I googl’d Thanksgiving and one of the top search results was Wikipedia stating “Historically, Thanksgiving began as a tradition of celebrating the harvest of the year … it became a annual tradition in the United States by presidential proclamation since 1863 and by state legislation since the Founding Fathers of the United States.”
Second Google result was Scholastics. Other then selling educational books, it also gives teachers and online interactive resource and tools to create lessons plans.
Their definition of Thanksgiving in their recommended lesson plan is “A national holiday that really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony’s first successful harvest”
In many cultures for many years, Thanksgiving has been a tradition of giving thanks for the harvest of the year. It has since been used many times in “thankful” moments like Governor John Winthrop proclaimed the first official “Day of Thanksgiving” in 1637 to celebrate the return of men that had gone to Mystic, Connecticut to fight against the Pequot, an action that resulted in the deaths of more than 700 Pequot women, children, and men. Or in 1623 in Plymouth where Mather the Elder gave special thanks to God for the devastating plague of smallpox which wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag Indians who had been their benefactors. Ironically, in Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the United States.
Its hard to know what happen 400 years ago and where was the First Thanksgiving but you can’t fight a fact like Within four years of Columbus’ arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000.
In 1970 an annual protest called The National Day of Mourning by American Indians of New England started on the same day as to light the true events that happened to all Native Americans, especially Wampanoag indians who are “most famous” for having Thanksgiving dinner with the pilgrims. For example, in August 1676 Metacomet, known as Philip to the Pilgrims, the son of THE chief of the Wampanoag tribe that helped the ORIGINAL pilgrims, was shot and killed as well as quartered, and beheaded with Metacomet’s head placed upon a pole at Plymouth for many years … to served as a grisly reminder of course.
Sounds hard to believe, especially since all of us can personally remember Thanksgiving as a celebration between the indians and pilgrims as Scholostics portrays. But PBS recently came out with a series called WE SHALL REMAIN where they depict the story of Metacomet. This PBS television series represents an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels of the project. A must see with all your family this Thanksgiving .
Even though some people will stay stubbornly believing that the Pilgrims celebrated the “first” Thanksgiving with the Wampanoag contrary to a multitude of evidence against it. (Like the irony that the Pilgrim’s religion even forbid them to sit down at a table and break bread with ‘heathens,’ with non-Christians.) However, the Wampanoag did and still DO have a tradition and way of giving thanks that began much, much earlier than then this warped Thanksgiving festivals. A Wampanoag Tribal elder Gladys Widdiss stated about the Wampanoag and thanksgiving:
“Every day (is) a day of thanksgiving to the Wampanoag . . .(We) give thanks to the dawn of the new day, at the end of the day, to the sun, to the moon, for rain for helping crops grow. . . There (is) always something to be thankful for. .. Giving thanks comes naturally for the Wampanoag.”
So lets not forget the truth of Thanksgiving and give THANKS in true Wampanoag Thanksgiving form! (Not “black friday” form of buying)