The First Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in December 1620, badly weakened by the voyage. That first winter killed roughly half of them—disease, starvation, exposure. They were in desperate straits, lacking knowledge of the land, the climate, or the crops that would grow there.

The Wampanoag, led by the sachem Massasoit, had their own recent catastrophe: a plague (likely brought by earlier European contact) had devastated their population in the years just before the Pilgrims arrived, killing perhaps 75-90% of their people.

—

The pilgrims received an offer, for food and aid and knowledge. They discussed among themselves.

“If we accept their help, we will become dependent on them. If we become dependent, we will be vulnerable, and fall under their yoke”. The logic was impeccable. They ate their boot leather in proud independence.

—

The pilgrims discussed amongst themselves.

“To accept aid is to receive proof that we are in fact the type of people who need aid from others. God’s elect would not need aid from others. To accept their food is to become the type of people who need it, and not godly. If we refuse, we are in fact building yet more evidence that we are truly great.”

That spring they all died great, statistically speaking.

—

The council of Massasoit grew restless.

“What kind of people help strangers who arrive uninvited? Fools. We have no way of knowing what they are like - let us not be as the frog to the scorpion”.

Massasoit did nothing, and soon he stopped being bothered by the pilgrims.

—

The council of Massasoit grew restless.

“Why on earth did we allow Squanto to export such strategically valuable technology to foreigners? Now that they know how to grow crops, they will share the technology with other invaders, grow stronger, and conquer us. We must strike now”

The Wampanoag recruited allies with the Narragansett, massacring the Pilgrims, confident that they had secured peace in their time.

It was not long before the Narragansett had the thought that the Wampanoag might be growing too strong.

—

“We will build trust slowly,” said Massasoit. “Small trades. Small kindnesses. Each cooperation builds on the last, until mutual benefit is undeniable.”

As time went on, the pilgrims grew, with new arrivals and new leadership replacing the previous. Each new arrival started the practice from scratch, while his people’s concessions accumulated.

—

A councilor of Massasoit was dismissive.

“Help them or not, it doesn’t matter. They are obsessed with scribbles on paper, and bargaining over imagined ties between the land and their drawings”.

The councilor scoffed “as if land and paper were the same! Their inability to reason about the object and the symbolic shows they’ll never be a real strategic threat”.

—

The moderates wanted peace. The zealots wanted land. The merchants wanted goods. The soldiers wanted security. Each faction spoke as if for all.

“Who are we negotiating with?” asked Massasoit, after a third broken promise.

The governor spread his hands. “I wish I knew.”

—

“We will never see these people again,” reasoned the captain of the next ship, approaching the shore. “We are free to do whatever we want”.

He did not see them again. This was true. He made sure of it.
—

“Alas, we were of two minds,” said the colonial governor. “One said to live alongside them forever, and the other said to take what we needed when we were strong and build our nation. There was never to be any true hope for peace, because there was never any peace within us”.

—

The governor stood at the bow of the ship, watching the land approach.

“Perhaps if we were to land on this shore, we will be far more powerful than the natives. Or perhaps they will be far more powerful than us. What kind of people do we want to be not knowing on the top or the bottom?”

“Perhaps we should do unto others as we wish them to do unto us?” his lieutenant remarked “in the hope and faith that God will have told them the same”. The new world came towards them.

—

“You want us to put down our weapons first? While you’re still holding yours? By the same logic, we can’t possibly disarm while you remain armed.” The day turned to dusk. The turkey grew cold.

—

The turkeys¹ watched, placid and unbothered by the increasing commotion in the forest home, as the humans on all sides moved about. They did not know what was to come, which looked exactly like knowing what was to come.

---

Two groups of people, each recently devastated—one by a winter crossing, one by a plague—looked at each other across a distance of language and custom and thought.

Massasoit calculated. The Narragansett to the west were strong; his people were weak. These strange newcomers might be able to help.

The Pilgrims calculated. Winter had killed half of them. They were utterly dependent on the knowledge of people they did not understand.

It was not quite trust, but it was close.

Fifty years the peace between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims held, all through Massasoit’s life. In the 1670s conflicts over land and hunting rights sparked a war. Metacom, Massasoit’s son, (King Philip to the Pilgrims) was killed and his head was mounted on a pike in front of the entrance to Plymouth for more than two decades.

—

A million scenarios flashed in front of the eyes of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags. A whirlwind of possibilities and moves and counter-moves, so dense that if they had been visible they would have blotted out the sun. The future laid out in a small clearing near Plymouth.

The two civilizations looked at each other. Somewhere, a turkey squawked.

“... So, should we go around and say what we’re thankful for?”

Happy Thanksgiving.

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you, partakers of our plenty.” Edward Winslow, in Mourts Relation.

Credit for inspiration and style from sadoeuphemist, Richard Ngo, and Charlie Brown.

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1. “For in truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. Eagles have been found in all countries, but the turkey was peculiar to ours... He is besides, (though a little vain and silly tis true, but not the worse emblem for that) a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.” Benjamin Franklin