American children are taught in grade school that the Pilgrims came to North America seeking religious freedom.\u00a0 In actuality, they had disembarked\u00a0 for America from a life in the Netherlands, where they had\u00a0 religious freedom\u00a0 to worship as they wished. This wasn\u2019t enough; they wanted to establish a theocracy. Landing near Plymouth Rock in what is modern-day Massachusetts, in 1620, the illegal \u00a0immigrants were ill-prepared to start a life in the wilderness. Despite the abundance of game, fish, plants, and medicines around them, they slowly began to starve as well as die of disease brought with them. They chose for their settlement a cleared area belonging to the Wampanoag, the first people of this area, in their summer village. The Wampanoag leader Ousamequin (known as Massasoit to the Pilgrims) brokered a treaty with them, and an escaped Wampanoag slave, who was called by the English Squanto, helped teach them to plant crops suitable for the area.<\/p>\n

The following fall, 1621, the Pilgrim settlers \u2013not inviting their hosts the native people, as we were all taught — gathered together for a feast consisting of New World foods. Was turkey included as it is today? No one knows for sure. Most likely that first feast consisted of venison, berries, ducks, geese, perhaps corn as well and plenty of\u00a0 thanks for their God and his bounty. By then, the Wampanoag and the Pequot people had begun to fall ill and die from disease brought by the Pilgrims, a fine repayment for their aid and for allowing the ungrateful Pilgrims to take over their summer village.\u00a0 This is the idyllic event school children are taught about, but it was not the first official Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

That date belongs in the year 1637. \u201cOn that day (May 26) \u00a0the Massachusetts Colony Governor, John Winthrop, proclaimed such a \u201cThanksgiving\u201d to celebrate the safe return of a band of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians — men, women and children — all murdered.\u201d (Huffington Post). \u00a0According to another source: \u201cIn 1637 near present day \u00a0Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside.\u00a0 Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.\u201d (Manataka American Indian Council).<\/p>\n

Why were these people slaughtered? Their land was valuable and desired by the influx of Old World settlers. Although even as early as the late 1490s, native populations were being decimated by the invaders, this sad chapter marks the\u00a0 beginning of the end for native people in what would later\u00a0 be known as the United States of America, land of the free and the brave.<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving as a modern holiday came into being in 1863, as a proclamation by President Lincoln. Since then its origins have been sanitized for generations of school children, finally codified in textbooks in the early 20^{th<\/sup> century. It\u2019s said \u00a0that history\u00a0 is written by the winners. If so, we \u201cwinners\u201d have little to be thankful for or proud of.<\/p>\n}

Sources:<\/p>\n

The true story behind Thanksgiving is a bloody struggle that decimated the population and ended with a head on a stick
\nhttps:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/history-of-thanksgiving-2017-11<\/a><\/p>\n

The True Story of Thanksgiving
\nhttps:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/richard-greener\/the-true-story-of-thanksg_b_788436.html<\/p>\n

The History of the First Thanksgiving
\nhttp:\/\/historyofmassachusetts.org\/the-first-thanksgiving\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Native History: It\u2019s Memorial Day\u2014In 1637, the Pequot Massacre Happened
\nhttps:\/\/newsmaven.io\/indiancountrytoday\/archive\/native-history-it-s-memorial-day-in-1637-the-pequot-massacre-happened-CPEC3BR9hkm5SoXp3X9uFg\/<\/a><\/p>\n

THE\u00a0REAL STORY\u00a0OF THANKSGIVING
\nhttps:\/\/www.manataka.org\/page269.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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