Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples' Day

[grasping the after wind]

Today is thanksgiving day in Canada:

How Canadian Thanksgiving Began
The origins of Canadian Thanksgiving are more closely connected to the traditions of Europe than of the United States. Long before Europeans settled in North America, festivals of thanks and celebrations of harvest took place in Europe in the month of October. The very first Thanksgiving celebration in North America took place in 1578 in Canada when Martin Frobisher, an explorer from England. in search of the Northwest Passage. He wanted to give thanks for his safe arrival to the New World. That means the first Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated 43 years before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts!


For a few hundred years, Thanksgiving was celebrated in either late October or early November, before it was declared a national holiday in 1879. It was then, that November 6th was set aside as the official Thanksgiving holiday. But then on January 31st, 1957, Canadian Parliament announced that on the second Monday in October, Thanksgiving would be "a day of general thanksgiving to almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed." Thanksgiving was moved to the second Monday in October because after the World Wars, Remembrance Day (November 11th) and Thanksgiving kept falling in the same week. This year Canadian Thanksgiving is October 14th, 2019!


Another reason for Canadian Thanksgiving arriving earlier than its American counterpart is that Canada is geographically further north than the United States, causing the Canadian harvest season to arrive earlier than the American harvest season. And since Thanksgiving for Canadians is more about giving thanks for the harvest season than the arrival of pilgrims, it makes sense to celebrate the holiday in October. So what are the differences between Canadian and American Thanksgiving, other than the date? Not much! Both Canadians and Americans celebrate Thanksgiving with parades, family gatherings, pumpkin pie and a whole lot of turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving Canada.

 

[Albion]

And do you think if they were known they would get their day from the Spanish government?

Maybe, but it's out of the question if they are not known.

 

[Redwingfan9]

Indigenous 1. Occurring or living naturally in a particular area or environment; native. 2. Intrinsic; innate.

Native 1. Existing in or belonging to one by nature; innate 2. Being such by birth or origin 3. Being one’s own because of the place or circumstances of one’s birth: our native land.

Native Americans are widely considered to be the tribes that were present before Columbus set foot on America. However based on the definition of “native” any person born in America could be considered a native.

Columbus could be considered the person who made it possible for immigration to America, due to his discovery of America. Once these immigrants from Europe took hold many atrocities took place.

Currently there is much debate about USA’s border along the Mexico side. Many of my acquaintances that are for a more open border policy also suggest that we shouldn’t be celebrating Columbus Day. My question is should we celebrate Columbus Day which led to immigration into the USA, or should we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day and mourn all the problems immigration brings?

It's Columbus Day. Columbus deserves to be honored as the man who discovered America for Europe. Based on what the Americas have become, he deserves to be honored. He paved the way for a desolate wasteland of paganism to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

[grasping the after wind]

It's Columbus Day. Columbus deserves to be honored as the man who discovered America for Europe. Based on what the Americas have become, he deserves to be honored. He paved the way for a desolate wasteland of paganism to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I never knew it was his goal to convert the people of India. Here I always was under the impression he was just after the spices.

 

[Redwingfan9]

I never knew it was his goal to convert the people of India. Here I always was under the impression he was just after the spices.

Spreading the faith was always the goal of exploration, including to India. Once everyone figured out a new world had been discovered many missionaries were sent. The gospel has reached just about everywhere in the new world and many American Indians were converted.

 

[miggles]

indigenous and native are two different things i think.

 

[JackRT]

A great deal of the history of the past 500 years involves what has come to be called the "Doctrine of Discovery". This originated as a series of papal bulls issued in the 15th and 16th centuries. Essentially this doctrine stated that if a man should discover a land in which none of the inhabitants were Christian then he had the right to claim this land for his (Chtistian) sovereign. If these people refused to be converted and resisted their new condition, it was justifiable to exterminate and/or enslave them. In a USA Supreme Court decision in 1823 a form of this doctrine was taken into US law. Sadly this decision formed the legal basis for the ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide of the aboriginal peoples and nations of the USA. We speak grandly of "the rule of law" but we broke almost every treaty we ever signed with these people. Is it any wonder that we are viewed with great suspicion?


https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/deconstructing-the-doctrine-of-discovery-vAHfau_vOkCfps7rRGPhAw/

https://udayton.edu/directory/law/documents/watson/watson_2011_seattle_american_doctrine_of_discovery_on_native_land_rights.pdf

Note: the second document is lengthy.

"Again, were we to inquire by what law or authority you set up a claim [to our land], I answer, none! Your laws extend not into our country, nor ever did. You talk of the law of nature and the law of nations, and they are both against you."

—Corn Tassel (Cherokee, 1785)

***

Posted by Shiloh Raven in Christian Forums:

The U.S. government has violated every single one of the hundreds of treaties it signed with the tribal nations, despite the fact that Article VI of the Constitution clearly states: "and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

I will also mention Manifest Destiny and "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."

Manifest Destiny... which in honest terms means: (1) the forced Indian removals (2) the countless massacres of Native Americans (3) the hundreds of violated treaties the federal government signed with the tribal nations (4) the Three-Fifths Compromise (5) the 188 years of denying minorities rights and equality with white people (6) the 89 years of legalized slavery (7) the 148 years of denying Native Americans U.S. citizenship and (8) the 202 years of denying Native Americans religious freedom.

The United States of America was founded upon perpetuated lies and stolen tribal lands. Attempted genocide, legalized slavery, massive land theft, the belief in racial supremacy of white men, racism and discrimination against minorities is what this country was founded upon. It's nothing more than a disingenuous farce to claim that America was founded upon freedom, liberty and justice for all.

To quote Martin Luther King: "Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it."

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

Columbus never practiced cannibalism or human sacrifice, so there’s that...

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

This comes down to a matter of heritage. American nations that choose to identify with their natives past, rather than their European Colonizer's past are rejecting that aspect of their history in favour of non-European and non-Christian worldview. They no longer believe in the founding of these countries was justified and therefore reject the nations that arose out of European colonies. The USA, Mexico, Canada and Brazil and therefore all illegitimate entities.

They can point out any number of atrocities done by the Settlers against the natives but that doesn't justify the almost wholesale rejection of the idea that the West discovered America through Christopher Columbus. He challenged the thought of his day and by accident discovered an unknown world which lead to the world we have today. He and the Spanish crown were the one's to actually make good use of the knowledge of a New World.

If anyone wants to celebrate the natives of a particular land they can, but they shouldn't pretend that the native Americans were wholly innocent or more innocent than any European who arrived. Aztec Human Sacrifice was reason enough for the conquest of Mexico and the subsequent ill treatment of the natives by the Spanish is something their own Christian justification for ruling condemned. Tribal warfare was not infrequent in North America.

Also, this 'clever' talking point about Columbus not discovering anything that wasn't already discovered is pathetic. The Vikings failed. China was too isolationist to ever attempt serious colonization. Columbus did discover America, he might not have been the first but he was the most serious about it.

 

[Anguspure]

Indigenous 1. Occurring or living naturally in a particular area or environment; native. 2. Intrinsic; innate.

Native 1. Existing in or belonging to one by nature; innate 2. Being such by birth or origin 3. Being one’s own because of the place or circumstances of one’s birth: our native land.

Native Americans are widely considered to be the tribes that were present before Columbus set foot on America. However based on the definition of “native” any person born in America could be considered a native.

Columbus could be considered the person who made it possible for immigration to America, due to his discovery of America. Once these immigrants from Europe took hold many atrocities took place.

Currently there is much debate about USA’s border along the Mexico side. Many of my acquaintances that are for a more open border policy also suggest that we shouldn’t be celebrating Columbus Day. My question is should we celebrate Columbus Day which led to immigration into the USA, or should we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day and mourn all the problems immigration brings?

We have a similar problem in NZ. I was born and raised here, as were my parents, but am not regarded as native. Rather I am a "Pakeha" which generally means "White European" but also means "From the stinky house".

 

[His student]

......My question is should we celebrate Columbus Day which led to immigration into the USA...........

Sure we should.

As Christians we do celebrate the accomplishments of several Jews from an ancient time and a far away land.

But, in our secular lives, Americans for the most part celebrate European related accomplishments.

Had the Vikings been less interested their homeland and established some settlements on the continent - the exploits of some famous Viking might be celebrated today instead of Columbus. But it isn't.

Had the indigenous Americans been less busy warring, killing each other, conquering other tribes and sacrificing them to their God's and taken time out to develop writing and other civilized skills - they might have faithfully recorded facts about some other person from long ago who changed their world for the better and they could have secured a day on the calendar to celebrate him. But they didn't.

The Christian Europeans made the Western continent of some consequence in the world - so much so that the nation founded here saved many of the people in the world from tyranny and atrocities in the twentieth century, fed the starving in Africa, and built a somewhat Christians nation that has been responsible in a large part in evangelizing the world in this current era.

Oh - and landed the first man on the moon.

Speaking as one with a fair amount of both native American and Viking heritage in my family tree, I fully understand why Columbus gets a day on the Western calendar and some native American and Viking doesn't. It's only to be expected.

Ya snooze - ya lose!