Nothing Stays the Same: Thanksgiving in the Modern Age

ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR – SOPHIA KUSSEL

ORIGINALLY PRINTED ON NOV 10, 2022

Thanksgiving is an annual celebration that both the United States and Canada recognize as a National Holiday. The modern incarnation of Thanksgiving’s design takes inspiration from the “first Thanksgiving,” which took place between the English colonists and the Wampanoag people in 1621. It symbolized the peace treaty signed by the Wampanoag people, a peace that colonists and natives maintained for nearly 50 years until King Philip’s War ended any such pact. The feast lasted for three days, with the following days of the first harvest feast remaining peaceful. 

America Continues to readily celebrate Thanksgiving. The gracious pilgrims’ broke bread and ate turkey with the Native Americans to celebrate a symbolic union. All was fine until said pilgrims gruesomely slaughtered thousands of Natives with a mission to take the land and resources for themselves. To say that the peace treaty implied any harmony was more than a stretch. That first harvest feast was followed by continued tension between the settlers and Natives in the subsequent 50 years and often erupted in deadly confrontations. The increasing population of colonists was desperate for resources and land; manifest destiny was an ideal present even if colonists had not yet conceptualized it. As a result, the natives were continuously brutalized and in a constant state of unrest. The Pequot Massacre of 1636, and many like it, was a brutal attack that transpired during the America’s supposed period of peace. 

The idea of the “perfect” Thanksgiving might have passed as true in the generations before us, but with more ease to information we know that there was no “perfect” Thanksgiving. The truth is that America killed the Natives and the pilgrims didn’t eat turkey. It is unlikely that they ate turkey, but rather another fowl, such as duck, geese or swans, according to most first-person accounts of the Harvest feast. So, what are people doing to celebrate this holiday anyway? Some may argue that any reason to stuff yourself is just as good as any but a growing majority would argue that Thanksgiving’s meaning has evolved so much that it has become something entirely new. 

For St. Mary’s undergraduate Christian Guerrero’s family, Thanksgiving is simply spending time together. For most, the holiday’s pièce de résistance would be the turkey. Still, for Guerrero’s family, it’s about the family bonding that only gambling can provide. “It is a tradition for my family to host Thanksgiving for my dad’s side of the family and it has always started at noon. After people leave and we clean up, we go to another Thanksgiving with my mom’s family at 5 pm. We raffle names for either white elephants or get a gift for someone in the family.”. Instead, generation by generation of his family and the meaning of Thanksgiving had changed to create a new meaning. “My maternal great-grandparents passed this tradition down to the family but it started two generations ago in both families. Thanksgiving is about family, but it’s also a time to remember the ones that are not with us anymore.” 

For the Native population, Thanksgiving shares a different meaning. In an interview with dosomething.org, Allen Salway, a community organizer from the Navajo Nation, pointed out how the meaning of Thanksgiving still holds importance. “To me, Thanksgiving is a reminder of our resistance as Indigenous People navigating this settler society that continuously tries to erase and destroy us, yet we are still here.” For many Native peoples, Thanksgiving is not a day of celebration but a day of mourning. A day to remember the lives of their ancestors; a day to protest their oppression; a day for America to acknowledge its wrongdoing. 

The illusion of America’s wholesome past has since been broken but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for growth. Every family has adopted its own celebrations and reasons to celebrate—new, unique traditions have replaced the old. It’s just different, and in many ways, it’s progress. Why should America celebrate a false narrative? That peace flourished in the colonies, and the atrocities that America’s founders committed didn’t happen. The myth of the 1621 harvest feast is dying, with each generation replacing it with something completely new.