Misgiving
By R. D. Flavin
This Thursday we
celebrate the 135th Thanksgiving holiday, the annual
commemoration introduced under Abe Lincoln
in 1863 to honor a series
of shared dinners between the Pilgrims and
Native Americans. Most of us
are taught from an early age that the
"first"
Thanksgiving was held in 1621
to celebrate a successful harvest after
the passing of a difficult year, in
which many Mayflower colonists died, and
in a spirit of Christian
fellowship, the Pilgrims invited the local
Wampanoag to join them. It's a
quaint story and perhaps there are elements
of truth involved, but it's not
history. Today the Wampanoag, and
many other Native Americans,
unfortunately regard "Thanksgiving" with
misgiving, and no one can blame
them. Those were sad and terrible
times...
We know very
little
about the Mayflower colonists who established
Plymouth Plantation and what we have gleaned
from journals, letters, and
other relevant documents, usually hasn't
squared with popular
reconstructions. In fact, only one
genuine image of a Plymouth Pilgrim
survives, and that fortuitous event is owed
to the rise of Cromwell, the
English Civil War, and the return from
Plymouth
to England of Edward
Winslow, who later died on a Jamaican cruise
in Lord Protector
Cromwell's service. Except for the
well-to-do Winslow (records show he
traveled aboard the Mayflower with two
"man-servants"),
who sat for a
1651 portrait, we don't know if the Pilgrims
were handsome or ugly, tall
or short, laughed a little or laughed a
lot.
Many of the
popular
reconstructions erroneously depict the Pilgrims as
dressed in black and white, with large
buckles
affixed to hats, pants, and
shoes. Such reconstructions are the
result of describing the post-1629
influx of Puritans, as well as the later
Quakers and Anabaptists. While
some Puritans were present on the Mayflower
(as evidenced by the
Cromwellian "roundhead" sympathies of the
above-mentioned Winslow),
the bulk of the Plymouth colonists consisted
of "Saints," or congregational
Christians, also known as "Separatists"
after their wish to be separated
from the Church of England, and "Strangers,"
the adventuresome colonists
contracted to help settle a fishing station
in the New World by the English
company who financed the Mayflower.
Records from the Mayflower
indicate brightly colored articles of
clothing
and an ample supply of
alcohol. And, as far as the large
buckles, they were not uncommon in
Europe during the time of the Mayflower,
but didn't become inexpensive
and readily available until a few decades
later.
The romantic
image
of the Pilgrims as a group of humble Christians
fleeing the Church of England is naive and
historically dishonest. As
"Separatists," the Pilgrims encouraged
allegiance
to King James in
temporal matters, but not when it came to
religion. America continues to
sing the praises of the Mayflower Compact,
the congregational agreement
which bound the "Saints" and the "Strangers"
into a community, and
seems to be regarded as a document with
expressed democratic aims. The
Mayflower Compact is sworn in the name of
King James and was written
to further clarify the means of the
contracted
to establish a commercial
fishing station in the New World.
As often happens, power and money
reveal themselves to be the prime
instigators
of history.
A little more
than
a hundred years before the Mayflower set sail for the
New World, Martin Luther began the
Reformation
with the nailing of a
wish-list on a church door. As the
Renaissance was in full bloom, the old
feudal system was dying rapidly, the ruling
Catholic Church was staffed by
some of the most corrupt individuals ever
to have posed as devout, and
with the technological achievement of the
printing press, many Europeans
began to follow the hypocritical and
megalomaniacal
ravings of Luther and
Calvin. After centuries of watching
kings and the Church become fat with
power and money, the Protestants decided
they wanted their share.
Children often follow the ways of their
parents.
Organized
religion
usually involves intellectual vanity and the often
fatal assertion of factual truth.
Armed with new, printed copies of The
Bible, Protestant leaders began to act like
the "Great Oz," and declare that
they knew it all, knew what was best, and
preached about what was
wrong. Religion is such a deadly
farce...
The Pilgrims are
regarded as humble Christians, and though some of
their number may not have thought matters
through (they did, after all,
forget to bring equipment and nets for the
fishing station), the vast
majority of both the "Saints" and the
"Strangers"
knew full well that they
were invading the New World. The
strategy
was apparently one which
sent a small party to establish a foothold
(the Mayflower), followed a year
later by the arrival of supplies and more
colonists. The backing English
knew they didn't have the resources, like
the Spanish, to send conquering
armies, so they got sneaky and began slow
and non-threatening. It was
still an invasion, albeit gradual, and sad
and terrible nonetheless...
Plymouth
tradition
holds that the Pilgrims invited their "friends," the
Wampanoag, to the "first" Thanksgiving,
but in light of our better
understanding of certain Native festivals,
this now seems to be the reverse
of what probably happened. The
Wampanoag,
and other related
Algonkin, celebrated six different festivals
of 'thanksgiving' throughout the
year, of which the fifth, or harvest
festival,
seems the likeliest candidate for
an invitation to be extended to the
Pilgrims.
Neutral ground was chosen
for the festival, the Wampanoag brought
the majority of the food, though
in subsequent years it seems likely the
Pilgrims initiated the 'Thanksgiving'
festival and assumed responsibility for
providing the food. The invasion
took many years.
From Sinai,
where
the Hebrews separated from the rest of the world by
declaring themselves to be "God's Chosen
People," to the founding of
Christianity and the social devastation
brought about by the theological
hubris of the Catholic Church, to the
Protestant
Reformation and the
greedy, personal empowerment goals of
everyone
who could quote
"scripture," to the subsequent invasion
by the Mayflower colonists, to the
profitable crops of tobacco, to "taxation
without representation," to
declared genocide directed against Native
populations, down through
today and the global addiction to tobacco
and the irony that the most
popular American brands of cigarettes are
produced with tobacco grown
in food-starved Africa, ...I have to pause
and wonder what it is that
Americans are giving thanks for.
Because
Protestant Christians won? I
have serious problems with associating any
valid concept of God with all
of this--it's about power and money, which
is probably what most
Americans are actually giving thanks for.
It's really not
surprising that the Wampanoag march in Plymouth every
Thanksgiving Day. With "friends" like
the Pilgrims... Well, everyone
knows the rest...
with misgiving about Thanksgiving,
Rick