Transcript
RTTC-EP22_Un-Thinkful_Pioneers_11.24.22.RX
===
[00:00:00] Here in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving every year on the fourth Thursday of November. For those that didn't grow up here, it's basically everyone going to family's homes and eating an uncontrollable amount of card. That's also when we usually break out the treasured family recipes. For mine, it's my great grandma's butter scotch pie, and my personal favorite, the sage and onion dressing.
[00:00:33] No recipes written down here. If you wanted to learn how to make it, you had to watch Grandma. Well, now that she has transitioned to spirit, the recipes for all of her creations are some of my most cherished memories. But I can't help to think about all the rotten things that have happened that led to these traditions.
[00:00:58] I hold so dear. [00:01:00] As you can probably tell, I have a hunger for the most honest existence I possibly can to. Thanksgiving has seemed to become more of a carbo-loading feast to prepare for the chaos of Black Friday, and people have literally died shopping for holiday gifts, getting trampled and crushed to death by the masses, and all after saying just how thankful they were for what they had the day before.
[00:01:31] If I hate anything, it's hypocrisy and pumpkin.
[00:01:40] For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a national day of mourn. Like how on Indigenous People's Day. On October 10th, this year in the US we reflect on the atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus and how they impacted the lives of countless generations of native civilizations. [00:02:00] Well, that all got my mind racing and I.
[00:02:04] I know the history we learned in schools very whitewashed and mostly false. As children, we are taught that pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. They struggled and Native Americans helped them. They celebrated with a feast that is now called Thanksgiving, and they all lived happily ever after. Well, if you believe that I have a bridge to sell,
[00:02:28] I wanted to know how the pilgrims really treated the Native Americans who helped them survive. For one second. I did not believe that it was as happy go lucky as the little plays we put on in school. If we know anything from history, it's that the colonials weren't kind to the natives, at least for very long.
[00:02:48] Once they got what they needed. Trail of tears, smallpox blankets, churches kidnapping their children for reprogramming and murder, eradicating their culture, stealing or poisoning their [00:03:00] ancestral land vane values. I could go on and on, so I will.
[00:03:12] Hello my darlings and thank you for joining me on this episode of Rotten To the. This is your host, the Not So Evil Queen Joshua Waters. Together we will travel to the past through my magic mirror and learn the truth, stories of humanity's history, all with the goal of education, and hopefully discovering some enlightening wisdom that we can use in our lives.
[00:03:41] Before we delve deeper into our lesson, I wanted to thank Queen of two B, two G from here in the US for your five star review on Apple Podcast. She said she was hooked with the first episode. My presentation was fantastic, fun and well researched. This is all the [00:04:00] history and facts I love, but never taught.
[00:04:04] From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for being so kind. Your review absolutely made my day and as always, I see everything in this magic mirror of mine. But if you would like to rate or review Rotten to the Core so everyone else can see, you can wherever you listen to your podcast. The more good reviews, the more lessons we get to learn together.
[00:04:29] If you have any ideas you'd like to hear about in the future, you can find and message me on Instagram at its rotten to the core. Now, let's get started. Life is a lesson, my dears and I plan to learn as many of them as I can in my short stay here in this dimension. So grab your lanterns and. Maybe a crystal or two because we have so many rotten things to bring to light magic [00:05:00] mirror on the wall.
[00:05:01] Hear our cry and hear our call. Show us some of the most rotten ones in history and make them no longer a mister.
[00:05:19] Today students, we are going back to the 16 hundreds. The pilgrims first landed in Provincetown Harbor and what is now Massachusetts and 1620, exactly 402 years ago. They traveled for two months to get here from Europe, in search of a new home in hopes of a fresh start and some religious freedom. If you listen to my Queen Elizabeth, the first episode, you'll remember that she really stirred the pot when she declared that she was a Protestant.
[00:05:50] Once she passed her nephew who replaced her King James commission, the King James version of the Bible, we will be learning all about him in a future. [00:06:00] The pilgrims were wanting to escape all of that though, and sought their own promised, planned, so they set sale for the new world.
[00:06:14] The problem for them was that this country wasn't new or theirs to claim. It was already taken by Native Americans for over 15,000 years. The audacity of the colonials to just walk in and take over. I really wish they could have had more empathy and less spreadable diseases. Could you imagine how amazing this country and world would be if we combined our lives instead of all of the bloodshed?
[00:06:45] Learning to live in harmony with nature and each other versus eradicating it for profit and all for what? Highways, pollution, climate change, deforestation, and a once a year. Feast and [00:07:00] headly shopping discount. Oh boy. When the pilgrims first arrived, they were not greeted with open arms by the tribe that lived there, which was the Nas tribe of the Wano nation, and rightfully so.
[00:07:15] This wasn't their first meeting with the English colonialist, and they knew of the disease, death and destruction that came with them. So they fired arrows at the pilgrims who then returned fire with their. Just imagine someone breaking into your home, and as you tried to defend it, the intruder starts shooting at you.
[00:07:37] This is exactly the same thing, and the NACE tribe had every right to protect their home. The pilgrims quickly let the area and search for a different settlement place. They quickly found the perfect spot, but it was not the paradise they had hoped for. They came across a village that was cleared of trees, had good hills for [00:08:00] defense, and was suited for extreme winter conditions.
[00:08:03] It had been until recently a village of the Wampanoag natives, who were all killed by what was called tribal fever, and at what seemed to be a rapid rate. Bodies were still unburied, skeletons were scattered. With some still remaining in the homes. Tribal fever was just another one of the deadly gifts that Colonialists had brought to the native tribes that they first encountered.
[00:08:30] The deaths were as horrifying as they were numerous. Victims experienced high fever, chills, and excruciating pain with blood pouring from their mouths and ears. In a futile effort to find relief, sufferers would throw themselves into the water and roll around in hot ashes. Husbands and wives committed mutual suicide, stabbing themselves with arrows and knives, or leaping off of cliffs that [00:09:00] all of the despair in the village didn't deter the pilgrims, though they were so desperate as their numbers dwindled more and more every day.
[00:09:10] The high sodium diet they consumed on their voyage didn't exactly supply them with the nutrition that they would need to survive. What they would soon learn were the harsh winters of the east coast. They were so unequipped for the climate that by their first spring here, only 47 of the original 102 were left.
[00:09:32] This is a good example of just how complex the voyage across the sea was for. , why didn't they just go back? Well, not only was it a long and challenging journey, but they also didn't have enough food to make the return trip. And the ships they came over on were old and in desperate need of repairs. They were pretty much stranded here.
[00:09:55] Once the ground began to tal that spring, the pilgrim started to plant the [00:10:00] corn that they had found in the abandoned storehouses of the village. Along with luck and finding usable seeds, they encountered the first of the locals besides the firing of guns and arrows. One day, a native man came from the forest, made his way into the center of town, and was greeted with muskets, pointed at him from every direction.
[00:10:22] To the surprise, he greeted them in English, welcomed them to the new land, and even more surprisingly, asked for a beer. His name was Sam Set from the Eastern Nabu NAI tribe, and he picked up his English and acquired an appetite for beer from years of trading with English fishermen. He also warned them that his tribe was more friendly towards settlers, but that not all the others would be.
[00:10:54] They really couldn't get much more information from him as his knowledge of the English language was a [00:11:00] little too small. I mean, he learned from fishermen and they aren't really known for their vernacular abilities. The following week though, he came back, but this time he had another man with him named to S Quantum.
[00:11:14] You may have also heard him under the name sto, and he spoke English fluent. TS Quantum picked up this second language after slaves captured him as a child. He had lived in Spain and England as an enslaved person before managing an escape and returning to his home. Sadly, he discovered that he was the only survivor of his tribe that had been wiped out by tribal fever and was the same village.
[00:11:43] The pilgrims now called. Upon his return, he was taken captive by other natives and used as an interpreter for the increasing English presence. Along with him came a slew of warriors and the chief of the [00:12:00] Wano Massasoit. Quickly, the pilgrims took up arms and were ready to defend their new. But both sides were at a standstill.
[00:12:11] Neither one of them wanted to fire first, and eventually, after some translating from to Quantum, both parties agreed to sit down and attempt to broker for peace, along with consuming some strong liquor. The tribe decided that they could use the help of the pilgrims as they were surrounded by enemy tribes, and were not equipped to fight them.
[00:12:35] The pilgrims had better weapons and were desperate for any help that they could get. So peace was found. Or now along with mutual protection from both parties, TS Quantum taught them how to fertilize the soil and produce a more bountiful harvest, showing them that if they planted the seeds with the body of a fish, it would feed the plant and in return they would [00:13:00] have larger yields at harvest.
[00:13:02] Anne taught them about corn, beans and squash being the three sisters because they nurture each other like family when planted together, they would plant the corn in small hills, planting beans around them and interweaving squash throughout the field. It worked of course, and beans, corn and squash were plentiful that year.
[00:13:25] I do something similar to this now, but I use banana peels in an egg. When I plant my. They're just more readily available to me than a fish. Together, the pilgrims and Wano Indians went to surrounding tribes to try to broker peace and assert their combined strength on those who opposed it. The pilgrim spirits were incredibly lifted compared to just the following year.
[00:13:53] They had plenty of food and new allies and had stopped perishing in increasing numbers. [00:14:00] Cue the Turkey. A fun fact I learned while researching this was that turkeys are a native birds only found here in America. And if you know anything about turkeys, it's safe to assume that they were highly plentiful at this time.
[00:14:15] It gained traction as the Thanksgiving meal of choice for Americans after Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1860. I've even attempted to raise turkeys when I used to have chickens. Rest in peace. They fell victim to the circle of. All thanks to us live Fox. Alongside Turkey, they had fish, crabs, lobster, deer, eels, and their harvest.
[00:14:41] All in a huge feast to give thanks to their God for their good luck. Maso Soit, along with 90 of his fellow tribe members, join them in the preparation and feast. The Harvest Festival lasted three days and was filled with games, food, fun, [00:15:00] and a lot of. This is what we refer to as America's first Thanksgiving.
[00:15:06] I just wanna say I am really glad it doesn't last three days. Now, I don't know about you guys, but holiday get together, stress me the heck out. For the Wampanoags and many other American Indians. The fourth Thursday in November is considered a day of mourn, not a day of celebration, because while the Wampanoags did help the pilgrims survive, their support was followed by years of slow.
[00:15:32] Unfolding genocide of their people and the taking of their land. After they were on their feet, the pilgrim started to thrive thanks to the Guanos, and eventually they needed more land for their growing population. Soon their eyes were set on the surrounding tribes ancestral lands, and thanks to their muskets and growing numbers, they quickly eradicated or forced out the native tribes all [00:16:00] around.
[00:16:01] It was a real thanks for saving us, but now we want more situation, and the people who had so graciously helped them survive. Were now in a fight for their own survival. Today, nearly 800 native tribes have survived the attempted genocide of their people. The government recognizes 574, but over 200 still.
[00:16:28] which affects tens of thousands of members and limits the help and protection that they can receive. I'd safely place money on a bet that says that the land that those 200 plus tribes call home is rich in oil or some other financially beneficial endeavor. Not recognizing them gives the government the ability to benefit from the land, like running oil pipelines and polluting the ground and.
[00:16:56] Rather than preserve the rich cultural history [00:17:00] of those tribes, land of the free, more like land of the bottom dollar. These tribes are still suffering today. Besides land stealing and un recognition, many US tribes have been hit hard by the addiction and overdose crisis. One study found that Native Americans had the highest per capita rate of opioid overdose of any population group.
[00:17:28] This is the true and un whitewashed story of the pilgrims and their eventual eradication of the. Americans who help save their lives. I am all about the lessons, and this one made me upset and surprised. I wanted to try to find a way to channel all of that negativity into something beneficial. Here are some real practical and meaningful ways that you can give support to indigenous people in your community and around the.[00:18:00]
[00:18:00] You can donate money to programs that support native communities, such as the National Park Service and Tribal Preservation Program, but I will say those only support those recognized by the government. You can visit or volunteer on a reservation if a loud access. Talk about Native American issues such as the addiction crisis.
[00:18:24] You can buy native products wherever a. And visit native ran museums and educate yourselves about the truth of their history. I really appreciate you all joining me on this Rotten to the Core episode. I hope you found it as eye opening as I did. Please join me next time we discover more rotten things and people who have helped shape our world.
[00:18:49] I cherish every one of you, please don't trample others on Black Friday. It's just stuff and no junk is worth the life of another human being. [00:19:00] Get out and put some beauty into the world today. If you see someone without a smile, give them yours and thank you for being a friend. Happy holidays.[00:20:00]
