Ep. 36 Thanksgiving: How a Story of Genocidal Conquest Was Twisted Into a Feel Good Holiday

History Fix

I remember the pilgrim hats, the buckles on the shoes, the feather headdresses and beads, the fun, cutesy crafts we did in school. The smell of construction paper and tempera paint as we stamped out handprint turkeys, glued on brightly colored feathers. You dress like a pilgrim. You be an Indian. We’ll all sit down and have a feast together. I remember learning about the first Thanksgiving in school. I remember teachers talking about a day of peace. A day that colonists and natives came together to give thanks, to share a meal. A day they put aside their differences and got along, loved one another. How inspiring. But what they failed to tell us in school is that that peace didn’t last. Within a generation, indigenous populations, already decimated by more than 90% thanks to disease, were subjected to oppression, conquest, and all out extermination by European invaders. What they don’t tell you in school is that, soon after that fateful feast, descendants of those present at the first Thanksgiving went to war - a war that, in terms of population, became the bloodiest conflict in American history. They don’t tell you that in school. Let’s fix that.

Sources:

• History.com "Thanksgiving 2023"
• History.com "How the 'Mother of Thanksgiving' Lobbied Abraham Lincoln to Proclaim the National Holiday"
• Smithsonian "Thanksgiving in North America: From Local Harvests to National Holiday"
• Potawatomi.org "The True, Dark History of Thanksgiving"
• Insider Magazine "The true story behind Thanksgiving is a bloody one, and some people say it's time to cancel the holiday"
• Historical Journal of Massachusetts "Weltering in their own blood: puritan casualties in King Philip's War"
• Worldhistory.org "Squanto"
• Legends of America "Metacomet AKA: King Philip of the Wampanoag Tribe"
• History.com "Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished"
• Indian Country Today "The Wampanoag Side of the First Thanksgiving Story"

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