Posted on Nov 25, 2021
What is Thanksgiving to Indigenous people? 'A day of mourning'
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Transcript for President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3,
1863
By the President of the United States
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and
healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the
source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature
that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the
ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to
foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations,
order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed
everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly
contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national
defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our
settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even
more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste
that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the
consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with
large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They
are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully
acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore,
invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and
those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of
November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national
perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows,
orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the
nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full
enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated
States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State
1863
By the President of the United States
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and
healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the
source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature
that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the
ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to
foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations,
order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed
everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly
contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national
defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our
settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even
more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste
that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the
consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with
large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They
are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully
acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore,
invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and
those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of
November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national
perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows,
orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the
nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full
enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated
States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State
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SFC Kelly Fuerhoff
Maj John Bell - The truth of Thanksgiving? I'm not sure how that wasn't clear in the fact that the story many of us were taught was a whitewashed version and that it's not a happy day for some indigenous people. Why am I not surprised you didn't get the point?
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Maj John Bell
SFC Kelly Fuerhoff - Here kids, pass the gravy and let me tell you about giving blankets contaminated with smallpox, about thousands dying on the trail of tears, and about defeating the plains Indians by decimating the plains Indians by decimating the buffalo herds.
No thanks
So, tell me how I'm supposed to spend the day in a way that doesn't offend your sensibilities.
No wait... don't I'm so tired of the people that are so miserable that all they see is warts, and they cannot accept the people who see beyond the warts.
You have your Sack Cloth and Ashes Holiday and I'll have mine where I'm grateful for the fellowship.
No thanks
So, tell me how I'm supposed to spend the day in a way that doesn't offend your sensibilities.
No wait... don't I'm so tired of the people that are so miserable that all they see is warts, and they cannot accept the people who see beyond the warts.
You have your Sack Cloth and Ashes Holiday and I'll have mine where I'm grateful for the fellowship.
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SFC Kelly Fuerhoff thank you for sharing. It's a shame so many people don't care to know the truth behind the lies about this "holiday".
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For Margaret Higgins, one of many who have blocked me: Why would Native Americans celebrate thanksgiving? Because Europeans stole their native land? Because Europeans introduced diseases to them? Because Europeans decimated the bison population, which so many Native nations counted on for everything from food to shelter to weapons to clothing? Because the descendants of those Europeans broke damn near every treaty they signed?
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Maj John Bell
I don't expect or ask Native Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean I won't. And in my house, it isn't a celebration of accepting guilt for something I didn't do, to someone I didn't know. I don't spend a lot of time wallowing in resentment for what the English did to the paternal side of my family and what the Spanish did to the Maternal side generations ago.
How about I don't give a hoot how you spend your holidays, and you stop pissing on mine?
How about I don't give a hoot how you spend your holidays, and you stop pissing on mine?
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