by: Andrea Perkins
November 25 2013
This week the nation will be gathering for a day set aside for turkey
eating and football. But underneath all that merriment is a false
history that is also celebrated. Most people here in the United States
understand that the Thanksgiving Day myth was started in 1621. It's the
story of how the Puritans and Pilgrims
landed in Patuxet (Plymouth, Mass.), and had a large dinner in thanks
for their first harvest. This myth that has been woven into our nation's
creation story. However there is a story that is largely forgotten or
overlooked, and that is a story of disease and of genocide.
The true story starts off like this ...
"We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us"
- Gov. John Winthrop of Massachusetts spoke these words in 1622 before a
meeting to discuss the growth of the colony.
1620-1621:
In the fall of 1620 a Puritan ship called the Mayflower landed in the
Village of Patuxet of the Wampanoag Nation. They found a village that
once held 1,500 to 2,000 people completely abandoned due to illness that
had raged through the area a few years before. The Pilgrims saw this a
sign from God that this space was cleared out for them. They began to
build a settlement. That winter the Pilgrims lost over half of the
people who had come over on the Mayflower.
During this time the
Wampanoag leader Massasoit saw the newcomers as weak and manageable,
and as potential friends and allies against other tribes and groups of
settlers. By the spring of 1621 the Pilgrims began talks with Massasoit
through his English translator Squanto, who has made his way back home
from living in England as a slave a few years earlier. Massasoit
established relations with the English, making way for trade between the
peoples. In the summer of 1621 Massasoit gave the settlers the Patuxet
area and the surrounding hunting grounds, which the English would rename
Plymouth.
In October 1621, an Englishman by the name of Miles
Standish went into Pequot territory posing as a trader. He cut the head
off a Pequot man named Wituwamat and murdered his family. Standish then
brought back the head to Plymouth where it was displayed at the
settlement wall on a wooden spike. That same week the Puritans held
their first Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the harvest and the victory
of Miles Standish against that Pequot community.
1637- Mystic River Massacre:
With tension high between the Indigenous people and the Puritan
settlers, the trade between the Wampanoag and the settlers slowed down.
By 1633 the number of settlers arriving by boat was in the thousands.
They were pushing their way into Algonquin territory at an alarming
rate.
In 1633 two European slavers from England went into
Pequot territory looking for Indigenous people for the slave trade. The
slavers were killed by the Pequot people. The local English settlers
were outraged by the killings and demanded that the Pequot hand over the
ones responsible. The Pequot refused to hand over the killers. The
Puritans were furious. Preachers and religious people demanded action
from the settlement leadership using quotes from the Bible like this one
from Romans 13:2 "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, rseisteth
the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves
damnation." This set the tone for religious zealousness and
self-righteousness in their revenge on the Pequot people.
This
turned into what is known as the Pequot War which stretched from
Massachusetts to southeastern Connecticut. It all came to a dramatic
head on May 26, 1637, when English Captain John Mason and few hundred
men arrived at the Pequot fort near the Mystic River in Connecticut and
surrounded it. The English attempted a surprise assault, but met Pequot
resistance. Captain Mason gave the order to set fire to the village and
block off all exit from it. The Pequot people were trapped inside, and
those trying to escape were gunned down. In the end, 700 women, children
and elders were killed. People who had managed to escape were found
killed and scalped. This would be known as the Mystic River Massacre.
When news was spread of Captain Mason's victory, celebrations of
"Thanksgiving" were held all over the New England territory.
Today - remember and fight:
We as Indigenous people remember this not as a day of thanks but as a
day to remember the genocide and colonization of our people that
continues even today. We are on the front lines facing destruction of
the land, exploitation of our children, and our culture reduced to
mascots. In the face of all this we continue to fight imperialism with
all of our strength, and find power in our Ancestors before us.