A Very Young People’s History of Thanksgiving
Compiled and Translated by Emma Redden
emmaredden@gmail.com
This history was compiled from historys told by Native peoples. The history that follows is my translation of the history of Thanksgiving, based on the sources below, in the language of young people. I am thankful for the history Native peoples have shared, that I wish had been taught to me when I was young.
Citizen Potawatomi Nation “The True Dark History of Thanksgiving”
Thanksgiving Lesson Plan booklet created by Oklahoma City Public Schools Native American Student Services
United American Indians of New England “Background”
Indian Country Today interview “What Really Happened At the First Thanksgiving, The Wampanoag Side of the Tale”
Gift of Bruce Davidson in honor of Cornell Capa, 2008
The story of Thanksgiving that so many kids get told, is a lie–which means it’s not true.
The real story is more more unfair, and more complicated, and has at three different parts that happened at three different times.
Gift of Bruce Davidson in honor of Cornell Capa, 2008
The story and history of Thanksgiving is a history connected in a really big way to the indigenous peoples of what is now called Massachusetts. Indigenous means the people who are from a place–so when we say indigenous in the United States, we mean the people who lived on this land for thousands of years before anyone came here on boats.
The indigenous people in this story of Thanksgiving are the Wampanoag people. The wampanoag people are alive today and they have what’s called a sovereign nation. This means that they are in charge of themselves, they make their own rules and their government is different than the government that has the president of Joe Biden. This is a picture of an elder (and old person) and his great-granddaughter named Julia.
1620 (402 years ago)
When people from England, who were sometimes called pilgrims, came on a big boat called the Mayflower, they parked their boat on land that had been taken care of and lived on for 12,000 years by the Wampanoag peoples.
The word Wampanoag in English means “People of the Light”
or “People of the East” or “People of the
First Light”. Wampanoag people’s land is a place the sun rises before almost anywhere else in the United States.
When the people from England came to the land of the Wampanoag people, they came to a village called Patuxet. The only person in the whole village who was still alive, was a person named Tisquantum or Squanto. He was alive only because his body had been stolen by people from England, and had been living other places when all of his people had been killed by germs.
When the English people arrived, germs from other people from Europe had killed--made the bodies stop working--of ALMOST all of the indigenous people who had lived on this land, and taken care of it, for thousands of years. Their bodies got so sick because the germs were brand new, and their bodies at no practice fighting off those germs. The English people had been living around those germs for a long time, so some of their bodies had a lot of practice fighting them.
90-95% of all the people who had lived along the ocean in what is now called New England had died from germs. 90% means that if there were 10 people in this room, everyone but one person would have died. The germs were brought to this land by other people from Europe, who would later call themselves white people.
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There are many stories that say the English came here so they could practice being Christians (people who believe that there is one God who had a child named Jesus who is a very important teacher) in the way they wanted, which was different than what the government wanted where they were from. But actually, there were already places MUCH CLOSER to them, like a place called Holland, where they could pray and celebrate their religion in any way they wanted.
The English partly came to this land to run away from being hurt and from a lot of sickness. They ALSO came to this land to make money. And part of them trying to make money was to do something incredibly unfair, which was to steal land from indigenous peoples. They brought with them really hurtful and dangerous ideas that said that some people are more important than other people–and the most important people deserve to have more of what they need and want.
1621 (401 years ago)
One of the first things the English people did when they got off their boats was to steal from the Wampanoag people. They stole from Wampanoag people who were still alive, and even from the graves, places in the ground where people’s dead bodies rested.
Remember, that SO MANY indigenous people, including the Wampanoag people had been killed by germs–more than 7 out of every 10 wampanoag people’s bodies had stopped working. A leader of the Wampanoag people named Massasoit (Ma-sauce-o-weet) thought that maybe the English people could work together with them and they could help keep each other safe from another groups of indigenous people who had more people alive–the Narragansett people. Not everyone agreed with him that it was a good idea, or safe, to try to work with the people from England, but they tried it anyway.
Massaoit made a deal with the English called the “Treaty of Friendship” that says that the people from England could live on the land (12,000 acres) and that they would protect each other from people trying to fight them.
Tisquantum (who was the only person who was still alive from his village Patuxet) spoke English because he had lived in England. He taught the people from England how to grow corn by using fish to keep the plants strong and healthy.
In the Fall of 1621 23 English people had a big dinner because they were happy they were able to grow food that summer. Many of the other people from England had died, and they were happy to still be alive. They had SO MUCH help from Squanto. They had a celebration and a big meal to celebrate the food that they had grown on this land for the first time. To show they were happy, they shot their guns into the air.
Massasoit was worried about all of the shooting, so he brought 90 people to help him fight (if they needed to). When they got there, they learned that the English were just excited. But they didn’t trust what English said was true, so they stayed for a few days to make sure that they actually were just excited, and they weren’t trying to use their guns to hurt the Wampanoag people. The Wampanoag people helped them gather and hunt a lot of food for this meal.
This big dinner is often the story that gets changed and told as the story of the first Thanksgiving. It’s part of a big lie that gets told a lot, that says indigenous people (without names) taught the English people everything they knew, were happy about the food the English grew so they had a big dinner, and then gave the land away. That is not what happened.
The people from England would have died, if the Wampanoag people hadn’t helped them. But instead of saying thank you, sharing, and also helping the Wampanoag people, the English people hurt them, and stole from them and killed them–made their bodies stop working. THEN told lies about them.
The Friendship deal they made did not last for very long.
People from Europe were only able to steal so much, and then build so many towns and governments, because SO MANY indigenous people were killed by their germs FIRST. When European people got here, there was already land growing food, but the people who used to live on that land were killed--their bodies had stopped working from the germs, brought to this land by other people from England and Europe. And those people came without asking.
1637 (385 years ago)
This was the year that a day was called Thanksgiving for the first time. The person who chose a day and called it Thanksgiving was the governor of Massachusetts named John Winthrop. He was in charge of people who came from England and took land.
This first day called Thanksgiving was a party to celebrate that a group of men from Europe (who had stolen the land) had come back from killing 700 grown ups and kids. They were all indigenous people, called Pequot.
1675-1678
The deal, called The Treaty of Friendship, between the Wampanoag and the pilgrims didn’t last. For three years they fought a big war–which means a big fight were people try to win by killing the people on the other team–over the land. The indigenous people tried very hard to protect the land they lived on and had taken care of for 12,00o years.
1863 (159 years ago)
The first time Thanksgiving was celebrated as a holiday in the whole country (where some people didn’t go to work, schools closed, etc) was during the Civil War. The president, Abraham Lincoln, made this a holiday to try to help the relationships between the people in the north who were fighting against the people in the south AND indigenous peoples.
The year before, In 1862, the government killed many indigenous people, called the Dakota people. The government had kept food away from this group of people and they were starving--so hungry their body might stop working. So to try to keep themselves alive, and get food, they fought back. This started a war. At the end of the war, the president killed 38 Dakota men. The next year, the president thought having this holiday would make people feel better.
History is one of a lot of hurt and unfairness and death and dying. It also is a history of indigenous people’s working so hard to keep themselves safe, to take care of eachother, and to keep caring for and protecting the land.
Just like wampanoag people resisted--which means tried to stop hurtful things from happening--in this history, wampanoag people, and so many other indigenous people, find so many ways to try to stop hurtful things from happening today as well.
Just like the wampanoag people resisted being hurt hundreds of years ago, they still are resisting being hurt by thanksgiving now. In 1970, which is 52 years ago, a group of indigenous people called United American Indians of New England said that Thanksgiving Day instead is a National Day of Mourning. Mourning means big sadness for people who have died. Every year, including this year, a big group of people come together at the place that the English arrived, on Wampanoag land, and remember together what happened to the wampanoag people on that land, and remember also all the ways indigenous people have stayed alive and connected to each other and the land.
Many Wampanoag people, as well as other indigenous peoples, often call Thanksgiving a Day of Mourning (big sadness for people who have died) instead of a happy holiday. Every year a big group of people come together at the place that the English arrived, a place called Plymouth, on Wampanoag land, and remember together what happened to their people on that land, and remember also all the ways their people, and all indigenous people have stayed alive and connected to each other and the land.
Day of Mourning
Plymouth Rock
Wampanoag land
As this sign says, indigenous people are not vanishing--they are not disappearing or going away. They are not conquered--which means they are not controlled by anyone. They are as strong as ever.
It is important to remember how much people from Europe hurt and killed indigenous people. AND at the exact same time we remember that millions of indigneous people are alive today, being connected to their history and ancestors and being connected to world as it is right now, today.
Vernon Lopez "SILENT DRUM" Chief of Mashpee
Chief F. Ryan Malonson of the
Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah
Melissa Harding-Ferretti – Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe president/chairlady
Wampanoag people and leaders today
This is the last episode about thanksgiving. But all of this history is still happening right now. For example, i live on land that doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the abenaki peoples.
A know there are a lot of kids, especially indigenous kids, who know and think about and talk about the history of the land they live on, and the history of the people who are from that land. For those of us who live on land that didn’t belong to our ancestors, i hope we keep thinking and talking and working towards being the most fair we can be, living on other people’s land. Ok, ill be back soon to share more history! Thanks for listening. Talk soon. bye!
(Not the end but where we will stop.)