Actually, I saw an interesting piece on CNN today about the first US Thanksgiving...it seems that the story is even more complicated, and different than that. In the decades before the Pilgrims landed, English ships had plundered the coast of New England, and kidnapping First Nations people for slaves. One of the areas raided was the area we now call Plymouth Rock, and the person we know today as Squanto was kidnapped to be sold as a slave. It took him 20 years before he was able to return to his home villiage. There he found it deserted, his people, all dead, killed by smallpox it is theorized. Needless to say, he was devestated.
The Pilgrims really were not prepared to survive in the area of Plymouth Rock. They lost half their number the first winter. That spring, Sqaunto approached the Pilgrims, who had been praying like mad, as people do during a crisis. They were *sure* their God had sent them an answer to their prayers. Here was a native who walked out of the wilderness, who had the "secrets" of surviving of the land, spoke English, and knew a great deal about England and Europe. They sort of adopted each other, both with needs the other could fill.
But it is really much more complicated than that, of course...check out this page:
http://members.aol.com/calebj/squanto.html
Squanto was very human, and like many things much of our history has become mythology...maybe not accurate, but you gotta admit, the idea of peace and friendship between the First Nations and the European colonists is a good ideal to celebrate, as long as people remember what really happened.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-11-24 11:31 pm (UTC)The Pilgrims really were not prepared to survive in the area of Plymouth Rock. They lost half their number the first winter. That spring, Sqaunto approached the Pilgrims, who had been praying like mad, as people do during a crisis. They were *sure* their God had sent them an answer to their prayers. Here was a native who walked out of the wilderness, who had the "secrets" of surviving of the land, spoke English, and knew a great deal about England and Europe. They sort of adopted each other, both with needs the other could fill.
But it is really much more complicated than that, of course...check out this page:
http://members.aol.com/calebj/squanto.html
Squanto was very human, and like many things much of our history has become mythology...maybe not accurate, but you gotta admit, the idea of peace and friendship between the First Nations and the European colonists is a good ideal to celebrate, as long as people remember what really happened.
ttyl