When the Pilgrims first arrived they celebrated with the Native Americans
(Lamanites).  The were not at war with them.  It was later when the new
settlers began pushing west and allowed greed to take over.  Besides taking
their lands, the next worst thing we did was introduce them to alcohol.
That as destroyed them faster than any war we had with them.

John Dunlop wrote:

> If I ever need to be reminded that this list is so USA dominated, this
> Thanksgiving holiday does it. Although I lived there for 8 years, I
> never could quite grasp the concept of Thanksgiving and why Americans
> make it such a big, important holiday especially so close to Christmas
> when they do it all again. To my understanding, and I would be glad to
> be corrected if my understanding is incomplete or wrong, the original
> festivities were to celebrate how wonderful the local Indians were to
> the original settlers who landed in America. They welcomed them with
> open arms and provided food and shelter etc for them. This is all very
> well, but then, in later times, the "white men" did their level best to
> wipe out all the Indian inhabitants of America and didn't get far from
> achieving this objective. Is this really something to carry on
> celebrating? Surely it really represents something that should be
> remembered as America's shame, not a celebration?
>
> Just my $.02 and I am sure that this American-centric list will not find
> my views popular but I just wanted to present an International viewpoint
> to the Thanksgiving thread.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Dunlop
>
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