Sarah Louise Quam column: Know the truth as you celebrate this Thanksgiving
The Forum - 11/17/2002

Well, temperatures are falling and wind-chills are being reported. The first real snow of the season has arrived. Football teams are into playoff games and deer-hunting season just opened.

And, in kitchens across the Midwest, lefse griddles are being brought out of storage for the time-honored tradition of producing our favorite potato-based delicacy.

That’s right – it’s time for Thanksgiving. Time for the traditions that you grew up with.

Maybe Thanksgiving to you means time spent with family and friends; maybe it means time off from work; maybe it means preparing and eating special foods; maybe it means music and crafts; maybe it means watching football on TV; maybe it means hunting.

I would like to raise an important question: What really happened at the first Thanksgiving? It is clear that Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday in the United States until President Abraham Lincoln declared it to be so, but I would like to go back further in our history, to 1620.

Is it true that Native Americans sat down with the Pilgrims and shared in a harvest meal that came to be known as the first Thanksgiving? After all, this is what I was taught in elementary school. Let’s check the facts.

In the curriculum section from the Children, Families, and Learning Web site for the state of Minnesota, there is much information with regard to the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, and the Native American Tribes.

The following is from the Web site:

“There is little historical evidence to support the idea that a First Thanksgiving ever took place. Much of what is known about the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony is based upon the journals kept by the colony’s Governor, William Bradford. The Bradford journals make no reference to a harvest feast taking place between the Pilgrims and neighboring American Indians.

“The first Thanksgiving is based on a letter written by a colonist to a friend in England. This letter, dated December 1620, mentions in passing that some American Indians were invited to a feast some time during that year.

“Many American Indians object to the myths and stereotyping that surround the First Thanksgiving. ... 

“The only fragments of truth within this idea are that Massasoit, war chief of the Wampanoags, did arrange to provide Plymouth Colony with food. Local American Indians, including Squanto, did teach colonists how to hunt game and plant corn. ...

“This initial friendship, however, quickly deteriorated.

“Miles Standish, military captain of the Plymouth colony, led several expeditions during which he and his men harassed native leaders, robbed American Indian food caches and obtained other food supplies by trade or extortion.

“Just one year after the First Thanksgiving was to have taken place, Standish’s men attacked the Massachusetts Bay Indians and wiped them out.

“Atrocities against American Indians by English colonists were far more frequent than acts of friendship and these atrocities continued for the next several generations.”

If you are surprised by these facts, please know that you are not alone. History has not always been taught accurately.

Part of being aware of all cultures includes knowing the facts and then teaching them to others. The inaccurate message about Thanksgiving is offensive to many Native Americans.

With the exception of a small amount of communities, New England’s Native American population died from warfare and diseases that were introduced to them by the Colonists. Many were sold into slavery in the Caribbean or removed from their homelands and forced west.

We simply cannot omit these facts from the story of the First Thanksgiving.

What will you do now that you know the true story? Will you teach your children what is right? Will you get to know the traditions of another culture?

Will you learn all you can about those who are different than yourself? Will you walk a mile in another’s moccasin?

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving filled with truth.