Thanksgiving author vs. Indian educator

Anne Rockwell and Marc Aronson

Thanksgiving author:How you construed a fictional kindergarten child's words "..thankful that the beautiful land of Massachusetts had enough for everyone..." to mean that she was saying this justified white people's taking the land away from American Indians since they didn't know how to manage it. To quote you..."Wow!"Indian educator:That idea is one that Americans--Rockwell included--are socialized to think. Like she says, she never said it, and she never thought it either. That "it" is part of a thing later called Manifest Destiny that justified removal of Native peoples from their homelands. Rockwell's story is romantic. It is uncritical. It is a problem.(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 3/26/08.)

Comment:  Another clear victory for the Indian educator. See my remarks at the end of the original posting.

For more on the subject, see Ten Little Pilgrims and Indians.