This traditional American holiday holds a very different meaning for Delaware’s Nanticoke Indians

By Charles C. Clark IV
Big Shout Magazine, November 1989

With deference to the Fourth of July, there is no holiday more American than Thanksgiving Day. It is a celebration entwined within this nation’s roots, a much-revered moment frozen in history and remembered as the time when this land began to nourish a young country whose citizen’s yearned for freedom above all else.

The holiday conjures up images of Indians and pilgrims chowing down together heartily, as smiles and gold buckles flash around a lightly-browned turkey carried by a comely, honey-haired maiden. And if the world were a Norman Rockwell painting, then this image would be lasting.

However, there is another view of Thanksgiving Day that merits attention — a view across the table. Seated with the pilgrims that honored day 368 years ago were their Native American hosts — a group that is largely glossed over during the observance of this holiday. Although a cursory acknowledgment of their participation in this historic event is granted, this nation’s myopic view of itself tends to exclude the Native American experience in this uniquely American celebration.

In this regard, Thanksgiving Day symbolizes the embodiment of U.S./Native American relations — a relationship that obliterated one culture so that a new one could be established.

On September 6, 1620, a mixed group of 102 people left England and set sail on the Mayflower for the New World. Not all of them were the religious freedom seekers that we associate with Thanksgiving Day. Many were social outcasts, deviants, and unscrupulous men whose greed fueled their twisted dreams of conquering new shores.

Thanks to the written accounts of explorers such as Christopher Columbus, these seafarers had prior knowledge of the native cultures they would encounter. Unfortunately, these accounts set a bad tone for future interactions between the two groups.

Of the Arawak Indians Columbus encountered in the Caribbean, he wrote, “They invite you to share anything they possess and show as much love as if their hearts went with it… How easy it would be to convert these people — and to make them work for us.”

This group of Native Americans that Columbus referred to as “los indios” (implying people of a darker race), was exterminated by European colonization less than 100 years later. The die for native and non-native exchange was seemingly cast by the earliest New World explorers.

When Native Americans living near Plymouth Rock saw these strange, white newcomers arrive on their shores in December of 1620, they did not respond by saying, “Oh, great… boat people!” Instead, they treated the foreigners with hospitality and kindness. The great Wampanoag Indian chief Massasoit (whose name is the origin of the word “Massachusetts“) established a peace treaty with the settlers, and they were befriended by an interesting Native American character known as Squanto.

Squanto, whose correct name is Tisquantum, is routinely identified in American history as a godsend to the pilgrim settlers. Here was an Indian who emerged from the woods, miraculously speaking English and who was willing to teach the settlers how to hunt, trap, and otherwise survive in their new home. But when mentioning this historic figure, some pertinent facts are often omitted.

In 1614, Squanto was among a group of Patuxet Indians kidnapped by Captain Thomas Hunt and later sold into slavery in Spain. Squanto managed to escape his captors and made his way to England where he was cared for by a London merchant who taught him the English language. He eventually returned to his home continent years later when he sailed with a Captain Dermer on an expedition to the New World that was funded by a group of European businessmen. In 1618, Squanto jumped ship and made a bee-ling for his home at Plymouth.

When he got there, he discovered that he was the sole surviving member of his tribe. His family, friends, and tribesmen had all perished in a pestilence that ravaged native people in 1617 — diseases brought to this country by European settlers. Alone in the world and changed forever by his prolonged contact with Europeans, Squanto remained with the pilgrims until his death.

Following the harvest of the crops that Squanto taught the pilgrims to plant, a three-day festival was held in 1621 that in time, would be remembered by the observation of Thanksgiving Day. But if Massasoit and the 90 or so Native Americans who shared in that fall festival could have seen into the future, they might have never broken bread with the pilgrims.

It soon became apparent to the Native Americans of the time that the expansion of European settlements meant the displacement of native people and their cultures. Massasoit’s son Metacom, commonly known as King Philip, could not express the benevolence toward the new settlers that his father had bestowed upon the pilgrims. He had seen the kindness of the Native American people repaid with treachery, murder, and deceit by those whom they had befriended, and it hardened his heart toward them.

Similarly, the gross atrocities that we Native Americans have suffered since that time at the hands of the American people and their government causes us to look at Thanksgiving Day quite differently than non-Native Americans. For us to celebrate this holiday is for us to celebrate our downfall; we would be rejoicing in the loss of our land, the destruction of our way of life, and the near extinction of our race.

Still, many Native Americans will observe Thanksgiving Day in their own way. Some will recognize it as the Indian National Day of Mourning; others will conduct protests of some sort at Thanksgiving Day parades, turning their backs to the floats and marching bands while chanting, “Thous shall not steal, thou shall not kill.” A large portion of them will accompany millions of Americans in an eating frenzy held in some relative’s cramped home, as family members express thanks for the bounty that they share.

We are not in a position to be overtly thankful for what has happened to us as a result of such a pilgrimage. Between 1492, when Columbus “discovered” the New World and 1890, the Native American population in the contiguous United States dropped from about five million to about 250,000.

Newly-introduced diseases, the relocation of native tribal groups, numerous wars, and other such gifts brought to these shores by the European people are the direct cause of this drastic decline in the Native American population.

It is due to the imperialistic colonization of this continent by uncaring Europeans that Native Americans have been historically disadvantaged in their own homeland and that conditions persist in Indian country that must be addressed.

Something must be done about the rampant unemployment on Indian reservations that runs as high as 70% in certain regions of the U.S. The infant mortality rate among Native Americans is five times higher than the national average. Life expectancy is also lower than average, and inadequate education, social support, and rampant financial poverty continue to threaten the future of thousands of Native Americans today.

Before Native Americans can be too thankful again, something must be done about the U.S. government’s ongoing practice of violating the treaties it has made with the Native American tribes. The denial of water and fishing rights granted to tribal groups by federal government agencies threatens the existence of native groups from Oregon to New York. The Sioux Indian people are still having to fight to retain possession of their sacred Black Hills — land that was entrusted to them by their Creator and later given to them through U.S. treaty agreements that the government now wished to ignore.

How thankful can the 7,000 members of Alaska’s Gwich’in Indian tribe be now that the Exxon Valdez oil spill threatens their ancient way of life? Can anyone expect Chief Trimble Gilbert, leader of the Gwich’in Arctic Village, to be thankful that the U.S. Department of the Interior and President George Bush have targeted his homeland for oil drilling even though an Interior Department report warned that such an enterprise might result in “long-term changes… in native community activities,” such as the destruction of their community structure?

And can any Native American be thankful to see the graves of our ancestors desecrated and their remains put on display in some museum or scientific institution?

Still, many Native Americans will observe Thanksgiving Day in their own way. Some will recognize it as the Indian National Day of Mourning; others will conduct protests of some sort at Thanksgiving Day parades, turning their backs to the floats and marching bands while chanting, “Thous shall not steal, thou shall not kill.” A large portion of them will accompany millions of Americans in an eating frenzy held in some relative’s cramped home, as family members express thanks for the bounty that they share.

And there will be more than a few who will smile at another symbolic gesture provided by the day. For once, Indians get to see millions of Americans everywhere get the bird.

Charles C. Clark IV is a freelance writer for Big Shout Magazine and a full-blooded Nanticoke Indian.