It is the tail end of Fall — and nothing gets Americans more excited about that than Thanksgiving. The familiar story goes a little bit like this: the Pilgrims, persecuted in the Old World for their religious beliefs, sought to make a life for themselves in the New World. They arrived aboard the legendary Mayflower, settling in Plymouth (present-day Massachusetts), where they were gleefully welcomed by the Native Americans, who taught them how to work the land. Then, they all had a big harvest feast together as a symbol of friendship and gratitude. This story is part of the foundational myth of the United States.
Though this story of the Pilgrims and Natives coming together for a feast does have some historical truth to it, the Thanksgiving myth erases centuries of genocide and ethnic cleansing that the original inhabitants of Turtle Island* have suffered to this day. Plymouth Colony was early, but not the first (English) colony at all—there had been Jamestown and others—but their stories were a lot less marketable. Plymouth Colony was founded on the ruins of a Wampanoag village. Between 90-96% of this and other coastal New England tribes had been wiped out by European disease, brought by raiders a few years prior.
On the day of the legendary feast in 1621, the Pilgrims shot their guns in the air to celebrate their successful hunt and harvest, raising suspicions among the remaining Wampanoag, the indigenous population present. Their leader, Massasoit, rushed to the settlement, ready to go to battle. Upon ironing out the misunderstanding, they did, in fact, have a feast together, signed a treaty, and allied against the rival Narragansett tribe. However, that treaty was broken by the colonists within a century.
In 1970, Massachusetts invited Wamsutta (Frank James), the then-leader of the Wampanoag, to give a speech at their State Thanksgiving. After reading the planned speech, they promptly uninvited him. It marked the end of the Wampanoag's relations with the White man as they had known them since the moment of that original feast. Here is an excerpt from his suppressed speech:
It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. Even before the Pilgrims landed, it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe, and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. […]
Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. […] This action by Massasoit 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; that before 50 years had passed, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.
Why am I telling you the story of Thanksgiving, you might ask? What does that have to do with Luxembourg? Well, though none of these original settlers were Luxembourgish, you may have heard that around one-third of our population at the time (72,000 people) left Luxembourg due to economic hardship during the second half of the 19th century. The vast majority of them chose the New World as their destination; many settled in the United States, and some went to Brazil. Their descendants are numerous and proud of their heritage. They, too, have attempted to make sense of their history and have tried to hold on to Luxembourgish culture—organizations like the Luxembourgish-American Cultural Society in Wisconsin or the Luxembourgish Brotherhood of America in Chicago continue to emulate their ancestors.
As a Luxembourgish person who lived in the middle of nowhere in Ohio for four years, coming to the North Side of Chicago felt like a warm hug from home. Driving around, I found many Oberweis stores (and yes, the Chicago Oberweis family are relatives of the Luxembourg Oberweis). History books at Walgreens proudly proclaim the North Side suburbs as built by the Luxembourgish “Glass House” People. At the same time, I frequently passed Shabonee Park and lived in Skokie, reminding me that Illinois belongs to Native Americans, who were wiped out or forcibly displaced from their lands at various points in time but still live across the United States.
The more my brain started to make the connection between the remaining hints of Indigenous presence and the Luxembourgish settlers that had bought their stolen land, the more this hug felt rotten. Just like the Thanksgiving story and most mainstream history books, cultural institutions like the Luxembourgish-American Cultural Society celebrate their ancestors' heritage—for example, through exchange programs or exhibitions—but they often whitewash history into a feel-good story that completely ignores the foundations of the United States in land theft and murder.
Throughout my time here, I have extensively researched the history of Americans of Luxembourgish descent. It should come as no surprise that the Luxembourgish government heavily supports efforts to build closer ties between both countries. These Luxembourgish-American institutions have hosted many high-profile names from Luxembourg's elite, such as Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich (then Archbishop), Grand Duke Henri, his son Guillaume, and even politicians like Sven Clément, who visited Belgium, WI, to woo Luxembourgish-Americans into voting for his now-defunct Pirate Party. They also welcomed me warmly, and this article is not meant to condemn people who have found meaning in their ancestry and celebrate it through these institutions. It aims to lay bare the truth so we can incorporate it into our knowledge and sense of identity—adding another chapter to Luxembourgish colonial participation, an effort started by Richtung22 and Lëtz Rise Up with their Summer 2021 Luxembourg City Walking Tours and the recently awarded book Luxemburg war nie eine Kolonialmacht: Eine kritische Einführung (Luxembourg Was Never a Colonial Power: A Critical Introduction).
Yes, the Luxembourgish immigrants often arrived in the United States with little to nothing to their name. Some may have fled terrible conditions in our homeland and been on the verge of starvation or bankruptcy. But this does not absolve them of their complicity in imposing even worse conditions on the people whose land they settled on, nor of their status as settlers residing on land that belongs to the Indigenous.
Although there is much to be said about the diverse wars and treaties that kept the area in disarray—from the Iroquois Beaver Wars to the American Revolutionary War, after which Britain ceded Illinois to the newly established United States—the fate of even the most resilient Indigenous people was sealed in 1830 with the Indian Removal Act. In an 1832 attempt at resistance, Black Hawk, a Sauk leader, crossed the Mississippi in hopes of regaining some of the land the colonists had seized through illegitimate treaties with unrepresentative figures. Once suppressed, settlers in the Midwest feared being raided again, and therefore, the 1833 Treaty of Chicago was signed with all remaining tribes, requiring them to move west of the Mississippi. In an act of defiance, 800 warriors gathered in Chicago in 1835 and performed the last-ever recorded war dance in the area. The last remaining Potawatomi in the region were removed at gunpoint in 1838; their village was burned, and nearly 1,000 people marched to Kansas on the Trail of Death**.
At the same time, the first settlers arrived on Chicago’s North Side; the first structure in Skokie was built by an Englishman in 1831. A note from the local Männerchor (“Men’s Choir”) says: “Every white person in northeastern Illinois fled to the barracks of Fort Dearborn in Chicago or joined the state militia to fight Black Hawk’s band.” The first Luxembourgish immigrants arrived less than 15 years later, just 7 years after the Trail of Death**,** settling in land that had been cleared of Natives and considering it terra nullius. As mentioned earlier, they became known as the Glasshouse People, “taming” the strange conditions of the New World to fit the European lifestyle.
It is our duty to understand the intricate implications of history and connect the dots. America is known as the land of opportunity—but when we take a closer look, these opportunities were seized from the land’s original inhabitants, taken from them by bloodthirsty colonists and given to white settlers like Nicholas Faber of Bauschleiden or Wilhelm Sinner and Pierre Pleschette of Grosbous. I end this article by calling on Luxembourgish-American institutions to reexamine their representation of history to include these hard truths and to make clear the effects of Luxembourgish settler colonialism on Native Americans.
According to geographers from University College London, the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so many people (approximately 55 million, or 90% of local populations) that it resulted in climate change and global cooling. Though Raphaël Lemkin, the author of the legal concept of genocide, recognized American colonization as a historic example of genocide, little has been done to educate the public around the world about the United States’ true history and legacy.
*Turtle Island is a term used by some Indigenous peoples, primarily those in North America, to refer to the continent. This name stems from various Indigenous creation stories which describe the landmass as being formed on the back of a giant turtle. The concept of Turtle Island is deeply significant in many Native American cultures as it reflects their spiritual beliefs and relationship with Mother Earth. (Urban Native Collective)
** The Potawatomi Trail of Death is the forced removal by militia in 1838 of approximately 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana to reservations in what is now eastern Kansas. They traveled more than 1,000 km on foot, and more than 40 of them, most of whom were children, died of disease, exposure, and exhaustion. It was the largest Indian removal in Indiana's history. It echoes a better-known historical event that occurred around the same time: The Trail of Tears. The latter occurred with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson, which mandated the removal of Native American tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River. Around 60,000 Native Americans were displaced, and thousands died of cold, disease, and starvation during the journey. These two events highlight the devastating consequences of American policies towards Indigenous peoples during the 19th century.
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