The OTHER side of (historical) Thanksgiving

[Randy W]

A couple of articles from the Scientific American and Smithsonian that you may find of interest

 

Thanksgiving and the Slanderous Myth of the Savage Savage

 

Many prominent scientists now deride depictions of pre-state people as peaceful. “Contra leftist anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage,” psychologist Steven Pinker wrote in 2007, “quantitative body counts—such as the proportion of prehistoric skeletons with ax marks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men—suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.” According to Pinker, the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes “got it right” when he called pre-state life a “war of all against all.”

 

. . .

 

Referring specifically to the pre-Colombian New World, Keeley asserted, “The dogs of war were seldom on a leash.” Popular culture has amplified these scientific claims. In the 2007 HBO docudrama Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Chief Sitting Bull complains to a U.S. Army colonel about whites’ violent treatment of the Indians. The colonel retorts, “You were killing each other for hundreds of moons before the first white stepped foot on this continent.”

 

Yes, Native Americans waged war before Europeans showed up. The evidence is especially strong in the American Southwest, where archaeologists have found numerous skeletons with projectile points embedded in them and other marks of violence; war seems to have surged during periods of drought. But as I have asserted in my book The End of War and on this site, Pinker and other Hobbesians have greatly exaggerated the extent of warfare among early humans. They have replaced the myth of the noble savage with the myth of the savage savage.

 

. . .

 

The good vibes of that 1621 feast soon dissipated. As more English settlers arrived in New England, they seized more and more land from the Wampanoag and other tribes, who eventually resisted with violence—in vain. We all know how this story ended. “The Indian population of 10 million that lived north of Mexico when Columbus came would ultimately be reduced to less than a million,” Zinn wrote.

 

The Arawak and Wampanoag were kind to us—and by us I mean people of European descent. We showed our thanks by sickening, subjugating and slaughtering them. And we have the gall to call them more savage than us.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

The 17th-Century English Who Settled in the Southern U.S. Had Very Little to be Thankful For Indentured servants, these immigrants suffered through malnutrition and horrible conditions upon arriving in America

“Since I came out of the ship, I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is, water gruel).”

 

And don’t imagine for a second that those peas Frethorne was gobbling down were of the lovely, tender green garden variety dotted with butter. No, in the 1620s, Frethorne and his friends would have subsisted on a grey field pea resembling a lentil.

 

“As for deer or venison,” Frethorne wrote , “I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef.”

 

Frethorne’s letter is a rare surviving document reflecting the circumstances of the majority of English colonists who came to North America in the 17th century. The New England Puritans, after all, comprised only 15 to 20 percent of early English colonial migration.

 

 

[tsap seui]

Thanks for your country, Indians.

 

As black actor Ron O'neal told a white actor in the 1972 movie Superfly...."and if you think you are going to double cross me or just kill me to get away with this; if I should die, I have hired the most ruthless, despicable killers ever known to exist...white men.....to hunt you down.

 

I have always been an avid reader. In the third grade my passion was to go to the school library, and read about the Indians. Once, in Mrs. Berry's (the only teacher in grade school whose name I remember) as she was telling us what horrible savages the Indians were, I couldn't contain myself. I raised my little hand and said, "Mrs. Berry, from what I am reading in the library books, it is the white man who was the savage."

 

Ah....that didn't go over too well. After I got my face slapped, my desk, with me in it, got drug out into the hallway...for the rest of that day, and all of the next.

 

Looking back, I can see that was my introduction to the lies and propaganda of America. While I feel my heart was in the right place and I am proud of my patriotism to America insofar as to volunteer to join the Army, and to volunteer to go to Vietnam....I can't even bring myself to say the rest....

 

Happy Thanksgiving, thanks for your country, Indians.

 

tsap seui

[Randy W]

from more recent Thanksgiving history via an American Experience

Howard Hughes (1905-1976)

 

Quote

 

On Thanksgiving Day in 1966, Howard Hughes, one of the wealthiest men in the world, arrived in North Las Vegas via a private train. He was placed on a stretcher, put into a van, and ushered to the Desert Inn on the Strip, near where he had lived in 1954. His friend, Hank Greenspun, had reserved the top two floors of the hotel's penthouse suites for Hughes and his entourage of Mormon assistants, lawyers and Robert Maheu, his chief of security. For four years, Hughes remained in the city, not once leaving the confines of his suite. In those four years, Hughes would become Nevada's largest private employer, largest casino owner, largest property owner and largest mining claims owner. More importantly to Las Vegans, Hughes' presence would help to soften the image of Las Vegas in the eyes of the general American public, making way for the city's corporate, mainstream era.

 . . .

Tormented
By the time Hughes arrived in Las Vegas in 1966, he had been in isolation for eight years. Tormented by his narcotics addiction and personal demons, Hughes had become notoriously secluded. The only public photos released were from years earlier. He was emaciated; at more than six feet tall he weighed between 115 and 120 pounds. His uncut fingernails spiraled and his long gray hair hung to his shoulders. Despite his obsession with germs, not once did he allow the Desert Inn's housekeepers to clean his room. He remained in his 250 square foot bedroom, mostly naked, for four years, negotiating purchases and business deals with the curtains drawn and windows and doors sealed shut with tape.

Buying up the Strip
Hughes was allowed to stay until 1967, when the Desert Inn's co-owner Moe Dalitz made it clear to Hughes that he needed to move out of the hotel, as his entourage was occupying valuable rooms. Instead, Hughes opted to buy the Desert Inn for $6.2 million in cash and $7 million in loans. When Hughes refused to appear in public to apply for a gaming license, Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt helped him to obtain the license by pleading on his behalf. State officials complied with Laxalt's request, realizing that Hughes' wealth, fame and good name would benefit Nevada. Soon, the Nevada legislature passed the Corporate Gaming Act, paving the way for later corporations to bypass the financial background checks required to own casinos.

A Monopoly on Las Vegas
When Hughes became aware of the profit potential of the Desert Inn, he was determined to own as many Las Vegas resorts as he could. Maheu recalls Hughes asking, "How many more of these toys are available?" Hughes bought the Frontier, the Sands, the Castaways, the Landmark, the Silver Slipper, North Las Vegas Airport, Alamo Airways, and thousands of acres of undeveloped land. In one year alone, Hughes spent more than $65 million, an average of more than $178,000 per day. Hughes finally stopped when, in 1968, he tried to buy the Stardust. At the time, Hughes had control of one third of the revenue earned by all the casinos on the Strip, and the United States Justice Department issued a monopoly lawsuit against Hughes.

Losing Money and Interest
While Hughes was on his buying spree, Las Vegas politicians hawked Hughes as a force driving mobsters out of the city. Americans, who viewed Hughes as a national hero, began to see Las Vegas in a different light. But neither Hughes nor anyone in his organization knew how to run a casino. As a result, many of the previous employees of the casinos, middle managers and former "Miami hotel men" who had Syndicate ties, kept their jobs. And, they continued to skim both the IRS and now Hughes. As a result, Hughes lost enormous amounts of money. He realized the extent of the skim in the summer of 1970, when he was informed that, in less than four years, some $50 million had been skimmed off of his profits. In the first six months of 1970 alone, Hughes had lost $6.8 million.