Past tense, present imperfect: Thanksgiving's bloody past that gets glossed over

As family and friends in the US come together for Thanksgiving Day, an annual holiday traditionally meant to honour a historic harvest feast between Native Americans and early English settlers, the true legacy of the occasion is often not acknowledged.

For many Americans — mostly people of Native American ancestry — the day is a reminder not of a glorious past, but one that is marked by oppression and bloodshed.

For over 50 years, the United American Indians for New England have declared Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning to protest against racism and oppression that Indigenous people everywhere continue to experience.

According to the native-led organisation, the day is a "reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands and the erasure of Native cultures."

Pilgrim scholar and professor emeritus of history at Millersville University Francis Bremer says the US is increasingly open "to a side of the story that's too often been ignored."

"Fifty years ago, for non-native people, these were uncomfortable truths they didn't want to hear. Now they're necessary truths."

Pilgrim's progress

There are different accounts of how the Thanksgiving celebrations started.

In 1620, English settlers or pilgrims aboard the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the native Wampanoag people had been living for centuries.

Due to starvation and disease, about half of the 102 passengers didn't survive the first winter upon arriving. But with the help of Wampanoag, the surviving settlers built towns and learned to fish and farm the new land they found themselves in, leading to the harvest feast between natives and settlers in 1621.

Fast forward to 2023. This year would mark the 402nd anniversary of Thanksgiving celebrations.

However, according to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, the first ever Thanksgiving was celebrated way back in 1619 by settlers who arrived in Virginia, known back then as Berkeley Hundred.

Author Richard Greener, on the other hand, writes that the true origin of Thanksgiving occurred in 1637, a year which saw Massachusetts Colony Governor John Winthrop call a day of celebration following the return of colonial armed hunters who had just massacred hundreds of Pequot Indians in what is now Mystic, Connecticut.

"Seven hundred Indians — men, women and children — all murdered," Greener writes.

Nevertheless, the tale of Thanksgiving that withstands, and what modern Americans associate with the holiday, is celebrated every fourth Thursday of November and is believed to have started with the harvest festival between the Wampanoag and English settlers in Plymouth.

The popular narrative resulted from Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863.

Relative peace that turned to bloodshed

For a while, the Wampanoags lived in relative peace with the settlers.

In 1616, an epidemic believed to have been brought by European traders and fishermen devastated the Wampanoags. An estimated 50 to 90 percent of the population perished, which led the settlers who arrived in 1960 to declare the land's desolation as a will of god, before building settlements there.

Wampanoag chief Massasoit visited the settlements and soon after signed a peace treaty that lasted more than 50 years.

As the settlers learned about local food crops and farming techniques from the native Wampanoag, the English population grew and more native land was taken, as detailed in the Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in Today's Northeastern United States by Favid J Silverman.

According to the book, when Massasoit died, the peace between the native tribe and settlers gradually waned, resulting in the bloody King Philip's War in 1675. The war was led by Massasoit's second son, Metacomet, who was also called Phillip.

The war raged until 1678, killing hundreds on both sides. According to the Bill of Rights Institute, it was the costliest war in American history in terms of the death toll to percentage of the population. At the end of the war, Native Americans were driven out of their villages, while more than half of the settlers were left homeless.

For many Native Americans — forced to live in cramped reservations with very few facilities — the oppression and neglect continues to this day. Even the glitz, glamour and festivities of the long American holiday season can't hide the brutal past of Thanksgiving.