One of my oldest possessions is a miniature Plymouth Rock that I must’ve gotten as a souvenir during a field trip in Kindergarten 1973 to Plimoth Plantation, where you can see the “real” rock. When you grow up in Boston, history is real. Some of the streets and structures still stand, or at least have been recreated, so you are surrounded by history.
Of course, even in Boston, children got the sanitized version of everything: The Pilgrims enjoyed a lovely sail across the water and Squanto was at the shore with a gift-basket with wine and potpourri. Oh sure, the Indians did teach the Pilgrims about planting corn--it was all organic, without the thumb-rings and lip-piercings of the Whole Foods workforce. They all sat down at a very long table, with very tall buckled hats and the evening culminated with a "shirts and skins" two-hand touch game.
Once you get out of elementary school, it seems Thanksgiving becomes a holiday without meaning or character. I always feel like that scene in The Simpsons, where Marge does her darnedest to prepare a lovely family meal, with candles, and all the trimmings. Then, Homer, Bart and Lisa fly down the stairs, gobble the grub in pandemonium, burp, spew a casual “thanks mom” and move on their merry way. So when I have young relatives at the holiday table, I take a page out of the Passover playbook, and have people around the table read a passage or two from the real Thanksgiving story, without the cornucopia of cartoonism.
I remember in third grade, making a Thanksgiving mural and my Pilgrims were proportionately about two feet taller than the Indians. They are bigger than life in our stories but that is not the complete picture. The Massachusetts Turnpike used to have signs with Pilgrim hats and an arrow through them. That tells you---there’s a little more to the story. They headed towards Massachusetts when they were blown 220 miles off course, and then they started to run out of beer (really—it was safer than water.)
Before the Mayflower “hit Plymouth Rock” a scouting party stole some corn, and at least 30 Indians attacked them with arrows, according to Nathaniel Philbrick’s book “Mayflower.”
He writes that unlike the Founding Fathers, the Pilgrims believed they were guided more by God, than reason and as long as the Indians were loyal, there would be no problems. Religious tolerance wasn’t in their playbook, but when they were starving, they were a little more willing to listen to native wisdom.
The farming lessons weren’t free. Massasoit, had a secret agenda. What many people don’t realize, is that the Pilgrims landed in the middle of a political power struggle among Indian tribes. To make a long story short, Philbrick writes that this led to violence that spread among various alliances that crossed racial lines and created mass confusion.
The first Pilgrims tried to live in peace among the tribes, but their children and grandchildren engaged in ethnic cleansing and slave trading. Ultimately, Philbrick writes, the New Englanders destroyed their forefathers’ way of life. So you see, The Pilgrim chapter isn't just one hard winter of thanks and peace, but an epic story of surviving disease and warfare; something that’s worth remembering before overindulging in big portions and small talk.