Every Thanksgiving, you can expect a revisionist history lesson from some factions of the Left regarding what they believe to be the “truth” about the holiday.
A particular incident comes to mind – back in 2012 when former MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry gave her audience what is perhaps one of the most depressing Thanksgiving send-offs ever.
“Thanksgiving is not that simple,” she lectured. “The kindergarten story that you learned about grateful Pilgrims and happy Indians is not even close to the historic reality of how European settlers brought violence, disease and land theft to the indigenous peoples who were already in this land long before it was discovered.”
Yikes. From the way she puts it, you’d think the settlers purposely brought over diseases they were immune to.
It’s a damning indictment overall, but hardly a true one.
Getting to the Truth
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host and author Michael Medved tackled the presentation of the pilgrims as colonial oppressors in a new video for Prager University that’s out just in time for Thanksgiving. Medved has tackled the claim in his published books on American history, some of which have focused on debunking common left-wing myths.
You can watch the whole video here:
“[The Pilgrims] risked their dangerous 1620 voyage to a wilderness continent not because they were running from oppression but because they were running toward holiness – fulfilling a fateful mission to build an ideal Christian commonwealth,”says Medved.
Second, as he pointed out, the pilgrims never invaded an Indian settlement. Instead, they stumbled upon a previously deserted Indian village with stored food supplies and a fresh water source. In fact, the pilgrims wanted to pay the natives for the corn, but all the village’s inhabitants had died from a plague—most likely smallpox—before the pilgrims’ arrival.
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