Thanksgiving 2004

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States… I think it’s time to dispel some myths…

MYTH: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.

FACT: The first feast wasn’t repeated, so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn’t even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast — dancing, singing secular songs, playing games — wouldn’t have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds. [Source : The History Channel]

“In 1616-1617, three to four years before the European adventurers and religious refugees anchored the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay, the Indians of southern New England had been decimated by diseases introduced by European explorers. The effects of the diseases were particularly hard felt along the coast. Whole villages were wiped out; it is estimated that as many as three fourths of the Wampanoags were killed. The entire population of the Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet was wiped out by a terrible plague. When the Europeans founded Plimoth Plantation amid the ruins of the villages of Pawtuxet, they found the bones of the dead littering the ground, because there was no one left to bury them.” …

“A majority of those who came to America on the Mayflower came to make a profit from the products of the land, the rest were religious dissenters who fled their own country because of religious intolerance. The little band of religious refugees and entrepreneurs (they called themselves “saints” and “strangers”) who arrived on the Mayflower that December of 1620 were poorly prepared to survive. They did not bring enough food, and they arrived too late to plant. They were not familiar with the area and lacked the knowledge, tools, and experience to effectively exploit the bounty of nature that surrounded them. For the first several months two or three died each day from scurvy, lack of adequate shelter, and poor nutrition. They discovered that the Wampanoag placed grain and precious ornaments with the dead and they robbed Wampanoag graves to steal the ornaments and feed the living.” [Source : Harvest Ceremony (.pdf file) - A good read.]

“‘Thanksgiving’ did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial ‘Thanksgiving’ meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of ‘pilgrims’ led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian chief, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out! Officially, the holiday we know as ‘Thanksgiving’
actually came into existence in the year 1637. Governor Winthrop of the Massachussetts Bay Colony proclaimed this first official day of Thanksgiving and feasting to celebrate the return of the colony’s men who had arrived safely from what is now Mystic, Connecticut. They had gone there to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children, and Mr. Winthrop decided to dedicate an official day of thanksgiving complete with a feast to ‘give thanks’ for their great ‘victory’.” [Source : Mistakes, Lies & Misconceptions about American Indian people : The Thanksgiving Myth]

Squanto’s life story would make a great movie. He grew up on the same land that the Pilgrims inhabited. Before their arrival, he befriended a British explorer named John Weymouth, who taught him English. Later, Squanto was captured and sold into slavery in Spain. With the help of a Spanish priest, Squanto reconnected with Weymouth, who helped him return to his homeland. But by the time he arrived, his village had been wiped out by the plague, which had been brought by the slave traders. Later, Squanto helped the Pilgrims when he saw them struggling in his abandoned ancestral home.

“No country does gluttony quite like the United States. The Calorie Control Council, an industry group, says that Americans consume as much as 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving, as much as twice what the FDA recommends for an entire day. That said, humans have been holding harvest festivals for ages. We may wish we invented Thanksgiving, but we didn’t. In ancient times, Middle Eastern peoples offered wheat to “The Great Mother” or “Mother of the Wheat.” In medieval times, central Europeans celebrated their harvests at Feast of Saint Martin on November 11th. And we can all be thankful our celebrations aren’t like those of the Aztecs, who each year would behead a young girl representing Xilonen, the corn goddess.” [Source : Encarta - The Pilgrims Watched Football (and Other Thanksgiving Myths)]

So, not only was the feast not a “thanksgiving,” but it was also not a “first”… Native Peoples all over this continent had been giving daily thanks to their Creator for thousands of years. There is also nothing ‘noble’ about the puritans. They were a divisive and extremist sect of the protestant Anglican faith who were not satisfied with the middle-of-the-road approach to religion that King James I took when he came to the throne of England. They were involved in many civil and Parliamentary skirmishes during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and his son, Charles I, due to their insistence to conform to the National Church of England (of which the monarch was the head) to the word of God in worship, government and religious practice.

Sounds familiar…