Thanksgiving feast serves up turkey with side order of lies, mythical narrative

Happy Turkey Day! Here’s hoping it was a festive time to celebrate the peace of our forefathers by stuffing ourselves with hams, pies, turkeys, and lies. School children across America still gobble-up the false narrative of Thanksgiving: the pilgrims arrived on Plymouth Plantation in 1620 to be greeted by friendly indigenous people, ready to help with their harvest. But the true history behind Thanksgiving has less of a harmonious ring.

Although now tied to football, food, and family, the celebration of Thanksgiving perpetuates the indigenous peoples as one-sided, friendly, and untouched -- ultimately naive to the effects of European colonization. It misrepresents the true story of Thanksgiving and gives way too much credit to the wrong people. Native Americans across the U.S have always been trying to contest this idea.

In fact, for several decades, indigenous peoples across America have been trying to bring light to the problem with celebrating Thanksgiving; more specifically, the problem with celebrating the colonizers. At a banquet held by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the pilgrims, an indigenous man named Frank James went against this idea of celebrating those who arrived at Plymouth. He left in the looting of Wampanoag graves by the pilgrims, taking their supplies, and selling them as enslaved people. These are facts so many white people leave out of their celebration of Thanksgiving. 

Kisha James, Frank James’ granddaughter explained that “they were quite angry about the speech he wrote because it told the truth about Thanksgiving.” James’ speech at the banquet served as the first “National Day of Mourning” which had been established in place of Thanksgiving by the United American Indians that same year in 1970. The history of Thanksgiving would only permit such a perspective on the holiday. 

White settlers, dating all the way back to 1492, have exploited Native American labor, stolen their land, and decimated their population to a fraction of what it had been pre-dating colonization. The Native Americans had already experienced what horrors white settlers and colonization could engender. Although wary, this was the Native Americans’ way of giving something to those who had nothing. These white settlers had no knowledge of the land and were escaping religious persecution. 

Despite the true nature of the first Thanksgiving, and how it is understood by indigenous people even to this day, it is still taught from the eyes of the colonizer. It can be seen as a celebration of the suffering endured by Native Americans during that time and to this day. 

The celebration of Thanksgiving, as we know it in the United States, paints the pilgrims as “heroes,” which they weren't. Tavares Avant, former president of the Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, despises the glorification of English conquest that Thanksgiving creates. “It’s all glorified that we were the friendly Indians, and that’s where it ends. I do not like that. It kind of disturbs me that we...celebrate Thanksgiving…based on conquest.” 

The celebration of Thanksgiving through a Eurocentric lens is incredibly damaging and wrong. It glorifies the century-long tradition of European colonization that had completely decimated the Native American population in the United States; although the Pilgrims were not quite as graphic as the original Spanish Conquistadores, their hunger for land and power still ran rampant. They had seen Native Americans as “savages”, and this narrative, although now less directly expressed by white and non-native people, is a large part of the stereotypes and racism that indigenous people have to deal with. The way that they are represented on Thanksgiving cards and social studies lesson plans is still a large part of their oppression as a community.

The way the story of Thanksgiving is taught through plays in school, and other means of telling the story to impressionable children simply shows Native Americans as a caricature and not a population that had their own culture and lives before the arrival of the pilgrims. They are seen as “friendly Indians” and “friendly Indians” only. It is taught that their significance as a community only lies in their relation to white people. This idea continues to be apparent and hinders the understanding of history by young students, passing on these stereotypes to yet another generation. Many non-native students, through no fault of their own, do not understand what being Native American means. Being indigenous is an important part of a person’s identity, and it continues to be washed away by the celebration of Thanksgiving.

Although widespread, this issue has not been completely ignored. An anti-racist organization by the name of “Understanding Prejudice” has aimed directly at this problem by encouraging early teaching of the origins of the holiday while not demeaning nor stereotyping Native Americans. Encouraging lesson plans to teach why some families don’t celebrate the holiday, encouraging parents to relay that same information and make sure that their children have an understanding of indigenous culture and people, and encouraging the reading of literature written by native people during the time of the first Thanksgiving. Although a great step towards seeing Thanksgiving in a new light, the reconstruction of how it is taught will take much more time and effort. 

Thanksgiving has become such a deeply embedded holiday in American culture, and simply informing people of its problematic origins and connotations will not stop its celebration. It is just important to see that Thanksgiving was not something that was completely peaceful, surrounded by bloodshed and fear for both parties involved. 

By Anika Flores

Oshkosh West Index Volume 119 Issue III

November 28 2022