The origin of Thanksgiving can be traced back to the beginning of American history. In 1620, the famous "Mayflower" ship arrived in America, carrying 102 Puritans who could not endure the religious persecution in Britain. In the winter between 1620 and 1621, they encountered unimaginable difficulties and were suffering from hunger and cold. After the winter, only about 50 immigrants survived. Based on the belief and custom that "all comers are guests", the Indians brought daily necessities to these immigrants and taught them survival methods such as hunting, fishing, and planting corn and pumpkins. With the help of the Indians, the new immigrants from Europe gradually became accustomed to the local way of living. On the day of celebrating the harvest, the new European immigrants invited the Indians to thank God for their blessings. In the currently well-known version of Thanksgiving, it often only emphasizes the friendly relations between the two sides and the atmosphere of joyful celebration; however, many people point out that it is unfair to the Indians to only emphasize the happiness and friendship of Thanksgiving. Because it is easy for people to forget the subsequent history of exploitation and massacre of Indians. Many people believe that the first Thanksgiving in the United States was the day when Indians and new immigrants first gathered together to thank God for blessings. But, for many Indians, this is not the first time people have come together to give thanks to God. For some New England Indians, they have already celebrated Thanksgiving. These Indians hold Thanksgiving celebrations six times a year, and they hold thanksgiving ceremonies according to different seasons. The thanksgiving ceremony held during the autumn harvest season is, for these Indians, their fifth thanksgiving celebration of the year. The "origin of Thanksgiving" that most people know is actually the day when new European immigrants and Indians thanked God together for the first time, not the so-called "America's first Thanksgiving".

The first Thanksgiving celebrated by the new European immigrants and the Indians lasted for three days, and both sides also agreed to a peaceful and friendly agreement: the Indians welcomed them on one of the original Indian lands. Build their own villages for new immigrants. This moment was originally the beginning of the gradual consolidation of friendship between the two parties, but unfortunately, the friendly relationship did not last long. Since they no longer need the assistance of the Indians as before, some new immigrants have gradually forgotten the difficulties they suffered at the beginning and the help they received; coupled with the continuous influx of more new immigrants, the distrust between both parties gradually increases , friction arose more and more; some new immigrants even did not tolerate the Indians' religious beliefs and tried to teach and convince the Indians that their beliefs were incorrect. Many frictions and conflicts led to what became known as King Philip's War.

In the mid-1760s, New England Christian Priest John Eliot had converted hundreds of Indians to Christianity. Several "prayer towns" were also established. But when he was delivering the gospel to Chief Wampanoag (Metacomet), Chief Metacomet grabbed the dean's coat, tore off a button and held it up to the dean's eyes. Claiming that he was as interested in Christianity as he was in a button—and then throwing the button to the floor with a swoop of his hand.

"Metacomet", he became famous for launching a war against colonial expansion in the days to come. The people of the British colonies gave him the nickname "King Philip", his real name Instead it was forgotten. Philip's father, the old chief Massasoit, had established friendly relations with colonial immigrants. He has leased and resold large tracts of land to new immigrants. However, the constant influx of immigrants has no end to their thirst for land. The New England colonial government used various methods to force surrounding tribes to sell their land. War disputes between Indian tribes increased the chiefs' demand for guns and ammunition. When furs and native products were insufficient, they had to exchange land.

When the old chief "Messe Yi" died in 1661, the tribe was already surrounded by colonies. Indians had to abide by colonial laws when going to towns. If an Indian fell drunk on the street, he would be whipped or serve ten days of hard labor. The strict laws of the Puritan colonial government kept the Indians in bondage, and their resentments deepened.

Not long after Philip's brother (Wamsutta) succeeded as chief in 1662, he was summoned by the Plymouth court. Although he had the honor of a chief, he was escorted to the judge at bayonet. What is even more strange is that after the judge's arraignment, Philip's brother fell ill and died soon after reigning for less than two years. Philip suspected that the white colonial government had poisoned him to death. Philip inherited his brother's chieftaincy with suspicion and resentment towards the colonial government.

In 1675, several events intensified the conflicts between the colonial people and the Indians.

A group of cattle belonging to the colonial residents ran into the Indian cornfields and trampled the crops-it is said that this happened from time to time. The Indians shot and killed eight horses, and the colonial residents fired back, killing one Indian, causing sudden tension between the whites and the indigenous people;

The case of John Sassamon trial. John Sismond was a member of the Wampanoa tribe. His parents died of smallpox when he was a child. A Puritan family adopted him, and he was naturally influenced to become a Christian.

John Sismond received a good education and also entered Harvard University to study. After he returned, he served as Chief Philip's translator, traveling between the tribe and the colonial government.

John Sismond once warned the colonial government that King Philip had attempted rebellion. Soon, Sismond was murdered. A court composed of whites and Indians convicted the three suspects of murder, and the three criminals were executed. One of them was a close associate of King Philip. The entire case pointed to King Philip as the manipulator behind the scenes. King Philip felt forced by the situation and decided to rise up.

Bloody war

King Philip commanded the tribal soldiers to quickly attack the colonial towns. He gave his men instructions: burn all the houses, destroy all the towns, and kill all the white people. . Wherever King Philip went, flames rolled and blood flowed everywhere. An eyewitness described the place where the tribesmen attacked: two old men threw their upper bodies outside the door, while their lower bodies were burned inside the door. A young woman was lying in the yard, her head pierced by a bullet. The head of the baby not far from her was stabbed with a bayonet...

The fear of King Philip enveloped the land of New England. The colonists abandoned their newly opened homes and shrank to the Atlantic coast. of larger towns. King Philip's troops were equipped with flintlock muskets, which were more advanced than the matchlock muskets equipped by the colonial government troops. Therefore, in the early stages of the war, King Philip's offensive was fierce and arrogant. He had the ability to direct war, and he designed several ambushes in a row, killing nearly 200 government troops.

This in turn stimulated chain rebellions by several other tribes (Narragansetts, Nipmucks, Pocumtucks, and Abenakis). Tribes that were originally hostile to each other formed under the same goal of opposing the whites' occupation of their homes. ally. For a time, New England was in turmoil and besieged from all sides. The war enveloped Plymouth, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the Connecticut River Valley (Rhode Island, Massachusetts. Connecticut River Valley), and the colonists felt panic and despair.

However, the war situation began to reverse within a year. King Philip's army could not replenish its ammunition and its food reserves were depleted. The military camp had to be stationed close to the river, fighting and fishing at the same time. The troops dispersed into small groups, the original allied tribes split, and some tribes left. The fighting capacity of the anti-colonial alliance was greatly weakened.

The colonial army, which had obtained new weapons and equipment and sufficient food and grass, began to concentrate its forces to fight back. There were two famous sneak attacks that severely damaged Indian tribes. Government troops surrounded the Indian camp at night and made a sudden attack at dawn, killing 600 Indians at one time and 1,000 at another time. Among them were many women and children. The colonial army's retaliatory actions were also very brutal.

A year later, King Philip's offensive was completely gone and turned into a roving guerrilla. In the summer of 1676, King Philip and a few of his followers were besieged in the swamp. After he was shot to death, his body was chopped into pieces and thrown into the water. His head was picked up on the tip of a spear. Street parade. The city of Plymouth celebrated the victory with great joy.

The losses in King Philip's War were heavy. According to statistics from the colonial government, 1,200 farmhouses were burned down, 13 towns were razed to the ground, and 8,000 horses and livestock were killed. More than 600 soldiers died in the battle, and about 2,000 civilians, women and children died. The war debts owed by the colonies exceeded the total assets of the colonies.

The number of deaths on the Indian side is ominous, generally believed to be three times that on the colonial government side. An estimated 2,000 people died on the battlefield alone. Infectious diseases kill more people than war. Take King Philip's Wampanoa tribe as an example. There were about 15,000 people before the war. War and disease wiped out nine out of ten of the population. The main leaders of the captured tribes were hanged, King Philip's wife and son were also sold to Bermuda as slaves, and a few escapees joined other tribes. The "Wampanoa" tribe has since been wiped out.

King Philip eventually perished with his small country. He only left behind a sentence that made the colonists tremble:

"If you fight, you will die, if you die, you will die. "determined not to live until I have no country." - Wampanoag sachem, King Philip 1675

Thanksgiving without a benefactor

Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday unique to the United States and Canada. On Thanksgiving, many people will look back on the history of immigration with tenderness. The first batch of European immigrants set out from Plymouth, England, and experienced hardships on the Mayflower, arriving in North America in the winter of 1620 (they later named this landing point Plymouth).

At that time, heavy snow covered the wilderness, and the cold and hunger put the immigrants into desperate situations, and some people died. Fortunately, the Indians discovered them and provided generous assistance, and they were able to survive.

The new immigrants received a good harvest the next year, held a big turkey feast, and celebrated with the Indians. The feast lasted for three days and three nights...

But people didn't know that this simple and hospitable tribe was Wan The warm-hearted Indian chief of the Wampanoag tribe was King Philip's father, Massasoit.

In 1618, the east coast of North America was attacked by the infectious disease "smallpox". A large number of indigenous residents died and some villages were deserted. The chief was happy to allow these distant visitors to settle in these abandoned villages and form friendly alliances with them. This brotherhood lasted for nearly 50 years.

European immigrants expanded to the North American continent at an annual growth rate of 3%. In 1676, there were 52,000 immigrants in New England. Immigrants are mainly anti-guests. They are proud of their advanced culture and have a discriminatory and disdainful mentality towards Indians. Some businessmen often use coaxing methods to seek benefits in their interactions with the ancient indigenous peoples, causing the Indians to gradually lose trust in the white people.

In the early days, the colonists would say "Thanks Giving" to the generosity of the Indians; later, it evolved into "Taking" if you don't "Giving". The root of King Philip's War lies in the conflict over the development and utilization of land resources. In the actual situation where there is no land ownership, there is no right to develop and utilize it, it has transformed into a war to compete for and maintain land ownership.

The history of North America seems to reveal such a cold law: if there is a more effective way of developing a piece of land that can create greater social wealth, then the land will eventually be developed in this way. conduct. Cultural traditions, land ownership, religious laws, human ethics, etc. cannot stop the operation of this hidden law.

Although Indians are the oldest inhabitants of the Americas and the most original owners of this land, trying to maintain inefficient and traditional land use methods will always fail. This failure is not in a civilized way, but in a barbaric way. Unfortunately, it manifested itself in a very barbaric way: the Indians not only lost their land ownership, but also lost the lives of many tribesmen. The bitterness of failure is unbearable to remember.

Of course, some people regard King Philip's War as a battle between Indian culture and European culture, tending to establish Christian civilization; some people regard it as a racial war between white people and indigenous people, intended to inspire nationalism. emotions; some people find evidence of the evil of colonial expansion and prove the justice of opposing colonialism; others use the serious violations of human rights that occurred in this war to expose the hypocrisy of holding high the banner of human rights in the United States today; even white supremacy Activists can also find numerous examples of the ignorance and backwardness of people of color in order to support the theory of white racial superiority... All of these are all based on what they like, trying to pick a petal of color from a thousand gardens to represent spring.

Now back to the troubles related to human ethics.

The portrait of the old chief "Massasoit" should be hung at the Thanksgiving banquet, but in the face of the historical scar of the old chief's son King Philip and his tribe being wiped out, how should we feel about Thanksgiving? ?