Wampanoag Thanksgiving

November 15, 2013 — colonies, Thanksgiving, Wampanoag

Since last November I have visited my ancestral homeland at Plimouth Colony in Massachusetts.  The museum and displays helped me to more vividly picture what those Pilgrims were doing in the 1600s.  I have many ancestors who arrived on the Mayflower, and I am not overly impressed with that fact. I am, however, truly grateful to learn that I am Wampanoag.  I study history by learning about my family tree.  Thanksgiving, as taught in elementary school, has very little to do with the real events that took place at the time.  There was a feast and celebration, and there was a great deal of unease about these English people who built a fort around their town and put cannons on the second story of their church.  These Pilgrims, who are depicted to children as seeking religious freedom, only believed in religious freedom for themselves.  They had been repressed in Holland for their beliefs and wanted a place where their somewhat radical thinking would not clash with any royal Euros.  They did not propose to extend religious freedom and tolerance to the native people they encountered in America.  They proposed to convert them to Christianity, their own style of Christianity.

Thomas Dudley

Harvard was endowed and sustained in business by conversion of native people.  The Indian College was used to educate and convert natives.  If they had not come up with donations based on this premise, Harvard may never have become the institution it is today.  My tenth great grandfather Thomas Dudley signed the charter for Harvard because he was the colonial governor when it opened.  His daughter and my 9th great grandmother, Anne Bradstreet, was a poet and wife of Simon Bradstreet, also a colonial governor.

Harvard College Charter

I am not as proud of them as I am of Quadequina.  I have taken sides in the Thanksgiving story.  I think the Pilgrims were rude to say the least.  We build it up as a story about peace and religion, but it was a story of imperialism.  When I learned that all the historic wampum belts have gone to England to be kept in museums I became angry.  A very cool Wampanoag elder who worked at Plimouth gave me some very wise advise about that.  She told me there was no point in being angry about the past.  She is obviously correct, but my feelings have changed about history, Massachusetts Colony and all that it meant, and the fable of Thanksgiving.  There is more bitterness that the peach pie reveals.  It makes me wonder exactly how my tribe feels when they celebrate this holiday.  It looks like the tribe may open a casino on Martha’s Vineyard.  It is fair to give them access to the wealth and the weakness of the white people on that island.  There is plenty for everyone.  Turn about is fair play, even if it comes hundreds of years later.