Many of my blog posts require hundreds of words and many links and images to convey my complicated feelings and experiences in this life.
This isn’t one of them.
In the year of our Lord 1620, a plucky band of religious zealots, deeply committed to freedom (specifically, the freedom to be more annoying than anyone could stand), fled England aboard the good ship Mayflower. Their mission? To find a land where they could worship their God… and, incidentally, start “borrowing” other people’s property forever.
Landing at Plymouth Rock—which, by the way, was already occupied by people who had been there for roughly 12,000 years—the newcomers immediately began dying by the bucketload. Starvation, frostbite, and general incompetence claimed half their numbers. Many historians believe their survival strategy consisted of lying very still and hoping God would invent central heating.
Enter Squanto, a local who had been kidnapped by Europeans, enslaved, shipped across the Atlantic, taught English, and finally dumped back on his homeland like a lost suitcase. Rather than introducing the Pilgrims to the concept of revenge, Squanto taught them how to farm, fish, and not perish immediately. This act of goodwill was rewarded decades later with land theft, smallpox blankets, massacres, and the kind of treaties best read with a magnifying glass and a team of lawyers.
In 1621, after surviving one whole year without collectively dropping dead, the Pilgrims decided to throw a feast of thanksgiving. They invited their Wampanoag neighbors, including the great sachem Massasoit, for three days of food, awkward smiles, and mutual suspicion. It was all very touching—until, of course, the English decided to expand.
What followed was a delightful series of historical milestones:
King Philip’s War (1675–1678), where thousands of Native Americans were slaughtered and villages burned.
Centuries of Broken Treaties, each signed with one hand and set on fire with the other.
The Trail of Tears, because why not add forced marches, mass death, and land theft to the mix?
Boarding Schools, where Native children were forbidden their language, culture, and, occasionally, food.
Reservations, where surviving tribes were shuffled onto parcels of land no one else wanted, typically miles from anything useful, and often after gold or oil was “discovered” there and taken anyway.
And so, every November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving by eating themselves senseless, telling a sanitized bedtime story about “friendship” between Pilgrims and Native Americans, and completely ignoring the following 400 years of violence, betrayal, and cultural obliteration that came after.
