Today, Americans celebrate this day with certain kinds of food are served. For my family, we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry sauce, corn, rolls, lemon pie and pumpkin pie. I know, some readers might have problems because we are giving into the dominate culture’s attempts to rewrite history and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the idea of “togetherness” among family and friends.
Whether you were born here or just immigrated here, we are taught that Thanksgiving Day is an American holiday to celebrate the “peaceful gathering” – the first autumn harvest – between the Plymouth colonists European invaders and Wampanoag Indians to give thanks for their wonderful bounty. This gathering soon became a symbol of cooperation and interaction between English colonists and the indigenous people.
Most of us remember learning about Thanksgiving in grade school that it was about the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down together to give thanks. The story goes like this: After the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620; the Pilgrims would have all perished if it was not for the help of their friend slave Squanto, an Indian who taught the Pilgrims how to fish, grow corn maize, and farm the land. At the end of their first year, the Puritans held a “harvest feast” celebrating the fruits of their labor. The feast was to honored Squanto and their new found friends, the Wampanoag Indians. The feast was followed by three days of “thanksgiving” celebrating their prosperity.
The trouble is, almost everything we’ve been taught about the first Thanksgiving in 1621 is only half the story. Little is told about the pilgrims persistent injustices to its indigenous peoples after this “harvest feast.” Even worse, the root of America’s history is on Colonial American history, which is solely based on the 13 New England colonies. But this is no surprise because this pattern of belief is one of the pillars of American nationalism. And because our desire to view this country in a positive light, it is also not surprising that the subject of US genocide against American Indians is conveniently swept under the rug.
Another typical attitude is to exclude Colonial Spanish America as being part of the American history. So it is not surprising that little attention is paid to prior exploration advances made by Spanish pioneers into the southern part of the United States extending from Florida across Texas and New Mexico to California. If we are to take this into account, the reality is, the first Thanksgiving feast was celebrated in 1598 in El Paso, Texas by Don Juan de O̱ate Р22 years before the English colonial Thanksgiving.
Gaspar Perez de Villagrá, the Spanish poet who traveled with the group and who documented Oñate’s words days prior to the actual first recorded Thanksgiving feast on American soil on April 30, 1598:
“That, with their throats all miserable dry,
The tender children, women, and the men,
Afflicted, ruined, quite burnt up,
Did beg for aid from sovereign God,
This being the final remedy
That they should have in such distress.
And the sad, tired animals,
Feeble as those of Ninevah,
Worn down by the unchecked fast,
Thus all did show themselves worn out
By the weather they had borne.”
On April 30, 1598, camp was made along the Rio Grande and a Mass of thanksgiving was said in which Oñate took formal possession of the new land, called New Mexico, in the name of the Heavenly Lord, God Almighty, and the earthly lord King Philip II. Oñate wrote:
In the name of the most Holy Trinity…I wish to take possession of the land today…through the person of Juan Pérez de DonÃs, Notary of his Majesty and Secretary of the journey …in the voice and name of the most Christian King, our lord, don Felipe, the Second of this name…and for the crown of Castile…I take and seize one, two, and three times…the Royal tenancy and possession…at this aforesaid River of the North, without excepting anything and without limitation, with the meadows, glens, and their pastures and watering places…towns, cities, villas, castles, and strong houses and dwellings… the leaf on the mountain to the rock in the river and sands of it, and from the rock and sands of the river to the leaf on the mountain.
The celebration that took place in El Paso has far more right to be called the first American Thanksgiving than the one celebrated by the Puritans in New England. Granted that the United States began with the 13 colonies in New England and therefore could claim that theirs was our first thanksgiving.
This discussion might seem dull to some or as Henry Ford once said “History is more or less bunk.” So why dwell on who did what, right? Both had the same result – the extermination of indigenous peoples. There is another way to put this question, of course: why should it matter, since many of us prefer to live in the now?
If one were to look at the news these days one would enter upon familiar concerns: the condition of our economy, who would be the next president, the war in Iraq, and immigration. The present pales, however, in comparison to the nation’s preoccupation with its past. However, it is the past that imprisons Americans and it is the source that explains America’s present day “pathological mentality and behavior.”
The past is the true news, for it remains undecided, and it is the past to which people know they must refer so as to see ahead. So, shouldn’t we take into consideration the Colonial Spanish American history the moment these territories entered the Union as a part of the American federation?
Because the foundations of our political institutions come from the tradition that was established through the English colonies, many Americans mistakenly leave out how the US has been influence from other colonial powers. As a result, Florida, Texas, the Southwest and Puerto Rico are often marginalized in American history. Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “Since we are the outcome of earlier generations we are also the outcome of their aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes; it is not possible wholly to free oneself from this chain.”
While many of us acknowledge what we are “thankful for” with family and friends we must also commemorate this day with the knowledge how our ancestors helped settle and develop this land. Because “A community without history is like a person without a memory – incoherent.” – Bernard Bailyn
If you are like me who found it hard to put our moral beliefs into practice on this day, let me assure you, you are not alone. For those who want to oppose the commercialization of the whole holiday season, you can participate in Buy Nothing Day, which occurs the day after Thanksgiving.
