Indians and Pilgrims

 Many school districts are changing the way Thanksgiving is taught.  Instead of kids dressing up like Indians and Pilgrims, the history of the Wampanoag people is stressed.  Students learn that after the initial harvest feast, conflict ensued. When they arrived, the Pilgrims found the land fairly empty because earlier white explorers had spread European diseases that wiped out well over half of New England natives along the coast.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, another state which drove out its Indians, criticized schools that teach about Indians and said it was caused by “revisionist charlatans of the radical left.”  I do not think teaching real history is a radical left idea.

I will admit that seeing first graders in their Pilgrim and Indian costumes performing a Thanksgiving play was fun to watch, and the kids had a good time.  On the other hand, the Lehighton School District with its sports teams known as “the Indians” and its logo using Plains Indians headdresses and its lack of lessons on the history of the Lenni Lenapes is not acceptable.  I will be organizing protests against this in the near future.

Tom Cotton was quoted in Collin Binkley, “Thanksgiving lessons welcome truth,” Morning Call, (Nov. 26, 2020), p. 17.