With Thanksgiving Break coming up, I wanted to examine the holiday more closely.
When you think about everything that happened in the early development of the United States, it’s a bit ridiculous that Thanksgiving became a national holiday after everything the early pilgrims went through with the Indians.
To refresh your memory of the first Thanksgiving, when the first pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock on Dec 11, 1620, in the country, we eventually named “America,” they met with the Native Americans and learned about their culture. There was a brutal winter ahead.
The beginning of the following fall, 46 of the 102 pilgrims who sailed over on the Mayflower died, but the harvest of the year 1621 was bountiful.
This lead to a three day feast between the pilgrims and 91 Natives who helped the pilgrims survive their first year in this new land. Thanksgiving is born!
A few hundred years later it was declared a national holiday and everything is wonderful. But the question comes up, “What happened to the Native Americans?”
After such a great three-day feast, the European settlers could never have any conflict with the Natives right? Well, not exactly. Around 1823, we “true Americans” basically told the Indians, “Hey guys, it’s kind of getting crowded over here on the whole eastern region of the country, so I hope you don’t mind if we force you to relocate to the worthless barren desert part of the country in the mid-west. Sorry for the inconvenience, it’s been fun (but not really).”
Those early relocations contributed to the rise of bigger ones later in our history. The Trail of Tears took place as the Natives were forced to migrate west leaving many dead in the process. Now we live happily ever after right? Not yet. Starting in 1868 us “100 percent authentic” Americans decided to make another move.
“Hey, Indians, long time no talk. Remember how we forced you to migrate west? Yeah, we want that land back it’d be a great spot to raise our cattle. So here’s the deal, we built these cool camps for you called ‘reservations’ where you can all live together away from us and out of our business.
“If you don’t move in immediately we’ll kill all of you, so don’t make this more awkward than it already is. Oh, and if you think you can live off Buffalo don’t try because we’re killing all of them as we speak. PS: Thanks again for helping us get through that first winter in 1621! Without your help, we’d never get strong enough to overtake your whole civilization! Just for that if you guys ever want to gamble at your reservations, go nuts! You’re welcome.”
The history between the Native Americans and the European settlers (aka Native Americans 2.0) is so ridiculous I can’t imagine how a parent could try to explain the history to their child rationally without them questioning everything they’d ever been told.
“Well you see Billy; the pilgrims had to betray the Native Americans for the benefit of our modern society. Without forcing them out of their own land, they’d probably demand the same rights as we gave ourselves, and if we treated them equally then how would we be able to justify slavery later on?
“Sure, it’s a bit controversial what took place, but it’s the only way we could make ourselves the dominant race in this newly discovered country. Oh, and remember Billy, never steal and always treat people as equals because it’s the right thing to do.” Perfect. Everything’s been explained clearly!
Fast forward a few hundred years to 2009, and we come to our present day Thanksgiving, usually celebrated with the whole family including cousins, grandparents, the uncles nobody remembers and maybe some close family friends.
I’ve come to realize once the meal begins, it seems like the dinner is only pleasant for about the first five minutes until the conversation turns towards some inappropriate or awkward topic brought up by one of the men.
Because nobody in the family stays connected, awkward conversations begin almost immediately.
“So Katie, I heard you’re going to BYU now. How’s that going for you?”
“I dropped out last year…”
“Well (struggle to say anything positive) that’s a very grown up decision of you to make! Good for you!”
That first awkward moment usually sets the tone for the rest of the Thanksgiving dinner.
“So Holly, where’s your husband? He couldn’t make it out tonight? I love Mark, he’s hilarious!”
“We got divorced in January…things have been really bad.”
“Oh I’m so sorry to hear that. I knew that Mark was always a bad guy, you can do so much better.”
Then there’s the grandmother who’s been around since the first Thanksgiving in 1621 who somehow ends up bringing up some latent racist topic like “why the Mexican border should be more strictly guarded,” but continues to stress that she’s no racist she’s “just concerned.”
I’m pretty sure when you have to go out of your way to voice that you’re “not racist,” you probably are.
However, thanks to the obnoxious amounts of food and the thought that you probably won’t see most of these family members again until Christmas, the dinner is tolerable and somewhat humorous just to see how offbeat the table conversation becomes.
So this Thanksgiving, remember how this holiday came to be what it is, and look forward to some awkward dinner conversation.
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@ut.edu.