My Spas

Thanksgiving Day

Every year in America, the fourth Thursday of November will be the holiday of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of the most famous food-based traditional festivals on the planet, allowing its participants to consume roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Some places even hold grand parades, while citizens who work far away return home to reunite with their families. Not only in Canada and the United States partake in the festivities, but also in Egypt, Greece celebrates their own distinct celebration of Thanksgiving. To understand the origin of Thanksgiving, the historical background should be explored beyond merely the way society portrays it. To be blunt, it is time to explore the origin of the famous (or infamous) holiday of Thanksgiving

Pilgrim is a term to describe the Puritans who had escaped the persecution of the English Church, who later arrived near Plymouth, Massachusetts in North America on the ship "Mayflower" in 1620. In the winter of the same year, the 102 pilgrims suffered severe cold and hunger. At the end of the winter, only half of the people survived. Soon after, helped by the Native American tribes, these outsiders began to learn skills such as hunting, farming, and fishing. In November of 1621, pilgrims celebrated their success and harvest, inviting the Natives to celebrate this day of Thanksgiving together. The purpose was to thank God for the harvest, and to express their gratitude for God's care. They held a grand celebration, and made the turkey they had hunted, as well as the corn, pumpkin, sweet potato, and other fruit they had harvested into delicious dishes to entertain the Native Indians who helped them. All these stories of fairy tales are full of satisfaction and hope.

After reading these wonderful stories, does Thanksgiving still appear to have a happy and delightful connotation? Has such a story fell in line with what the colonists did in the new world of America in history? Yes, the real history is not like this fairy tale; In fact, this is a cruel and bloody tragedy between the European colonists and Native Americans.

In 1620, when British pilgrims went to the new world, they, indeed, experienced hunger and cold, and finally got the help and support of the aborigines. They went from nothing to prosperity and harvest, and life began to become satisfactory. However, the news of these pilgrims' heavenly life in the new world returned to Britain. After hearing the news, a new group of colonists came to North America with their imagination of a new life. Unlike those first pilgrims to North America, the new settlers captured young Native Americans as slaves and took all women and children. Local tribes fell one after another. In 1637, the bloody and terrible “Pequot War” took place. The Pequot tribe suffered a devastating massacre. The Pequots were asked to come out of their shelters, and those who came out were either shot to death or killed with random sticks; Those who did not come out, were consequently burned alive in their homes. More inhumanely, the governor of the Massachusetts colony announced, "A Day of Thanksgiving", the day after, to celebrate the massacre of 700 unarmed civilians of the Pequot tribe. After that massacre, the colonists slaughtered one village after another and set up bonuses for the heads of the murdered Natives. In addition to holding a grand Thanksgiving dinner after each massacre, there are even records revealing that the colonists hung the cut-off Native heads on the fence or kicked them like balls. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday during the civil war, and it was on that day that he ordered a march on the hungry Sioux (Native Americans) army.

In the long course of human history, it seems to share values with other deadly events, such as the Holocaust or Nanjing Massacre. These are all great failures in the history of human development, but at the same time, it is quite important that these "failures" made people understand the importance of respecting life and differences among humans. In the history of Thanksgiving, the colonists succeeded in obtaining the land to provide the prerequisites for their independence, which is indeed a great success; However, similarly, the bottomless slaughter is doomed to a great failure of human nature. Moreover, the attempt to cover up the truth and to tamper with and beautify the dark history is a failure of modern history education; Facing the bloody and dark history, remembering it, and preventing such tragedy from happening again are the things we can do. Therefore, if someone is celebrating Thanksgiving, please then learn about the real history and realize that behind all these "successes", there have been "failures" that are kept in mind.