Charlene Muhammad // Native Americans explain why "Thanksgiving"holiday is celebration of genocide

17.11.17

Native Americans explain why "Thanksgiving"holiday is celebration of genocide: President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving an official U.S. holiday in 1863 but Ms. Munro said the holiday in reality has bloody roots. It was an official day was proclaimed in colonial times to give thanks that a militia had returned safely from massacring more than 700 Pequots, she said. Many of victims were elders, women and children, Ms. Munro said.

That is part of why every year, her organization holds a National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Mass., to honor Native ancestors and current struggles of Native people. This year marks the 42nd gathering.

Native Americans have the highest rate of suicide in the U.S. at 16.25 per 100,000 for 2002-2006 per the Centers for Disease Control, she noted. Millions upon millions of Native Americans have died in European-perpetrated genocide, just as Africans did. And the root of America’s wealth really is in the theft of indigenous land, the genocide of Native people, and the enslavement of Black men and women, Ms. Munro continued.