Native Americans Mourn Loss of Land With "Unthanksgiving" Rite

Netscape News via Drudge ^ | 11/24/2005 | AFP

[lainie]

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, United States (AFP) - A tribal chant rose from a thousands-strong prayer circle on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay as Native Americans held a sunrise "Unthanksgiving Day" ceremony.

"What we call it is Unthanksgiving," Bear Lincoln of the Wailikie Tribe told AFP as he waved burning sage to purify the area and ward off evil spirits.

"It was the saddest day for us. It was a big mistake for us to help the Pilgrims survive that first winter. They betrayed us once they got their strength."

Traditional Thanksgiving feasting in the United States is a tribute to the meal the original European Pilgrims shared with the Native Americans who helped them survive in the new land.

An estimated 3,000 people packed onto ferries that set out from Fisherman's Wharf for Alcatraz in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday, according to organizers.

A bonfire blazed at the center of a prayer circle set up on a bluff beneath the Alcatraz lighthouse. And at the base of the rock wall leading up to the ruins of the former federal prison were a pair of Indian teepees.

"Ultimately, this is their land," said Irma Pinedo, a Mexico City native who was among the Aztec dancers taking part in the ceremony. "For us, no turkey today."

Turkey, which nearly became the national bird in the United States instead of the eagle, is the main course at traditional Thanksgiving dinners.

"I take my children to this every year because I want them to understand there is another side to the story," said 41-year-old Erin Alexander, who added that the event has grown significantly since she began attending 12 years ago.

[muawiyah]

The Iriquois did get organized before the Europeans arrived. They set about organizing as many others as possible as tributary tribes. They were very successful. Disease destroyed their military power.

[fso301]

Horses, guns, and licker. That's three, I'm sure there are more.

Using a horse for bareback transport. Riding it until it goes lame and then eating it isn't part of any ferrier book I've read. Yes, they traded for guns, stole guns and scavanged guns but where are the mines, the forges, the machines needed to make the guns?

[ConorMacNessa]

That's a very entertaining if misguided reading of history.

[muawiyah]

The Caribes were very successful because they had a superior technology, although there is something we can all criticize in their dining habits.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Not so. The Crow tribe figured out real early who was going to win the Indian wars. This is why the threw in with the white man against the other Indians.***

Them, and the Pawnee, the Omahas, the Poncas and many others sided with the whites.

[indcons]

I guess this is going to be a 1000+ posting thread.

[jec1ny]

"The Indians would have wiped us out if they could have too. I agree that they did get screwed, but the English were struggling to survive as were the Indians. There were no innocent or guilty in this. The Indians had always fought each other, Europeans had always fought each other. It's simple human nature, and when the English arrived here; which they had every right to do, what came next over the centuries was unavoidable. I'm sure Indians are proud of their ancestors who fought the English, and I am proud of my Puritan ancestors."

Rubbish. Thats pure unadulterated clap trap. We stole a continent and forcibly expelled or murdered outright millions of people who lived here before us. Their culture or lack thereof is immaterial. It was none of our damned business. Imperialism is immoral and a crime against God and man. I am appalled that anyone claiming to be a Christian (perhaps you do not make that claim) would advance such an odious defense of unspeakable atrocities. No Christian can or should endorse it ever. Those who have been busily rewriting history on this forum are either damned ignorant or base liars. Try reading the historical accounts of Bartholomew de Las Casas (1474-1566). Then you can move on to the history of the treatment of the native American population under the United States Government. I am hard pressed to think of many treaties we signed that were not violated by our government, in some cases before the ink was dry. What about the so called civilized tribes (Cherokee) who sued the state of Georgia and won in the courts. Andrew Jackson (who's view of Indians was lower then his view of blacks) famous quote "Mr. Marshall (The SCOTUS Chief Justice)has ruled. Let him enforce it." He then ordered the army to remove the Indians by force from their lands in violation of more laws then I can count. I would still be typing come judgment day if I were going to list the crimes committed against these people. If you are looking for someone who is even remotely sympathetic to the cause of the white man in this matter you are barking up the wrong tree. And be damned to anyone who cries "Oh the raving liberal!" If you can't stomach the truth do what is so common here and try to get me banned.

[Minus_The_Bear]

1. Disease did not kill off "huge numbers" of Indians. In fact, on their journey to the Pacific Lewis and Clark's men contracted several strands of syphilis and used mercury as a "cure." Historians track L&C's trail by searching out mercury-poisoned latrines. Indians diseases actually killed very man settlers.

2. Indian civilization never advanced beyond the stone age. They never invented the wheel. If there were in fact millions of Indians that just points out their further ineptitude.

3. Many Indian tribes owned slaves far past the Emancipation Proclamation in Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma). This territory went unpoliced for years until the land run.

[muawiyah]

Hmmm ~ the Indians (after 1658) were the major purchasers of guns in North America. They used guns up right and left doing professional meat hunting (for the burgeoning white and black populations).

If you'll take a good look at conditions on the East Coast at the time, most of the technology you identify was actually located in Europe. Guns were, for the most part, imported. Eventually mines, furnaces, foundaries and so forth were built in America and the people there went out and conquered the Earth. Took about 100 years to do that though.

[U S Army EOD]

Just like the Creeks and Cherokee threw in with the British during the American revolution because they still trusted the British Government. They did not trust the colonist.

[fso301]

Indians got here on boats. That's where the modern concensus of opinion concerning the people of the Americas is going these days.

I guess I'm still stuck in the land-bridge school of thought. Very interesting. I've read much about seaborn contact between Asiatic peoples and New World peoples as well as pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and New World. The presumption was always that the New World peoples came hwere via land migration

[DUMBGRUNT]

Espera DeCorti

[jec1ny]

If you are a Christian then I rebuke you for your shockingly immoral defense of crimes. "We had the bigger club; too bad for them" may be how you base your morality. It is most certainly NOT how I base mine!

[muawiyah]

You don't know much about Spain in the 1400s do you?

The rest of Europe was not as advanced. The Jews in Spain were, for the most part, the greater part of the industrial sector in the Mediterranean or Europe. The Spanish kicked them out.

Were you trying to tell us that the settled agricultural tribes in the Americas were not as smart as the Spaniards?

Cortes, for example, was not fighting against hunter/gatherers. His enemy had command of just about the largest city in the world at the time.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***I consider what was done to the Cherokee one of the vilest things. They had their own written language of sorts even before the Europeans,***

It was Sequoia, of the Oklahoma Cherokees who developed their alphabet in the early 1800's.

Many of the rich Cherokees voluntarily moved to Oklahoma, and took their black African slaves with them, and the rest tried not to move, hoping for a better deal. They didn't get it.
The Cherokee history of the Trail of Tears is highly complicated but should be understood by all.

[reagan_fanatic]

My brother-in-law is half Indian - he regularly goes off on rants about how the white man has screwed up this country and how much better it would have been if the indians still ruled.

Of course, he does this while cruising the Internet on his computer, talking on his cell phone and watching his satellite TV. I usually take the occasion to remind him that without the 'evil' white man's presence here, he would still be beating on rocks and sleeping in teepees. What an friggin idiot.

[muawiyah]

Hmmm ~ Mexico went from about 50 million people to barely 5 million people in 30 years after first contact. The modern concensus is that disease killed the Mexican Indians.

Same thing happened elsewhere in the Americas.

[Minus_The_Bear]

***I consider what was done to the Cherokee one of the vilest things. They had their own written language of sorts even before the Europeans,***

Anyone who actually believes that should repeat the 3rd grade.

[fso301]

As a result of all this, you have an advanced tribe in Central and South America. The North American tribes on the East Coast of the United States seem more organized and civilized than anywhere else. There are rumors in Europe that there is a land to the West. The Church has records of this, and Columbus hears about it.

I think your post pretty well well sums it up.

[Zionist Conspirator]

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, United States (AFP) - A tribal chant rose from a thousands-strong prayer circle on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay as Native Americans held a sunrise "Unthanksgiving Day" ceremony.

"What we call it is Unthanksgiving," Bear Lincoln of the Wailikie Tribe told AFP as he waved burning sage to purify the area and ward off evil spirits.

Yes, but at least the Europeans freed the ignorant savages of their reactionary belief in the supernatural and paved the way for their ultimate liberation at the hands of European science and rationalism . . .

Oh . . . wait. That naturalism stuff is only for rednecks. The left gives everyone else a theocracy.