The inspiration for that was far more exclusionist. According to the book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday by James Baker, who was a researcher at Plimoth Plantation, this changed during the Progressive Era — , when the United States became a global power rife with industrialization and urbanization. One of these was the sanitized story of Thanksgiving — which fabricated a peaceful depiction between the colonizers and the tribes and neglected to mention the amount of death, destruction and land-grabbing that occurs against the first peoples, setting the tone for the next years.
But our families lived something different. My great grandfather helped fight off General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, alongside other Lakota and Cheyenne, not even years before my birth. He saw escalating conflicts between Lakota life as he knew it and the ever-emerging immigrants from the east. He witnessed the disappearance of the bison , the loss of the sacred Black Hills, the many broken promises made by the U. He saw his children attend the boarding schools where they had their hair forcibly cut and were punished for speaking their languages.
I wonder what he thought about the Thanksgiving story. Remember, only in were Native Americans allowed to become citizens of the United States — and it took decades more for all states to permit us to vote. It is a story of supposed unity, drained of the bloodshed, and built for the sake of division.
But I have not abandoned the holiday. As a result, the festival, in theory, could serve as an object lesson in interracial harmony, a moment when two potentially hostile groups broke bread in order to celebrate working together and achieving an important goal.
That potential message is tainted, though, both because the Wampanoag tribes — like the vast majority of Native American tribes encountered by England, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands as they made their way through what would become the United States — were eventually victimized by genocide.
As a result, the idea that the First Thanksgiving is a moment to be treasured feels grotesquely inappropriate. Since I'm Jewish, the analogy that immediately comes to my mind would be if people celebrated the efforts by a Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch, to save the mother of Adolf Hitler from breast cancer in , and the close relationship that the two men developed afterward.
While that is also a touching moment of Austrian-Jewish relations in isolation, it becomes toxic to the touch in light of subsequent events. At the same time, this doesn't mean that the racist history of Thanksgiving doesn't have much to teach us. For one thing, the idea of celebrating Thanksgiving exists in many cultures throughout the world and has been rooted in a number of different origin stories.
This reflects the fact that societies, regardless of their histories, feel a need to periodically celebrate the things for which its members are most grateful — family, friends, the necessities of life like food. They can be rooted in a Harvest Festival mentality or as religious celebrations, in patriotic displays or as reflexive and secular observances. There seems to be a positive and nurturing aspect to Thanksgiving celebrations that brings out the best in people, and those should be continued even if it is necessary to dispense with the specific historical reason commonly attached to the holiday at this particular place and time.
However, for others, the celebration is deeply controversial — as Thanksgiving has a contentious history that goes far beyond when the first feast was held. In addition to a holiday steeped with cultural appropriation , the period of history in America is frequently white-washed — which leads some Americans to ignore the holiday. Young children are taught about Thanksgiving in school, where they often learn of the first feast through crafts and drawings.
In addition to depictions of turkeys, the Mayflower and the Pilgrims, many children decorate Native American headdresses — which frequently bare no resemblance to the headdresses, clothes and feathers worn by the Wampanoag Indians. These inaccurate historical references are perpetrated each year, making the battle for equality and accurate representation an ongoing one for Native Americans in America. Nittle, Nadra Kareem. Should We Celebrate Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims?
Fact and Fiction About the Origins of Thanksgiving. History and Origins of Thanksgiving Day. Erntedankfest: Thanksgiving in Germany. Books About Thanksgiving in Literature. Interesting Facts and Information About the U. Indigenous Population. Inspirational Quotes for Thanksgiving. The History of Juneteenth Celebrations. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for ThoughtCo. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
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