The truth about turkey

Yesterday Peyton made a charming bracelet at school to tell the tale of the first Thanksgiving. He told the story so well and was only slightly embarrassed when he continued to call the Indians “aliens”. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the pilgrims brought a scourge of smallpox to the Indians and committed other horrible crimes in the name of religion.

Thanksgiving is full of embarrassing facts. The Pilgrims did not introduce the Native Americans to the tradition; Eastern Indians had observed autumnal harvest celebrations for centuries. Our modern celebrations date back only to 1863; not until the 1890s did the Pilgrims get included in the tradition; no one even called them "Pilgrims" until the 1870s.

Plymouth Rock achieved status only in the nineteenth century, when some enterprising residents of the town moved it down to the water so its significance as the "holy soil" the Pilgrims first touched might seem more plausible.

The most striking reality surrounding the Pilgrims is that the Eastern coastline of America had been in contact with foreigners for about 100 years before the establishment of the Plymouth colony. A year before colonists arrived, smallpox introduced by these contacts had wiped out the Wampanoag village that the Pilgrims settled. Pilgrims were able to survive their first winter partially because of guidance by the natives and because they dug up the deceased Wampanoags to eat the corn offerings in the graves.

Throughout the nation, elementary school children still enact Thanksgiving every fall as our national origin myth, complete with Pilgrim hats made of construction paper and Indian braves with feathers in their hair. Should we teach these truths about Thanksgiving? Or, like our textbooks, should we look the other way?