A History The Founding Colonizers Don't Want You To Read.
Perhaps the phrase “history is written by the victors,” has no greater impact when exploring the truth behind the Americanized tradition of Thanksgiving. For it would be the first, a prototype if you will, in a long line of American myths used to erase the violence and bloodshed committed against many groups of people both here and abroad. A propaganda machine, founded on generational indoctrination, to alter the inception of Thanksgiving into a time honored tradition of giving thanks while bringing friends and families together. Almost 400 years later, we can look upon the events that transpired, the multiple genocides enacted against various Indigenous peoples and conclude that this model of disinformation campaign has worked almost flawlessly in replacing murder, slavery and genocide with turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie. A crime that has allowed the annals of history to be rewritten into the fabled tale of two cultures coming together as they learned to live alongside each other.
The mythology of Thanksgiving is just as necessary to maintaining the illusion of America as the tale of George Washington’s wooden teeth, painting the predatory nature of colonization into a story of destiny, ingenuity and prosperity filled with tyrants, war criminals and murderers turned folk heroes. A truth far more grim than what we are taught as children. We are indoctrinated to believe the Puritans were fleeing to escape thralls of religious oppression in England. Yet, the Puritans had already found religious freedom in Holland but struggled to secure stable work while also fearing that their English customs and traditions would all be lost on their children due to the influence of Dutch culture.
The Puritans went on to successfully secure a charter from The London Company to start the second English colony. With the Mayflower readied and Bibles in hand, the Puritans set course for the New World to establish a colony in the area north of Virginia and the first English colony, Jamestown. Heading for New England, the Puritans’ goal was to sail into the mouth of the Hudson River and claim the lands in the name of England to establish the empire in the fur trade that the Dutch had already begun to exploit.
In the fall of 1620, the Puritans set their eyes on Cape Cod, only to realize that they had blown off course. In an attempt to make their way south back to the Hudson River, the rocky shoals threatened to sink the ship thus making the voyage impossible. They had no other choice but to go elsewhere and since Cape Cod was a part of New England, they decided to settle here instead. They dropped anchor at the tip of Cape Cod in an area occupied by the Nauset tribe and their settlement known as Meeshawn, known today by its colonized name of Provincetown. Their first attempt to settle would not go according to plan. The Nauset soon grew weary of the Europeans and with the use of intimidation tactics, they forced the Puritans back onto the Mayflower. The Puritans sailed further into Cape Cod Bay before arriving upon the Wampanoag village of Patuxet, which was mostly abandoned due to a disease outbreak a few years earlier.
The first winter did not bode well for the Puritans, as disease and starvation cut their numbers in half by the time spring had arrived. The Puritans' future in the New World was bleak and if not for the intervention of Wampanoag, the Puritan may not have survived at all. Besides allowing the Europeans to remain in Patuxet, the Wampanoag taught the new arrivals proper ways to farm the native crops. The aid provided by the Wampanoag proved to be life saving, securing an abundance of food for the Puritans to make it through the upcoming winter.
With this story, crafted in mutual aid and solidarity, it is no wonder that most assume at the culmination of events, the two groups would most certainly come together to celebrate their newfound comradery. Yet, when this tale of affability is held up against the truth of historical events, it falls short in encapsulating the tensions that are rising amongst the two groups. Remember, while the Purtian sought religious freedom, this right only extended to themselves with one of their missions being to convert as many Indigenous peoples into a life of Christianity. They also were under the thumb of England and their purpose there had political implications and financial interests of the British Crown in mind. As well as the fact that if their primary goal was to maintain their English way of life while making profit in the New World, we would be hard pressed to believe that they were welcoming to the customs and traditions of the Wampanoag.
As the truth of events are revealed, it becomes less believable that this feast was grandiose commemoration of two cultures coming together. The first Thanksgiving is predicated on lie upon lie. The biggest myth being that Wampanoag were invited to the feast by the Puritans in the first place. Some accounts even tell of the Puritans erecting an 11 foot wall for the sole purpose of keeping the Wampanoag out. Any account of the Wampanoag present at the Puritans’ feast was for a different reason. During the celebration, Puritans started firing their guns into the air which upon hearing the gunfire, the Wampanoag assumed they were under attack. Led by head sachem, Massasoit, 90 Wampanoag arrived at the Patuxet prepared for a fight but instead found the Puritans feasting and decided to stay. A much more accurate depiction shows us a far-less welcoming atmosphere than we are led to believe.
These early tensions that are all but erased today, are only further backed by the inevitable outcome of the English invasion into the New World. Soon after the Puritans, disease ravaged the Wampanoag people and their neighbors to the north. Religious beliefs and English customs were not the only things that the Puritans brought over from Europe. Rats on ships brought diseases such as smallpox, which the Indigenous peoples had never been exposed to before and therefore they had no natural immunity. The exposure proved to be deadly but this wasn’t merely accidental. Smallpox effectively became one of the earliest forms of biological warfare used as it was common practice among English colonizers to give smallpox blankets to the Indigenous peoples. The consequences were devastating as the disease ran rampant, decimating entire communities, killing off 70 percent of the Wampanoag population.
Deconstructing the lies that surround Thanksgiving, we must understand that the first Thanksgiving was merely known as the fall harvest, celebrated differently throughout the colonies. The misconception of turkey, stuffing, cranberries and pumpkin pie is a far more pleasant experience than a Puritan Thanksgiving of primarily fasting which was broken with a large meal. The term Thanksgiving was first used in 1637, 16 years after the encounter between the Wampanoag and Puritans and its origins only further expands on the violence inflicted by European colonizers. By this time, conflict was escalating as British colonizers began seizing land, capturing men and selling them into slavery while murdering the remainders.
In the stolen lands now known as Connecticut, once home to the Pequot tribe, a day of mourning was brutally etched into existence. As the Pequot tribe gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance, a force of 77 English colonizers, 60 Mohegan and 200 Narragansett surrounded the fort. John Mason and John Underhill, with twenty men each, entered the fort through entrances on the northeast and southwest sides. Their objective was to "destroy them by the Sword and save the Plunder". Unbeknownst to the attacker, the fort was bolstered the night before by 100 warriors from other villages, nearly double their numbers to 175. Within 20 minutes Englishmen inside the fort suffered massive casualties. It was then that Mason said: "We should never kill them after that manner: WE MUST BURN THEM!"
John Underhill depiction of what transpired next shows the length the English colonizers were willing to go. "Captain Mason entering into a Wigwam, brought out a fire-brand, after he had wounded many in the house, he then set fire on the West-side where he entered, he himself set fire on the South end with a trail of Powder, the fires of both meeting in the centre of the Fort blazed most terribly, and burnt all in the space of half an hour; many courageous fellows were unwilling to come out, and fought most desperately through the Palisades, so as they were scorched and burnt with the very flame, and were deprived of their arms, in regard the fire burnt their very bowstrings, and so perished valiantly : mercy they did deserve for their valour, could we have had opportunities to have bestowed it; many were burnt in the Fort, both men, women, and children, others forced out, and came in tropes to the Indians, twenty, and thirty at a time, which our soldiers received and entertained with the point of the sword; down fell men, women, and children, those that escaped us, fell into the hands of the Indians, that were in the rear of us; it is reported by themselves, that there were about four hundred souls in this Fort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands" This was a devastating and cowardly attack on the Pequot people. Hundreds upon hundreds of lives were lost in just one attack, which would become more and more frequent.
The next day back at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Governor Winthrop declared “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.” Cheered by their “victory” after killing the 700 men, women and children, the “brave” colonists and their allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats filled with as many as 500 slaves left the ports of New England regularly. Bounties were paid for Pequot scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible. Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of “thanksgiving” to celebrate victory over the ‘heathen savages’. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of the Pequot people were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a spike in Plymouth, Massachusetts — where it was on display for 24 years.
In one decade after the violence against the Pequot people, more than 12,000 white colonizers had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out decimation of the Indigenous peoples. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646. In 1671, the white men had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from the whites. They also demanded that he turn in his community's weapons.
In 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the great chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as English-imposed laws and values were enforced and their traditions dwindled away. Marked for termination by the power of a distant king and his ruthless minions, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated frontier towns. Eventually, they attacked 52 of the 90 New England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately regrouped and after much death, defeated the great nation, just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. The killings became more and more frequent, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful slaughter. George Washington suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead. Later, Abraham Lincoln would write Thanksgiving Day to be a national holiday during the Civil War — on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
Thanksgiving is one of the greatest lies ever told, to comfort White America from the horrors laid as a foundation for their house of privilege and to line the pockets of rich white men, as Thanksgiving has been synonymous with a multibillion dollar industry that jump starts the holiday season. White America embraces Thanksgiving because a majority of that population exalts in the falsified fruits, if not the unpleasant sinister truths of genocide and slavery and are made to feel proud of their heritage. They sit on a hill of privilege and national power. In schools, children are taught to identify the good fortune of the ‘Pilgrims’. It doesn’t matter that the genocides that followed in wake of the European arrival. This has all been whitewashed from history but they will also never forget the main message of the holiday: that the Pilgrims were good Christian people, who could not have purposely set such evil in motion.
While we can not change the past, we are responsible for educating people on the truth because if we fail to do so, we are contributing to the continued erasure of all Indigenous cultures. The very idea of Thanksgiving works to blanket the various and different Indigenous cultures into one way of life, which could be further from the truth. Currently, there are over 1500 communities of unique Indigenous peoples from Central America to Canada and we must recognize the individual beliefs and customs of these people. We must respect that many Indigenous peoples do not see Thanksgiving as any cause of celebrating but a day of mourning for the countless genocide campaigns carried out against them after witnessing the destruction of their culture and customs for generations. We must be willing to accept the crimes of our ancestors opposed to propping up a false sense of pride in America because if we don’t, we are no better than those that came before us who placed their values, customs, traditions above those of others. We must work to dismantle the core ideological content of the holiday that serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national declaration of the unspeakable, a blessing for the victors, a grace of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.