The Pilgrims and Columbus did not start the inhabitation of America as many people believe. Native Americans have existed on the American content for at least 12,000 years before the European discovery (MSN, n.d.).
The first Thanksgiving may or may not have included Native Americans. It was a celebration, but it felt more apprehensive and tense than the celebration we see it as today. We are guided by Pointer (2014) not to look into the past with our moral ideals but exam the eras compass of morality and learn from it. We need to assess the dead and let them speak to us, to find what they must teach and learn from their strengths and mistakes.
Bradford and Winslow (1865) share the thoughts of the Puritan Separatist, George Mourt, as one of the first settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the first half of 1600. In Bradford and Winslow (1865), Mourt recounts his abundance of crops, including corn, and the blessing of killing many fowl. He expressed gratitude in his heart and wanted to share his plenty. He talks about the cordial relationship he shared with the Native Americans.
Not everyone believes Thanksgiving was a peaceful celebration between the immigrants and Native Americans. History has failed to talk about the tens of thousands of Native Americans that succumbed to colonizers' disease and tyranny. History has wrongly taught the slant that the Europeans civilized a group of savage people who were dirt squalors, for the Native Americans were a dynamic group of people (MSN, n.d.).
As you celebrate Thanksgiving today, read to your family the histories of Thanksgiving, and understand the implications this great feast had on both sides. What can Thanksgiving mean to you in uniting family and friends and moving past conflict? Is Thanksgiving a holiday representing gratitude to you, or merely a fantastic feast? It is up to you what you want the Thanksgiving Holiday to represent in your heart.
What will it be?
REFERENCES:
Pointer, R.W. (2014). Robert Tracy McKenzie. The first Thanksgiving: what the real story tells us about loving God and learning from history. Christian Scholar's Review, 43(4), 416
Bradford, W., &., and Winslow, E. (1865). Mourt's Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=rZvk2IzpygMC&oe=UTF-8
MSN. (n.d.). The Real History of Thanksgiving. MSN. Retrieved November 24, 2022, from https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/ar-AA1460pG
_______________________________________________________________
A Holiday of Thanksgiving, or is It
by Stephanie Daich
