OR: What are we truly thankful for anyway?
A history.
WARNING: This essay contains extremely sarcastic material which may be offensive to some...especially historians who believe everything they read in textbooks.
A few centuries back...the 15th to be exact, there was a man who decided to take a pleasure cruise. This man's name was Christopher Columbus. Now, the Europeans, hoping that he would fall off the edge of the earth and never come back (he wasn't very well liked, ya know) thought that ole Chris was insane, but wished him well, cuz people are like that. Well, Mr. Columbus, King of the Sea (as he had his crew members call him...can we say ego trip?) had this plan. He was going to sail the wrong way around the world, get to India, and become a very wealthy man.
So he sailed, and he sailed, and then he sailed some more...with his three ships...el Nino, the Pinto and the Santa Ana Winds. Eventually, he reached an island just a few (ten thousand plus) miles from India. Now Chris, being the bright man that he was, thought to himself, 'HAH! I showed those stuck up jerks!' and promptly named the area he was in the West Indies, and called the primitive people he found there Indians. Seeing what good workers these new-found friends were, he decided that they'd make great slave labour for the poor, helpless rich in Europe. And so the Saga of Thanksgiving begins.
Jumping ahead about a century, maybe two...eventually the more intelligent sailors and explorers figured out that Columbus was as dumb as everyone always thought he was, and that he'd discovered a 'New World' instead of a quicker route to get their opium. So they named this 'New World' America, since 'New Europe' seemed kinda bland. Well, the leaders of European Society (a.k.a. Kinds and Queens and the like) thought 'WOOHOO!!! More territory for us to conquer and ruin!!!' so they sent out lackeys they called 'settlers' to see who could get the most land fastest. (it's rumoured that all the Kings had a bet on this, but no proof has yet been found) So the English went, and the French went, and so did the Spaniards, each finding their own pocket of land to grab hold of. Now, they knew there were these people that already lived in America, but they also knew that none of them could speak any of the 'dignified' languages, none of them had a sense of fasion, and the idea of a proper way to relieve themselves was unheard of so, the 'settlers' were told to just ignore them, but take as much land from them as was possible. Well, the 'Indians' didn't like this too much, but thought 'Hey, everyone needs a place to put their teepee, right? Besides, they'll leave soon enough.' so they gave them a wide berth.
For some reason, the 'settlers' didn't really think ahead and realise that they were in a different part of the world, and things wouldn't jive here the way they did back home. After a few years, crops failed, people were dying, and everyone was generally miserable. The 'Indians', seeing this, decided that they might as well try to be friendly to them, since it seemed like they were just not going to go back where they came from, and they knew that it's better to try to get along with your neighbors then to fight wars with them. So, one day, they sent a few tribe members over to invite the 'settlers' to dinner. The 'settlers', thinking that something was up, but not willing to risk turning them down (after all, they were starving), agreed.
The next day, village met village and they sat down to a feast, totally prepared by the 'Indian' women...the 'settlers' brought the alcohol, thinking it would be a nice gesture, not knowing that the 'Indians' had never had alcohol, and were prone to alcoholism. So they partied the whole night thru, and became fast friends. Or so the 'Indians' thought. Little did they know, this dinner was a planning session for the 'settlers'. A way to find out the weaknesses of the 'Indians' so eventually, they could ruthlessly massacre entire tribes, force the rest into tiny plots of land they would call 'reservations', take over the rest of the land, tear down all the trees, and build strip malls. The dinner was a total success, so they decided to do it every year after that, only after a while, we forgot to invite the people who made the whole nite possible, the 'Indians.'
Or something like that...=-)
