On Thanksgiving
Nov. 19th, 2004 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7It strikes me that I put a lot of effort into this essay for last year's Thanksgiving season, and in the interim, the website where I posted it has gone down. (Comment spam made maintaining it simply unfeasible.)
So I'm going to re-post this, with a little editing. A little background: Last year (Nov. 2003) I was writing a (still-unfinished) historical novel based on the true story of one of my ancestors, an English man who came to Massachusetts as a teenager-- in 1631.
added: I found the original, separately-posted Introduction, and have added it.
Thanksgiving is both an important and controversial holiday in the United States. Elementary school teachers have a field day with it, and children's autumns are filled with activities involving paper hats with paper buckles on them, and more recently paper headbands with construction paper feathers. None of which really have much to do with any real historical events.
To counteract this, many people feel compelled to expose the truth behind Thanksgiving and debunk myths left and right.
In the meantime, Thanksgiving serves an important role as the official start to the Christmas shopping season, a time of year that drives the American and now the world economy.
All of these factors are important to the meaning and identity of Thanksgiving. But I would argue that the most important part of Thanksgiving, cliched as it may be, is that it's still a holiday primarily focused around the family sitting down together at a table and giving thanks for the blessings in their lives. It doesn't have to be a religious ceremony, and in fact any ties to the calendars of any churches are unimportant. It was from the beginning a non-denominational holiday, called by civil authorities rather than religious ones, and whatever you may think of the history or the patriotism or the commercialism of the event, it remains a beautiful holiday about being thankful for what you have. If you forget about all the distractions surrounding it, it serves as a perfect opening to the busy holiday season, gently reminding you why you bother all along.
The first Thanksgiving is a subject of dispute. In elementary school Americans all learn the story of how the Pilgrims fled religious oppression in Europe and came to a new world to found a city of god where they could be free. We heard the story of how hard the voyage was, how they were blown off-course, how they signed the Mayflower Compact setting up their government, how nearly half of them died during the first winter. We've also heard how Squanto the miraculous English-speaking Indian saved them by teaching them to put fish in the ground when they planted corn. And we've all heard how after that first successful harvest they invited the friendly Indians to come feast with them, and they ate turkeys and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and were friends forever.
Those of us who've done a little reading (or, for that matter, have lived in contemporary society) have probably also heard the opposing story. The Pilgrims came to America looking for commercial gains, not religion, and they took advantage of and bullied the poor Native Americans who had been so kind and had helped them. We probably also know that there's very little historical evidence of the first Thanksgiving. It wasn't a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln declared it to be in 1863, and almost all of the propaganda around it, including the entirely-fictional menu, came from a magazine publisher of the 1830s. To finalize the deal, it was FDR who finally set the current standard date for Thanksgiving, in 1941-- he fixed it earlier than Lincoln had, to prolong the Christmas shopping season and stimulate the economy.
There are elements of truth in all of the stories. Where the truth comes from is harder to tease out.
First let's address the Pilgrims' motivations. It is true they were fleeing religious oppression. Another important fact, however, is that not everyone on the Mayflower was a Pilgrim. Some were merely seeking economic opportunity in the new world. Hence the need for the Mayflower Compact; not everyone on the ship shared the common values of the small and tight-knit Pilgrim community, and so a legal consensus had to be reached.
It's important to realize why the Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution, as well. A common shortcoming of history classes is how geographically segregated they are, often paying little to no attention to global trends that shaped national events. Even I, growing up with an avid interest in history, did not realize until I was an adult that the English Civil War was in any way related to the Puritan colonization of New England.
The Puritans were extremists. They were dangerous radicals. They not only advocated an overthrow of the religious hierarchy: the religious hierarchy was tied inextricably with the social and political structure of the country, and they were against all of it. They had dangerous ideas, and not necessarily ideas with which modern Americans would agree. And the relentless persecution of the Pilgrims was not unwarranted, either: later, in the 1640s, a very bloody and violent civil war broke out in England that was in no small way due to the agitations of Puritan factions in England. The Royalist forces, supporting the monarch, were defeated, and in 1649 the reigning monarch, Charles I, was actually executed. For nearly two decades, England was not a monarchy and had no king, but was ruled by a Puritan fanatic named Oliver Cromwell, whose reign was only ended when he died.
This is something American schoolchildren do not learn. (Before any Britons reading this start feeling superior, I would like to here point out that English schoolchildren learn even less about American history than Americans do of English. I was there for a year and I knew more when I got there about English history than they did about American when I left, despite my best efforts.)
I learned about this while researching my own genealogy. One of my ancestors emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a teenager in 1631, and actually returned to England to fight in the Civil War, participating as an Ironside captain in Cromwell's New Model Army in the victory at Naseby that shattered the king's forces (family history holds that he fought at Marston Moor as well, and that he was wounded at Naseby). The American colonies were not isolated and uninvolved, but were very much a part of all of this.
We also do not learn why the Pilgrims found such friendly and willing Indians to welcome them, but are left to believe that the Indians were some kind of naieve society of simpletons who opened their arms to the strangers out of a misbegotten sense of hospitality. Needless to say, this is not true. The Wampanoags, whatever else you may say of them, were not idiots.
The society and politics of the native tribes of New England was nothing if not complex. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, a tribe known as the Mohegans had been driven out of what is now upstate New York by the Five Nations of the Iroquois. These Mohegans had come down to New England and had displaced many of the other tribes, and had then been divided by a civil war into two tribes, the Mohegans and the Pequots (so named from the Algonquian word for "wolf" because they were so merciless to the other tribes).
The entry of Europeans further complicated the already-complex situation. The Dutch had recently begun to explore Manhattan and the surrounding areas, and were heavily involved in the fur trade. They entered into alliances with various of the tribes, altering the balance of power throughout the region. The Wampanoag choice to aid the Pilgrims was most likely because they saw that the Pilgrims could be beneficial allies-- more beneficial than they would have been as enemies, particularly because the Wampanoags, enemies of the Pequots, were therefore enemies of the Dutch, whose power was only increasing. The English seemed much more manageable than the Dutch, given the Pilgrims' weak state.
This is all gross oversimplification, but it's important to note that the Indians were not ignorant of the Europeans' power. Pre-colonial America was not an innocent paradise on earth free from political intrigue or warfare, and the natives were not noble savages in an Eden-like state of innocence. They were complicated people in a complicated society every bit as sophisticated -- and human, by which I mean petty, violent, spiritual, loving, corrupt, and all the other things that make up a human society -- as that of the Pilgrims and their ilk. Making the Native Americans out to be persecuted saints devalues their humanity just as much as making them out to be sub-human savages did. (This is not to deny what happened to them, or excuse the English and Dutch for their repeated betrayals of agreements with the various tribes. But history cannot be properly understood unless the student respects the humanity of all involved.)
In the Indian wars that followed the establishment of the colonies in New England, the balance of power continually shifted, and more and more of it became consolidated in the hands of the English. These wars are another aspect of history that is seldom studied, because it predates the formation of the United States. So, technically, it's English history. But the English don't study it either. I wonder if Dutch children learn about Nieuw Nederland?
I learned about King Philip's War while researching this illustrious ancestor of mine, having had very little idea of its intensity or savagery. (He was a middle-aged man by then, a captain in the Connecticut militia, and led a raid that captured the Narragansett war chief Canonchet.) It was a terrible war, a sequel to the equally-horrific Pequot war of 1637, and over seven hundred of Massachusetts' earliest English settlers were killed before it was over, to say nothing of the native Americans (their casualties probably approached a thousand). And none of the early Indian wars or skirmishes were fought for any simple reasons. None of them were simply the Indians saying "We've got to get these Europeans out of here." The Pequot wars were largely fought because the Pequots favored alliance with the Dutch while their foes favored alliance with the English.
Again, romanticizing or whitewashing the issues only leads to misunderstanding, and nothing can be learned from misunderstanding. While it is a fascinating exercise to view history through the lenses of the present, applying biases retroactively without being aware of them is counterproductive. More immediately, while it is tempting now to think how Wounded Knee could have been avoided if the Wampanoags had driven the Pilgrims back into the sea, it's important to understand that it's just not that simple. Making it that simple only inflames tempers and doesn't help us learn from our past.
So I'm going to re-post this, with a little editing. A little background: Last year (Nov. 2003) I was writing a (still-unfinished) historical novel based on the true story of one of my ancestors, an English man who came to Massachusetts as a teenager-- in 1631.
added: I found the original, separately-posted Introduction, and have added it.
On Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is both an important and controversial holiday in the United States. Elementary school teachers have a field day with it, and children's autumns are filled with activities involving paper hats with paper buckles on them, and more recently paper headbands with construction paper feathers. None of which really have much to do with any real historical events.
To counteract this, many people feel compelled to expose the truth behind Thanksgiving and debunk myths left and right.
In the meantime, Thanksgiving serves an important role as the official start to the Christmas shopping season, a time of year that drives the American and now the world economy.
All of these factors are important to the meaning and identity of Thanksgiving. But I would argue that the most important part of Thanksgiving, cliched as it may be, is that it's still a holiday primarily focused around the family sitting down together at a table and giving thanks for the blessings in their lives. It doesn't have to be a religious ceremony, and in fact any ties to the calendars of any churches are unimportant. It was from the beginning a non-denominational holiday, called by civil authorities rather than religious ones, and whatever you may think of the history or the patriotism or the commercialism of the event, it remains a beautiful holiday about being thankful for what you have. If you forget about all the distractions surrounding it, it serves as a perfect opening to the busy holiday season, gently reminding you why you bother all along.
Aspects of the History Behind Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving is a subject of dispute. In elementary school Americans all learn the story of how the Pilgrims fled religious oppression in Europe and came to a new world to found a city of god where they could be free. We heard the story of how hard the voyage was, how they were blown off-course, how they signed the Mayflower Compact setting up their government, how nearly half of them died during the first winter. We've also heard how Squanto the miraculous English-speaking Indian saved them by teaching them to put fish in the ground when they planted corn. And we've all heard how after that first successful harvest they invited the friendly Indians to come feast with them, and they ate turkeys and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and were friends forever.
Those of us who've done a little reading (or, for that matter, have lived in contemporary society) have probably also heard the opposing story. The Pilgrims came to America looking for commercial gains, not religion, and they took advantage of and bullied the poor Native Americans who had been so kind and had helped them. We probably also know that there's very little historical evidence of the first Thanksgiving. It wasn't a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln declared it to be in 1863, and almost all of the propaganda around it, including the entirely-fictional menu, came from a magazine publisher of the 1830s. To finalize the deal, it was FDR who finally set the current standard date for Thanksgiving, in 1941-- he fixed it earlier than Lincoln had, to prolong the Christmas shopping season and stimulate the economy.
There are elements of truth in all of the stories. Where the truth comes from is harder to tease out.
Strangers for Ancestors
First let's address the Pilgrims' motivations. It is true they were fleeing religious oppression. Another important fact, however, is that not everyone on the Mayflower was a Pilgrim. Some were merely seeking economic opportunity in the new world. Hence the need for the Mayflower Compact; not everyone on the ship shared the common values of the small and tight-knit Pilgrim community, and so a legal consensus had to be reached.
It's important to realize why the Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution, as well. A common shortcoming of history classes is how geographically segregated they are, often paying little to no attention to global trends that shaped national events. Even I, growing up with an avid interest in history, did not realize until I was an adult that the English Civil War was in any way related to the Puritan colonization of New England.
The Puritans were extremists. They were dangerous radicals. They not only advocated an overthrow of the religious hierarchy: the religious hierarchy was tied inextricably with the social and political structure of the country, and they were against all of it. They had dangerous ideas, and not necessarily ideas with which modern Americans would agree. And the relentless persecution of the Pilgrims was not unwarranted, either: later, in the 1640s, a very bloody and violent civil war broke out in England that was in no small way due to the agitations of Puritan factions in England. The Royalist forces, supporting the monarch, were defeated, and in 1649 the reigning monarch, Charles I, was actually executed. For nearly two decades, England was not a monarchy and had no king, but was ruled by a Puritan fanatic named Oliver Cromwell, whose reign was only ended when he died.
This is something American schoolchildren do not learn. (Before any Britons reading this start feeling superior, I would like to here point out that English schoolchildren learn even less about American history than Americans do of English. I was there for a year and I knew more when I got there about English history than they did about American when I left, despite my best efforts.)
I learned about this while researching my own genealogy. One of my ancestors emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a teenager in 1631, and actually returned to England to fight in the Civil War, participating as an Ironside captain in Cromwell's New Model Army in the victory at Naseby that shattered the king's forces (family history holds that he fought at Marston Moor as well, and that he was wounded at Naseby). The American colonies were not isolated and uninvolved, but were very much a part of all of this.
Noble Savages
We also do not learn why the Pilgrims found such friendly and willing Indians to welcome them, but are left to believe that the Indians were some kind of naieve society of simpletons who opened their arms to the strangers out of a misbegotten sense of hospitality. Needless to say, this is not true. The Wampanoags, whatever else you may say of them, were not idiots.
The society and politics of the native tribes of New England was nothing if not complex. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, a tribe known as the Mohegans had been driven out of what is now upstate New York by the Five Nations of the Iroquois. These Mohegans had come down to New England and had displaced many of the other tribes, and had then been divided by a civil war into two tribes, the Mohegans and the Pequots (so named from the Algonquian word for "wolf" because they were so merciless to the other tribes).
The entry of Europeans further complicated the already-complex situation. The Dutch had recently begun to explore Manhattan and the surrounding areas, and were heavily involved in the fur trade. They entered into alliances with various of the tribes, altering the balance of power throughout the region. The Wampanoag choice to aid the Pilgrims was most likely because they saw that the Pilgrims could be beneficial allies-- more beneficial than they would have been as enemies, particularly because the Wampanoags, enemies of the Pequots, were therefore enemies of the Dutch, whose power was only increasing. The English seemed much more manageable than the Dutch, given the Pilgrims' weak state.
This is all gross oversimplification, but it's important to note that the Indians were not ignorant of the Europeans' power. Pre-colonial America was not an innocent paradise on earth free from political intrigue or warfare, and the natives were not noble savages in an Eden-like state of innocence. They were complicated people in a complicated society every bit as sophisticated -- and human, by which I mean petty, violent, spiritual, loving, corrupt, and all the other things that make up a human society -- as that of the Pilgrims and their ilk. Making the Native Americans out to be persecuted saints devalues their humanity just as much as making them out to be sub-human savages did. (This is not to deny what happened to them, or excuse the English and Dutch for their repeated betrayals of agreements with the various tribes. But history cannot be properly understood unless the student respects the humanity of all involved.)
In the Indian wars that followed the establishment of the colonies in New England, the balance of power continually shifted, and more and more of it became consolidated in the hands of the English. These wars are another aspect of history that is seldom studied, because it predates the formation of the United States. So, technically, it's English history. But the English don't study it either. I wonder if Dutch children learn about Nieuw Nederland?
I learned about King Philip's War while researching this illustrious ancestor of mine, having had very little idea of its intensity or savagery. (He was a middle-aged man by then, a captain in the Connecticut militia, and led a raid that captured the Narragansett war chief Canonchet.) It was a terrible war, a sequel to the equally-horrific Pequot war of 1637, and over seven hundred of Massachusetts' earliest English settlers were killed before it was over, to say nothing of the native Americans (their casualties probably approached a thousand). And none of the early Indian wars or skirmishes were fought for any simple reasons. None of them were simply the Indians saying "We've got to get these Europeans out of here." The Pequot wars were largely fought because the Pequots favored alliance with the Dutch while their foes favored alliance with the English.
Again, romanticizing or whitewashing the issues only leads to misunderstanding, and nothing can be learned from misunderstanding. While it is a fascinating exercise to view history through the lenses of the present, applying biases retroactively without being aware of them is counterproductive. More immediately, while it is tempting now to think how Wounded Knee could have been avoided if the Wampanoags had driven the Pilgrims back into the sea, it's important to understand that it's just not that simple. Making it that simple only inflames tempers and doesn't help us learn from our past.
