The Real Thanksgiving Story

What do we know about the story of Thanksgiving? Who can tell me something about why we celebrate Thanksgiving? Did the Pilgrims and the Native Americans always get along? Have you ever heard about a Patuxent Native American named Squanto? What do you know about him?

• He befriended men from England.
• He lived in England (like Pocahantas), then got put into slavery, sent to Spain, was rescued and then sent back to England.
• He came back to America finally, and his village was gone.
• People died from diseases brought over from England.
  

This is actually a sad story—he did get along with people from Europe, liked them, helped them, shared with them. But his story isn't just about showing the Pilgrims how to plant crops and live in America, finishing up with a really great dinner. It's really about how hard it is for people to understand each other, how it's hard to know when to trust someone, and how it's hard to hold onto difficult stories about our past, whether it's our own story or our country's story.

I have an old book about Squanto, written for kids about 50 years ago, which has all the hard parts of the story in it—but when I thought about the story, I'd forgotten a lot of it—maybe because it feels bad to remember the parts that are so sad and wrong. It feels bad even though when Squanto was alive, all my relatives were nowhere near America, and had no intention of heading across the sea. But eventually they all did, all of our relatives did at one time or another, that's why we're here now, and why the real Thanksgiving has become our story, one we need to wrestle with, even though it's not as nice a story as we might wish.

So what do we do with the real Thanksgiving—with the true story of Thanksgiving that isn't the way we wish it was. The Pilgrims from Europe and the Native Americans didn't always get along. A lot of the Pilgrims didn't really understand or respect the Native Americans. They were unfair to them, stole from them. People who came from Europe before the Pilgrims came with diseases they didn't know they had, and those diseases made a lot of the Native American really sick—a lot of them died, and this is part of the reason why there was so much land available to the Pilgrims when they arrived. The Pilgrims wanted to be free to live as they chose and practice their own religion—but they weren't so concerned about whether others could live as they chose and practice their own religion, especially the Native Americans.

There are some true stories about cooperation and connections between the Pilgrims and Native Americans that are important, but some of the stories aren't true, and there are sure a lot of other stories that aren't fun to hear. Some people think it's wrong to celebrate Thanksgiving, because a lot of the true story is different from the holiday version. The classic Thanksgiving story is a myth—how many of us have heard the word "myth" before? A myth is a story that isn't considered to be true, but that is still really important to people, usually because it has to do with a people's history and sense of who they are. The Thanksgiving story is a good example of a myth—and presents us with a challenge—what do we do when we know that a story important to our history and sense of who we are isn't true?

There's more than one answer about how to respond to a myth. But one answer is to look at the myth version of Thanksgiving and think about why it has lasted. Why do we like that story? Why is that the one that has developed? Why is it easy to forget or overlook all the unhappy parts of Squanto's story?

Part of the reason that we have the Thanksgiving myth is that we wish it happened that way. It would give us something to be proud of, something to lift up out of our history, something to celebrate, especially now when as a nation we're maybe more aware than we used to be about the many injustices that are still a part of American society and tradition. Well, it's important to be real, to deal with the unhappy but true story about how things really developed between the European settlers in America and the Native Americans. But it's also important to honor the myth as a myth, to recognize why we wish it were so—why it would make us proud and happy to think of these very different people, sharing and learning from each other, taking care of each other, being careful and considerate of each other's property and rights.

Because though the Thanksgiving story isn't true, it is inspiring. It isn't something we can look back on with satisfaction, but it is still something we could look forward to with hope, even with commitment to realizing the better sharing and appreciation of resources and traditions between Native American and European-descended people. The Thanksgiving story hasn't happened yet—but it could still happen. If we commit ourselves to the spirit of the real Thanksgiving—being humble, generous, grateful, open with other people, especially all the different people with whom we share our lives and our country—we can help make it real. Have a real Thanksgiving, everyone.

Amen.