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| Massasoit smoking a peace pipe with Governor John Carver in Plymouth 1621. Source: Wikipedia |
In the spirit of due diligence and fact checking I thought it best to check out where Thanksgiving stems from. As for many things in this country's history I learned the bubble gum version of events in school and had to dig deeper to find the truth whether it be reaffirming or dark and drastically different. I really started thinking about Thanksgiving differently when I was in high school and learned of the Trail of Tears. If Americans were so fond of our Indigenous tribes and nations then the government wouldn't have marched them in the dead of winter half way across the country and covered them with small pox infested blankets. That really changed my thinking, and while Hip Hop is marred by the likes of Young Thug it was a Nas verse that further drove my speculation of this fairytale-esque Thanksgiving Dinner.
The Indians saved the Pilgrim
And in return the Pilgrim killed em
They call it Thanksgiving, I call your holiday hellday
Cause I'm from poverty, neglected by the wealthy
Now this month is Native American Appreciation Month and it seems as though the voice of the Indigenous people are growing louder. There have been many instances where Indigenous people are making gains. The continued fight to change the Washington Racial Slurs NFL team landed a recent victory in having the team lose its trademark. Seattle, Washington this year decided that Columbus and his notorious record of genocide was celebrated for far too long and changed the day to Indigenous Peoples Day. First Nation leaders in Canada have had to resort to dangerous confrontations to stand in the path of extracting tar sands and fighting the advances of company's that will further harm the environment. Finally it was the indigenous people who, being somewhat the guardians of mother earth and perhaps the few people who on what it seems a religious level protect the environment, led the largest climate protest in American history, over 400,000 strong, down the streets of New York City this year. So with the voice of the Indigenous people of America ringing louder we turn to a 2012 interview with Ramona Peters, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and Indian Country Today Media Network on what really occurred when the pilgrims had their thanksgiving.
We know what we’re taught in mainstream media and in schools is made up. What’s the Wampanoag version of what happened?
Yeah, it was made up. It was Abraham Lincoln who used the theme of Pilgrims and Indians eating happily together. He was trying to calm things down during the Civil War when people were divided. It was like a nice unity story.
So it was a political thing?
Yes, it was public relations. It’s kind of genius, in a way, to get people to sit down and eat dinner together. Families were divided during the Civil War.
So what really happened?
We made a treaty. The leader of our nation at the time—Yellow Feather Oasmeequin [Massasoit] made a treaty with (John) Carver [the first governor of the colony]. They elected an official while they were still on the boat. They had their charter. They were still under the jurisdiction of the king [of England]—at least that’s what they told us. So they couldn’t make a treaty for a boatload of people so they made a treaty between two nations—England and the Wampanoag Nation.
What did the treaty say?
It basically said we’d let them be there and we would protect them against any enemies and they would protect us from any of ours. [The 2011 Native American copy coin commemorates the 1621 treaty between the Wampanoag tribe and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony.] It was basically an I’ll watch your back, you watch mine’ agreement. Later on we collaborated on jurisdictions and creating a system so that we could live together.
What’s the Mashpee version of the 1621 meal?
You’ve probably heard the story of how Squanto assisted in their planting of corn? So this was their first successful harvest and they were celebrating that harvest and planning a day of their own thanksgiving. And it’s kind of like what some of the Arab nations do when they celebrate by shooting guns in the air. So this is what was going on over there at Plymouth. They were shooting guns and canons as a celebration, which alerted us because we didn’t know who they were shooting at. So Massasoit gathered up some 90 warriors and showed up at Plymouth prepared to engage, if that was what was happening, if they were taking any of our people. They didn’t know. It was a fact-finding mission.
When they arrived it was explained through a translator that they were celebrating the harvest, so we decided to stay and make sure that was true, because we’d seen in the other landings—[Captain John] Smith, even the Vikings had been here—so we wanted to make sure so we decided to camp nearby for a few days. During those few days, the men went out to hunt and gather food—deer, ducks, geese, and fish. There are 90 men here and at the time I think there are only 23 survivors of that boat, the Mayflower, so you can imagine the fear. You have armed Natives who are camping nearby. They [the colonists] were always vulnerable to the new land, new creatures, even the trees—there were no such trees in England at that time. People forget they had just landed here and this coastline looked very different from what it looks like now. And their culture—new foods, they were afraid to eat a lot of things. So they were very vulnerable and we did protect them, not just support them, we protected them. You can see throughout their journals that they were always nervous and, unfortunately, when they were nervous they were very aggressive.
So the Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoags to sit down and eat turkey and drink some beer?
[laughs] Ah, no. Well, let’s put it this way. People did eat together [but not in what is portrayed as “the first Thanksgiving]. It was our homeland and our territory and we walked all through their villages all the time. The differences in how they behaved, how they ate, how they prepared things was a lot for both cultures to work with each other. But in those days, it was sort of like today when you go out on a boat in the open sea and you see another boat and everyone is waving and very friendly—it’s because they’re vulnerable and need to rely on each other if something happens. In those days, the English really needed to rely on us and, yes, they were polite as best they could be, but they regarded us as savages nonetheless.
So you did eat together sometimes, but not at the legendary Thanksgiving meal?
No. We were there for days. And this is another thing: We give thanks more than once a year in formal ceremony for different season, for the green corn thanksgiving, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, our new year in May—there are so many ceremonies and I think most cultures have similar traditions. It’s not a foreign concept and I think human beings who recognize greater spirit then they would have to say thank you in some formal way.
