Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: The True First Thanksgiving

This is also for Thanksgiving. My husband said it best when Ron shared this piece and added: “Not quite the Norman Rockwell image we were taught. We can be thankful for finally starting, as a society, to awaken to our historical truth, however difficult, as well as what should really be a daily gratitude practice.” — Molly

The TRUE first Thanksgiving: "Anglo settlers brutally attacked and destroyed unarmed Indigenous women, children, and old people, using unlimited violence in unrelenting attacks…. The first Jamestown settlers lacked a supply line and proved unable or unwilling to grow crops or hunt for their own sustenance. Jamestown military leader John Smith threatened to kill all the women and children if the Powhatan leaders would not feed and clothe the settlers as well as provide them with land and labor." 

 

— Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 

Excerpted from An Indigenous Peoples' History

of the United States