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Vermont Office of Racial Equity derides the ‘myth of Thanksgiving,’ calls its ‘Day of Mourning for Indigeneous People’
By Michael Bielawski
The traditional Thanksgiving story in inaccurate and the real Thanksgiving is linked to genocide, according to information published by the Vermont Office of Racial Equity.
A “Day of mourning”?
The message states, “Day of mourning for Indigenous people in the U.S…..Americans are widely taught that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.”
It then disputes this notion.
“The history is inaccurate and has generated numerous counter-observances over the years to honor the Indigenous people who were the ancestral stewards in the North American land before European contact and the genocide that resulted from it,” it states.
The message appears to also be about the Office of Racial Equity’s online cultural calendar.
350 Vermont
They are not the only group in Vermont that seems not too fond of Thanksgiving. Another entity, the climate-activist-oriented non-profit 350 Vermont, also recently posted about an event on X that also challenges its narrative, it took place on Nov. 17. It states, “Join us for ‘Rethinking Thanksgiving: Dismantling Colonial Myths, Uplifting Indigenous Rights and Honoring Mother Earth.”
They also get into their social justice work on their website. It states, “We must work to address how privilege and oppression show up in our organization as well as in the wider world.”
Columbus’s dramatic efforts forgotten?
In 2019, Vermont renamed the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day, previously known as Columbus Day. While this holiday is to celebrate the heritage of Native peoples, it disregards the dramatic efforts of 15th-century wooden ships to sail across the Atlantic to uncertain lands.
Numerous examples of ‘Thanksgiving’ feasts in history
James W. Baker, the senior historian at Plimoth Plantation, disputes the notion that there ever was a settled single event known as the first formal Thanksgiving.
Baker wrote for the History Channel, “The reason that we have so many myths associated with Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition. It doesn’t originate in any one event. It is based on the New England Puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of England and New England and maybe other ideas like commemorating the pilgrims. All of these have been gathered together and transformed into something different from the original parts.”
Baker highlights other similar historical events involving natives and foreigners enjoying harvest together.
“In 1565, for instance, the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé invited members of the local Timucua tribe to a dinner in St. Augustine, Florida, after holding a mass to thank God for his crew’s safe arrival,” he writes.
Another example includes, “On December 4, 1619, when 38 British settlers reached a site known as Berkeley Hundred on the banks of Virginia’s James River, they read a proclamation designating the date as “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
He continues that some believe the story of Thanksgiving ultimately originates further back in Europe when fasting and harvests were a more regular reality of survival.
First Thanksgiving a three-day event?
The Smithsonian has a historical recap of what many consider to be the original modern American version of Thanksgiving. Their story highlights the role that a native, Squanto, who eventually became a translator for the Pilgrims and the natives.
How Squanto came to know English is he was previously captured and sold into slavery in Spain. After getting close with religious monks he won his freedom, he then learned English and became a successful shipbuilder in England. Eventually, he earned money to get back to America, only he found his village abandoned due to a plague.
The site of Squanto’s village is what eventually became the famous Plymouth settlement. The article noted the first Thanksgiving may have lasted a couple of days and included nearly 100 natives.
“In the fall of 1621, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, decided to have a Plymouth harvest feast of thanksgiving and invited Massasoit, the Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Federation, to join the Pilgrims. Massasoit came with approximately 90 warriors and brought food to add to the feast, including venison, lobster, fish, wild fowl, clams, oysters, eel, corn, squash and maple syrup. Massasoit and the ninety warriors stayed in Plymouth for three days,” it states.
Not all turkeys fly
Baker’s report has tidbits about turkeys including whether they can really fly. The answer is it depends.
“Domesticated turkeys cannot fly, and their pace is limited to a slow walk. Female domestic turkeys, which are typically smaller and lighter than males, can move somewhat faster,” it says.
It continues that the domestic breed is at a disadvantage.
“Wild turkeys, on the other hand, are much smaller and more agile,” it states. “They can reach speeds of up to 20-25 miles per hour on the ground and fly for short distances at speeds approaching 55 miles per hour. They also have better eyesight and hearing than their domestic counterparts.”
Vermont’s turkeys are everyone’s turkeys?
Also, many turkeys that folks throughout the northeast eat for Thanksgiving ultimately originate from Vermont’s wild turkey population, according to a presser by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Holiday
Scew ’em not in my house
Too bad there isn’t a Department of Government Efficiency here in Vermont. The Office of Racial Equality would be the first to go. We could use the funds saved to fix our roads and do something with a value to all Vermonters. Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you had a wonderful Columbus Day.
Vermont’s “office of racial equality” is treading on thin constitutional ice with their assertions-
Vermont Constitution, Chapter 1 Articles 1 and 3 clearly keep the state and it’s agencies out of the Thanksgiving arguments stated in the “office of racial equity” screenshot shown above. For those DEI/wokesters that use DEI as a religion- and an income stream-perhaps some mental health counseling would make their lives easier.
Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Easter etc. and FU Liberals! Enjoy the next four years of MAGA🇺🇸
Right On Brother..
Vermont is slowly becoming a third world country of its own while the rest of America voted to end this insanity of wokeness.
What’s next Christmas, because Santa Clause is transgender and is Mrs. Clause is a lesbian and prefers the other Mrs. Clause. Rudolph is Gay and prefers Blitzen over his long standing love for Clarice. And now Christmas has been canceled because of a Gay Pride Parade in Burlington!!
So were they there to witness their lies?
As a Martian reading this story, it seems one group dislikes anything to do with feeling happy for even one day, and would like to require, by law, that everyone else be as miserable, also.
Turkey is now endangered. You now must eat a crow. Enjoy Thanksgiving.
Ya know what? Our ancestors came here, fought the indigenous people, took their land, raised the British flag. Then fought Britain, Spain and a few others and raised the American Flag.
Whether these criminally insane wack-job liberals agree or not is irrelevant and shall have NO bearing whatsoever on our established Holidays. It’s our country, we fought for it, we won, we own it, we wrote the history PERIOD
You speak as if History is real. Of course it IS. Not always nice. NEVER 2 dimensional. These early settlers weren’t Puritans. This group “co-existed”, got along, with those who were already here. Those who were already here were continuously fighting and massacring each other.
“History is not a nice place.”
Are we fed up yet? Seems we’re close.
Ready for MVGA?
Make Vermont Great Again?
Survey says…
YESSSSS!
I’ll have a slice of pumpkin pie with that!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE
Columbus Day! Columbus Day! Columbus Day! I will say it until it finally sinks in. Same for Thanksgiving! I move that we cancel Cancel Culture.
We have to vote more activists out! They are NOT our Representatives! They DO NOT serve The People of Vermont!
If these critics would cease from putting down America and always complaining about bad things that were done—and pronouncing our national identity based on those negatives—they might be able to enjoy life and people and the innumerable blessings and liberty we have in our beautiful country. They might be able to appreciate
our wonderful holidays, like Thanksgiving, and be…thankful. Taking the time to be thankful for what one has completely changes one’s perspective.
They don’t REALLY CARE. That is, the ringleaders. Their agendas hide in plain sight. Marxism is quite real.
Woke is dead.. Let’s make sure it’s gone for good. Fight this BS every time it rears its ugly head..
Still celebrate Columbus Day and will always celebrate Thanksgiving! Not taking it away!!
The Pilgrims had a treaty with the Wampanoag tribe for over 50 years, with the peace treaty being established in March 1621 and lasting until after the death of Wampanoag Chief Massasoit in 1661; making it one of the longest-lasting treaties between European settlers and Native Americans that remained unbroken throughout the lives of its signatories. In 1621 the Wampanoag and the and the Pilgrim shared a harvest feast with their new Native American friends. Had it not been for the Wampanoag, the pilgrims probably would not have survived. As it was that first winter 1620 /1621 almost 1/2 of the Pilgrims died.
My son brought home a discarded book from the HS library shelves. It was about our ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, who was the first to take in Squanto and Samoset into their home and bridged the 50 year peaceful trade accords you describe. The Pilgrims learned much from these two and other Native Americans that helped them survive. I hope we will learn from them too and will continue to celebrate together a day of thanksgiving to the Lord.
Squanto was a Christian who learned English and lived among privileged Christian citizens in Spain and England before returning to the Plymouth area of his childhood where the slave trade took him to Africa before being sold to the church in Spain and then into England.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans today are descended from the Pilgrims and the Native Americans who attended the first Thanksgiving. They gave thanks. Liberal Vermont haters need to chill.
Without a fight, they won’t.
Why should celebrating Thanksgiving mean that I don’t care about Native Americans? In fact the reverse is true. It’s a day to think about them and be grateful. And many of them appreciated the opportunity to become Christians!
THANKSGIVING
By Ellin Anderson
Thanksgiving morn, we heard the geese
Traverse November skies.
They called like horns through snowy fleece
And seemed to say, “Arise,
“Arise, and cherish your new land,
And all you have to share,
With food and friends on every hand,
In Christ’s eternal care.”
We brought the Holy Word of God
In strong and simple form.
As cramped as sweet-peas in a pod,
We sailed through swell and storm,
Only to find the land unkind,
And wanting Heaven’s breath
As it enlivened Adam’s mind
To more than earthly death.
“Take of our mother’s body now —
The Earth, and Father Sky
Shall smile on you, and not allow
Such gentle souls to die.”
These words you said, and gave your store
From field, and tree, and stream;
The robes you wore, the food you bore
Showed colors of a dream.
Oh, let God’s glory comfort you,
Our angels in disguise,
With feathers in your hair, and true
Love’s fire in your eyes.
And we in turn shall try to look
At wisdom not our own,
From nature’s book, where tree and brook
Lead on to Heaven’s throne.
That is a beautiful poem, Ellin. Thank you for sharing your gift with us to grace the table of our hearts with another facet of the incomparable beauty and wonders of God’s love and goodness. Truly so many reasons to be thankful!
The kooky Vermont Office Equity only speaks for a few humbug radicals. They can go make revengeful pronouncements full of bile all they like. Many Vermonters ignore them in their hearts and minds.
So, the “Vermont Office of Racial Equity,” believes that ‘Thanksgiving’ is a made up holiday; like what, ‘Giving Tuesday,’ ‘DEI Thursday,’ ‘Black Friday,’ and ‘Kwanzaa?
(Didn’t know Vermont had an ORE , because we certainly don’t need one. Just another socialist club for progressive whack jobs…)