Persuasive Essay About Thanksgiving

Keely Beauchamp
Time Travel English
Mrs. Augustine
28 Mar 2023 Thanksgiving needs to change
The thanksgiving story is a happy celebration between the Pilgrims and the Indians. Thats what we were taught in schools so it must be true, right? Wrong. There are so many false retellings of thanksgiving out there and the most common is what we are told in school. Not only have we not been educated on the truths of thanksgiving, the holiday generates so much waste, and there are things we can change about our celebration that can help the environment.
As a little girl, I remember my great grandmother’s kitchen bustling with energy trying to finish cooking the great feast before dinnertime. I enjoyed that time watching my family laugh together as

In school we briefly talked about the original meal between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. About the happy exchange of foods, recipes and tactics to survive in the new world the Pilgrims have entered. What school failed to mention was the discrimination and slaughtering of Native Americans that happened for centuries after that meal. “When the colonizers came to America they enslaved and stole from the Native Americans” (Drenon). Many of the ways that the colonizers were able to survive was because of the Native Americans. They taught them what plants to eat and what plants not to eat, how to plant and harvest. The Pilgrims stole from the Native Americans. They slaughtered tribes before and after the famous thanksgiving feast seeking to control land. Not only did the Pilgrims kill the Native Americans, they enslaved them. “The US government sought to forcibly assimilate children at over 400 government boarding schools operated between 1819 and 1969” (Drenon). Native Americans were taken from their homes, and families were ripped apart. Thanksgiving began decades of discrimination towards the Native Americans. For many Native Americans nowadays, thanksgiving can be a hard day to celebrate or one not celebrated at all. “The day is a painful reminder of an ugly chapter in American history; a symbol of empty promises, a story whose retelling tends to gloss over the indesirable details of colonization” (Drenon). The day is a time for indigenous people to remember there tribes and ancestors that lived through such tragedy and discriminations. Its important to become knowledgeable in thanksgivings true history. Becoming knowledgeable in the history can helps us become more mindful of the way others may celebrate and may change the way we choose to celebrate