In the autumn of 1621, governor William Bradford, declared a three-day feast after the first successfuil harvest on American soil. This harvest of 20 acres of corn was a success only because an enslaved Pawtuxet native named Squanto had taught them how to plant corn and catch fish. (Squanto was the sole survivor of a village that had been decimated by European diseases and firearms.)
The three day feast was modeled after an English Harvest Festival and was not referred to as a Thanksgiving. Much ale was drunk and there was considerable debauchery. There was, reportedly, no turkey served.
Governor Bradford invited the Wampanoag chief to the celebration and he unexpectedly turned up with about 90 members of his tribe. They were not made welcome and were never invited to subsequent celebrations.
Squanto also negotiated a truce with the local Wampanoag tribe on behalf of the colonists. This truce lasted twenty years and gave the colonists a chance to become established.
Over the next two decades the settlement grew and usurped considerable amounts of Indian land, leading to friction between the races. In 1640 this resulted in a bounty being announced for Indians; 20 shillings for every scalp and 500 shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery.
The first annual General Thanksgiving day, the last Thursday of November, was decreed by Governor Joseph Dudley in 1704 to celebrate the almost total destruction of the local Red Men and Women, the genocide of the Wampanoag tribe and the killing of their great chief Metacomet. Metacomet's young, prepubescent son was enslaved and sold to work on plantations in the Carribean.
In calling for the annual General Thanksgiving Day, governor Dudley thanked [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors... In defeating and disappointing.... the expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...
In such a manner was the peaceful, pagan celebration of harvest time bringing in sufficient food for all for the following year turned into a celebration of a bloody holocaust.
Thanksgiving is the equivalent to a celebration of the Nazi holocaust. It is the only such major public holiday celebrating genocide and crimes against humanity anywhere in the world. It is celebrated by the planet's one superpower and “beacon of hope for freedom and democracy”.
Do you celebrate Thanksgiving?
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