Thanksgiving in 2024 takes on a great significance as we witness a new reactionary President arising. During this time of the year, the bonds of family and loved ones are close, and we realize what is more important than many things. What is important is realizing that our value as human beings are worth more than prestige, money, or clout. Thanksgiving has been celebrated in America for multiple centuries now. It has been a modern national holiday since 1863 during the days of President Abraham Lincoln. The Pilgrims' 1621 harvest festival with Native Americans (that we talk about Thanksgiving) has many events tied to it. Thanksgiving ceremonies have existed for millennia in world human history. To use food and water to celebrate God, family, and blessings are immutable concepts that billions of us human beings cherish in a powerful, pivotal fashion. The real story about Thanksgiving is complex and long. During Thanksgiving dinner, people eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, various pies, cranberry sauce, macaroni and cheese, various cakes, sweet potatoes, corn, green beans, and other items. Many of these foods are native to America. There are massive parades in cities like New York City, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Boston, etc. Historian Michael Gannon claimed that there was a thanksgiving meal on September 8, 1565, in St. Augustine, Florida. There was a Jamestown thanksgiving in Virginia in 1610. There was another thanksgiving on December 4, 1619, by English settlers at Berkeley Hundred, Charles City (in Virginia on the James River). The Pilgrims and Native American Thanksgiving taking place in 1621 must be explained in detail. First, there is a distinction between Pilgrims and Puritans of the United Kingdom. The Pilgrims came into New England first by 1620, most were working class and poor, there were Separatists from the Church of England, they settled in Plymouth, and many of their leaders were William Bradford and William Brewster. The Puritans were upper middle class and wealthy, they came to New England later by 1629, many were educated, most were dedicated to support the Church of England, many settled in Salem plus Boston, and their leaders were folks like John Winthrop, John Endicott, and the wicked Miles Standish. Both groups wanted to create their own government other than the UK. The Pilgrims had weapons and had more liberal ideals than the Puritans (who were more conservative wanting a union of church and state).
First, Europe was in a different era by the early 1600's. The Reformation existed a century ago which caused a massive challenge of the Roman Catholic Church's religious power in Europe. The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church promoted superstitions which have no basis in Scripture like calling the Pope Holy Father, transubstantiation, purgatory, veneration of images, prayers threw people (who passed away which is akin to divination), the Rosary, etc. Therefore, the Pilgrims wanted religious freedom separating from the English state church. The English state church was Anglican. The Pilgrims were formed in 1605 when they were led by John Smyth, John Robinson, Richard Clyfton, etc. They wanted churches to be voluntary democratic congregations not whole Christian nations. The Church of England forced people to attend services or faced fines or imprisonment. This took place during the era of King James. King James was right to disagree with many of the doctrines of the Vatican, but even he was wrong to persecute dissidents like Baptists and Anabaptists (who refused to baptize infant babies). The Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England. Many Pilgrims escaped to the Netherlands to escape the religious persecution done by the Church of England. They lived in Leiden, Holland (a city with 30,000 people). They worked hard in trades on textile, printing, and brewing trades. Many Pilgrims were in the Leiden University. William Bradford worked in Leiden and William Brewster taught English at the university. Because of the different culture and political issues in the Netherlands, the Pilgrims decided to go to America. Many were on the Speedwell to leave by July 1620 from Delfshaven. More left on the Mayflower ship.
They were in Plymouth by November 1620 in America. The Mayflower Compact was a promise to make a colony to vote by majority and set up their own affairs. Later, they saw the Nauset Native Americans. Native Americans visited Europeans before as British imperialist Thomas Hunt kidnapped 20 people from the Patuxet Native Americans One of the Patuxet men was Squanto, who was an ally of the Plymouth colony. Squanto could speak fluently in England. He came to America from England to see his village dead from the plague. The Pilgrims build homes and a colony by January 1621. William Bradford was the governor of the Plymouth colony in 1621 after the death of John Carver. By March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Coloney signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoag. When the first house was finished, it immediately became a hospital for the ill Pilgrims. Thirty-one of the company were dead by the end of February, with deaths still rising. Coles Hill became the first cemetery, on a prominence above the beach, and they allowed grass to overgrow the graves for fear that the Native Americans would discover how weakened the settlement had actually become.
The Plymouth colonists, today known as Pilgrims, had settled in a part of eastern Massachusetts formerly occupied by the Patuxet Indians who had died in a devastating epidemic between 1614 and 1620. After the harsh winter of 1620-1621 killed half of the Plymouth colonists, two Native intermediaries, Samoset and Tisquantum (more commonly known by the diminutive variant Squanto, and the last living member of the Patuxet) came in at the request of Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag, to negotiate a peace treaty and establish trade relations with the colonists, as both men had some knowledge of English from previous interactions with Europeans, through both trade (Samoset) and a period of enslavement (Squanto). Massasoit had hoped to establish a mutual protection alliance between the Wampanoag, themselves greatly weakened by the same plague that extirpated the Patuxet, and the better-armed English in their long-running rivalry with the Narragansett, who had largely been spared from the epidemic; the Wampanoag reasoned that, given that the Pilgrims had brought women and children, they had not arrived to wage war against them. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them until he too succumbed to disease a year later. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit also gave food to the colonists when supplies brought from England proved insufficient. Having brought in a good harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days in the autumn of 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, a former Plimoth Plantation vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time." Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a day of thanksgiving, but rather as a harvest celebration.
John Two-Hawks, who runs the Native Circle web site, gives a sketch of the facts: “Thanksgiving' did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial 'Thanksgiving' meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of 'pilgrims' led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian chief, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out!”
Dr. Apidta writes: “He [Myles Standish] went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, ‘as a symbol of white power.’ Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name ‘Wotowquenange,’ which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.”
According to accounts by Wampanoag descendants, the harvest feast was originally set up for the Pilgrims alone (contrary to the common misconception that the Wampanoag were invited for their help in teaching the pilgrims their agricultural techniques). Part of the harvest celebration involved a demonstration of arms by the colonists, and the Wampanoag, having entered into a mutual protection agreement with the colonists and likely mistaking the celebratory gunfire for an attack by a common enemy, arrived fully armed. The Wampanoag were welcomed to join the celebration, as their farming and hunting techniques had produced much of the bounty for the Pilgrims and contributed their own foods to the meal. The Puritans came later to America. In 1630, the first ships of the Great Puritan Migration sailed to the New World, led by John Winthrop. From 1629 through 1643, approximately 21,000 Puritans immigrated to New England. he Puritans also believed they were in a national covenant with God. They believed they were chosen by God to help redeem the world by their total obedience to his will. If they were true to the covenant, they would be blessed; if not, they would fail. Many of the Puritans had a state religion. By the 1620s, most of the Patuxet people were wiped out before the Mayflower landed in America. There were the Massachusett Native Americans being at the north of Plymouth Colony, led by Chief Massasoit and the Pokaonet tribe being north, east, and south. Tisquantum was with the Patuxets.
The Narraganesett tribe lived in Rhode Island. Massasoit has to make a decision to either form an alliance with the Plymouth colonists (to protect him from the rival Narragansetts) or form a tribal coalition to drive the colonists out. There was a temporary alliance among Massasoit and the colonists. There was Samoset, being a sachem being allied with Massasoit. Bradford and Tisquantum were friends. Bradford was taught by Tisquantum on survival skills. He taught him how to plan corn, to fish, and other actions. Later, the colonists learned that the Narrangsetts attacked the Pokanokets and taken Massaoit. Many people rescued a Billington boy. Governor Bradford organized an armed task force of a dozen men under command of Miles Standish to Corbitant. Corbitant made his peace via Massaiot. By the 1630s, more tensions existed among Native Americans and the colonists. John Winthrop was wrong to write that it was God's will for smallpox to cause the death of Native Americans. In a letter to England, Massachusetts Bay colony founder John Winthrop wrote, "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection." Before the Pilgrim colony, many British imperialism enslaved Native Americans. Another common practice among European explorers was to give "smallpox blankets" to the Indians. Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans did not have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox would effectively wipe out entire villages with very little effort required by the Europeans. From 1615 to 1619 smallpox ran rampant among the Wampanoags and their neighbors to the north. The Wampanoag lost 70 percent of their population to the epidemic and the Massachusetts lost 90 percent.
The Pequot War started a new chapter when a further genocide of Native Americans in Massachusetts reached into new heights of destruction. Bradford has an alliance with Massasoit and the nearby Pakanoket tribe. By August 14, 1621, Myles Standish led an attack in trying to kill Corbiant. When Pokanoet people tried to escape, Standish's men fired their muskets. This caused a Pokanet man and woman to be wounded. Standish stabbed Pecksuot (a member of the Massashcusett, a rival of Massaoit) with his own knife. Standish ordered two more Massachuett warriors to be killed. The Pilgrims were allied with the Wampanoag since 1621. The Pequots allied with the Dutch colonists and the Mohegans with the British colonies. Competition over the fur trade and conflicts inspired the Pequot War. The Pequot war had deaths of colonists and massacres of Native Americans. The war ended with the Pequot's defeat. At the point where the Mystic River meets the sea, the combined force of English and allied Indians bypassed the Pequot fort to attack and set ablaze a town full of women, children and old people.
William Bradford, the former Governor of Plymouth and one of the chroniclers of the 1621 feast, was also on hand for the great Mystic River massacre of 1637:
"Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."
King Philip's War took place from 1675 to 1676. This war happened after Massasiot's son Metacom saw that the colonists violated the alliance between the Wampanoags and the colonists. Metacom is Massaoit's son. Many Native Americans were hung and murdered. Native Americans attacked homesteads and villages. After the Mystic Massacre, Narrangsett leader Miantonomh united with Algonquian leaders in the 1640s to unite against the colonists together. Negotiations fell apart as Puritans didn't recognize women leaders among Native American people. Massaiot and Metacom of the Wampanoags were prominent. The Wampanoags and settlers had issues as the settlers had intrusion of Wampanoag farms, food stores, and this continued despite complaints. Metacom didn't want his Wampanoag people to be forced to convert to Christianity. War happened and the traitor Mammanuah signed a dead granting English colonizers the right to all the land from Pocasset Neck south to the sea. John Sassamon was a Native American convert to Christianity who wanted a peace. Sassamon was later murdered. Metcomet fought the colonists but the Mohawk, who were rivals of the Algonquian people, attacked Metacomet's forces causing a defeat. After King Philip's war, more than 1000 colonists and 3000 Native Americans died. Many Native Americans were sent to slave markets in the Caribbean from Bermuda to the Azores.
Many European colonists betrayed the Wampanoags committing murder, scrapping, and genocide against them in New England. The genocide of Native Americans is completely evil and wrong. My black African ancestors were victims of slavery and genocide too by the same European imperialists centuries ago. Therefore, we must separate truth and myth. The myth is that every Pilgrim and Puritan were just holy men who sought justice. The reality is that many Pilgrims and many Puritans were stone cold murderers of Native Americans in a colonist enterprise. Also, sincere people did desire religious freedom (as there is nothing wrong with believing in God), but the genocide of Native Americans and black Africans are completely unjustified. During this time of the year, we are thankful for the blessings that we have in our lives. We know of the real history of Thanksgiving in the Plymouth Colony. Likewise, diverse thanksgiving ceremonies existed for millennia among the corners of the Earth. We can both condemn the genocide of Native Americans in the Americas and acknowledge our legitimate blessings that we have in our lives at the same time. Two things are true.
This is America. Ten years ago, people would be shocked that a person won the President who publicly wanted to be a dictator on Day One, who was found liable of rape, was impeached twice, and agitated an insurrection against the American government. Yet, we live in this reality in the quarter century mark of the 21st century. Some people believe in the lying apple pie, John Wayne myth that America is inheritably good, and all early Americans just wanted justice for people. The reality is that America always had wicked people and righteous people who fought for who will carry on the legacy for America. The war for the soul of America is not lost, but we have a very long way to go in seeing America reach its highest potential as a nation and as a culture. Slavery against black people, Jim Crow, the pogrom against black people in Tulsa back in 1921, the anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish people, Islamophobic attacks, gun violence, and other evils are part of American history. This history is real, and many MAGA cultists want to whitewash or erase that history (as found in schools in Florida and Texas), but that history is very authentic. When you have Pete Hegseth having a tattoo associated with white racist groups, Tulsi Gabbard whitewashing Putin's overt war crimes, RFK Jr.'s vaccine total skepticism, and more less qualified cabinet proposed people, then you know America is being America. When racists use terms like DEI and identity politics, they are hiding their bigotry. Also, we acknowledge the heroic Americans who fought for justice and democracy like the Union forces during the Civil War, the men and women who liberated people from fascism during WWII, the activists who led the Selma movement, and the anti-police brutality protests of 2020. The truth is that we must both address economic issues and confront racism (including all forms of oppression) in getting justice for all. Likewise, we have an opportunity to fight back against injustice, against ecocide, and against voter suppression policies. The story is not finished, and more chapters will be mentioned. We have every right to defeat fascism. We love truth more than idol worship of a person who desires to be a King. We desire America to be a land of true freedom for everyone.
By Timothy
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