed to the American laypeople, via historical education and promotion. Consequently, these incidences are unabashedly accepted within the populace, rather than them glancing at the cavernous information being presented in a more…
Although the first Puritan English settlers in North America might have been shocked by the Native American semi nudity and seemingly primitive customs they soon found themselves adopting some of their ways of farming and eating the colonist were at first unfamiliar with the Native Americans methods of farming and with the main crop they produced corn the Native Americans were skillful cultivators of the land planting corn in rose and growing together with beans and squash the settler soon learned to cultivate these crops which they have never come across before and adapt them to their diet Europeans as it was to the native people and undoubtedly helped send off starvation for the poor farmers during the harsh winters the turkey was a wild…
One fall day four settlers were sent to look for food for the celebrations. They heard gunshots and that got the leader hyped and they thought that the English wanted to start war. The Native Americans had realized that were only hunting for the harvest celebration. The feast last for three days all women, men, and children. They would say thanks to God for everything.…
The first Thanksgiving: what the real story tells us about loving God and learning from history / Robert Tracy McKenzie. Downers Grove, IL IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press,…
Finally George Washington made thanksgiving once a year. The Native Americans went through a lot. They got scalped Scalped is when they would take a knife and cut around the forehead. After they would pull the skin back off the head. They say that the native american were the original scalpers, when actually they were. When the edomites would scalp them all the blood cell and veins would come off with the scalp so the person would bleed to death. For each Scalp they cut off they would get paid 5 cents or more, to prove that person was dead.…
Although often viewed as inferior, savage and helpless, many historians are starting to discover the intelligence and wisdom the Indians had and shared with the colonists that came to America so long ago. As the settlers slowly began to create a new world on the already inhabited North America, they were plagued with starvation due to a severe drought in the area. Due to the dry lands and the settlers expectations to “rely on Indians for food and tribute,” (Norton 17) they were disappointed to find that the Indians were not so keen to handing out food and help to the strangers that have just come onto their land and begun to settle in such a time of severe weather and starvation. As time goes on, both the Indians and the Englishmen realize they both have what the other needs; tools from the white men and crops, land and knowledge from the Indians. As a result, the chief of Tsenacomoco, Powhatan, and colonist, Captain John Smith on an ideally peaceful, mutualistic relationship to ensure the survival of both civilizations. This agreement will leave the groups in cahoots for 100 of years leading to some disastrous scenarios and betrayals.…
It’s was her seventieth birthday and it was around the time of Thanksgiving. Everyone or what felt like everyone had gathered to celebrate seventy years of life. The the kitchen table was covered with foods, drinks, and most importantly the cake.…
America’s origin myth about the first Thanksgiving tells us the Pilgrims were the first settlers. Landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620 “they went about the work of civilizing a hostile wilderness.”…
The second floor of National Museum of the American Indian contains many interesting exhibits that tell stories of American Indians, such as the livelihood of Native Americans in the present time and the culture of American Indians. There are many items that are related to American Indians’ lives in those exhibits. However, the author of this essay is interested in The American Indian which is the name of an oil painting that has been depicted in one of those exhibits, Our Live. This oil painting was painted on linen in 1970 by Fritz Scholder who was the renowned Native American artist of the 20th century. The painting depicts an American Indian man who beautifies his long black hair with a feather and holds a pipe tomahawk in front of the yellow and brown background. Additionally, the man covers the American flag over his body.…