What is Your opinion on this view of how the victor has written history to hide the TRUTH?

http://links.org.au/node/753



HERE IS BUT A PART:



Every schoolchild in the United States has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of their land by European colonialists–and of the ruthless ways of capitalism.



* * *



In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast, delivering 102 exiles. The original native people of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox behind. Three years of plague wiped out between 90 and 96 per cent of the inhabitants of the coast, destroying most villages completely.



The Europeans landed and built their colony called “the Plymouth Plantation” near the deserted ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived–he had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. Squanto spoke the colonists’ language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch fish until the first harvest. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.



These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. The first Virginia settlement had been wiped out before they could establish themselves. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the settlers not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace.



John Winthrop, a founder of the Massahusetts Bay colony considered this wave of illness and death to be a divine miracle. He wrote to a friend in England, “But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection.”



The deadly impact of European diseases and the good will of the Wampanoag allowed the settlers to survive their first year.



In celebration of their good fortune, the colony’s governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast of thanksgiving after that first harvest of 1621.



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.What is Your opinion on this view of how the victor has written history to hide the TRUTH?
you stopped short of telling the whole story. allow me.



"In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.



Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.



Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.



The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Lakota in Minnesota."



This story doesn't have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast.
What's new? The bible is a good 2000+ years example. But luckily we have the internet now and intelligent people will research before believing things at point-blank.What is Your opinion on this view of how the victor has written history to hide the TRUTH?
You will not regret asking this question... from eternity to eternity.
Ah the truth...that little spark of light we see in the dark sky of human history, the death and destruction we have brought not only to ourselves but the very planet we call home.We pay homage to ourselves as we drink from our own poisonous writings about how brave we were.As a species we have destroyed our own kind on such a scale it boggles the mind.And then write epic novels on how well we did it, To quote Shakespeare"What a piece of work is man"
Yes it is common for "victors" to write their own version of history,

no matter how dubious the means by which the victory came.



It occurs with certain religions, as in one that enjoyed the political

backing of a ruling empire... and tried to coerce Christian saints

into recanting their faith and "believing" (by force) the corrupted

teachings of these "victors" who were only seen as victors in their

own eyes, because any who didn't comply were burned alive.



I have omitted the name of this group here because they get very

touchy about their actual history and go crying to the Moderators

for a violation notice on anyone who mentions it. You see, they

still tell the sugar-coated version to their numbers.



It has even been found they purchased publishing rights to more

than one Encyclopaedia brand, to give an illusion of authenticity

on the shelves of their places of "learning".

(kind of like Orwell's character rewriting history books to make the

"Party" look good) Some of theirs get a shock when they learn

the real story.
In 1620, not too much was known about the nature of disease, so I might be tempted to allow the colonists a little forgiveness there.



However, what you say is true: the victors write the history books.

In World War II, how many people understand how General Eisenhower ordered a whole camp of ordinary low-rank German soldiers to be starved to death, so that in the end, the prisoners were eating all the leaves off the trees around the camp?

He asked the Surgeon General how many calories it took for survival, and ordered the rations of the prisoners cut to half that amount.

These were not generals or field marshals or any officers at all, just kids who had been coerced into Hitler's army. They hadn't done anything remarkable.

But this was the same Eisenhower that was gleefully elected President in the 1950's with campaign buttons proclaiming "I Like Ike!"
Opinion? Your first paragraph as well as the remainder is all true. These facts have been understood for a very long time. Yes, grade school children are given very brief summaries (usually sanitized to leave out the most distressing parts). But educated adults are well aware of the above account. So I'm not sure what you are getting at or asking -- other than pointing out that most public school textbooks for young children tend to give one-sided accounts and leave out the "messiness" and sadness of human history. Indeed, I would guess that a lot of parents would complain that their kids were having nightmares if someone told them the full facts of history. (American history contains a LOT of genocide involving both native Americans and African-Americans.)



But this sounds like an American History question rather than a Religion %26amp; spirituality question -- so perhaps you can append the religion question that you are implying but we are not understanding.
my dad always said that history is written by the victors hence what we know about it is based on how the victors want to portray themselves, which is always in a good light. no leader wants to put themselves in a bad light for fear of losing the support of their people i guess. if they seem to be heroic and brave instead of shrewd and violent then people will respect them long after their time. makes sense doesn't it?



in japan the students learn about WWII different to what we know of it. instead of the japanese ruthlessly killing and torturing the whole of asia they make it seem as though they were the ones who were at the mercy of others. also right now, north koreans have virtually no knowledge of the outside world and EVERYTHING they learn about their leaders is that they are like the best.



just a thought! ps it's a good questions :)
Mainstream [orthodox] Christianity was but one major faction within the many strands of early 'Christianities'. The literalist/historicist camp drowned out the alternative voices through slaughter, slander and ridicule. They also chose which texts were 'sacred' and condemned what they disapproved. Strange that those claiming the truth were the violent ambassadors for Christ.