What Is Thanksgiving?

What do you think of, when asked about Thanksgiving?
We learned from the wisdom of our elders to thank the Creator
for; Mother Earth... Father Sky... Grandfather Moon... our Uncles
the Four Winds... our Cousins the Stars, and... our Brothers and
Sisters the animals. The Algonquins believed that humans were
not distinct from or superior to nature, but rather part of
nature. We also believe that animals could take human form.
Moreover, we believed that a long time ago, humans and animals
spoke the same language. Then there was a cataclysm that upset
the universe and only a few shaman retained the ability to speak
with the animals. We thank the Creator for all our relatives, for
what is good in the world, and for all our harvest, not just one
crop, but all. We give thanks for the strawberry, it is the
first berry of the new spring, we give thanks to the tree spirit,
for the warmth it provides in our fires and the saps that flow in
the fall, we honor the animal spirit, who laid down its life in
order for the people to go on. Subsequently we give thanks for
each harvest year round. It is said, when the Creator created
the Universe, "He placed his hand on the Whole thing... so
everything is spiritual." He never told us to separate

anything... but to look upon everything that he has made us as
holy and sacred and act accordingly with respect.

The Thanksgiving the greater society celebrates, occurs during a
beautiful time of the year; thus, Thanksgiving time means, as
Joyce Sequichie Hifler so eloquently writes, ... the first hard
freeze, the first spitting ice to rattle the dry autumn leaves.
Early morning frost crystallizes grasses in rods of light. The
last bit of bright color is gone from the woods... thus; a time
of great solitude and for giving thanks for all the gifts
provided for us by the Creator, especially for our families
health and well being. Thanksgiving traditionally denotes a
harmonious time in the cycle of seasons; further examination of
the times suggest otherwise. For Algonquins, the beheading of
King Philip, son of Chief Massasoyt, and the sale of the
Wampanoags into slavery has a different connotation then being
harmonious. During the time of the Puritans; every Church, every
Synagogue, and every Quaker Meeting House was built on money
generated from Indian slavery. (Professor Robert Venables)

Not many of our young understand the true history behind this
most sacred celebration. Traditionally the many indigenous
cultures that inhabited North America gave thanks to the Creator,
not once a year, but after every harvest, be it agriculture or
game. These celebrations would last for several days. One such
celebration happened at Patuxet, alias New Plimmoth, now known as
Plymouth Rock, in August of 1621. It is this celebration that
many of us were taught to picture as the "First Thanksgiving."
This view is based on the mythological concept and approach
Western minds have when dealing with the various Native
Populations .

There are interesting events leading up to what is termed
"Thanksgiving." What is being celebrated in the USA and Canada
is based on a mythological concept that must be addressed.

To create an example of this myth, I decided to do some research.
I asked middle school, and university students: what comes to
your mind, when I ask you about Thanksgiving? Most then gladly
answered, in sort of the same fashion: "Some Pilgrims, who
arrived at Plymouth, were fed by some Indians," and most of
these students had the opinion that the Pilgrims were very
religious and both the Native and the Pilgrim lived in harmony.
The myth is perpetuated and evolves from the lack of
understanding the true history - ninety-nine percent of North
America's history is before contact.

August 11, 1620, a cold, and windy night, the Mayflower forced
to anchor in the Bay of Paomet, alias Cape Cod. The Pilgrims
were traveling to Jamestown, Virginia. As their precursor,
Columbus, they too were lost. Running low on supplies, they
anchored in the Bay of Cape Cod. On August 15, 1620, religious
leaders such as William Bradford and Edward Winslow following a
guide book published in Europe by Richard Hakluyt titled Virginia
Richly Valued, lead these God-fearing Pilgrims to raid
graves.(Mourt's Relation 1622) In the midst of this sacrilegious
act they were discovered by the Nausets, the local indigenous
band of Algonquins who subsequently chased the Pilgrims off the
Cape. This is when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

The Algonquin band of Wampanoags, openly welcomed the Pilgrims,
taught them how to farm thus, providing them with food and saving
them from starvation. The first Native American to encounter the
Pilgrims was Samoset, who was a sagamore or chief of a distant
band of Algonquins - the Morattiggons, he was on an extended
fishing trip visiting the Wampanoags, when he boldly walked into
the Pilgrims camp saluting them in English, bidding them welcome.
The Englishman noted, that on Friday February 16, 1621, that
Samoset by himself entered boldly into their camp saying "hello
Englishman," and bidding them welcome. They also noted "he was a
man of free speech, as far as he could express his mind."
Samoset spent that first night with the Pilgrims describing to
them the whole Country side, and of every Province, and of every
sagamore, and their number of men, and strengths. Samoset stayed
the night, leaving the Pilgrims the next morning.

Samoset returned, March 22, 1621, with Squanto, who is most
popularized by American schools. He was the only surviving
native of the Patuxet, known to the Pilgrims as New Plimmoth.
Squanto had just returned from London (he was one of the first
twenty captives sold by Hunt, a Master of a ship, who then sold
them to Master Slanie who took them to Cornehill, England) and
found, upon his return, that his people who had inhabited Patuxet
had succumbed to an extraordinary plague. (this is the same
village the Pilgrims are calling New Plimmoth) It was Squanto
who taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, and to fertilize
earthen mounds with fish i.e., herrings or shads. The following
fall, after hunting fowl, the Pilgrims harvested 20 acres of
corn, six acres of barley and peas all according to the manner of
the Algonquin agriculturist, they invited the Sachem Woosamaquin
otherwise known as Chief Massasoyt, (the Wampanoags chief who
first welcomed the Pilgrims to share the land) to celebrate their
harvest. Accepting, Chief Massasoyt brought five deer, and
ninety of his men with him to the feast. So now we can sort of
figure what was feasted on at the "First Thanksgiving:" a bird,
corn, peas, roasted venison, and beer.

This feast lasted five days and was celebrated as a treaty, which
was supposed to benefit both Algonquins and Pilgrims. Whether
Massasoyt would have welcomed, let alone enter into an agreement
with these Pilgrims had he known that the past August when the
Mayflower crew were lost, hungry, and cold, they had
blasphemously raided Indian graves in search for corn - to eat,
and the personal artifacts of the dead - to reduce their enormous
debt, no one will ever know. But within a generation of that
treaty, the children of the Pilgrims who were at the first
Thanksgiving, children not even born at the time of the feast,
beheaded King Philip, son of Chief Massasoyt. They placed his
head on a pole and left it in the fort for 25 years, as in a
celebration. These children of the "First Thanksgiving," then
sold the Wampanoag's and other Algonquin bands of people, without
whom their parents would have almost certainly starved to death,
into slavery in the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

The events over the years leading up to this betrayal paint a
clearer picture of how this turn of events could of happened.

Chief Massasoyt had fathered two girls and three boys, and before
his death he asked the General Court in Plymouth to give English
names to his two sons. The Pilgrims subsequently named the
former "Alexander" and the latter "Philip." After Alexander
died, probably of poisoning, Philip became chief, and became
known as "King Philip." According to Josephy, (The Patriot
Chiefs, 1976) King Philip was as racially proud as an Indian ever
was. He saw clearly what the colonists were doing to his people,
and from the beginning recognized them as enemies who would have
to be stopped. Despite the friendship between Massasoyt and the
colonial authorities, and although, he was out numbered two to
one, King Philip went to war. The interracial friction that
resulted in this conflict had actually begun to spread years
before his father's death. This was mostly because of
trespassing issues, in which the natives had no such laws or
understanding of such laws. Anger, mixed with anxiety, lead to
an explosive situation. Anxiety with the continuing and
regularly numbers of Englishmen who were arriving more and more
often and who were providing material attractions that lured
natives to them. Anger that Christianity was undermining the
authority of the chiefs, and dividing the people.

Time and again the Indians patriotic attempts to maintain life
and freedom were undermined and defeated by ancient animosities
between the various tribes who were forced to deal with new
European influence. The whites readily recognized the
hostilities that existed among the various tribes they met, and
from the beginning were quick to use these native rivalries,
jealousies, enmities, and ambitions to their own advantage. They
followed the "divide and conquer" policy and played ancient foes
against one another for the benefit of themselves. This
attitude, stemmed in part from the Aristotelian theory that some
persons were by nature meant to be masters and others slaves, it
combined with the divide and conquer tactics that worked so well
for Columbus in the Caribbean and in Mexico for Cortes. Both of
these pitting native against native.

It is no wonder these divide and conquer tactics worked so well,
with King Philip's War, in the treachery committed by the traitor
Alderman. To the God-fearing Puritans of New England, Philip was
a satanic agent, "a hellhound, fiend, serpent, caitiff, and dog."
Somehow, in their panic and wrath, they conceived of him as a
rebel, leading a conspiracy and an uprising against established
authority. It was as if invading Indians had landed on the coast
of England and had then considered rebels and Englishmen who
might have risen to throw them out. On August 12, 1676, the
English, guided by Alderman who surrounded King Philip, and
Annawon, Philip's war chief, while they slept. In the morning
Philip was shot by Alderman, a traitor against his people.

We also learn from reading Josephy that when it was discovered
that it was indeed Philip who was assassinated, the English broke
into a cheer and exultantly decapitated and quartered the
sachem's body and carried his head back to Plymouth, where in
celebration, it was stuck on a pole and remained on public
display for twenty-five years. These are the actions of the
people who considered themselves to be "civilized," and the
Native American to be "Savages."

In the end, my question: (what comes to your mind, when I ask
about Thanksgiving?) turns out not to be so simple especially
when one takes a closer look at the true history of this holiday
which we are celebrating. What we should consider is
that the Thanksgiving Celebration can actually be divided into
three distinct celebrations; (1) traditional celebrations of
thanksgiving to the Creator by the indigenous population, (2) the
thanksgiving celebrated between Massasoyt, the Algonquin Chief of
the Wampanoags, and the thankful pilgrims for the knowledge
received by the natives; and, (3) the beheading of King Philip
and the selling into slavery the offsprings of the natives of the
first thanksgiving.

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