LJ Idol - Thanksgiving

[aggienaut]

   "The Pilgrims" arrived in North America in December of 1620. What they found in the area they landed was abandoned Indian villages, some with unburied skeletons of the dead lying among the weeds --due to diseases introduced by earlier settlers,-- and a very hostile reception from those Indians still alive. It would seem the last European to come by (one of John Smith's lieutenants, Thomas Hunt) had decided it would be a jolly undertaking to capture some Indians to sell into slavery in Europe, and had gratuitously killed a number of others.
   Thomas Hunt had intended to sell the Indians for £20 a piece in Spain, but apparently some friars in Europe managed to interdict this plan, and one of the indians, known as Squanto, was able to make his way back to North America, and ended up at the Pilgrim's Plymouth Colony as a translater.

   In 1621 the Pilgrims celebrated what is regarded as "the first thanksgiving" in North America (there had already been a long tradition both in the New World and Europe for thanks giving feasts though). They somehow convinced some local Indians to attend.

   In 1622 Indians were again invited to a feast*. Their share of the liquor was poisoned and 200 Indians died. A further fifty were finished off by hand.
   Then pumpkin pie was probably eaten, though I doubt they had whipped cream.**

* Admittedly this occurred in Jamestown, some 600 miles South.

** Yeah I looked up the history of whipped cream, sounds like it would need to be colder than they could probably make it in order to whip properly

I don't usually attend Thanksgiving wearing arms and armour, but then again, I didn't just barely decide not to kill the guests THIS year

   Thankyou for tuning in to another Emo-Snal Classic Historical Downer! ;D
   Notwithstanding, I am looking forward to devouring some turkey/stuffing/pumpkin pie until I go into a food coma.


   And in other news, tomorrow I fly up to Portland for the weekend, check into the tallship Lady Washington on Sunday, and Monday set sail! Will be sailing for at least two weeks. Internet access may be spotty.

Comments

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

My favorite text book* for the ugly truths of colonization is American Colonies by Alan Taylor (Penguin, 2001). It's very bluntly written.


*Which went with my favorite U.S. History class - it was taught by a doctorate out of Holland, so nothing was candy-coated in the traditional Manifest Destiny/Master Narrative that usually colours such courses when taught by Americans. It was fantastic!

One of the most stunning things I learned in that course was that Puritans actually had back-alley abortions within two to three generations of the original landing in New England. There's a case in Massachusetts where the local quack out of Rhode Island performed an abortion on a wealthy girl who was knocked up by a wealthy boy, who talked her into the abortion so he could freely marry someone else. She did it, and died for it - the quack punctured her uterine wall and she bled to death before the night was out. There was a cover-up in the community, and the wealthy boy became a very prestigious man. Both families remained friends.

I would kill to find this article again. It's buried somewhere in my mass of stuff I kept after I graduated university, but it's like going through an Archive to find it. :(

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

A particularly scandalous discovery I made was that the much beloved George Washington (A) was rather bloodthirsty, (B) STARTED the French & Indian War, (C) was a big fan of the "pre-emptive strikes"; as I wrote about here.

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on old Mr. Wooden Teeth! He and his "Sons of Liberty" friends had the best racket going back then - claim a land stake, let some poor farmer and his family think they were settling new frontier land, and then come along two years later after all the hard work of clear-cutting, planting and building had been done, then demanded heavy rents or eviction of these people, who went further West and had this done to them again. The British were actually trying to stop this practice as unlawful (unless they got a share, which our Founding Fathers were not so keen on giving up - bitching about proper representation in Parliament instead). They found out about it during the Seven Years War. The ability to keep doing this to people was part of why the Revolution was fought. It was too lucrative of a practice to abandon without a fight.