Thanks for the Mythologies 1
A few days ago, I was unlucky enough to catch about two minutes of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, the scene in which the colonists and the Indians are carrying their foodstuffs to the feast.
What a charming scene.
What is missing from the American myth of the first Thanksgiving. (Which actually took place in Virginia even before the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth Bay, having missed their intended destination, Virginia, by some 800 miles. Probably just as well: in those days, Virginians had little patience with stern absolutists determined to impose their religion on others. These days folks like that get elected attorney-general, but I digress . . . .)
. . . anyhoo, what is missing is any recognition that, for the next three centuries, the colonists and their descendants occupied themselves with assiduously attempting to swindle, pillage, expel, and exterminate American Indians.
Shaun Mullen also seems to have some mixed feelings, not so much about then as about now.
November 25, 2010 at 5:43 pm
The Thanksgiving in Virginia was the first “English” Thanksgiving in America. The first Thanksgiving in American (other than any thanksgivings that may have been offered by native Americans) occurred on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida. 600 settlers landed on the Florida peninsula and immediately gave thanks to God for surviving their treacherous journey. Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his crew held a mass and feast in what would be known as the La Florida colony.