The Woke Left Doesn't Want You to Know About America's First Thanksgiving - Here's Why
Two years ago, in the darkest days of the pandemic, one MSNBC host called Thanksgiving “colonizer Christmas” and said “we should maybe back off” the holiday for the year.
Jason Johnson, guest-hosting MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” said those he’d heard refer to the day as “colonizer Christmas … don’t really like the idea of what Thanksgiving represents.”
“From a cultural and a historic standpoint, is it really that much a disruption that we should maybe back off of Thanksgiving this year?” he asked.
We’re past the pandemic panic period, where the idea of canceling holidays could legitimately be floated by people occupying cable news airtime.
That said, the idea of “colonizer Christmas” has become a popular one on the left — and it’s part of the reason the wokerati don’t want you to know about the first Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving, as the History Channel notes, left England in September 1620. The 102 passengers on the ship were a combination of religious separatists seeking freedom and individuals lured by the challenge of making it on a new continent.
The crossing was long and ill-timed; after 66 days at sea, they arrived at Cape Cod in what’s now Massachusetts. This was well north of where they’d intended to land, the mouth of the Hudson River.
The Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay a month later, and the Pilgrims began building their village at Plymouth.
They were hardly out of the woods, though. In fact, their troubles were just beginning. November was too late to start planting crops in Massachusetts, and the Pilgrims were beset by disease, according to USHistory.org.
“Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease,” the History Channel noted.
“Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from a member of the Abenaki tribe who greeted them in English.”
That visit was followed by another visit from the legendary Squanto, a Pawtuxet Native American who was captured by an English sea captain and had spent time in London after escaping from slavery.
It was Squanto who taught the Plymouth Pilgrims how to grow crops, particularly corn. In addition, he showed them how to extrude sap from maple trees and catch fish in the local rivers — all while avoiding poisonous plants.
This bit is also somewhat important — and somewhat forgotten by the “colonizer Christmas” crowd: “[Squanto] also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans,” the History Channel said.
So, in November 1621 — after a successful harvest — Plymouth Colony Gov. William Bradford organized the first Thanksgiving dinner, even if the term might not have been used by the Pilgrims.
Edward Winslow, a chronicler of life in Plymouth Colony, described the event.
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together,” he wrote, “after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others.
“And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Thanks to their collaboration, Pilgrims and indigenous peoples alike feasted on cornbread, duck, fish, turkey, venison and goose, among other things.
But, of course, this is “colonizer Christmas,” setting us down the primrose path to genocide, according to the left.
Don’t buy it. Not only does Thanksgiving celebrate the Pilgrims’ first successful harvest in the New World, it also celebrates the fact they did it in cooperation with the natives. It celebrates peace between those in the Plymouth Colony and the Native Americans, something that persisted for half a century.
It commemorates the industrious spirit of the Pilgrims — and their bravery, as well. Consider the fact that, despite the fact famine and various afflictions killed off 58 of the 102 Mayflower passengers, none returned on the ship when it traveled back to England in the spring.
Those who call it “colonizer Christmas,” in other words, are being accidentally or deliberately ignorant about the holiday.
Rest assured this isn’t the story you’re going to hear on MSNBC this holiday season. Instead, tell it around the table this Turkey Day. The more families that do this, the better off America will be.
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