It’s that time of the year when kindergarten classes all around the country are breaking out their safety scissors and crayons to make cardboard feather accessories, black Pilgrim hats, and hand turkeys. (The turkeys are beside the point, but isn’t it strange that people draw live turkeys for Thanksgiving? How often do you see a live turkey on Thanksgiving?) Though most people come to realize that the story of Thanksgiving they were taught as a kid is utterly false, we continue to paint this false narrative while encouraging children to blatantly appropriate the culture of indigenous people.
We all remember the story: the poor Pilgrims sailed to the Americas to escape religious persecution, the “Indians” taught them to fish and grow corn, they shared a big feast, then something about George Washington and America, details aren’t important. Obviously, that’s laughably inaccurate, so where did this story come from in the first place? And why do we continue to celebrate a holiday built off not only a lie but a lie that covers up the truly tragic and bloody truth?
By the time the Pilgrims set sail to America in 1620, there had already been contact (and conflict) between the Europeans and the Native people across the Americas for over a hundred years (note: “Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”) and Mexico at the time was under Spanish rule. When the Pilgrims established the Plymouth colony, the Wampanoag tribe allied with them to defend against rebel tribes and new diseases brought by preceding colonists. Both the Pilgrims (coming from England) and the Wampanoag tribe traditionally held ceremonies and feasts to celebrate a good harvest and did so together during this alliance.
For decades, the uneasy alliance held, but the continued seizing of land and bloody conflicts (oftentimes straight-up massacres) by the Plymouth and neighboring English colonies built tensions that would eventually lead to King Philip’s War, or The First Indian War, in 1675. Thousands of Native Americans were killed in this war, and thousands more would be killed in the centuries to come, along with the loss of land and mass cultural erasure.
Today, Native American people continue to face the highest rate of violent crimes against them, the desecration of native land, and continued cultural erasure/appropriation. So again, why do we continue to celebrate a holiday built off a lie? And why do we actively ignore our shameful history as if the oppression of Native American people doesn’t still exist today?
Works Cited
Bernal, Rafael. “Native American Leader Denounces Destruction of Sacred Sites for Border Wall Construction.” TheHill, The Hill, 27 Feb. 2020, www.thehill.com/latino/484853-native-american-leader-denounces-destruction-of-sacred-sites-for-border-wall.
Bugos, Claire. “The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 26 Nov. 2019, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/.
Editors. “King Philip's War.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Nov. 2019, www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-philips-war.
Editors. “Mayflower Departs England.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Sept. 2020, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mayflower-departs-england.
Editors. “Trail of Tears.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 7 July 2020, www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears.
“Erasing Native American Religious Traditions: Cultural Erasure In The Twentieth Century.” USU Digital Exhibits, www.exhibits.usu.edu/exhibits/show/religiouserasureofnativeameric/culturalerasurein20thcentury.
“Indigenous Peoples and Violence.” Association on American Indian Affairs, www.indian-affairs.org/indigenous-peoples-and-violence.html.
“Plimoth Plantation.” Thanksgiving History | Plimoth Plantation, www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-history.
Zotigh, Dennis. “Do American Indians Celebrate Thanksgiving?” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 26 Nov. 2019, www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2016/11/27/do-american-indians-celebrate-thanksgiving/.
Comments