Horrible Black Friday: Nexus between thanksgiving, Wampanoag genocide, Afrikan slave wholesale and inevitable stampedes by capitalism.
– Afrikan Proverb
1600s remains the darkest time on the lives of indigenous people across the world, as it represents a European settlers’ unprovoked aggression, escalated invasion of people’s land, slaughtering or subjugating them. Sigh! It is unfair to indigenous people of the world to point out 1600s as the “darkest period” on the basis that all their lives they have been dogged by misery and death every time settlers came into contact with them anywhere in the world.
1652 remains the hallmark of conquest in Southern Africa, 1620 an albatross that stubbornly weighs the Wampanoag nation deeper in the belly of Plymouth Beach.
On this glorious week of the slaves, where many attempted to escape the death plantations of the southern states of America; Skema Biko Nights is bent to dampen excitement associated with “Black Friday” by showing the dangers of ignorance to history and memory.
It’s a known fact that cosmetic freedom has intoxicated many Africans in the continent and abroad, as result many of us shamelessly poke fun at the painful history of slaves and how they were disposed right after a turkey feast.
The aim of this brief is to locate Plymouth in the Wampanoag genocide perpetrated by the English settlers, debunk the fictitious picnic tale of thanksgiving. Show the inevitable link of the latter to the slave surplus disposal/ wholesale “Black Friday”, and reflect on the unfortunate common stampedes associated with black friday.
It is widely reported that Thanksgiving started as a three day celebration of first harvest by Plymouth settlers and attended by 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe in 1621.
The Plymouth settlers commonly known as Pilgrims were taught basic agricultural methods by the indigenous people they found there. Although it is often argued that thanksgiving emanates from the massacre of Pequot people in 1637, which culminated in three day celebrations. So there are heavily contested narratives when it comes to thanksgiving, but what one can deduce from the two dominant tales is that one is a whitewashed historical account and the other an unsettling telling of the brutality of English settlers.
The first harvest celebrations concept erroneously themed “thanksgiving” is a heavily contested cultural event in recent history because it has always been the custom and norm of indigenous people to celebrate first successful harvest. Typical settler arrogance and entitlement appropriated the celebration, bastardized and turned it to be of their creation against the historical evidence.
One of the many important figures in the Wampanoag tribe’s history has to be Tisquantum, who was forced into slavery in England in the early 1600s. He came back and found his people decimated by disease and endless battles with settlers. By 1621 he was significant intermediary between Wampanoag tribe and the English settlers, until inevitable fallout because settlers had insatiable desire for more land.
The relationship between Wampanoag tribe and settlers is nothing new to world history. Indigenous people have always been taken advantage of by settlers because of their hospitality and humanity.
Thanksgiving was made official in 1863 when United States of America President Abraham Lincoln declared it a public holiday; as a gesture of gratitude to the men and women who came out victorious in the civil victories. Although elsewhere it is argued that thanksgiving was initially given impetus or legitimacy by President George Washington, who wanted celebrations of killing indigenous people to be reduced to a day instead of several days.
Abraham Lincoln legitimized thanksgiving and bolstered a coordinated falsification campaign of its history and narrative. As a result it turned to be a story of two different tribes who came together to have a peaceful picnic after a successful harvest by English settlers.
The narrative of thanksgiving as declared by Abraham Lincoln omits indigenous tribes’ importance and existence prior arrival of settlers. It also doesn’t acknowledge that indigenous people next to these settlers have been doing such harvest celebrations for centuries before arrival of settlers in 1620. Moreover the agony, misery and death perpetrated by settlers in the indigenous people’s land and lives. Thanksgiving is a complete whitewash and falsification of history for nefarious intentions by European settlers.
Slavery and thanksgiving is a discussion that doesn’t find audience during this time of festivities and ridiculous spending spree. Most people think that slavery ended when Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States of America, against the fact he was a slave owner and racist of note.
Thanksgiving found prominence among settlers across America since the 1600s in Plymouth, and permeated society in different forms to this very day.
It is inconceivable and illlogical an illustrious industry of Afrikan slavery will be by passed by the thanksgiving frenzy. Afrikans at the time were merely commodities that could be stock piled for labour or for supply/demand purposes in the market. Moreover Afrikan slaves were highly sought after by farmers during harvest time. After harvest it made business sense to dispose of the slave surplus at ridiculous prices during thanksgiving festivities that spanned for three days.
The gap in history by intent or not, doesn’t negate Afrikan slaves were treated like an Ossewa, easily replaceable and disposal at the whim of the slave owners.
There is an intimate nexus between slavery and thanksgiving that is usually frowned upon in academia and society. It sits right at the pulse of the rudimentary and backward capitalist system that thrives on exploitation and dehumanization of indigenous people. The argument could be expanded to today’s epoch where capitalism has found different forms of exploitation and disregard for life.
There are several narratives on how Black Friday came to be known, one of them is said that it started in Philadelphia as description of the high shopping spree and concomitant chaos, burden and disruption in the basic functioning of the city. Elsewhere it is argued that “Black Friday” as we know it today came from the collapse of the Wall Street subsequent to the stock piling of gold by investment maniacs such as Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in 1869.
Historically it is a difficult exercise to associate “Black Friday” as a concept with post-thanksgiving activities. Although the phenomenon itself during slavery epitomizes the modern day “Black Friday” and it cannot be discarded. That premise allows one to strongly argue that, slave surplus wholesale post-thanksgiving was a “black Friday” in a different form and time at the height of slavery.
This brief contends that Afrikan people remain commodified to this very day; it is conspicuous in the labour reserves known as ghettos, projects and townships here and far. In the mist of this shopping spree frenzy it is Afrikan people who bear the brunt of capitalist retailing and other service industries.
Barbieri (2017) “Celebrating Genocide, Invasion, and Salvery: The Truth About Thanksgiving” is a concise and interesting title that captures the atrocities and falsification of history in a single sentence. Cain (2017) succinctly gorges the sensitivities of early Plymouth settlers and consciousness of indigenous people with robust with “The true story behind Thanskgiving is a bloody struggle that decimated the population and ended with a head on a stick” forces us to look back and ourselves in the mirror as we rush to the supermarket for the turkey.
We shuffle and sort on the supermarket floor’s on the blood and sweat of our people in the past and present. We elbow and trample on each other in ignorance of our history and losses we incurred on this week.
History has no blank pages. Its only ignorant black friday freaks who stagger on the floor splashed with blood of our ancestors, but their bloodied shoe prints are left forever.
This Black Friday:
We remember Metacomet.
We remember Tisquantum.
We remember the glorious Wampanoag tribe.
We remember the glorious Narragansetts tribe.
We remember all the indigenous people of the world,who fell fighting for their freedom.
We remember modern day slaves in retail and service industries.
We remember all the ghetto, projects and township folks!
We remember all the slaves that died trying to escape the plantation this week.
We remember our glorious past.
Aluta continua!
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