Everyone knows the story of the first Thanksgiving. The pilgrims came to the New World on the Mayflower and struggled to survive in a land they were unfamiliar with so they turned to the Native Americans for help. A native named Squanto taught them how to grow crops and hunt, so in autumn everyone had a large feast to celebrate friendship and to express their gratitude. Little do people know that the first Thanksgiving wasn’t so peaceful, and that it was not always a time that people came together to give thanks. To this day, Thanksgiving is a holiday of mourning for some people.
During the time of the first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoag tribe had no choice but to make a deal with the pilgrims, since the pilgrims had been killing them off by taking their food and giving them diseases. The deal wasn’t peacefully settled. It was enforced with violence. The tribe didn’t necessarily want to help, but they had no choice because they were already dying from European diseases and couldn’t afford further bloodshed. The Wampanoag tribe wasn’t invited to the main dinner we now consider the first “Thanksgiving” rather, Chief Massassoit was riding through the land with warriors and stumbled upon the feast. They were eventually invited to stay, though there wasn’t enough food for everyone.
Thanksgiving is celebrated because it marks one of the major events that lead to where we are now. Truthfully, and this story is being taught more and more by teachers across the land, Thanksgiving is a time when our ancestors came and stole land that was already settled. Thanksgiving will always be celebrated. It seems to be just too much a part of our society that it will never go away. But it should be celebrated with deep respect and consideration for Native American history.
Thanksgiving is basically the opposite of Independence Day for those of Native American descent, marking the end of a long and fruitful era for tribes across the modern-day United States. In fact, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by one religious colony that had quite a bit of distance from the genocide and land takeover that was happening at the time. So why, in the end, does most the country celebrate it?
At elementary schools across the nation, kids dress in pilgrim outfits, make little paper turkeys, watch movies about the first “Thanksgiving” and sing songs about harmony between Native Americans and pilgrims. They don’t know what they’re actually celebrating. They could have little idea that they’re being taught about the racist and ethnocentric acts of white colonizers that purposefully brought about the mass cultural genocide of a race of people.
It’s been proven that those who are grateful and give thanks, either in general or through prayer or meditation, live longer and are healthier. Everyone should be grateful for what they have in their lives. However, people should not be asked to be grateful for the awful actions their ancestors took against a historically persecuted people. Rather, we should be grateful that we have the opportunity to create a future without discrimination or the need to lie in our history books.