400th anniversary

[sharksrog]

Yesterday was the 400th anniversary of what may have been the original Thanksgiving Day, which occurred in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. The pilgrims celebrated it with the Wampanoag Indians, who the previous year had helped the pilgrims through a winter of scarcity.

Sadly, the Wampanoags' celebration isn't called Thanksgiving Day, but rather the Day of Mourning. The Wampanoags now have less than half a percent of their original land. Thanksgiving was a wonderful day, but we repaid the Indians by getting them sick with diseases from Europe, then killing many of them, then taking away their country.

Anyone here think we were anywhere close to being fair to the Native Americans?

As I have mentioned, I think we're still the best country in the world, but the U.S. doesn't have a beautiful history. Slavery was bad enough, but what we did to the Native Americans was even worse.

[Islandboagie]

"From 1615 to 1619, the Wampanoag suffered an epidemic, long suspected to be smallpox. Modern research, however, has suggested that it may have been leptospirosis, a bacterial infection which can develop into Weil's syndrome."

How does one contract Leptospirosis you ask? It's spread by rodents, Rog. Not a European disease spread intentionally by colonists.

The lack of understanding back then may have contributed to the fracture of relations between the colonists and the natives, which in turn started a war.

I'm glad science and facts have made us smarter 400 years later...well, at least some of us.

[sharksrog]

Again, Matt, good stuff, but it didn't address what I posted.

I don't think there is much question that Europeans spread infectious diseases to the American Indians (although perhaps the 1615 to 1619 epidemic was indeed leptospirosis). Note that the original Thanksgiving celebration between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag took place in 1621, so it doesn't appear the Wampanoag held the 1615 to 1619 epidemic against the pilgrims.

Don't you find it both sad and unfair that the Wampanoag now have less than one-half of one percent of their original land? Don't you think it is horrible what the white man did to the Indians? Didn't we basically steal their country?

[sharksrog]

By the way, Matt, who said the colonists INTENTIONALLY spread European diseases? I'm virtually certain they didn't. I doubt they even knew they were spreading them. But since the diseases came from a different continent, the Indians had had no chance to develop an immunity, and we've seen what can happen when a disease spreads against little or no immunity.

As for leptospirosis, "According to the hypothesis, infected ship rats landed in the New World and excreted leptospira, infecting raccoons, mink, and muskrats whose urine further contaminated any standing fresh water."

I don't think American have intentionally infected Native Americans, but I do think we intentionally killed off a lot of them with weapons. Hey, wars happen. I'm not saying the American Indians were completely innocent. I don't truly know.

But is there doubt that we stole their country from them? Isn't it sad that the celebration we call "Thanksgiving" is called "The Day of Mourning" by the Wampanoag who were on the other side of the celebration?

This isn't a political issue, Matt. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump. But don't you think it's horrible that we stole this country from the American Indians? Slavery was horrible too, but I don't think it was as bad.

[sharksrog]

Isn't it something that Abe Lincoln, the greatest Republican of all time, fostered the abolition of slavery, but now many members of Donald Trump's base are white supremacists?

NOW I'm talking about Trump, but other than his attempting to take away some acreage that had been set aside for the Wampanoags by Obama, I don't think he had anything to do with the slaughter of the American Indians. And Trump probably tried to take the land back not so much because he cared one way or the other if the Indians had it, but because he wanted to undo anything he could that was created by Obama.

Of course it's understandable why he would oppose Obama. The 44th president wasn't even born in the United States. Or so Trump falsely claimed. Of course Trump ALSO falsely claimed four times within a year that his father was born in Germany. Fred Trump was born in New York, which apparently few people realize is part of Germany.

Donald seems to have trouble with where people were born. He also seems to have a severe problem with telling the truth.


abcnews.go.com/Politics/legacy-lies-trump-weaponized-mistruths-presidency/story?id=75335019

[Islandboagie]

I don't know, Rog. They migrated here too at one time, so I don't think it's any one people's land. I was born here, I don't think this land is any more mine than it is someone who was just granted citizenship here yesterday. America is a melting pot of people that come here for freedom and the American dream, in large part the native Americans have decided not to become a part of that melting pot. They've also taken up arms against us in multiple wars, which certainly didn't help their cause. In my opinion they sealed their own fate by not wanting to share. Screw 'em.

[sharksrog]

The ancestors of the American Indians arrived in North America over 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, according to Wikipedia.

I'm not saying that you or I am any less American than the Indians. But we did steal their country. The Wampanoag now has less than 1/2 of one percent of the land they had originally.


www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8618261/america-maps-truths

www.history.com/news/native-americans-genocide-united-states


I'm not saying you or I did anything wrong here. But our ancestors stole our country from the Indians. It's a horribly sad fact.