Thanksgiving : A Tale Of Thanksgiving

America has come a long way since Columbus began his voyage in 1492. In “Beyond 1492: Encounter in Colonial North America,” James Axtell explains that when it comes to the Indian-European encounter, there’s more to the story than what the average person grasps. Most people know of how the Natives were mistreated and killed off by the Europeans with biological warfare and that a couple thousands of years later the Pilgrims and Natives had their first feast together known as “Thanksgiving”. However, in chapter four, Axtell’s essay describes that surprisingly, there was a “variety of ways Indians responded to the Europeans that invaded their lands in the wake of Columbus.” Axtell chronologically recapitulates the history of the Indian reactions to the European encounters up until the 1700’s and categorizes them into 5 strategies.

Overall, Loewen argues against the “traditional American version” of Thanksgiving for the true history of that era, which is filled with diseases, massacres, and altered history in favor of the god preaching Pilgrims. Loewen, in this chapter, has given many examples of how Thanksgiving has been "heroified. " One way consists of how the Pilgrims were portrayed in books as a group of heroic and thoughtful people who came to America to pursue religious freedoms. How it was given to us as kids was that when the Pilgrims arrived, they sat hand in hand with the natives, being thankful for what they had and being happy to share with the natives. This isn't true because Loewen has stated that the native population was wiped out by these European diseases that were brought to them.

At the start of the film After the Mayflower: We Shall Remain, the English and the Native Americans celebrated the first Thanksgiving together in 1621. Both groups of people seemed trusting of each other and showed personal respect. At this time the Wampanoag Indians had the power and chose to use it to form a treaty with the weak English Pilgrims. The two groups shared everything and traded their assets with each other. As the film continued there was an obvious change in power to the English with more and more Puritan immigrants from Europe arriving. By the end of the movie the English decided to use their power to control all lands instead of keeping the treaty with the native people. The English “thanksgiving” at

It is interesting how there are many parts of the first thanksgiving that many textbooks do not mention. I, myself thought that America’s origins was when the pilgrims had thanksgiving with the Native Americans. According to the reading, I was incorrect, where the settling of America happened long before then. I never knew that the first non-Native people in the country were black slaves back in 1526, where they were brought to this land by the Spaniards. The author, James Loewen mentions an interesting fact that one-third of the country has been Spanish longer than it has been American.

Philbrick describes how the Pilgrims traded with the Native Americans. The Native Americans received guns and weapons, while the Pilgrims traded for pelts and seeds. Everything seemed friendly between the local Native Americans and the Pilgrims; they even shared a Thanksgiving together, marking the end of a year in America. However, as time went on tensions between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims grew high and war became imminent. Philbrick describes how the Pilgrims tried to protect themselves; they built a wall around their civilization and prepared a militia. However, after years of tension between the two groups war broke out, since the Pilgrims had “…begun to take the Indians for granted” (Philbrick 215). Philip states how “…the English put at risk everything their mothers and fathers had striven so heroically to create” (Philbrick 215). During the war the Pilgrims began to force the once friendly tribes to turn against them, destroying the friendship they had once shared. Near the end of the war and even after the war the Pilgrims sent the Native Americans into slavery. Eventually, the number of Native Americans tribes would dwindle. One tribe, the Sakonnets went from “… an estimated four hundred in 1700 [people] to just six men and nineteen women by 1774” (Philbrick 350). Philbrick depicts the Pilgrims as courageous people who sacrificed

The arrival of the ‘foreigners’, as referred to by the Native Americans, turned a new stone in Native American diplomacy. No longer did they have to only deal with neighboring tribes, as they were forced to endeavor into politics with strangers who were looking to take their land. The first relationship between the pilgrims and the Native Americans began with the Wampanoag tribe. The relations between the two groups paved the view that the pilgrims had towards the Indians. The decently friendly relationship that stood between the two groups was short lived as the pilgrims felt that the indians were getting in the way of their expansion; and shortly after the friendship ceased to exist (Bell, 37).

In what way is the “unlikely pairing of histories” at the thanksgiving celebration especially American? For many years, it has been a tradition for American to sit around the table and tell stories of the past and which we’ve overcome.

He describes that “Eastern Indians had observed autumnal harvest celebrations for centuries” (Loewen 90). This fact makes more sense considering students have always been taught that the Pilgrims feasted as a celebration, but they actually learned these new traditions from the Indians. Loewen informs the reader that the Pilgrims were not even included in the Thanksgiving tradition until the 1890s. He also includes that the Pilgrims were not even called “Pilgrims” until the 1870s.

When I imagine “The First Thanksgiving”, I think of peace and harmony. Then my History complex comes in, I remember all of the rape, cannibalism, and disease spreading that happened in the years before “The First Thanksgiving” ruin my picture perfect scene. The Pilgrims did not have a farming aspect when they came to The New Colony but with the help of the Native Americans they learned how to survive. When I was younger we always were taught that this time, in history, everyone got along and they were happy. The Pilgrims came to have religious freedom and not to be treated as second class citizens. This is a notable act but they had various pathogens that they were immuned to but the Natives were not. Historians say that the pathogens that

This chapter greatly adds to America’s history through the details of the Indians when the pilgrims arrived. The previous two chapters relate with the greed of the pilgrims and how they came to America, expecting it to be all for themselves to appreciate. When they first caught sight of the Indians, the pilgrims instantly put their laws on the natives, hence making the Indians stray from tradition to the settlers’ beliefs. The pilgrims’ main goal was to have the freedom to worship the way they wanted to. With irony, however, they forced religion upon the Indians and made them leave all of their beliefs. The Indians allowed the pilgrims to stay on their land out of respect and peace, even though they were trespassing. Surprisingly, the “pure”

The ways of Native Americans have been both a cultural and societal sustainment within the United States today. However, not in the way traditional sustainment is seen as. In Phillip J. Deloria’s book, Playing Indian, he asks how across American history “has the notion of disguised Indians dumping tea in Boston harbor had such a powerful hold on Americans’ imaginations?” (9) What is it exactly that captivates the minds of Americans’ over the culture of our Native American predecessors? Before the passing of the Stamp Act in 1795, American colonists started mentioning of Tamenend, a Delaware chief who allowed William Penn to pass through his lands. The Shuylkill Fishing Company started a trend of clubs commemorating to the event with dancing, parades with people cladded in Indian costumes, “longtalks”, and maypoles being erected every first day of May to celebrate the beginning of spring and eventually being called “King Tammany’s Day.” Deloria makes the case of how the Roman Catholic holiday of Carnival makes the minstrel appearance of a “double life” (15) with both French and English celebrations and how the concept of “mocking” different cultures to be an Old World concept and something that has made itself well known as concrete in the holiday and the nations that take part in it. The Americans thus continued this timely tradition by taking part in celebrations with Indian wear and rituals without truly immersing themselves with any contact with the Native

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

In a world of startling current events that lead humanity to reflect on the past for answers, countless books are written to inform people of the world’s controversial history. Constantly, bias slithers into the writing of many authors, allowing history- without the painful truths- to be swayed by the winners. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower follows the journey of the Pilgrims, the winners in this case, as they venture to the New World and leave a destructive trail, leading to war with the Native Americans. As in any story, especially one involving war, there are two sides, and Philbrick makes it clear what side he fights for. Philbrick depicts the Pilgrims in a positive and biased manner through the detailed and glorified portrayal, biased Pilgrim quotations, and the clear contrast he creates between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, presenting the Native Americans negatively and the Pilgrims as heroes.

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

Imagine being out on a cold winter's morning, sitting in a pine tree waiting to see the monster buck you have been waiting for your whole life. Well, 15 years ago, my Grandpa shot one of the largest bucks I have ever seen in person. Recently, he told me about this day of his hunting career that changed his life. This is the story of my grandpa and his 22 point buck.