NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental ( MindaNews / 27 November) – Let us be clear about the US Thanksgiving celebration that Christian communities particularly in our country have happily copied and celebrate it in the last Sunday of November; today, for instance.
The true reason behind the celebration is a beautiful history. The touching and joyful memory about it, had been, however, unfortunately marred over time by atrocities resulting from deliberate amnesia and greed.
On board Mayflower, an English ship, a group of English families, which comprised the ship’s 102 passengers, to be known later as the Pilgrims, reached America, near the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November 11, 1620. The colonists were supposed to arrive in two ships in early October but some complications in travel plans caused them to continue the journey in just one ship. Delay ensued. They arrived in an extremely harsh winter.
Unprepared for it, only 53 survived from disease and starvation in their settlement in Plymouth, thanks to the kindness and generosity of the Native Americans who provided them food, medicines, wood and shelter and later, some local seeds, such as corn, beans and squash to grow and turkeys to raise to help the migrants survive.
The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as recounted by attendee Edward Winslow — was attended by 90 Native Americans and the 53 survivors.
It is sad and unfortunate that the current thanksgiving celebrations forget the critical and defining role of the Native Americans – the primary reason of the original celebration. In his letter to a George Morton in UK on 11 December 1621, Winslow described the Indians as faithful in the peace covenant… “people without any religion, or knowledge of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted, and just…”
Remember turkey and squash – now symbolic of Thanksgiving came from the Native Americans or the Indians, the race of which the migrants from Europe had almost successfully annihilated.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental)