ENGLISH TEST

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READING COMPREHENSION
Introduce the document (Type of document /title / author )

The document we are dealing with is an article written by Mike Ely entitled :
Native blood: the truth behind the Myth of `Thanksgiving Day'.
Read the title. Decide if it conveys a positive or a negative idea. Justify your choice with
keywords from the title. Native blood: the truth behind the myth of `Thanksgiving Day'

The title conveys a negative idea as the words blood and truth may
suggest . Blood has (=carries) a negative connotation as it is often linked
to murder or massacre, while the truth is not always pleasant to hear. It
may destroy the myth.
Read the introduction, pick out the words with a negative connotation and say what you
expect the text to be dealing with .

The words colonist, invasion, colonialists, supposedly, lies,

horrors, tortures, bitter, murder, theft all have a negative
connotation. Thus, I expect the article to be dealing with the real history of
Thanksgiving with the murder of the native people by the European settlers
and how they stole their land.
Pick out :

a- a country the United States

a region

a state

Massachusetts

New England

b- the names of 4 settlements the Plymouth colony / Boston / Salem /

Manhattan colony
c the names of 2 Indian tribes The

Wampanoags / the Wappingers / the

Pawtuxet
d the name of a disease
e the name of a ship

smallpox (la variole)

the Mayflower

f the name of a celebration

Thanksgiving

Identify the people mentioned ? Fill in the chart.

the Indians

The invaders

the local Indians

the early colonists

the indigenous people

the Pilgrims

the native people(s)

the European colonialists

the Indians

exiles

- The Wampanoags

- British expedition

- the Wampanoag Chief

- the Europeans

- King Philip

- the settlers

- the Wappingers

- the British settlers

-

the Puritans

the European immigrants

William Bradford = the colonys

governor
-

the Dutch governor Kieft of

Manhattan
Say what the following numbers refer to ?

a- 24
1614.

it refers to the number of Indians that were enslaved in

b- 300
1629.

it refers to the number of settlers living in New England by

c- 2000

it refers to the number of British settlers by 1637 .

d- 500
it refers to the number of Indians who were shipped as
slaves from Plymouth.
Pick out 2 dates . Say what the 3 dates refer to ?
e- 1676
it refers to the year when a day of Public Thanksgiving
was declared..
f- 1620
it refers to the year when the Mayflower landed on the
North American coast.
g- 1621
it refers to the year when a 3-day Feat of Thanksgiving
was declared by William Bradford.
What or who do the nouns refer to ?

a- exiles
b- Kieft

it refers to the Pilgrim Fathers. (First European settlers)

it refers to the name of the Dutch governor of Manhattan.

c- Plantation

it refers to a colony.

d- Pawtuxet

it refers to the Indian village of the Pawtuxet tribe.

Draw a time line that could best represent the sequence of events as described in
the article.
a- Pick out one adjective characterizing the native people.

friendly / generous / enslaved / local / indigenous / native

b- Tick the 3 adjectives that best apply to the British settlers in the article.

determined - hostile - selfish

- unfriendly

Which of the following statements are true ? Justify your answer by quoting the text
a- The First Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1676.

RIGHT

WRONG

the colonys governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast

of thanksgiving after that first harvest of 1621.
the colonists declared a day of public thanksgiving in 1676.
b- It lasted for a whole day.
RIGHT
WRONG
a three-day feast
c- A few years before the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, native people had been shipped to
Europe and sold as slaves . RIGHT
WRONG
When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves

d- The Europeans are described as peaceful.

RIGHT

WRONG

about half died from battle, massacre and starvation.

The Wampanoag chief was beheaded. His head was stuck on a
pole
the Puritans had destroyed the generous Wampanoag and all other
neighboring tribes.
The European immigrants took land and enslaved Indians to help
them farm it.
One captive was castrated, skinned alive and forced to eat his own
flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed.
e- The overall tone is ironical . RIGHT WRONG

It celebrates the bounty (la bont / gnrosit) of the American

way of life,
by giving thanks to the Christian god who supposedly (soi - disant)
protected and championed the European invasion.

Answer the questions .

Justify your answer with a quote from the article.
a- According to the article, how can you account for
Indians in the Plymouth area (= rgion) ?

(= rendre compte de)

the death of so many

The numerous diseases brought by the European settlers can account

for the death of so many Indians in the Plymouth area. When the first
European settlers arrived, they brought diseases that devastated
entire tribes. Mike Ely refers to the smallpox epidemics and to the 3
years of plague following the arrival of the first British settlers and to
their deadly impact on the indigenous people .
b- What happened to the remaining Indians in the area ?

The Indians who survived were enslaved (= became slaves / were

sold into slavery ) to help European settlers farm the land they had
taken from them (= had stolen) . Later on, the indigenous people were
ill-treated (= tortured) as some were skinned alive, scalped ,
castrated , beheaded or forced to eat their own flesh . Most
Native people were massacred (= slaughtered) or starved to death.
c- Focus on the last sentence. Explain in your own words what is being criticized in the article.
Who does the author side with (prende le parti de) ? Justify your answer. (50 words)

What is being criticized in the article is the brutality and violence of

the European settlers. The journalists denounces the way the
Europeans settled in the New World by stealing the land of the
indigenous people and by killing entire tribes. They took advantage of
the kindness of the Indians to survive in the New World. He clearly
sides with the Native People who were enslaved or got slaughtered as
the last sentence suggests. The tone is sarcastic as conveyed by the
bounty of the American way of life. He criticizes the celebration of
Thanksgiving through irony and makes uses of negative words to show
the hypocrisy of the celebration. The author denounces the horrors and
the tortures hidden behind the lies and the myth of Thanksgiving. The
title makes it clear that the article debunks the myth and reveals the
harsh reality of colonialism.

Native blood: the truth behind the myth of `Thanksgiving Day'

By Mike Ely

It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early
colonists at Plymouth by giving thanks to the Christian god who
supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The myths
and lies that surround the past are constantly draped over the horrors and
tortures of our present.
Every schoolchild in the United States has been taught that the Pilgrims of
the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after
surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of

Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of

their land by European colonialists.
***
In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast,
delivering 102 exiles. The original native people of this stretch of shoreline had already been
killed off. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians
as slaves and left smallpox behind. Three years of plague

wiped out between 90 and 96 per cent of the

inhabitants of the coast, destroying most villages
completely.
The Europeans landed and built their colony called the
Plymouth Plantation near the deserted ruins of the
Indian village of Pawtuxet.
The deadly impact of European diseases and the good
will of the Wampanoag allowed the settlers to survive
their first year.
In celebration of their good fortune, the colonys governor, William Bradford,
declared a three-day feast of thanksgiving after that first harvest of 1621.
How the Puritans stole the land

But the peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the
Puritans would have 15 years to establish a firm foothold on the coast. Until
1629 there were no more than 300 settlers in New England, scattered in
small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan
invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of
Plymouth: Boston and Salem. For 10 years, boatloads of new settlers came.
And as the number of Europeans increased, they proved not nearly so
generous as the Wampanoags.
The European immigrants took land and enslaved Indians to help them farm
it. By 1637 there were about 2000 British settlers.
Thanksgiving in the Manhattan Colony :

In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first scalp
bounty his government paid money for the scalp of each Indian brought to
them. A couple years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a
friendly tribe. Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like
soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated,
skinned alive and forced to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor
watched and laughed.
It is not known how many Indians were sold into slavery, but in this
campaign, 500 enslaved Indians were shipped from Plymouth alone. Of the
12,000 Indians in the surrounding tribes, probably about half died from
battle, massacre and starvation.
After King Philips War, there were almost no Indians left free in the
northern British colonies. In Massachusetts, the colonists declared a day of
public thanksgiving in 1676. Fifty-five years after the original Thanksgiving
Day, the Puritans had destroyed the generous Wampanoag and all other
neighboring tribes. The Wampanoag chief was beheaded. His head was
stuck on a pole in Plymouth, where the skull still hung on display 24 years
later.
Looking at this history raises a question: Why should anyone celebrate the
survival of the earliest Puritans with a Thanksgiving Day? Certainly the
Native peoples of those times had no reason to celebrate.

It celebrates the bounty of the American way of life, while covering up the
brutal nature of this society.