[Oe List ...] Happy Thanksgiving Day
via OE
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
Thu Nov 27 17:58:04 PST 2014
Garth Brooks nixes appearance on Thursday's TV show due toFerguson. The racial undertone isuniversal as Ferguson after the Grand Jury gets ladled a second layer ofnotoriety around the world is the living example of the unbearable pretensionsto supremacy of the light skin colored-ness of being! The shade of one's skin was not only true to my experience in Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina and Virginia, but it also determine culturalvalues in the Asian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa of ourfamiliar. The militarization of thelocal police has got corporate producers of armaments smiling to the bank.
Rod Rippel and Jon Elizondo reminds us that the lesson ofhistory does not easily fit the niceties of our sugar-laced T-Days (ours in China isnot the last Thursday of November) even as George Holcombe and Lynda affirms the mainstream story, and Randy and Steve raise their questions. This speaks of the level-headedness of thisgroup, and the affirmation of Ellie Stock, amen'dby Elsa Batica, to embrace all of it as we live our lives today. That, tome, is finally the meaning of this day, the decision to embrace it all!
As the words of what I lifted off the walls of my dwelling'smain office says: "Life is not a race but a journey. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."
BHO did manage to give an executive order to release two captive turkeys. OK, Boehner, let me see you defund that one!
Guys, clean up after the games!
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Subject: OE Digest, Vol 32, Issue 25
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Today's Topics:
1. Happy Thanksgiving (George Holcombe via OE)
2. Re: Happy Thanksgiving (Ellie Stock via OE)
3. Re: Happy Thanksgiving (Lynda Cock via OE)
4. (no subject) (steve har via OE)
5. An alternate view (Rod Rippel via OE)
6. Thanksgiving reflection (Ellie Stock via OE)
7. Re: An alternate view (Randy Williams via OE)
8. Re: Happy Thanksgiving (jonzondo at juno.com via OE)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 07:58:20 -0600
From: George Holcombe via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: ICA/OE List Serves <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>, ICA/OE List Serves
<dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: [Oe List ...] Happy Thanksgiving
Message-ID: <DB6E2DF3-17C8-4676-9BDF-E7C9F7EFA793 at me.com>
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Happy Thanksgiving. Here?s a little history about the day.
"The First Thanksgiving
The first thanksgiving feast was celebrated in 1621 by the pilgrims of the
Plymouth colony along with about ninety Indians. The Pilgrims had suffered
through a devastating winter in which nearly half their number died. Without the
help of the Indians, all would have perished.
After the first harvest, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of
thanksgiving and prayer to God. The food, which was eaten outdoors, included
corn, geese, turkeys, ducks, clams, plums, cod, bass, barley, venison and corn
bread. The feast lasted 3 days, races and other games were played during the
celebration. Though the exact date is unknown, the feast clearly took place in
late autumn.
In 1623, a period of drought was answered by colonists with a proclamation of
prayer and fasting. This prayer and fasting was changed to another thanksgiving
celebration when rains came during the prayers. Later that year, Governor
Bradford proclaimed November 29 as a time for pilgrims to gather and give
thanks.
?Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of
Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and garden vegetables, and made the forest to
abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has
protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from the pestilence
and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own
conscience.
Now I, your magistrate do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye
little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of
nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our
Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye
Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render
Thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all his blessings.?
? Governor Bradford November 29, 1623
Throughout American history, there were many thanksgiving proclamations and
celebrations. In 1789 George Washington proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day
on the last Thursday in November, in honor of the new United States
Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, later discontinued it,
calling it ?a kingly practice.?
But in 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of the poem ?Mary Had a Little
Lamb,? convinced Abraham Lincoln to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday.
For the date she chose the last Thursday in November because of Washington?s
proclamation. In 1941, it was officially changed to the fourth Thursday in
November.?
And the Mayflower Compact - we used to read at Thanksgiving.
THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT
"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects
of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France
and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&.Having undertaken for the Glory of
God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and
Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia;
do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of
another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for
our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And
by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws,
Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be
thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which
we promise all due submission and obedience.In Witness whereof we have hereunto
subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleve
nth of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England,
France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno
Domini, 1620."
There followed the signatures of 41 of the 102 passengers, 37 of whom were
members of the "Separatists" who were fleeing religious persecution in Europe.
This compact established the first basis in the new world for written laws. Half
the colony failed to survive the first winter, but the remainder lived on and
prospered.
1 Mr. John Carver <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carver>
2 William Bradford <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bradford_(Plymouth_governor)>
3 Mr. Edward Winslow <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Winslow_(Mayflower_passenger)>
4 Mr. William Brewster <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brewster_(Mayflower_passenger)>
5 Mr. Isaac Allerton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Allerton>
6 Capt. Myles Standish <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish>
7 John Alden <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden>
8 Mr. Samuel Fuller <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fuller_(Mayflower_physician)>
9 Mr. Christopher Martin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Martin_(Mayflower_passenger)>
10 Mr. William Mullins <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mullins>
11 Mr. William White <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_White_(Mayflower_passenger)>
12 Mr. Richard Warren <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Warren>
13 John Howland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howland>
14 Mr. Stephen Hopkins <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hopkins_(Mayflower_passenger)>
15 Edward Tilley <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tilley>
16 John Tilley <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tilley_(Mayflower_passenger)>
17 Francis Cooke <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cooke>
18 Thomas Rogers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Rogers_(Mayflower_passenger)>
19 Thomas Tinker <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Tinker>
20 John Rigsdale
21 Edward Fuller <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fuller_(Mayflower)>
22 John Turner
23 Francis Eaton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Eaton_(Mayflower_passenger)>
24 James Chilton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chilton>
25 John Crackstone <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crackstone>
26 John Billington <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Billington>
27 Moses Fletcher <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Fletcher>
28 John Goodman
29 Degory Priest <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degory_Priest>
30 Thomas Williams <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Williams_(Mayflower)>
31 Gilbert Winslow
32 Edmund Margeson
33 Peter Browne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Browne_(Mayflower_passenger)>
34 Richard Britteridge
35 George Soule <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soule_(Mayflower_passenger)>
36 Richard Clarke
37 Richard Gardiner
38 John Allerton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allerton>
39 Thomas English
40 Edward Doty <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Doty>
41 Edward Leister
George Holcombe
14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
Austin, TX 78728
Mobile 512/252-2756
geowanda1 at me.com
"Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than
a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 09:06:51 -0500
From: Ellie Stock via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: grholcombe at gmail.com, oe at lists.wedgeblade.net,
dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Happy Thanksgiving
Message-ID: <8D1D86283FBAA86-9EC-2226E at webmail-va078.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Thanks, George.
Thanksgiving blessings to all!
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 09:41:18 -0500
From: Lynda Cock via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: George & Wanda Holcombe <grholcombe at gmail.com>, ICA/OE List Serves
<oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>, ICA/OE List Serves
<dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Happy Thanksgiving
Message-ID: <D09CA140.2E551%llc860 at triad.rr.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Thank you, George for sharing this good proclamation of our Order history
as we celebrate. I found a great children?s book called Thank You, Sarah: A
Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, (Sarah Hale, that you mention). Very colorful
and animated illustrations. Good story of how change happens one person at
a time and the power of the pen! Look for it next Thanksgiving for the
grandchildren. Lynda
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 09:42:05 -0600
From: steve har via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: "oe at lists.wedgeblade.net" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: [Oe List ...] (no subject)
Message-ID:
<CADiNvGQRqpZUY20=r5x4zQvDzARZ8ghEm_d2HfM7+gOgV5Yfjg at mail.gmail.com>
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Thanks for the reminder of 2 historical community practices begun in
Plymouth and in Austin.
Wondering what a TDay prayer might sound like in the 21st Century?
Considering this prayer I just got from my Zen Buddhist teacher Dosho
Port, who teaches explicitly from the Soto zen tradition with wisdom
from a Catholic church up-bringing on the Iron Range near Hibbing.
I didn't know you could pray in the Buddhist tradition since there is
no intercessory images available like an angelic Madonna or a
psychological Jesus.
Jon and Maureen Jenkins translated the historical religious language
-if I have it right
doing = accomplishing an outcome
prayer = intention (the action before the action)
obedience = field of engaged action
and I guess chastity is about being in in a game of engaging your own
freedom - a particular way of standing and moving forward - of being
present, focused, full of wonder for how it all turns out in the end.
Do you pray, these days -wondering hat words, language, tradition do
you pray express loving kindness for yourself and gratitude for
others?
Steve
A Thanksgiving Prayer November 26, 2014 by Dosho Port
May we all attain the way by giving the way to the way.
May we give to each other as if we were giving away unneeded
belongings to someone we don?t know, or offering flowers blooming on a
distant mountain to thusness, or offering treasures we had in former
lives.
May we give ourselves to ourselves and others to others. Indeed,
giving to ourselves is giving. Giving to our families is also giving.
May we give even a phrase or verse of the truth; our valuables, even a
penny or a blade of grass.
May we know that to launch a boat or build a bridge is an act of
giving ? making a living and producing things is fully giving just as
leaving flowers to the wind, leaving birds to the seasons, are also
acts of giving.
May we study giving closely, seeing that to accept a body and to give
up the body are both giving.
May we make an effort to give and be mindful of every opportunity to give.
May we know that even when we give a particle of dust, we should
rejoice in our own act as a gift of awakening to self and others.
Indeed, the hearts of living beings are difficult to change. May we
keep on changing the hearts of living beings, beginning by offering
something of value and on to the moment that they attain the way.
Heart is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. And yet, in
giving, heart transforms the gift and the gift transforms heart.
(inspired by Dogen?s section on giving from ?The Bodhisattva?s Four
Methods of Guidance?)
--
Steve Harrington
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 07:46:59 -0800
From: Rod Rippel via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: [Oe List ...] An alternate view
Message-ID: <49F35063F09D4FFBBE6299E3F3C6E89C at RodHP>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Native Americans have a different take on the 1st Thanksgiving. RR
Learn the Real History of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving, like Columbus Day, serves as a reminder of the genocide and
violence Native communities experienced. Learn about Thanksgiving and early
colonial history from the Native perspective.
A Wampanoag's perspective on the first Thanksgiving
Cracked.com's 5 Facts About Thanksgiving Your History Teacher Left Out
Christopher Moraff's 2012 piece, "Should We Rename Thanksgiving 'National Ethnic
Cleansing Day'?" in Philadelphia magazine.
Do American Indians celebrate Thanksgiving? By NMAI
Powwow.com Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month Guide
? Watch Captured 1614
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 11:20:08 -0500
From: Ellie Stock via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net, oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] Thanksgiving reflection
Message-ID: <8D1D875256C0025-9EC-22E74 at webmail-va078.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Thursday, November 27: Thanksgiving Day. With family in Pittsburgh but
thoughts are much with Ferguson.
As family is watching the Macy Day's Parade, and I catch a glimpse of it from
time to time as I try to catch up with Ferguson events, I find myself reflecting
on empire building on the backs of the enslavement of African Americans and
continued structures of racism and the grabbing of land and attempted genocide
of Native Americans, First Citizens--some people's present wealth and privilege
and other's poverty and inequity based on free labor and free land--unceasing,
mindless plundering to achieve "progress." Some day, the United States needs to
come to terms with this, repent, and rebuild an inclusive society with economic,
political and cultural liberty and justice for ALL.
At the same time I give thanks for life, for the gift of creation--for all of it
This we know: life is good, we are received, the past is approved, the future
is open. All is connected; and, beneath and even within and through the chaos,
struggle, death and destruction, life chooses life as it moves toward
individuation, diversity, and communion.
With deep gratitude for all on this list serve and many others---those known and
unknown--who have been and continue to be part of the Spirit Movement.
Thanksgiving blessings.
Ellie
elliestock at aol.com
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 10:43:21 -0600
From: Randy Williams via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: Rod Rippel <rodrippel at cox.net>
Cc: "<oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] An alternate view
Message-ID: <DA143299-EB37-4951-9526-75A571B4D8BE at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Rod,
I get this, but I'm having a little struggle with wallowing in the sins of the
past. It's a kind of "Marilyn Monroe, if it took all that..." moment for me,
without denying that which was perpetrated on the natives of this land by our
forebears. I keep trying to appropriate "all is good, the past is approved" as
it relates to our nation's history. I find myself wanting to acknowledge the
dichotomy of good and evil that is true of all of life without being oblivious
to the evil or ignoring the good. The only way I've found to do that is to focus
on the whole while vowing that the future not be a repeat of the past. Is it
possible to celebrate a national day of Thanksgiving given our history? That's
the question your email raises for me, and I thank you for that. I say yes, it
is.
Randy
Sent from my iPad
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 17:49:32 GMT
From: "jonzondo at juno.com via OE" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: elliestock at aol.com
Cc: oe at lists.wedgeblade.net, dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net,
grholcombe at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Happy Thanksgiving
Message-ID: <20141127.094932.25262.0 at webmail02.vgs.untd.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Here's a recent article that helped educate me.
Also found at... http://www.manataka.org/page269.htmlGrateful for All That
Is...
Jon Mark Elizondo THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVINGby Susan Bates Most of us
associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big
feast. And that did happen - once. The story began in 1614 when a band of
English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians
bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who
had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found
only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in
England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and
negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the
end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and
the Wampanoags. But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in
the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat
load. Finding no fences around the land, they co
nsidered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they
seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest.
But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated
and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever
fought. In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and
children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival
which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians
were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come
outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified
women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next
day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of
Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been
murdered.Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists and thei
r Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were
sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500
slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian
scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible. Following an especially
successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the
churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the
heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were
kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did
not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole
in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years. The
killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being
held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that
only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set a
side instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln
decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War --
on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in
Minnesota.This story doesn't have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with
it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at
the big feast. But we need to learn our true history so it won't ever be
repeated. Next Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God
for all your blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their
lives and raise their families. They, also took time out to say "thank you" to
Creator for all their blessings.Our Thanks to Hill & Holler Column by Susan
Bates susanbates at webtv.net More About Thanksgiving...INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS
By Chuck LarsenThis is a particularly difficult introduction to write. I have
been a public schools teacher for twelve years, and I am also a historian and
have written several books on American and Native American history. I also just
happen to be Quebeque French, Metis, Ojibwa, and Iroquois. Because my Indian
ancestors were on both sides of the struggle between the Puritans and the New
England Indians and I am well versed in my cultural heritage and history both as
an Anishnabeg (Algokin) and Hodenosione (Iroquois), it was felt that I could
bring a unique insight to the project.
For an Indian, who is also a school teacher, Thanksgiving was never an easy
holiday for me to deal with in class. I sometimes have felt like I learned too
much about "the Pilgrims and the Indians." Every year I have been faced with the
professional and moral dilemma of just how to be honest and informative with my
children at Thanksgiving without passing on historical distortions, and racial
and cultural stereotypes.
The problem is that part of what you and I learned in our own childhood about
the "Pilgrims" and "Squanto" and the "First Thanksgiving" is a mixture of both
history and myth. But the THEME of Thanksgiving has truth and integrity far
above and beyond what we and our forebearers have made of it. Thanksgiving is a
bigger concept than just the story of the founding of the Plymouth Plantation.
So what do we teach to our children? We usually pass on unquestioned what we
all received in our own childhood classrooms. I have come to know both the
truths and the myths about our "First Thanksgiving," and I feel we need to try
to reach beyond the myths to some degree of historic truth. This text is an
attempt to do this.
At this point you are probably asking, "What is the big deal about Thanksgiving
and the Pilgrims?" "What does this guy mean by a mixture of truths and myth?"
That is just what this introduction is all about. I propose that there may be a
good deal that many of us do not know about our Thanksgiving holiday and also
about the "First Thanksgiving" story. I also propose that what most of us have
learned about the Pilgrims and the Indians who were at the first Thanksgiving at
Plymouth Plantation is only part of the truth. When you build a lesson on only
half of the information, then you are not teaching the whole truth. That is why
I used the word myth. So where do you start to find out more about the holiday
and our modern stories about how it began?
A good place to start is with a very important book, "The Invasion of America,"
by Francis Jennings. It is a very authoritative text on the settlement of New
England and the evolution of Indian/White relations in the New England colonies.
I also recommend looking up any good text on British history. Check out the
British Civil War of 1621-1642, Oliver Cromwell, and the Puritan uprising of
1653 which ended parliamentary government in England until 1660. The history of
the Puritan experience in New England really should not be separated from the
history of the Puritan experience in England. You should also realize that the
"Pilgrims" were a sub sect, or splinter group, of the Puritan movement. They
came to America to achieve on this continent what their Puritan bretheran
continued to strive for in England; and when the Puritans were forced from
England, they came to New England and soon absorbed the original "Pilgrims."
As the editor, I have read all the texts listed in our bibliography, and many
more, in preparing this material for you. I want you to read some of these
books. So let me use my editorial license to deliberately provoke you a little.
When comparing the events stirred on by the Puritans in England with accounts of
Puritan/Pilgrim activities in New England in the same era, several provocative
things suggest themselves:
1. The Puritans were not just simple religious conservatives persecuted by the
King and the Church of England for their unorthodox beliefs. They were political
revolutionaries who not only intended to overthrow the government of England,
but who actually did so in 1649.
2. The Puritan "Pilgrims" who came to New England were not simply refugees who
decided to "put their fate in God's hands" in the "empty wilderness" of North
America, as a generation of Hollywood movies taught us. In any culture at any
time, settlers on a frontier are most often outcasts and fugitives who, in some
way or other, do not fit into the mainstream of their society. This is not to
imply that people who settle on frontiers have no redeeming qualities such as
bravery, etc., but that the images of nobility that we associate with the
Puritans are at least in part the good "P.R." efforts of later writers who have
romanticized them.(1) It is also very plausible that this unnaturally noble
image of the Puritans is all wrapped up with the mythology of "Noble
Civilization" vs. "Savagery."(2)At any rate, mainstream Englishmen considered
the Pilgrims to be deliberate religious dropouts who intended to found a new
nation completely independent from non-Puritan England. In 1643
the Puritan/Pilgrims declared themselves an independent confederacy, one
hundred and forty-three years before the American Revolution. They believed in
the imminent occurrence of Armegeddon in Europe and hoped to establish here in
the new world the "Kingdom of God" foretold in the book of Revelation. They
diverged from their Puritan brethren who remained in England only in that they
held little real hope of ever being able to successfully overthrow the King and
Parliament and, thereby, impose their "Rule of Saints" (strict Puritan
orthodoxy) on the rest of the British people. So they came to America not just
in one ship (the Mayflower) but in a hundred others as well, with every
intention of taking the land away from its native people to build their
prophesied "Holy Kingdom."(3)
3. The Pilgrims were not just innocent refugees from religious persecution.
They were victims of bigotry in England, but some of them were themselves
religious bigots by our modern standards. The Puritans and the Pilgrims saw
themselves as the "Chosen Elect" mentioned in the book of Revelation. They
strove to "purify" first themselves and then everyone else of everything they
did not accept in their own interpretation of scripture. Later New England
Puritans used any means, including deceptions, treachery, torture, war, and
genocide to achieve that end.(4)They saw themselves as fighting a holy war
against Satan, and everyone who disagreed with them was the enemy. This rigid
fundamentalism was transmitted to America by the Plymouth colonists, and it
sheds a very different light on the "Pilgrim" image we have of them. This is
best illustrated in the written text of the Thanksgiving sermon delivered at
Plymouth in 1623 by "Mather the Elder." In it, 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. He praised God
for destroying "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus
clearing the forests to make way for a better growth", i.e., the Pilgrims.(5)In
as much as these Indians were the Pilgrim's benefactors, and Squanto, in
particular, was the instrument of their salvation that first year, how are we to
interpret this apparent callousness towards their misfortune?
4. The Wampanoag Indians were not the "friendly savages" some of us were told
about when we were in the primary grades. Nor were they invited out of the
goodness of the Pilgrims' hearts to share the fruits of the Pilgrims' harvest in
a demonstration of Christian charity and interracial brotherhood. The Wampanoag
were members of a widespread confederacy of Algonkian-speaking peoples known as
the League of the Delaware. For six hundred years they had been defending
themselves from my other ancestors, the Iroquois, and for the last hundred years
they had also had encounters with European fishermen and explorers but
especially with European slavers, who had been raiding their coastal
villages.(6) They knew something of the power of the white people, and they did
not fully trust them. But their religion taught that they were to give charity
to the helpless and hospitality to anyone who came to them with empty
hands.(7)Also, Squanto, the Indian hero of the Thanksgiving story, had
a very real love for a British explorer named John Weymouth, who had become a
second father to him several years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth.
Clearly, Squanto saw these Pilgrims as Weymouth's people.(8)To the Pilgrims the
Indians were heathens and, therefore, the natural instruments of the Devil.
Squanto, as the only educated and baptized Christian among the Wampanoag, was
seen as merely an instrument of God, set in the wilderness to provide for the
survival of His chosen people, the Pilgrims. The Indians were comparatively
powerful and, therefore, dangerous; and they were to be courted until the next
ships arrived with more Pilgrim colonists and the balance of power shifted. The
Wampanoag were actually invited to that Thanksgiving feast for the purpose of
negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands of the Plymouth Plantation for
the Pilgrims. It should also be noted that the INDIANS, possibly out of a sense
of charity toward their hosts, ended up bringing t
he majority of the food for the feast.(9)
5. A generation later, after the balance of power had indeed shifted, the
Indian and White children of that Thanksgiving were striving to kill each other
in the genocidal conflict known as King Philip's War. At the end of that
conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or refugees
among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by
the Puritans. So successful was this early trade in Indian slaves that several
Puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of
Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus
founding the American-based slave trade.(10)
Obviously there is a lot more to the story of Indian/Puritan relations in New
England than in the thanksgiving stories we heard as children. Our contemporary
mix of myth and history about the "First" Thanksgiving at Plymouth developed in
the 1890s and early 1900s. Our country was desperately trying to pull together
its many diverse peoples into a common national identity. To many writers and
educators at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, this
also meant having a common national history. This was the era of the "melting
pot" theory of social progress, and public education was a major tool for social
unity. It was with this in mind that the federal government declared the last
Thursday in November as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving in 1898.
In consequence, what started as an inspirational bit of New England folklore,
soon grew into the full-fledged American Thanksgiving we now know. It emerged
complete with stereotyped Indians and stereotyped Whites, incomplete history,
and a mythical significance as our "First Thanksgiving." But was it really our
FIRST American Thanksgiving?
Now that I have deliberately provoked you with some new information and
different opinions, please take the time to read some of the texts in our
bibliography. I want to encourage you to read further and form your own
opinions. There really is a TRUE Thanksgiving story of Plymouth Plantation. But
I strongly suggest that there always has been a Thanksgiving story of some kind
or other for as long as there have been human beings. There was also a "First"
Thanksgiving in America, but it was celebrated thirty thousand years ago.(11)At
some time during the New Stone Age (beginning about ten thousand years ago)
Thanksgiving became associated with giving thanks to God for the harvests of the
land. Thanksgiving has always been a time of people coming together, so thanks
has also been offered for that gift of fellowship between us all. Every last
Thursday in November we now partake in one of the OLDEST and most UNIVERSAL of
human celebrations, and THERE ARE MANY THANKSGIVING STORIES
TO TELL.
As for Thanksgiving week at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, the friendship was
guarded and not always sincere, and the peace was very soon abused. But for
three days in New England's history, peace and friendship were there.
So here is a story for your children. It is as kind and gentle a balance of
historic truth and positive inspiration as its writers and this editor can make
it out to be. I hope it will adequately serve its purpose both for you and your
students, and I also hope this work will encourage you to look both deeper and
farther, for Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving all around the world.
Chuck Larsen Tacoma Public Schools September, 1986FOOTNOTES FOR TEACHER
INTRODUCTION
(1) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," references to Puritans,
pp. 27, 80-85, 90, 104, & 130.
(2) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," references to frontier
concepts of savagery in index. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of
America," the myth of savagery, pp. 6-12, 15-16, & 109-110.
(3) See Blitzer, Charles, "Age of Kings," Great Ages of Man series, references
to Puritanism, pp. 141, 144 & 145-46. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion
of America," references to Puritan human motives, pp. 4-6, 43- 44 and 53.
(4) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp. 6-10. Also see Armstrong,
Virginia I., "I Have Spoken," reference to Cannonchet and his village, p. 6.
Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," Chapter 9 "Savage War,"
Chapter 13 "We must Burn Them," and Chapter 17 "Outrage Bloody and Barbarous."
(5) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp. 6-9. Also see Berkhofer,
Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," the comments of Cotton Mather, pp. 37 &
82-83.
(6) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," pp. 3-4. Also see Graff,
Steward and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian Adventurer." Also see "Handbook of North
American Indians," Vol. 15, the reference to Squanto on p. 82.
(7) See Benton-Banai, Edward, "The Mishomis Book," as a reference on general
"Anishinabe" (the Algonkin speaking peoples) religious beliefs and practices.
Also see Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," reference to religious
life on p. 1.
(8) See Graff, Stewart and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian Adventurer." Also see
Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving." Also see Bradford, Sir William, "Of
Plymouth Plantation," and "Mourt's Relation."
(9) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," the letter of Edward
Winslow dated 1622, pp. 5-6.
(10) See "Handbook of North American Indians," Vol. 15, pp. 177-78. Also see
"Chronicles of American Indian Protest," p. 9, the reference to the enslavement
of King Philip's family. Also see Larsen, Charles, M., "The Real Thanksgiving,"
pp. 8-11, "Destruction of the Massachusetts Indians."
(11) Best current estimate of the first entry of people into the Americas
confirmed by archaeological evidence that is datable.
THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORYBy Chuck Larsen
When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, they landed on the rocky
shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag)
Indians. The Wampanoags were part of the Algonkian-speaking peoples, a large
group that was part of the Woodland Culture area. These Indians lived in
villages along the coast of what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They
lived in round- roofed houses called wigwams. These were made of poles covered
with flat sheets of elm or birch bark. Wigwams differ in construction from tipis
that were used by Indians of the Great Plains.
The Wampanoags moved several times during each year in order to get food. In
the spring they would fish in the rivers for salmon and herring. In the planting
season they moved to the forest to hunt deer and other animals. After the end of
the hunting season people moved inland where there was greater protection from
the weather. From December to April they lived on food that they stored during
the earlier months.
The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length of deerskin looped over
a belt in back and in front. Women wore deerskin wrap-around skirts. Deerskin
leggings and fur capes made from deer, beaver, otter, and bear skins gave
protection during the colder seasons, and deerskin moccasins were worn on the
feet. Both men and women usually braided their hair and a single feather was
often worn in the back of the hair by men. They did not have the large feathered
headdresses worn by people in the Plains Culture area.
There were two language groups of Indians in New England at this time. The
Iroquois were neighbors to the Algonkian-speaking people. Leaders of the
Algonquin and Iroquois people were called "sachems" (SAY chems). Each village
had its own sachem and tribal council. Political power flowed upward from the
people. Any individual, man or woman, could participate, but among the
Algonquins more political power was held by men. Among the Iroquois, however,
women held the deciding vote in the final selection of who would represent the
group. Both men and women enforced the laws of the village and helped solve
problems. The details of their democratic system were so impressive that about
150 years later Benjamin Franklin invited the Iroquois to Albany, New York, to
explain their system to a delegation who then developed the "Albany Plan of
Union." This document later served as a model for the Articles of Confederation
and the Constitution of the United States.
These Indians of the Eastern Woodlands called the turtle, the deer and the fish
their brothers. They respected the forest and everything in it as equals.
Whenever a hunter made a kill, he was careful to leave behind some bones or meat
as a spiritual offering, to help other animals survive. Not to do so would be
considered greedy. The Wampanoags also treated each other with respect. Any
visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the
family had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the
Pilgrims when they met.
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first saw the
strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to
help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with courtesy. It was mainly
because of their kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the
Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky soil. They
needed to learn new ways for a new world, and the man who came to help them was
called "Tisquantum" (Tis SKWAN tum) or "Squanto" (SKWAN toe).
Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa TUK et) and a member of
the Pokanokit Wampanoag nation. Patuxet once stood on the exact site where the
Pilgrims built Plymouth. In 1605, fifteen years before the Pilgrims came,
Squanto went to England with a friendly English explorer named John Weymouth. He
had many adventures and learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New
England with Captain Weymouth. Later Squanto was captured by a British slaver
who raided the village and sold Squanto to the Spanish in the Caribbean Islands.
A Spanish Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to Spain
and later on a ship to England. Squanto then found Captain Weymouth, who paid
his way back to his homeland. In England Squanto met Samoset of the Wabanake
(Wab NAH key) Tribe, who had also left his native home with an English explorer.
They both returned together to Patuxet in 1620. When they arrived, the village
was deserted and there were skeletons everywhere.
Everyone in the village had died from an illness the English slavers had left
behind. Squanto and Samoset went to stay with a neighboring village of
Wampanoags.
One year later, in the spring, Squanto and Samoset were hunting along the beach
near Patuxet. They were startled to see people from England in their deserted
village. For several days, they stayed nearby observing the newcomers. Finally
they decided to approach them. Samoset walked into the village and said
"welcome," Squanto soon joined him. The Pilgrims were very surprised to meet two
Indians who spoke English.
The Pilgrims were not in good condition. They were living in dirt-covered
shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during
the winter. They obviously needed help and the two men were a welcome sight.
Squanto, who probably knew more English than any other Indian in North America
at that time, decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and
teach them how to survive in this new place. He brought them deer meat and
beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and
how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how
other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook clams,
how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of
other skills needed for their survival.
By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks
to the help they had received. The corn they planted had grown well. There was
enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their
Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one European-style building
out of squared logs. This was their church. They were now in better health, and
they knew more about surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to have a
thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune. They had observed
thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many
years before coming to the New World.
The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. The
beginning of the Algonkian year was marked by the Maple Dance which gave thanks
to the Creator for the maple tree and its syrup. This ceremony occurred when the
weather was warm enough for the sap to run in the maple trees, sometimes as
early as February. Second was the planting feast, where the seeds were blessed.
The strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits of the season.
Summer brought the green corn festival to give thanks for the ripening corn. In
late fall, the harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown.
Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the Indians sat down to
the "first Thanksgiving" with the Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving
of the year for them!
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset,
Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join
them for a celebration, but they had no idea how big Indian families could be.
As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large
turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The
Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three
days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his
arrival to go home and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied
the majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash,
corn soup, corn bread, and berries. Captain Standish sat at one end of a long
table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end. For the first time the
Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of on mats or furs
spread on the ground. The Indian women sat together
with the Indian men to eat. The Pilgrim women, however, stood quietly behind
the table and waited until after their men had eaten, since that was their
custom.
For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time
of friendship between two very different groups of people. A peace and
friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish giving the
Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old Patuxet village once stood to
build their new town of Plymouth.
It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time; but,
unfortunately, that was not to be. More English people came to America, and they
were not in need of help from the Indians as were the original Pilgrims. Many of
the newcomers forgot the help the Indians had given them. Mistrust started to
grow and the friendship weakened. The Pilgrims started telling their Indian
neighbors that their Indian religion and Indian customs were wrong. The Pilgrims
displayed an intolerance toward the Indian religion similar to the intolerance
displayed toward the less popular religions in Europe. The relationship
deteriorated and within a few years the children of the people who ate together
at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be called
King Phillip's War.
It is sad to think that this happened, but it is important to understand all of
the story and not just the happy part. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a
Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There
are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of
them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's
arrival. Here is part of what was said:
"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first
days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It
is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the
Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little
knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass,
the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near
the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught
from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the
white people.
Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the
lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work
toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once
again are important."
------------------------------
End of OE Digest, Vol 32, Issue 25
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