Thanksgiving Revisited

It is tempting, at the holiday of Thanksgiving, to pick one of two options: to see it as the beginning of a great nation, or the beginning of a great slaughter. Of course it was both and neither. The pilgrims weren’t the first British colony in North America, nor were they the originators of the religious freedom we enjoy today. Likewise, the slaughter of Indians had begun long before the pilgrims, and it was mostly carried out by others after them.

It’s okay to remember the feast of Thanksgiving as a celebration of Europeans and Indians in peace together. To lean on the Invasion narrative risks indulging in “Liberal Tears,” a hope that, by denouncing our ancestors loudly enough, we will be forgiven by Native Americans. It’s not helpful to Indians today, and it is annoying to those who wish, fairly enough, to honor what was good in our forebears.

Ironically, whether we say the story is white men founding a new nation, or white men oppressing a people, we're still saying it is the story of the white man. I imagine the Wampanoag saw things differently.

When they first encountered the pilgrims, they remembered other Europeans who had attacked them, and tried to scare them off. But the pilgrims settled away from the current Wampanoag villages, and they seemed different. These weren’t hardened explorers or soldiers. Rather than a threat they appeared to be pitiful wretches. Most of them were sick. Many were dying. They had no shelter except for one meeting house, and it was deep winter. They were poor hunters and knew nothing about edible plants in the woods.

The Wampanoag knew tragedy. They had just lived through a devastating plague. So they did what one does when one’s neighbor is in dire trouble: they came offering help. As among most people, this offer of help was most likely seen as an opening of friendship, with the continuing expectation that help would be rendered, in either direction, when either was in need.

There is little doubt about what would have happened had the Wampnoag turned away from the suffering of the pilgrims. As it was, almost half the 102 settlers died that winter. Without help, it seems likely that the colony would have been exterminated. So when, the following fall, a delegation came to the Wampanoag, inviting them to a feast of thanksgiving, this seemed perfectly natural and fitting. That they outnumbered the pilgrims, that they brought most of their own food and shared more than they received, this wasn’t important. After all, they didn’t believe they were invited out of charity. I doubt the colonists saw it as charity either. I think they both knew: the Indians were the guests of honor. Thanks be to God, yes, but thanks be to the Wampanoag. The 57 surviving pilgrims had needed both.

Fifty years later, the good will between the settlers and the Wampanoag would break down, and conflict lead to war and slaughter. At first, it was not clear which would destroy the other, but in the end the Wampanoag were destroyed. It's tempting to imagine the Indians looking back on the first days of Plymouth, and thinking, "We should have killed them all when we had the chance." Yet I bet most felt, "We could not have ignored the suffering of these people. We would not have been Wampanoag if we had."

That everything ended in war and tragedy, that is not a reason to sneer at this holiday. Rather, it is a reason to cherish it. Even if the time was very brief, in this moment, there was a hope for people to live in peace with one another. That was how we began. That is worth remembering.