The Common Ills: How to De-Colonize Your Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 28, 2019

How to De-Colonize Your Thanksgiving

Bioneers Pulse – updates from the Bioneers Community

Featured #bioneers speakers Julian Brave Noisecat (left), Casey Camp-Horinek (center) and Leila Salazar-López (right).

Bioneer,

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, Bioneers is giving thanks by celebrating the survivance of Indigenous Peoples, in our Indigeneity Program and beyond.

Alexis Bunten, co-director of our Indigeneity Program, wrote this personal reflection on what it's meant to be Indigenous in America in 2019.

Illustration by Peter Hermes Furian.

The True, Indigenous History of Thanksgiving

The pop culture story of the First Thanksgiving, often told to children in grade school, is a myth. For the true story of what happened at the First Thanksgiving, and how Indigenous lives have been affected ever since, Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program’s Alexis Bunten (Aleut/Yup’ik) hosted a conversation with Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy), the Akomawt Educational Initiative’s Director of Education. A short excerpt of their conversation follows.

ALEXIS: There is no bigger time of myth making and telling lies in the public educational system, and private, in America, than Thanksgiving. It’s such a big moment every year. I was wondering if you would share with me the real story of the First Thanksgiving.

CHRIS: The narrative of the First Thanksgiving doesn’t really appear in America until the 19th century. The first claim of a First Thanksgiving was in 1841 in a publication by a gentleman named Alexander Young. He had found a letter from somebody who was there at Plymouth in the 1600s: a man named Edward Winslow, who was one of Bradford’s men. The letter described the harvest that took place in 1621 between Massasoit’s people, the Wampanoag, and the Bradford’s people of the Mayflower, English settlers who had just arrived there.

This was an actual event that happened in history. There’s no doubt that there was a feast between Massasoit’s people and Bradford’s people. But while the 19th century narrative called it the First Thanksgiving, the 17th century ideas of Thanksgivings on the Native side and the English side were very, very different than our modern-day interpretation of what a Thanksgiving is.

Read the full discussion here.

3 Activists Share Indigenous Wisdom for Facing Today’s Challenges

Indigenous Peoples are often on the frontlines of environmental justice movements. As original caretakers of the land, these communities have not only sought to protect their own livelihoods, but also to preserve humanity’s harmony with the Earth.

Below, three leaders on Indigenous issues discuss current events. Journalist and activist Julian Brave Noisecat explores how Indigenous communities are rising in a global renaissance; Ponca tribal Councilwoman, actress and activist Casey Camp-Horinek explains why aligning human law with natural law will help humanity regain balance with the world around us; and Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch, urges us to stand with Amazonian Indigenous Peoples to protect and restore the bio-cultural integrity of the “lungs of the Earth.”

Congresswoman Deb Haaland (NM-01) on 30 Years of Bioneers

Congresswoman Deb Haaland (NM-01) addresses the 2019 Bioneers audience.

Watch the full talk here.

Illustration by Vecteezy.

3 Ways to Decolonize Thanksgiving

Because part of the mission of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program is to provide public education around Native perspectives, we wrote this blog post to share some ideas for new traditions you can include at your Thanksgiving this year to better honor the Native Americans, immigrants, and their descendants who contribute to our country’s diversity.

Take Action: Indigenous Organizations

Here are 7 organizations supporting Indigenous rights to follow and support this Thanksgiving. Click the links to learn more:

Illustration by Native Lands App.

Whose Land Are You On?

When your family shares what they're thankful for this Thursday, remember to honor the tribes that originally occupied the land you're sitting on.

And it's now easier than ever to find out which tribes, languages and treaties those are. Featured in Yes! Magazine, the Native Lands App will provide an interactive map with your area's original language and tribal ties.

What We're Tracking

From the New Yorker: "The Invention of Thanksgiving" | Massacres, myths, and the making of a great November holiday.
From VICE: "How to Decolonize Your Thanksgiving Dinner" | Chef Nephi Craig, a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, shows how to identify foods native to the Americas and ask ourselves, "What do these ingredients mean to me?"
From Cultural Survival: "8 Ways to Decolonize and Honor Native Peoples on Thanksgiving" | Instead of relaying the myths of Thanksgiving, use these ways to celebrate November as National Native American Heritage Month.
From the Washington Post: "Especially at Thanksgiving, a sustainable meal is about more than carbon emissions" | Celebrating the food that's native to our land that sustained Indigenous Peoples long before Europeans landed on these shores.