Never Listen to Children’s Books

The end of October and the start of November bring with them new holiday feelings for all those who live in America. Wreaths of red and orange are hung on doors, candles scented with “apple spice cinnamon” and “brown sugar chesnut” are lit, and pumpkin spice lattes are whisked out of local Starbucks in the hands of teenage girls carrying their parent’s credit card. All of this in preparation for your metabolism’s hardest day at work, Thanksgiving.

In elementary school most Americans are taught that the event that inspired the holiday we know and love today was a joyous, peaceful occasion led by Squanto, the friendly Native who, upon the Pilgrims’ arrival, dropped everything to help them adjust to their new environment. He also apparently did this while magically speaking perfect English with no prior knowledge whatsoever, but that part was never really addressed. However if you do continue to believe this tale, then I hate to break it to you, but your childhood books didn’t even get Squanto’s name right.

The true story of Thanksgiving all started way back when in 1614 when Squanto, or more accurately Tisquantum, was kidnapped from his village by an Englishman named Thomas Hunt. At the time, kidnapping Natives was common and if they survived the kidnapping, they would get shipped across the sea to Europe where they would most likely be sold into slavery. Tisquantum, however escaped this fate, and with the help of some Catholic friars, found his way to England and then back to America by 1619. But if you think this story is already too cheery to be the inspiration for your favorite holiday, wait until you find out what Tisquantum discovers upon his homecoming.

While Tisquantum was dodging enslavement in Europe, a ship of Frenchmen wrecked off of the coast of Cape Cod. The wreck brought with it a fast spreading disease that Native Americans’ immune system had not yet gotten innoculated to and, in turn, a ginormous percentage of them were wiped out. So when Tisquantum came back to America in hopes of seeing his friends and family, he was heartbroken to find his entire village had been wiped out. On the other hand, the Pilgrims, in typical European fashion, were delighted to see that a piece of prime real estate had just opened up and proceeded to take it for themselves with the intention of staying. It was beachfront afterall.

Just a short trek over, the neighboring tribe of the Wampanoag had just been alerted of the European’s arrival by Tisquantum. The Wampanoag were in a bit of a predicament at this point in history. As much as they hated the Europeans for kidnapping their friends and family and selling them into slavery in Europe, the Wampanoag tribe somehow hated their neighboring tribe, the Narragansett, more. Also, after the disease brought by the Frenchmen’s shipwreck wiped out 75 percent of their population, they were greatly outnumbered. So a local Wampanoag leader named Massasoit, came up with an idea. He thought that if he allied with the Englishmen who had just moved onto what is known today as Plymouth, his people could have partial control of English trading and the Narragansett wouldn’t be able to attack them. However, he needed a translator, and after spending years across the ocean captured by Europeans, Tisquantum knew English well.

March 22, 1621 is when all of our wonderful characters finally meet. Massasoit, who had planned this meeting for months, expected it to go off without a hitch, so he was as shocked as anyone as he watched Tisquantum try to pit the Pilgrims against the Wampanoag. Being as upset as anyone would be after watching his people’s fate get stomped on by some untrustworthy snake, Massasoit pulls the equivalent of a Taylor Swift nowadays and calls for Tisquantum’s head. However, once again understandably, Tisquantum refuses to give it to him and instead stays with the Pilgrims in Plymouth. While staying in Plymouth, Tisquantum realizes that he has to make himself useful so that the Englishmen don’t decide to either ship him to Europe again as a slave, or ship him to the Wampanoag as a criminal waiting to get his head chopped off. So, after much deliberation, Tisquantum figures that neither choice would be ideal and instead assists the Pilgrims in getting acquainted with the new land.

In the few months that follow, Massasoit succeeds in making the Plymouth Pilgrims and his Wampanoag tribe allies, and as a celebration, the two parties decide to hold a feast for both groups of people. The feast that would later come to be known as Thanksgiving.

Although Massasoit and the rest of the Wampanoag tribe representatives showed up with 90 hungry men carrying weapons, and although the Pilgrims started the feast by marching in a big circle and shooting guns into the air, the rest of the dinner somehow went off without a hitch. The Europeans and Natives spent their time eating good food, presumably playing lacrosse, and complaining about the Narragansett until their bellies were so full they had to roll themselves home.

So while nowadays, children’s books remember the first Thanksgiving as a peaceful, totally not awkward event that kickstarted the beginning of a beautiful, definitely mutually respectful relationship, historians know this to be pretty inaccurate. In reality, Thanksgiving was just one big dinner for a bunch of bored, hungry people as they set aside their disagreements to focus on their one mutual belief: the Narragansett suck. So if you take away anything from this story, just remember that pettiness leads to national holidays and that you should never listen to children’s books.