It’s been a long few weeks (few months? few years?). We’re all really tired. And still, Thanksgiving is coming. And still, we have a commitment to Indigenous solidarity that comes into extra-sharp focus at this time of year. So we’ve been thinking about how we can honor this commitment both gently and rigorously. (Gently and rigorously feels like a mantra for our times, doesn’t it?)
In our Indigenous solidarity (IS) coordinators meetings, we have a book club. For 15 minutes at the end of our meetings, we talk about a little something we’ve read together. It’s gentle because we only read very small things, and rigorous because we are diligent about carving out time for this study even when we’ve got tons of urgent business to attend to.
A few weeks ago, we read this piece* for book club. It’s behind a paywall and our gift link may not have worked, so we’ll quote it pretty heavily below. If you’ve already read it, feel free to skip past the indented bits. The moral of the story is this:
[T]he actual history of what happened in 1621 bears little resemblance to what most Americans are taught in grade school, historians say.
But the specifics of the history are harrowing:
…the Wampanoag Nation whose people once numbered somewhere between 30,000 to 100,000…who now number about 2,800.
In 1614, before the arrival of the Pilgrims, the English lured a well-known Wampanoag — Tisquantum, who was called Squanto by the English — and 20 other Wampanoag men onto a ship with the intention of selling them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. Squanto spent years trying to get back to his homeland. During his absence, the Wampanoags were nearly wiped out by a mysterious disease…Known as “The Great Dying,” the pandemic lasted three years. By the time Squanto returned home in 1619, two-thirds of his people had been killed by it.
In 1620, the English aboard the Mayflower made their way to Plymouth... The Wampanoags watched as women and children got off the boat. They knew their interactions with the Europeans would be different this time. “You don’t bring your women and children if you’re planning to fight”... The Wampanoags kept tabs on the Pilgrims for months. In their first winter, half died due to cold, starvation and disease.
Ousamequin, often referred to as Massasoit, which is his title and means “great sachem,” faced a nearly impossible situation, historians and educators said. His nation’s population had been ravaged by disease, and he needed to keep peace with the neighboring Narragansetts. He probably reasoned that the better weapons of the English — guns versus his people’s bows and arrows — would make them better allies than enemies.”
In the spring of 1621, he made the first contact. “It wasn’t that he was being kind or friendly, he was in dire straits and being strategic,” said Steven Peters... “We were desperately trying to not become extinct.”
By the fall, the Pilgrims — thanks in large part to the Wampanoags teaching them how to plant beans and squash in a mound with maize around it and use fish remains as fertilizer — had their first harvest of crops. To celebrate its first success as a colony, the Pilgrims had a “harvest feast” that became the basis for what’s now called Thanksgiving. The Wampanoags weren’t invited.
Ousamequin and his men showed up only after the English in their revelry shot off some of their muskets. At the sound of gunfire, the Wampanoags came running, fearing they were headed to war…Told it was a harvest celebration, the Wampanoags joined, bringing five deer to share.
During book club, all of us were stirred up by learning this specific piece of history. Some of us were angry, some sad, some a more complex kind of upset. But all of us were struck by how we’ve been lied to our entire lives. Even the details of what people ate and wore at “the first Thanksgiving” are total bullshit:
There was likely no Turkey…There was fowl, fish, eel, shellfish and possibly cranberries from the area’s natural bogs.
[S]choolchildren who make construction-paper feathered headdresses every year to portray the Indians at the first Thanksgiving are being taught fiction. The Wampanoags didn’t wear them.
Something about the way that everything we make out of colorful paper as kids is made up is deeply upsetting. The way that what actually happened has been twisted, turned 180 degrees—presented as a meal of mutual care when in fact the Indigenous people offered all the care and got massacred for their trouble—made us all feel really deeply betrayed.
It can feel pretty destabilizing to face the ways that white supremacy has been force-fed to us since we were small children, the way that we’re recruited to the cause of racism and genocide so early and without our consent.
That’s what acting in solidarity with Indigenous people feels like: revoking our consent for white supremacy. Here are three gentle and rigorous ways to revoke your consent for white supremacy this week, in honor of what really happened at “the first Thanksgiving.”
Give a monthly donation to the Manna-hatta Fund, which moves money to Indigenous organizing in NYC. It’s gentle because setting up a monthly donation is a set-it-and-forget-it sort of thing. It’s rigorous because when you set it up, you’ll commit to a monthly amount you can really feel.
Stream the National Day of Mourning gathering on Thursday at noon. We’ll be there in person, so you may catch us in the crowd. It's gentle because all you have to do is tune in. It’s rigorous because you have to tune in on a holiday instead of turning away.
Talk with your family about what they learned about Thanksgiving growing up, what you’re learning now, and how that makes you all feel. It’s a gentle beginning to lifelong conversation we have with our loved ones. There may not be a natural place in the rhythm of your holiday gathering to insert this kind of conversation, but you’ll figure out a way, and that’s the rigor. This resource can help with what to talk about and how.
We hope you’re taking very good care in these tender times.
In gentleness and rigor,
SURJ NYC Indigenous Solidarity Coordinators
Alison, Grace, Katharine, Kristin, Kyle, and Sarah
* Hedgpeth, Dana. “This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later.” The Washington Post, 4 November 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/04/thanksgiving-anniversary-wampanoag-indians-pilgrims.
