FROM BLACK VOICES OF THANKSGIVING: No. II

"Smile, someone who sees you may be thankful you did."

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday celebration. We should remember also the lesson of that gift from the Native Americans to the Europeans.

Surviving the First Year in Plymouth Colony

For the next few months, many of the settlers stayed on the Mayflower while ferrying back and forth to shore to build their new settlement. In March, they began moving ashore permanently. More than half the settlers fell ill and died that first winter, victims of an epidemic of disease that swept the new colony. Soon after they moved ashore, the Pilgrims were introduced to a Native American man named Tisquantum, or Squanto, who would become a member of the colony. A member of the Pawtuxet tribe (from present-day Massachusetts and Rhode Island) who had been kidnapped by the explorer John Smith and taken to England, only to escape back to his native land, Squanto acted as an interpreter and mediator between Plymouth's leaders and local Native Americans, including Chief Massasoit of the Pokanoket tribe. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets; the meal is now considered the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday.

http://www.history.com/topics/plymouth

OUR NATIVE AMERICANS--PERFECTLY REMEMBERED.
We should acknowledge them during Thanksgiving..
As many of us have American families histories and backgrounds which are part in being mixed -races with those of the Native Americans.
I being one of them.

Thank you Steve.
:>)

I too have Native American ancestors.