This week historians across the blogosphere have been busy posting the traditional Thanksgiving holiday proclamations of presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. These decrees have become the official “go-to posts” for this week, so I have decided to take another angle…  

Historically speaking, Thanksgiving is a unique holiday as perhaps no other celebration on the American calendar is remembered more inaccurately than it. Storybook visions of the early Pilgrims and Native Americans breaking bread together around a giant cornucopia have been implanted into the minds of children for decades. As adults, we eventually discover that this is propaganda, and that the Indians were not all that welcome at the Puritan’s table. The harsh reality is that Thanksgiving, and most early settler’s history for that matter, is viewed very differently by the Native Americans. In fact, the irony of quoting George Washington’s inspirational decree is that he is accused of ordering atrocities against the very people who we like to think liked us.

According to A Thousand Lies: The Native American (compiled by Dee Finney): In 1779, George Washington instructed Major General John Sullivan to attack the Iroquois people. Washington stated, “lay waste all the settlements around...that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed”. In the course of the carnage and annihilation of Indian people, Washington also instructed his general not “listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is affected”. (Stannard, David. AMERICAN HOLOCAUST. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 118-121.)

In 1783, Washington’s anti-Indian sentiments were apparent in his comparisons of Indians with wolves: “Both being beast of prey, tho’ they differ in shape”, he said. Washington preferred buying Indians’ land rather than driving them off it because he stated that it was like driving “wild beasts” from the forest. His policies of extermination were also realized in his troop’s behaviors following a defeat. Soldiers are rumored to have skinned the bodies of Iroquois warriors “from the hips downward to make boot tops or leggings.” Indians who survived the attacks later re-named the nation’s first president as “Town Destroyer.” Approximately 28 of 30 Seneca towns had been destroyed within a five year period. (Ibid)

Washington and his friend Henry Knox were also the first to propose the cultural transformation of Indians, referred to as the “Americanization of Native Americans.” In doing so they formulated a policy to quote: “encourage the civilizing process of savage peoples.” This movement led to an assimilation effort by the United States Government to transform Native American culture to European-American culture between the years of 1790–1920.

Like much of our nation’s history, Thanksgiving means many different things to many different people. I prefer to look at the holiday as an opportunity for spending time with our families while reflecting on our blessings with gratitude. At the same time, I also acknowledge that historically speaking, it is a mythical representation of a reprehensible period of American history, and means something entirely different to our Native American neighbors.