I am Cherokee and Ottawa and in my culture, I was taught to give thanks every morning when I wake. So, I find it strange to set one day a year aside to give thanks.
I enjoy gathering with my family and eating good food, but the history of thanksgiving is far less meaningful to many Native Americans.
For example, in the writing of the Puritans, they gave thanks to "God" for sending illness to rid the land of the "savages" American Indians. And a colonial governor declared a day of thanksgiving for destroying an Indian Village.
This nation also pushed an unwritten policy of Manifest Destiny, the beliefs that God gave America the right to do whatever was necessary to push the Indians from the land and take it as their own. Killing Indians and stealing their land, a God given right! Wow!
Still, Native American Peoples have a lot to be thankful for. We are still here. Our cultures have survived. True millions of our ancestors have perished at the hands of "manifest destiny" we live and I give thanks for that, every day when I wake up!
