Many of us will gather on Thanksgiving to break bread and share what we are thankful for. We will all find things we are grateful for in our lives: our families, our communities, our loved ones, or our health.
When we look out a bit further, beyond our immediate lives, it may be harder to find things we are grateful for. We are faced with a discouraging litany of problems. The struggle to make rent and keep up on bills in an economy that is not cutting us any slack.
The violence in our neighborhoods and our world. The accelerating collapse of global ecological and climate stability. An ongoing genocide in Palestine. Wars without end in Ukraine and many other places. A government that does nothing to address the problems we care about most.
Faced with a world full of daunting, seemingly impossible problems, it’s important we add to our list of what we are thankful for: we are thankful for those who came before us, who refused to accept the unacceptable. We are thankful for those who struggled against seemingly impossible odds to fight for a different world.
In this part of the globe, the first people to do this were the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In 1492, the first European ships landed on the shores of Caribbean islands, in what we now call the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti. By 1620, English settlers landed in what is now Cape Cod, Massachusetts, home to the Wampanoag tribe. The story we are told of religiously persecuted Pilgrims is not accurate: along with and backing up the solemn “Pilgrims” was the Virginia Company, a British corporation of profit-seeking shareholders, employing armed mercenaries as part of a colonizing project ordered by King James of England.
With the Europeans came an insatiable greed, driven by the needs of the European ruling classes to accumulate wealth. They stole wealth to fill their own treasuries: first from the indigenous people through violent coercion and trade, and ultimately through the annihilation of tens of millions people—likely close to 95 percent of the indigenous population. Entire cultures and distinct languages were exterminated in the endless pursuit of accumulation, using various lies about religious and racial inferiority to justify this brutality.
The story of Thanksgiving we all grew up learning is a fairy tale made up to cover up a deeply violent truth of the foundation of this country. In fact, the holiday first was established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to mourn the dead in the Civil War, and to smooth over relations with American Indians in the Dakotas during federal assaults on their lands. This land was stolen through mass killing, forced relocation, lies and false promises, biological warfare, armed assaults, and breaking of treaties.
This violence was not taken quietly. Native Americans have actively resisted for over five centuries, and this refusal to accept oppression is alive today. From the armed resistance in opposition to colonization, to more recent Native American movements, the history of American Indian struggles is one of deep strength and persistence. The legacy of resistance reminds us that even in the face of a seemingly impossible challenge, there are others who have risen to the occasion and resisted.
We can be thankful for those who organized against the Klan. We can remember with gratitude the occupation of Alcatraz Island, and to those who took up arms to defend Wounded Knee. The 2016 convergence of over 200 tribes and 3,000 people to oppose the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline was testament to the resistance movements.
These movements have resisted the conditions of poverty and deprivation that have been imposed on Native peoples on reservations and in inner cities. These are the movements that have stood against the crushing weight of the inherited trauma of genocide. They have changed the narrative of how the history of the United States is told.
Today, the United States government has officially apologized for the policy of forced assimilation and the violent treatment of indigenous children in U.S. boarding schools.
But nothing meaningful has backed up those empty words. The government still allows Native Americans to live as an impoverished and criminalized minority, on the lowest rung of an unequal society, with high rates of alcoholism, depression, suicide, unemployment, and the worst health indicators of any group in the U.S.
The federal government has refused to allocate funds, return land, or meet demands of indigenous communities. The judicial system punishes Native Americans with harsher sentences and extremely high rates of police killings. In 2022, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling attacked tribal sovereignty.
Even as President Biden mouthed words of apology for the United States’ genocidal crimes against Native Americans, protesters spoke up against the ongoing U.S. support for the genocide of Palestinians. A verbal apology with no material repairs, and while actively supporting an ongoing genocide—this is no apology worth accepting. These are worse than empty words: they are the lies that are being told to perpetuate the fairy tale story of the United States. It joins the lies we are told about the story of Thanksgiving.
Within the last decade, numerous states and institutions have issued apologies for systemic crimes against indigenous populations. Nonetheless, these crimes continue in different forms, and therefore the resistance continues.
On November 12 of this year, the Prime Minister of New Zealand issued a similar apology to the indigenous Maori people. Just two days later, a bill attacking Maori rights was introduced in Parliament! In response, 42,000 people protested in the capital, Wellington. These demonstrations were a culmination of anger about numerous attacks the government has made against Maori rights and institutional powers. In the wake of these demonstrations, this particular bill has no chance of passing, but it won’t be the end of their fight.
From the mass uprisings of the Palestinian Intifadas, to the convergence of Native struggles at Standing Rock, indigenous resistance shows the power in social movements. And, even as there are not large, mass movements to join, the ongoing protests, organizing, and resistance by small groups of dedicated people continues.
This Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful for all those who refused to be silent in the face of an ongoing genocide. Let’s be thankful for the centuries of resistance to colonization led by indigenous people. Let’s remember that even in the face of brutal repression and state violence, generations before us did not give up.
Let’s also remind each other that people from all walks of life can draw a line and stand up: from Boeing and Longshore workers, to Hollywood writers, to the many other workers in diverse sectors who have found ways to organize together.
Indeed, the fights ahead of us are many, and we will need to draw on the many struggles across many sectors to win even small gains. For that, we can be thankful for a rich history of resistance by fighters who came before us.
