Thanksgiving Truth or Dare
Dear Leading Ladies,
We have retrieved the family recipes from the virtual or actual files; we have successfully navigated the aisles in the grocery store; and we have put clean sheets on the spare beds for soon-to-arrive children and grandparents. Yes, we are just about ready for Thanksgiving. And while we may have trouble giving thanks for a lot of the craziness going on in our country and the larger world, and how that may affect the planet and the most vulnerable among us, we are still thankful for family and love, beauty and humor, health and good memories.
Speaking of memories, we have been thinking about what we learned in school about Thanksgiving. Turns out that much of it was poppycock. We don’t want to take away from the joy of sharing a feast and celebrating with loved ones, but while the question of teaching true history is being bandied about across the country, it seems timely to look at the truth about Thanksgiving.
Reader’s Digest
So here goes.
First, it’s good to know that Thanksgiving did not become an official United States holiday until November 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln “established the holiday as a way to improve relations between northern and southern states as well as the U.S. and tribal nations. Just a year prior, a mass execution took place of Dakota tribal members,” according to an article in the Potawatomi online newsletter.
“It was propaganda,” according to Dr. Kelli Mosteller, former director of the Harvard University Native American Program and now executive director and CEO of the First American Museum. “It was to try and build this event so that you could have a deeper narrative about community building and coming together in shared brotherhood and unity.”
Dr. Mosteller maintains that the tale we were “taught disregards the genocide and the mass land theft and the brutality that all Native peoples experience.”
The celebration in 1621 by the Pilgrims and local Indians followed a long tradition of celebrating a fruitful harvest. It was not an innovation, so calling it the first Thanksgiving is a bit misleading.
The Pilgrims would never have been so successful at farming had the Indians not so carefully worked the land before their numbers were decimated by disease, enabling the Europeans to take over their well-established fields.
The Pilgrims were not really seeking religious freedom, which they already had in Holland, according to James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me. They came to make money and create a religious theocracy. In other words, they wanted religious freedom for themselves, not others.
To learn more, read the full article in the Potawatomi newsletter; Lies My Teacher Told Me; Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is Wrong in the NYT; and, for a more positive take, watch a video that discusses Thanksgiving from an Indian perspective.
There are plenty of other matters in dispute, including whether or not turkey was served at Plimoth. The important issue for us is that we acknowledge that wrongs were done and continue to be done to Native Americans. And that we make sure positive steps are taken to undo the wrongs.
When we give thanks tomorrow, we will be giving thanks for the bounty on our tables, the love of our friends and families, the land that was owned and tilled and made arable by indigenous people. For most of us, our ancestors were not here when the horrors of plagues and genocide against Indians occurred. Our forefathers were far away, generations from coming to the shores of America. Our forefathers did not share culpability for what was done to the Indians. Still, we all share responsibility for what is done going forward to provide education, medical care, housing, and respect, and dignity to the people who were here first. And what is done better reach far beyond some perfunctory announcement at every public gathering that we stand on land that once belonged to such and such tribe.
Have a very happy Thanksgiving. There is always much to be thankful for, even when there is much to be done to better our world.
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team