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The 17th century is having a moment. In 2019, the world observed the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia. This year marks 400 years since English Pilgrims and Wampanoags allegedly sat down to a three-day feast in territory the immigrants called Plymouth. These events have drawn extraordinary public attention. But each only makes sense when seen in the context of a century that defined enduring aspects of American life, especially European colonists’ efforts to take possession of Indigenous lands.
According to American lore, a group of Wampanoags joined the struggling community of English colonists for a meal in the autumn of 1621. In the 19th century, that feast became the focal point for celebration even though Pilgrims, according to William Bradford, their governor and primary historian, seem to have actually declared their first day of thanksgiving in 1623—two years later—when mid-summer rains soaked drought-parched fields. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November as a national holiday of Thanksgiving, though his proclamation mentioned neither the Pilgrims nor the Wampanoags. (The next year his proclamation, which also ignored the colonists, took note of divine assistance in “many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household,” a reference to the Civil War.) By the mid-20th century, U. S. Presidents routinely reminded the nation about the hard work of the Pilgrims. By the end of that century, they remembered to call attention to the presence of Native peoples, too. In 1984, Ronald Reagan even quoted a Seneca saying to demonstrate that “the native American Thanksgiving antedated those of the new Americans.”
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But the focus on 1621 distorts our understanding of the past. By emphasizing peaceful coexistence between newly arrived English migrants and already settled Wampanoags, annual celebrations of Thanksgiving have, perhaps…
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Source : time
