"Stools of stumps made good seats for
the Pilgrim population. The Indians sat on the ground, gnawing on deer
bones, tearing fowl apart, and lapping up the very ancient and rancid
butter with grunts of appreciation. It is a pretty picture to think of."
- from Old Glory, by Samuel Eliot Morison
A
harvest feast did take place in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621,
probably in mid-October and the Indians who attended were not even
invited. It later became known as
"Thanksgiving" but the Pilgrims never
called it that. The pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the
agricultural expertise of the Pilgrims’ Indian friend Squanto had
produced 20 acres of corn without which the Pilgrims would have surely
perished. The Pilgrims invited Massasoit, and it was he who then invited
90 or more of his Indian brothers and sisters to the affair to the
chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or
pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the Indians were not
invited back.
The Pilgrims did, however, consume a good deal of
home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a
day which they preferred even to water.
Contrary to popular
mythology, the Pilgrims were no friends to the majority of local
Indians. Just days before this alleged Thanksgiving communion, a company
of Pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought the head of a local
chief.
They deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly
Indians, putting one against the other in an attempt to obtain "better
intelligence and make them both more diligent." An 11-foot-high wall was
erected around the entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the
Indians out.
Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He
beheaded an Indian brave named Wituwamat and brought the head to
Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years. Just a
few years later, in about 1636, a force of colonists trapped some 700
Pequot Indian men, women, and children near the mouth of the Mystic
River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire,
sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few
prisoners were taken, to the great delight of the Pilgrims:
To
see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching
the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet
sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God. This event marked what
was most likely the first actual Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims were
pleased with the result. Any goodwill that may have existed was
certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding
colonies were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the
Wampanoags, Metacomet.
Renamed "King Philip" by the
White man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and
culture of his people as European laws and values engulfed them. Forced
into humiliating submission by the power of a distant king, Metacomet
struck out in 1675 with raids on several isolated frontier towns. The
expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians," natives converted by
the colonists to "Christianity," ultimately defeated the great Indian
nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European historian
Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:
The
ruthless executions, the cruel sentences ... were all aimed at the same
goal—unchallenging white supremacy in southern New England. That the
program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost complete
docility of the local native ever since.
When
Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, his
body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great
Indian chief’s hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went
to Plymouth where it was set upon a pole on Thanksgiving Day, 1676.
Metacomet’s nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan
reasoning being that the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of
their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life
in slavery. In the midst of the Holocaust of the Red Man, Governor
Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate the
brotherhood of man but for:
[God’s]
infinite Goodness to extend His Favors ... In defeating and
disappointing ... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And
the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them
into our hands... Just two years later one could reap a $50 reward in
Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian.
The model
of the Indian reservation system in North America had its origin in
Massachusetts. A series of legislative acts "for the better regulation
of the Indians" established Indian settlements throughout the state. A
White overseer was appointed and white Christianity was imposed.
Historian George F. Weston wrote that demand was great for rope maker
John Harrison, what with "the need for rigging for all the ships and a
new rope every time an Indian was hanged." Bon Appetite!
-
Dr. Tingba Apidta is author of The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A
Guide for Black Folks and also The Hidden History of Washington, DC