https://youtu.be/cQIMrw8gSVQ
Many of us remember the Thanksgiving plays we participated in as children in elementary school…where we made the construction paper hats with the big buckles and buckles for our shoes, or the construction paper feather head- dresses…or how we would trace the outline of our hand onto our drawing paper with our crayons and magically it would morph itself into a turkey…we spend much, much time and energy on this "creation" story…. Shouldn't we include some smallpox ravaged natives, complete with blistering pustules, to represent the 90% of the entire Native American population (in the North and South American continents) wiped out by disease? After all, this is part of the Pilgrims' story isn't it?
Shouldn't we include the story of Metacom's War (named after the son of the original Native American leader who helped the Pilgrims) and all of the ghastly things done to Metacom? His being drawn and quartered by the Pilgrims, them cutting off his hands and putting them on display in Boston, and removing his head and taking it back to Plymouth to mount it atop a big, long stick in the middle of town square where it would remain on display for 25 years? I kid you not…. Should we not include slavery?
As the Puritans were one of the main North American contributors to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade-an institution responsible for the loss of 50 million people from Africa through enslavement and death? Why do we spend so much time on this group of people in school? Perhaps even more importantly, why do we spend so much time on this Disney-esque version of the Pilgrims?
What purpose, what lesson, do you believe studying the Pilgrims in this way serves?
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