Ah, Thanksgiving! The time of year when we rightly turn our hearts toward the virtues of gratitude and generosity. Unfortunately, popular opinion and revisionist historians have changed the traditional ideas about Thanksgiving into a narrative of colonial domination.
Question: What do Jennifer Lawrence, John Quincy Adams, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Gere, Sally Field, Ulysses S. Grant, Christopher Reeve, Clint Eastwood, Sarah Palin, Alec Baldwin, Bing Crosby, Dan Quayle, Hugh Hefner, Benjamin Spock, Orson Welles, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, George W. Bush and 20 - 30 million other Americans have in common?
Answer: They are all descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and their Mayflower ancestors have been dishonored, maligned, vilified, and disparaged by widespread misinformation. Let's look at some of the erroneous current assumptions about the Mayflower Pilgrim/Indian relationship. This is America's primary origin story, and has a profound influence upon the national psyche. (continued from page 1)
1. Fiction: The Mayflower Pilgrims gave the Indians smallpox-infected blankets, wiping out 90% of the indigenous people of New England.
Fact: This scenario, taught in schools and colleges from coast to coast, is chronologically impossible. The Mayflower landed in November 1620, two to four years AFTER the war and epidemic that decimated the New England tribes in 1616-1618. There is no historical evidence of smallpox aboard the Mayflower. The first recorded smallpox outbreak in New England occurred in Boston in 1633.
2. Fiction: The Pilgrims would have died of starvation during the first winter if the Indians had not taken them in and fed them.
Fact: The Mayflower anchored at Provincetown Nov 11, 1620. Other than one violent encounter, they did not meet any Indians for over 4 months, during which time half of the passengers died of the ‘general sickness’ (probably scurvy) not of starvation. The Pilgrims met their first Indian, Samoset, on March 16, 1621, then Squanto, Massasoit, and the Pokanokets on March 22, 1621. On that date, the Pilgrims and Massasoit signed a peace treaty that both sides honored for over fifty years. The Pilgrims had adequate food, and in fact fed their Indian visitors on numerous occasions.
3. Fiction: The Indians lived in universal peace and harmony before the coming of the Europeans.
Fact: There are numerous first-hand reports showing many Indian tribes were in a state of perpetual war, building federations and empires, competing for territory, exterminating trading competitors, taking slaves, sacrificing humans, and torturing captives. The forgotten Tarratines War, which had a devastating impact on the situation in New England in 1620, is a well-documented example.
4. Fiction: The Pilgrims came ashore in 1620 as an invading army, raping and pillaging. They massacred the first 700 Indians they encountered, then sat down for a Thanksgiving feast with the survivors.
Fact: The 52 Pilgrims, (14 adult men, 4 adult women, and 34 children) who survived the first winter were peace-loving God-fearing people who made friends with the Pokanoket Indians they met in the spring of 1621. The Pilgrims and the Pokanokets lived in peace and harmony with each other until 1675, over half a century. In 1675, the Indians declared all-out war on the settlers, in one of the bloodiest conflicts, per capita, in American history.
There are many positive and uplifting facts about the 50 years of friendship at Plymouth Plantation 1621-1675, as the two cultures laid the foundation for the evolution of American democracy and the American mind and spirit, an important step in humanity's progress toward realizing the essence of the American Dream - Liberty, Justice, and Abundance for all.
Early Christians in America made plenty of mistakes, but theirs are no more horrible than our own today. Let us thank God that his Providence has led so many people to faith and authentic gratitude and generosity, and may we embody those virtues in greater measure with each year!†
Researched and compiled by Andrew C. Bailey for the documentary/book/screenplay project: THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS: Freedom and Friendship at Plymouth Plantation.