What was the purpose of the first thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in the US is traditionally a time for family and food.

American schoolchildren typically learn that the tradition dates back to the Pilgrims, who helped establish Plymouth Colony in 1620 in what is now Massachusetts.

As the story goes, friendly American Indian locals swooped in to teach the struggling colonists how to survive in what the Europeans called the New World. Then everyone got together to celebrate with a feast in 1621.

Thanksgiving 2021 would mark the 400th anniversary of that "first" American Thanksgiving.

But, in reality, Thanksgiving feasts predate Plymouth, and the peace celebrated that day was tenuous.

The real story behind the holiday is so dark, in fact, that some people are rethinking how they celebrate the holiday, or whether they should at all.

The Plymouth Thanksgiving of 1621 wasn't the first

Settlers in Berkeley Hundred, in what is now Virginia, celebrated their arrival with a Thanksgiving as far back as 1619, according to National Geographic — though The Washingtonian reported the meal was probably little more than some oysters and ham thrown together.

Decades before that, Spanish settlers and members of the Seloy tribe broke bread in Florida with salted pork, garbanzo beans, and a Mass in 1565, according to the National Parks Service.

Our modern definition of Thanksgiving revolves around eating turkey, but this was more of an occasion for religious observance in past centuries. The Pilgrims would most likely consider their sober 1623 day of prayer the first actual Thanksgiving, per the History of Massachusetts Blog.

Others pinpoint 1637 as the true origin of Thanksgiving, since the Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor, John Winthrop, declared a day to celebrate colonial soldiers who had just slaughtered hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children in what is now Mystic, Connecticut.

Regardless, the popular telling of the initial harvest festival is what lived on, thanks to Abraham Lincoln.

The enduring holiday has also nearly erased from our collective memory what happened between the Wampanoag and the English a generation later.

Peace didn't last

Massasoit, the Wampanoag paramount chief, allied with the English settlers after Plymouth was established and fought with the newcomers against the French and other local tribes.

But the alliance became strained over time.

As thousands more English colonists moved to Plymouth, taking over more land, authorities asserted control over "most aspects of Wampanoag life," according to "Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in Today's Northeastern United States."

A study published in the journal Quarternary Science Reviews estimated that disease had already reduced the New England Indigenous population by 90% by 1620. The Wampanoag continued to die from what the colonists called "Indian fever," an unknown disease brought by early European settlers.

By the time Massasoit's son, Metacomet — known to the English as "King Philip" — inherited leadership, relations had frayed. His men were executed for the murder of the Punkapoag interpreter and Christian convert John Sassamon, sparking King Philip's War.

Wampanoag warriors responded with raids, and the New England Confederation of Colonies declared war in 1675.

The war was bloody and devastating.

In an article published in the Historical Journal of Massachusetts, the Montclair State University professor Robert E. Cray Jr. said the death toll could have been up to 30% of the English population and half of the Native Americans in New England.

Metacomet was beheaded and dismembered, according to "It Happened in Rhode Island," and colonists impaled his head on a spike to display for 25 years.

The war was just one of a series of brutal but dimly remembered early conflicts between Native Americans and colonists in New England, New York, and Virginia.

The holiday's dark past has some people rethinking Thanksgiving

A recently renewed focus on racial justice in the US has some people saying it's time to reevaluate the meaning and celebration of Thanksgiving.

Teachers, professors, and Native Americans told The New York Times that they were rethinking the holiday that has marginalized the US's violence and cruelty against Native Americans, giving it names like "Takesgiving" and "The Thanksgiving Massacre."

And reflections on Thanksgiving are not new. According to the New York Post, the United American Indians of New England have been publicly mourning on Thanksgiving for decades.

Frank James, an Aquinnah Wampanoag activist who helped establish a National Day of Mourning in 1970, called the Wampanoag's welcoming of the English settlers "perhaps our biggest mistake," The Washington Post reports.

On the National Day of Mourning, Native Americans gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts, for a day of remembrance. Prayers and speeches take place accompanied by beating drums before participants march through the Plymouth Historic District.

"Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today," the commemorating plaque says, in part. "It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience."

In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated their first successful harvest by firing guns and cannons in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The noise alarmed ancestors of the contemporary Wampanoag Nation who went to investigate.

That is how native people came to be present at the first Thanksgiving, says Ramona Peters, historic preservation officer of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which suggests that paintings depicting Native Americans sitting down for a bountiful and harmonious meal with colonial families is basically a lie.

“The Wampanoag people, men, were not really sure what they were being told was actually true, so they stayed around for a few days. They camped outside," says Peters. "So there was a lot of tension as well, all of these men, warriors, were next door in the woods at night in the dark close by."

While the Wampanoag might have shared food with the Pilgrims during this strained fact-finding mission, they also hunted for food.

What was actually eaten at that first Thanksgiving is far different from the turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing that grace many holiday tables today, according to experts at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

"We ... know turkey was plentiful in Plymouth Colony, but we don't know for certain that it was served at the meal," Plimoth Plantation's Kate Sheehan told VOA via email. "The likelihood is very strong, though. Mussels, lobster and eel were available as well, and enjoyed by both the English and Wampanoag."

Plimoth Plantation attempts to replicate the original Plymouth Colony settlement established by the English colonists in the 17th century, and makes educated guesses about what else might have been on the first Thanksgiving table.

"English gardens probably produced cabbages, carrots, cucumbers, colewort (collards), parsnips, turnips, beets, onions, radishes, lettuce and spinach, as well as sage, thyme, parsley, marjoram, fennel, anise and dill," Sheehan says. "Wampanoag and English women also cultivated beans and squashes, including pumpkins."

Other foods that would have been available at that time of year include Jerusalem artichokes, wild onions, garlic, watercress, cranberries, Concord grapes and native nuts, including walnuts and chestnuts.

"Native people also dried out-of-season fruits such as blueberries and currants, and added them to dishes throughout the year," Sheehan says.

Although Americans now celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, historians can't pinpoint the exact date of the very first Thanksgiving.

"We know it took place over three days sometime between mid-September and early November in 1621, and was considered a harvest celebration following a successful planting of multicolored flint corn, or maize," says Sheehan.

It wasn't until 1863, during the Civil War, that Thanksgiving became a national holiday. President Abraham Lincoln furthered an idealistic Thanksgiving narrative for strategic reasons.

A woman named Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of an influential women’s magazine, had a hand in convincing President Lincoln that a national Thanksgiving holiday would help unite the war-torn country.

"It was a socio-political move to try to reunite the North and the South after the Civil War to have this national holiday," says Peters, of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. "It was their brainchild to have this national holiday called Thanksgiving, and its popularity grew through time, but it was actually a pretty smart move to establish something to unite families. During the Civil War, a lot of families actually split down the middle, brothers against brothers.”

Today, Native Americans commemorate Thanksgiving in different ways. Some consider it a day of mourning given the rapid colonization and displacement of their people. Others gather with their families, but the Pilgrims aren't on their minds.

Peters says native people celebrate a number of thanksgivings throughout the year, at times such as when certain crops come in or a particular fish returns to spawn. Giving thanks is a big part of the Wampanoag members' spiritual life, she adds.

The tribe, also known as the “People of the First Light,” will have a number of reasons to give thanks this year.

“On a tribal level, we have a chief who’s 98 years old and we’ll give thanks for him still being with us and willing to lead us as a traditional leader," Peters says. "We will be thankful for the land that is in our care, for the newborn babies into our tribe. We live by the ocean, so we’re First Light people so we give thanks to the bay.”