Thanksgiving: the complete history
by Iron Thunderhorse, December 2001
Thanksgiving Day is an annual holiday celebrated in the United States on the last Thursday of November. Its observance is attributed to an
acknowledgment of “divine favors received during the year.” The first Thanksgiving Day was, purportedly, celebrated in the winter of 1621 by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony.
After the American Revolution its observance became generalized in the Original 13 colony states. Then, in the year 1863, it was recommended for consideration as a holiday by the President of the United States. It wasn’t until 1941 that Thanksgiving Day was officially fixed as a public holiday to be held on the fourth Thursday in November. Turkey, pumpkin pie, apple cider and cranberry sauce have become traditional fare for this particular holiday.
Descendants of the English Puritans remember it as a time of peaceful co-existence between the Algonquian Nations and the English. Descendants of the Algonquian people remember it as a time for mourning with no holiday, no celebration, only condolences and recollections of what took place that dreadful year.
To understand what transpired during that pivotal winter between 1620–21 after the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod and the Plymouth Plantation was founded, we must go back in time to 1614–15.
Thomas Hunt, a notorious English slave trader, raided the Wompanoag Village of Patuxet and seized a total of 28 Algonquians after luring them to his ship with items of barter. Hunt carried his captives across the Atlantic. He sold them in the Spanish port of Malaga on the Mediterranean.
One of his captives was a Patuxet man named Tisquantim, or better known throughout history as, Squanto.
While in captivity, Squanto made his way to England where he lived at Cornhill for at time, learning to speak English. He befriended many people and worked his way to the English fishing ports off the coast of Newfoundland. From there he found passage back to his home in Massachusetts. But the village of Patuxet had vanished. Slave raids and the epidemic spread by survivors of Hunt's initial raid had wiped out his former home completely.
When the Puritans landed in Plymouth in the winter of 1620–21, they could not communicate with the Wompanoag interpreter. The English were amazed to find a native, Squanto, who could speak their language. So he was naturally chosen to act as interpreter.
The Puritans had arrived in Massachusetts as immigrants who were exiled from their own country. They knew nothing about survival in the woods,
farming, etc. Squanto and a few others took upon themselves to teach the newcomers how to plant, harvest, cultivate and preserve their stores of corn, squash, pumpkins and beans. The larger Sachemdoms always kept reserves of food for harsh times in the event of any emergency. Surplus stores had been given to the Puritans.
But some of the Puritans were not satisfied. They hid and spied where the emergency stores were kept and helped themselves. This led to skirmishes between the newcomers and their hosts, the Wompanoag Confederacy. When spring came, more than half of the Puritan colony had died from hunger, from the freezing cold and fever.
In September of 1621, the Sachems of the local villages had all signed a Treaty of Goodwill with the Puritans just prior to that First Day of Thanksgiving. There had been an altercation between villages and Captain Miles Standish intervened and wounded several men and the oral traditions say some of the children were also hurt.
A bundle of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin was sent to the newcomers. Originally, this symbolized the strength and unity of our ancestral confederacies. Each arrow symbolized a separate Sachemdom. A single arrow could be broken easily, but when it was bound together with many other Sachemdoms with a covenant (snakeskin), these allied Sachemdoms were not so easily broken.
This message was an invitation and a test. Would the newcomers honor our ancestral traditions and join us in a united effort and covenant?
Squanto, however, gave the English a false interpretation. He believed that he could use the opportunity to build himself up as an important man. He told the English it was a challenge and the Puritans responded by sending the bundle back with powder and shot added to it.
He also spread rumors that Hobbomock, a revered Pinesse and counselor to Massasoit, the Grand Sachem, had initiated this treachery. Massasoit confronted Hobbomock directly knowing that as a Pinesse (member of the elite warrior’s society) he would never lie to him. When Hobbomock replied, "Neen womasu Sagimus, neen omasu Sagimus" ("my loving Sachem, my loving Sachem"), the Grand Sachem knew who was to blame.
So the Grand Sachem sent his own knife to the Puritan Governor where Squanto was living then. He suggested that they prove their alliance by killing, cutting off the head and hands of this man with two tongues. But the governor explained that this was not their way. Records indicate that Squanto died of the fever but the description of his death with bleeding from the nose is believed to be the result of poison or sorcery by Wompanoag.
So, this specific period is tied together by events that go far beyond the celebration. It is considered an omen, a sign of what was to come. Not a reason to celebrate. Despite all the good fellowship shown to the Puritans, they not only continued but expanded the Indian slave trade, according to Jack Weatherford in "Indian Roots."
published in the Branford Review, December 5, 2001
This article is part of the Thanksgiving Collection:
