As Thanksgiving approaches, Americans gather together with their families and use the time as a way to remember all the good things in their lives. Plus, the food ain't bad, either (yuk, yuk). But in all this family-togetherness and good cheer, many people lose sight of the true meaning of Thanksgiving: to give Native Americans a positive, if brief, mention in the glorious annals of American history, usually in the form of white children sticking feathers in their hair for an elementary school play.
Native Americans were not always the affable and nearly extinct people you know today. Once, they were a proud and mighty race known as the "Red Indians" because of their aggressive embrace of Communism. Their culture was rich, and their ways reflected a deep connection with the land and sky. They could be found all over North America, from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle. Did you know Canada had Indians too? Weird. Unfortunately, their fabled wisdom lacked one crucial lesson about life: don't fuck with white people.
When Americans first arrived in their country, they knew little about foraging and grizzly bears. The natives showed God's Chosen how to plant corn and not get mauled by grizzly bears, as immortalized in the classic play 'The First Thanksgiving," first performed by Mr. Doight's 4th Grade class (Billy was just precious). In gratitude, Americans kindly bestowed upon the Indians generous gifts, such as horses, guns, and whiskey. The natives greatly enjoyed these gifts, but proved to be lightweights. One night in 1515 AD, a tribe of Indians got drunk, rode into a nearby colonial-era village, and fired their guns into several buildings before crashing their horses into a Totem pole.
The men of the village became angry at the Indians because of the property damage, while the Indians were angry because the white men refused to honor the natives' Equine Insurance claims. This mutual hostility led to a bloody war. For their part, the women of the village formed an organization called "M.A.D.I." and printed up some posters and wagon stickers, to little effect.
The war was vicious; so vicious in fact, that the colonists erased all records of the war to ease the pain of lost loved ones, and the war was known only as "The War No One Would Ever Remember." The Colonials won this war because white people always win. However, the white people knew it wouldn't be long before they would need to fight another war with the Indians. The Indians were unaware of this need, a factor which may have played a large part in their losing so many of the coming wars.
The Indians, perhaps because of their socialist ways, refused to respect the white peoples' property rights to Indian land. They would often smoke drugs and, worst of all, Indians allowed homosexual marriages, citing that some people had "two-spirits." What a bunch of garbage. And they wore loincloths! Loincloths! Clearly, these redskins (the offensive racial epithet, not the professional football team) were a pack of slimy liberals whose degenerate ways were going to destroy this country. Plus, according to the Mormons, they were all fallen angels, and if God kicked them out, then why shouldn't we?
The white man had great success in defeating the natives. White soldiers could easily defeat tribal forces and move them to entirely new places that were more convenient to colonial expansion. Also, since the Indians couldn't do anything about it, whitey could break any and all signed agreements.
But, wasn't there a faster way?
Finally, there emerged among the white heroes a man who could decisively win this conflict (in favor of whitey, hopefully). His name was Andrew Jackson, and, in my opinion, he should be praised and honored by having his face put on one of the dollar bills, possibly the twenty. Andrew Jackson invented two very important weapons in the War Against Aboriginal Aggression (TWAAA for short): germ warfare and the asterisk.
Andrew Jackson had the clever idea of lacing common blankets with the deadly disease Smallpox and distributing them among native tribes, thereby killing entire tribes without risking a single American soldier. Now, many will claim that germ warfare was actually invented by Geoffrey Amherst, a British Army officer serving in Canada, but that isn't what I want to write down. It was Andrew Jackson.
Secondly, Jackson realized that placing an asterisk after certain sentences or words meant that you didn't really have to tell the whole truth about things right away, as long as you told the truth later. This was an important discovery for the modern age, because stores were having a hard time convincing the Indians to accept the smallpox blankets in exchange for their beaver pelts or whatever the hell it was that those godless savages used for money. Using the asterisk technique, trading posts across the country could now trick the Indians into taking the blankets, all the while adhering to truth-in-advertising standards.
Because they do so exist, here is a copy of a transcript of an average conversation between a frontier shopkeep and a Red Indian at a trading post. I present it here for illustrative purposes:
Indian: "I'd like a bottle of whiskey, please."
Shopkeep: "Certainly, sir! What would you like?"
Indian: "A bottle of whiskey. I just said."
Shopkeep: "Ah, of course. For a limited time, if you buy a second bottle of whiskey, we'll throw in a free blanket*."
Indian: "What was that?
Shopkeep: "What was what, sir?"
Indian: "That*!"
Shopkeep: "Oh, that's just a little thing we white folks like to do. It's all the rage with the young people in the cities. Did you know that our blankets are guaranteed to keep you warm and cozy*?"
Indian: "There! You did it again!"
Shopkeep: "Yeah, pretty cool, huh? Thank you for shopping at Grizzly Pete's Trading Post. Here's your change. Here's your whiskey. Pick up your free blanket* from that lead-lined box by the door."
Indian: "Thanks. Hey! What do all these bright yellow stickers on the box mean?"
Shopkeep: "Only that the box contains blankets. Those are blanket stickers. Warning: blankets will give you smallpox. Do not use around children or anybody who could contract a disease."
Indian: "Oh. Then I'll just be on my – wait a second! What was that small stuff you just said?"
Shopkeep: "Nothing, sir! I was only muttering under my breath."
Indian: "I'm starting to suspect that there is something fishy about these blankets."
Shopkeep: "Well, we store them next to fish, if that's what you mean."
Indian: "No, I meant that there might be more to this blanket than meets the eye. Something … sinister."
Shopkeep: "Sir, I am outraged! I am NOT trying to giving you smallpox*! Our blankets are perfectly safe! And by "safe" I meant safe for the smallpox spores that will infect you and your whole tribe. Frankly, I am insulted that you would cast aspersions."
Indian: "I'm sorry. I apologize for my rudeness, but I simply can't take this blanket."
Shopkeep: "Why not?"
Indian: "I don't have any arms."
* Blanket contains smallpox
* This.
*As you are dying a horrific death.
* Pick up blanket at own peril, you know, because of the smallpox.
* That's a job for the blankets.
Indian: "I read that! You were trying to give me smallpox!"
Shopkeep: "Tell it to Stalin, you commie bastard."
Indian: "Who?"
Shopkeep: "This is for Roanoke!" (shoots Indian)
Sure, some people complained about Jackson's policies, even in those times. So to make everything nice and legal, Jackson passed a law that said if the Native Indians didn't want the Government to take away all their land, they could go to D.C. to say so and the Big G wouldn't do it. Obviously, had anybody shown up the consequences would have been disastrous, so Mr. J (Jackson liked the voters to call him "Mr. J;" it meant he was the "cool" president) had his friends go around to all the Indian tribes and convince them to stay home on the special day in a traditional form of Indian protest. Poof: no more complaints. Also, no more Indians.
Now, whatever you say about white people, whatever "atrocities" they may or may not have committed, one thing is certain: if you wait a few hundred years, they'll feel guilty about the things they did. So, on November 26, 1941, white people made up a law to celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.
And so, Indians, the white people have destroyed your entire way of life, got rid of your goofy religions, addicted you to alcohol, and assimilated your children. Today, the lands you call home are lands the white people call a place to gamble and buy cheap cigarettes, and you make up less than one percent of the population in a land that was once exclusively yours. All is not lost, however; you will always be remembered as a people who knew a whole lot about corn (or "maize" as you call it; I remember learning that in 3rd grade). Plus, about three of you will always find work in Hollywood whenever Jews want a character with some sort of mystical power. That is the true meaning of Thanksgiving.
Smallpox = funny jokes