News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
For most of us, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends for feast and fellowship — maybe with some football thrown in. We’re all kind of vaguely aware of the historical context — Pilgrims and Indians got together to make the First Thanksgiving and all that.
Pondering the history behind Thanksgiving isn’t necessary to the holiday — but it can deepen the experience. As Native American Heritage Month winds down, it’s an opportunity to try to see the holiday through Wampanoag eyes.
The Wampanoag were the Algonquian people who lived in the area where the English Puritan settlers we know as the Pilgrims landed on the shores of what would become Massachusetts in 1620. The Wampanoag lived a good life, migrating from the backcountry to the seashore to exploit resources in season. They built stone weirs to facilitate fishing, and practiced a burning regimen to improve forest habitat for deer and to clear areas for agriculture.
But in 1620, they were recovering from an apocalypse.
A scant few years before the Pilgrims landed, this numerous and prosperous people was ravaged by a series of disease outbreaks lasting about two years. Half or more of the Wampanoag died. In some villages, mortality approached 100 percent. The village of Patuxet was abandoned. Here was the site of New Plymouth.
The diseases, which were probably a strain of plague, were likely acquired through glancing or indirect contact with European sailors, traders, and fishermen, who were poking along that coast for many decades before the Pilgrims ventured there. The Indian populations had little to no resistance to these diseases.
The Wampanoag cautiously welcomed the English settlers, and, as the legends recount, they did provide them with expertise that helped them get through their first terrible year in the New World. But the native people’s actions were not undertaken out of pure altruism. The devastated Wampanoag were under threat from the nearby Narragansett, who had, somehow, escaped the ravages of the pandemic. The Wampanoag needed allies if they were to retain their independence. And, as hapless as the settlers were, they had firearms, and access to more, and perhaps could be a military buffer against Narragansett aggression.
So, a tentative alliance and friendship evolved.
The Pilgrims didn’t invite their new friends to the First Thanksgiving; they were party crashers. The colonists were celebrating by shooting at marks (as one does) and Wampanoag hunters heard the gunfire and went to see what was up at the Plymouth settlement. They brought several deer, making venison a centerpiece of the feast. More Wampanoag, including their leader Massasoit, came in, and, indeed, a convivial time was had by all.
For a generation, a solid friendship and mutually beneficial alliance prevailed between the settlers and the Wampanoag. But gradually, as the Puritan settlements became established, they no longer needed assistance from the Wampanoag. What they needed was more land. That put them into conflict with their allies, and newcomers did not hold their native friends in the same esteem as the first generation had.
By the 1670s, tensions were reaching an explosive point. When the Plymouth settlers attempted to proactively disarm the Wampanoag in 1675, war broke out. It would be a terrible conflict — per capita the most destructive war in American history.
In 2022, I published a podcast series on what would become known as King Philip’s War, which you can find on Spotify and most other podcasting platforms (search Frontier Partisans Podcast, King Philip’s War).
It was a tragic turn down a dark path.
As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, mostly without thinking too much about the history behind it, many Wampanoag have, since 1970, marked the same day as the National Day of Mourning. Seen through their eyes, that’s not hard to understand.
The duality of the day is one more reminder that the American story is a complex one, with much to celebrate, and much to ponder in sober reflection on the cost that comes with stretching an imperial republic from sea to shining sea.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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