Nov 25, 2021
It’s Time To Confront the Truth Behind Thanksgiving
The harmful history behind the holiday.
Every year, Americans gather around the dinner table to celebrate peace, unity and give thanks. We prepare delicious feasts, watch football, and feel incredible love for our lives.
On the surface, it may seem that there’s not much to criticize about a holiday based on peace, gratitude, and good food. But a glance into the historical context of the holiday reveals a thoroughly nauseating affair.
Thanksgiving has a complicated history rooted in murder, genocide, and imperialism. Trust me, you will never hear a Native American say, “You know what I love about this time of the year? The heartwarming Thanksgiving story I learned in elementary school.”
The Legend of the First Thanksgiving
We were all taught a purer version of our country’s historical past: The Pilgrims arrived from Europe expecting to end up in India and instead wound up here. They originally believed they were in India, hence why they called the Native Americans “Indians”. Afterward, when they discovered it was a new land, they moved in, fought the natives, and seized some territory.
The problem with the American version of the Thanksgiving holiday is its false association with Native Americans — the infamous ‘Indians and pilgrims’ myth.
The long version goes something like this: A small group of Puritan separatists from England settled in Plymouth in 1620. Faced with a harsh winter, they struggled to put food on the table in their new surroundings. In March of the following year, the Pilgrims signed a peace treaty with a local native tribe — the Wampanoag — and in return, their chief taught the colonists how to farm, fish, and provide for themselves. At the end of that year’s harvest, a small group of Pilgrims and Wampanoag natives gathered to celebrate the bountiful harvest. Picture tons of food — corn, foul, barley, squash, fish — fall colors and a festive atmosphere.
It would be necessary to go back as early as the beginning of civilization itself to find the first thought contributing to a season of THanksgiving.
A Harsher Reality
The cheerful story of good Pilgrims and Indians breaking bread and celebrating the first successful colonial harvest has been the fairytale Americans have long preferred over the truth. In reality, it was a massive Native American holocaust, not the Norman Rockwell image of a long table piled high with food and friendly Pilgrims.
A group of pilgrims celebrated the harvest with Native Americans. But this event was neither recurring in nature nor officially declared a day of thanks. After the initial Thanksgiving feast of 1621, tension arose between the settlers and the indigenous peoples, eventually reaching a breaking point. The settlers ultimately drove the natives out of their land, hunted, and practically exterminated the entire population.
The first official Thanksgiving occurred over a decade later, and it celebrated something much grimmer. In 1637, Massachusetts Bay Governor William Bradford designated a “day of thanksgiving” celebrating the Pequot massacre — the Pilgrims’ victory against the Pequot Indians.
As the Puritans were spreading further into Connecticut, they came into conflict with a warlike tribe, the Pequots, living on the Thames River. By spring 1637, conflicts had occurred between the Pilgrims and the Pequots. As a result, they arranged a broad military effort to retaliate against the attacks. They marched to the Pequot village.
Just before dawn, they charged. Facing resistance, they burned the village down. The men lit over 80 huts on fire. They executed anyone who tried to flee, resulting in a brutal massacre of over 500 Pequot men, women, and children. They sold anyone that survived into slavery.
On Thanksgiving, the settlers celebrated the land and what the land produced. But how did they get that land? They took it.
We Are On We Are On Indigenous Land
It’s okay to celebrate Thanksgiving and to be thankful for your blessings. To falsely portray the origin of this holiday and lie about the truth of its actual inception is not okay.
When you sit down for your Thanksgiving feast this year, think about the origins of Thanksgiving and whose land you are on. No matter where you are in North America, you are on indigenous land. We make most of our Thanksgiving recipes with indigenous foods: turkey, corn, beans, pumpkins, maple, and wild rice.
Besides losing their land, Native Americans also paid an enormous price in human life. We should think about the countless indigenous people that lost their lives so we can carve a turkey and get the best deals on Black Friday.
