I asked a friend about his plans for Thanksgiving. He looked at me like I had suggested that we rob a bank together. Then, he indignantly declared, “I don’t do Thanksgiving.”
He went on to say his aversion to Thanksgiving was because of the way the first guests were treated. He meant the Wampanoag tribe who ate with the Plymouth pilgrims that day.
In 1621, 52 English and 90 Wampanoag ate a Thanksgiving meal after the first successful English harvest. The survival of the English that winter was the result of the Wampanoag introducing the three sisters, corn, squash, and beans. And teaching the pilgrims to fish.
At least that is how the story goes. What the story does not include is that in less than 50 years the Wampanoag people had been decimated by disease and war. Those who did not lose their lives, lost their freedom, becoming enslaved to those they had saved.
I can sympathize with my friend. It is ironic that Thanksgiving memorializes the gratitude of the pilgrims and their later ingratitude. But being grateful is more than one meal. We show our gratitude not by simply saying thank you but by showing it for a lifetime.
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Mark Ross
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