Indigenous people in Colorado ask for reflection on history during Thanksgiving
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- As many sit down with loved ones to eat turkey and celebrate everything they're grateful for this year, many Indigenous people in Colorado and across the country see Thanksgiving as a day of mourning.
Raven Payment, a member of the Pikes Peak Indigenous Women's Alliance, spoke with KRDO on Thanksgiving about what this holiday means to her community. Payment finds the classic Thanksgiving story taught in most public schools to be an irresponsible narrative. She said it paints a friendly picture between pilgrims and Indigenous people, which is misleading at best.
"There's this sweet, gooey overlay over the top of, you know, what is literally genocide," Payment said.
For Payment, this holiday is a reminder of all the mass killings of Native American people committed by white settlers.
"Every time there was a massacre, they would have a feast to celebrate [the] massacre of native people," Payment said. "So, George Washington determined that it was just easier to designate one day of the year, which then started to be that harvest festival to celebrate these massacres."
There's debate over the exact origin of the first Thanksgiving proclamation. Historians acknowledge that settlers had thanksgivings after violent events, but they say there's no connection to those thanksgivings and the holiday we celebrate today.
Eventually, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation to make the Thanksgiving holiday official, but Payment says it was around the same time as another mass murder of Native Americans.
"He marched on what we call the Dakota 38, which is the largest mass execution in US history in which they hanged 38 Dakota men during the Dakota wars, and so then it turns into the Thanksgiving that we have today," Payment said.
Payment believes that it's important to have a day to stay home with your loved ones and celebrate everything you're thankful for, she just hopes that you're thoughtful in how you observe Thanksgiving.
"We have this almost commercialism, consumerism, with, you know, this underlying message of gratitude and blessings and thankfulness, and oftentimes, that message is actually at the expense of indigenous people," Payment said.
To Payment, being thoughtful about this holiday includes thinking twice before saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!" She believes it's akin to saying, "Happy Massacre", given the holiday's origin.
Payment also said there are three main ways to support Indigenous people on Thanksgiving: educate yourself on American History and the issues still facing Native Americans; be an ally for Native American causes, like renaming landmarks that are harmful to Indigenous people or support the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives movement; and donate to causes that provide support to our local Native American community.
Some organizations benefiting our Native American community in Colorado are the Denver Indian Family Resource Center, One Nation Walking Together, and the Haseya Advocate Program.
