GUEST POST – by Jason Gerard Clauss
I’d like to set something straight. The Pilgrims were overrated.
The Pilgrims weren’t red blooded Americans. They were religious fanatics that England couldn’t stand and was all to happy to rid herself of. They were incompetent survivalists whose presence the Indians tolerated because they posed no threat on their own. If Thanksgiving is supposed to be the first truly American holiday, I’d prefer it not be in honor of some superstitious fundamentalists who couldn’t survive in a land that practically handed out food.
The fact is, we owe the Indians a tremendous debt. There was no way the European colonists could have known it, but the entire continent of North America was made into a habitable and welcoming land by the labors of Indians. The fact that America is a world power today can be traced in many ways to the people who once occupied this soil.
By the time of the American Revolution, Americans were healthier, taller, and fitter than Europeans just as the Indians themselves were, due to the enormous and provident land. Instead of being crammed like ants into dirty cities, the Indians and early Americans lived in open spaces. Unlike the disgusting standard American diet of today, the Indians ate a highly balanced diet of corn, beans, squash, fish, and buffalo. This natural bounty provided American culture a boundless optimism and ambition not found anywhere else in the world.
Our uniquely American notions of liberty and individualism themselves stem from the natives of the land. As early as 1090 AD, an Iroquois man named Deganawidah united the different Iroquois nations under the Great Law of Peace. They drafted their own constitution, of 117 articles, and used proto-writing to communicate it across generations. Northeastern peoples suffered no kings or rigid social hierarchies. These were not “noble savages”. They were proud libertarians.
Even today, we continue to benefit from corn that the Indians bred from an inedible grass. Virtually every product in the supermarket has corn in it right down to the aspirin. Even ethanol is a corn-based product. The world’s superpower still runs on the Indian corn.
Thanksgiving should not be a time for hero worship of some bumbling English who barely made it through the winter due to their own inability to survive in a fertile, hospitable land. Nor should it be dedicated to the nauseating self-loathing by rich, bored caucasians. Let’s re-envision the holiday to thank the people who, through their sacrifice, gave us not just turkey but liberty.