workingclasshistory:

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, or a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans in New England, or “Unthanksgiving Day” for some Native Americans on the West Coast. It commemorates pilgrims and Wampanoag people sharing an autumn harvest feast in 1621.
Thanksgiving days by English colonists in the 17th century were frequent, and marked what were perceived as gifts from God. Chris Newell, of the Akomawt Educational Initiative explained to Nur Ibrahim: “When it comes to the 17th century English ‘days of thanksgiving,’ they have no resemblance to the holiday we celebrate today. That holiday was not created until the 19th century. The English day of thanksgiving would have been a day of prayer. If they won a victory in battle that would have been a day of thanksgiving, which was normally a day of fasting, totally different from a feast.”
Some of these thanksgiving days celebrated genocidal atrocities, such as a massacre of Pequot people by colonists in Mystic, Connecticut in 1637.
The modern Thanksgiving holiday as a feast began in 1863 at the behest of president Abraham Lincoln, and was made a national holiday by Congress in 1870.
The Indigenous National Day of Mourning began in 1970, after Wamsutta James of the Wampanoag was invited to give a speech by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts celebrating the Pilgrims’ arrival. James was uninvited when event organisers read his speech, which stated: “This action by Massasoit [Wampanoag leader who feasted with the English] was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end.”
You can learn about 500 years of resistance to colonialism in the Americas in this book by Gord Hill: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2143554975829641/?type=3