[NKUDirectory]

Little-known facts about the American Thanksgiving and pilgrims:

(1) The very FIRST act of the pilgrims, upon landing in the new world and scouting the territory, was to break into native American grain storage caches and STEAL everything contained therein.
(2) Contrary to the BS we learned in school about the "harmony" and mutual assistance between the natives and pilgrims, the initial years were FILLED with skirmishes, robbery, murder, and in at least one instance a full-fledged battle wherein the pilgrims were beaten back to the sea.
(3) The first thanksgiving dinner was not a formalized celebration like we see nice little paintings of long tables filled with food, etc. - but rather a chaotic harvest-type setting where many of the pilgrims were exhausted, diseased, on the verge of starvation, and in general demoralized. Much of the food was provided by native Americans, who did not want to see the settlers starve to death. The pilgrims did not want the natives in their settlement, but did not want to turn down the food. After obtaining it, they used a massive "show of arms" to scare off the natives.
(4) From surviving accounts, duck, deer and fish were the main harvest meal, not turkey.
(5) During the initial colonization of America by the pilgrims and others, one of the biggest problems facing settlements was figuring out how to keep people from going "native" and leaving the settlements for the more leisurely, well-fed, and better adapted to winter-weather existence of the native tribes.
(6) Black hats, buckles, and other "proper" clothing that we think of when imagining the pilgrims is a made-up fantasy of 19th century artists. In reality, the pilgrims were lower-class Englishmen, who tended to wear brightly colored clothes and rags.
(7) Despite the "puritanical" prim and proper hard-working, piously religious view we have of the pilgrims, the reality was that they preferred beer to water, drank a LOT of it, and early surviving writings speak of widespread drunkenness, "sodomy", and laziness among the settlers.
(8 ) Finally, a quote: "At the first thanksgiving celebration in 1621, there were only 6-7 sane people left in the whole pilgrim colony. The rest were mentally gone. ...so great was our famine that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up again and ate him; and so did divers ones another boiled and stewed with herbs. And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her and had eaten part of her." - Captain John Smith (1580-1631)


Just curious... what are the Canadian traditions and history (true or "embellished") revolving around your Thanksgiving?

And herein lies the secret to America's future greatness. For out of such a surly desperate lot under such privations would only the strongest in body and will survive, their progeny to inherit the new world!

Oh Canada!!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

[Edqpdnuu]

My version of Thanksgiving is more focused towards God and the blessings He has bestowed upon myself and my family.

I don't care much about how the pilgrims might have gotten drunk and screwed each other. Don't forget Mamboni, the same pilgrims settled the States.

[NKUDirectory]

My version of Thanksgiving is more focused towards God and the blessings He has bestowed upon myself and my family.

I don't care much about how the pilgrims might have gotten drunk and screwed each other. Don't forget Mamboni, the same pilgrims settled the States.

Yes, I know. I'm living next door to a few of them.