Ran across this on FB.....

I saw a lot of Native American pages responding to their take and feelings on Thanksgiving. They were telling the REAL history of the "holiday" (nothin' wrong with that ). This was the response from one of the pages....enjoy!:

PLEASE READ:

Let's not turn another holiday into grounds for negativity and bashing. I have seen a lot of posts today about Native Americans and Pilgrims, and I can say there is a great deal of miseducation here. These stories are much like people believing that the medieval scholars thought the Earth was flat. It's untrue. A popular myth, even taught in schools.

The pilgrims in plymouth, were not the first Europeans colonizing the U.S. The pilgrims were a rag tag bunch of religious radicals who were persecuted for their protestant path. Though this group only made up a portion of the ships passengers. There were about 100 people on the Mayflower. Many worked or were indentured servants, and not pilgrims at all, like my ancestors. The first year the Mayflower band faced a particularly grueling winter which killed 50% of their party. The Wampanoag tribe was intstrumental in teaching the English how to survive the brutal weather, and later how

to sew and harvest crops. Miles Standish, military advisor of the new feeble colony formed a lasting friendship with Squanto and his tribe which lasted for 50 years.

A "thanksgiving" is a religious ceremony, and 1621 was certainly not the first. Pilgrims reject all church holidays and instead celebrate days of fasting and days of giving thanks. When a blessing is recieved, a day of Thanksgiving is declared. This particular day of thanks was to commemorate the blessing of the natives, and the bountiful harvest with the hope to survive the winter. It is likely that this also coincided with the Wampanoag's harvest traditions.

Yes it is true, the English unknowingly brought smallpox into villages when they distributed blankets, a gesture of kindness. The trouble for the Wampanoag's began several years later, when the colonies began to grow, and more ships, brought more settlers, and missionaries.

I will say something taboo. I am white, I am caucasian, and I am proud. I am not responsible for the stereotypes of my race, and neither should I be ashamed of my heritage. I will not be labeled by the color of my skin, and will not take kindly to my ancestors being villified. Let us STOP demonizing one, to romanticize the other. Scores by the thousands of innocent people were slaughtered by Native Americans in my homestate. Natives fighting natives, natives torturing and killing children. WE ARE ALL PEOPLE. Land is not to be owned. When it is, there it is that men kill for power, no matter the color of their skin, or their geography. If I do not belong in America, and must retreat to the european North, than so too must the native Americans return to Asia. And eventually will we all find ourselves in Africa once again. We are brothers and sisters. Choosing sides propels fighting and hatred to sprial on infinitely. Let us forgive. Let us see good. Let us choose to see tiny moments of beauty, and tenderness, and love, in the midst of a world gone mad.