The South disputes depictions of the first Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

This week's cover of The New Yorker has a wonderful depiction of Thanksgiving, then and now. Along the left side, famed cartoonist R. Crumb has drawn the faces of Pilgrims looking pious, gaunt, and frightened, interspersed with depictions of their Wampanoag saviors, looking fit and confidant. The main panel of the cover shows modern-day New York City and a Native American, dwarfed by the sea of humanity walking past him, wearing a sandwich board advertising a Thanksgiving dinner special.

Ah, but it seems that our traditional, Northeastern depiction of the first Thanksgiving -- that of Pilgrims sitting down with their Native neighbors to give thanks to God and to the Indians who had fed and taught them to feed themselves -- is not accurate.

According to a group in Virginia, the damned Yankees stole another claim to fame that should have gone to the South. Their first Thanksgiving, though, was a wee bit different from that which is celebrated in New England.

In 1619, 38 men, led by Capt. John Woodlief, sailed from Bristol, England, on the good ship Margaret to seek fortune in the New World. Upon landing in Virginia, they waded ashore, opened their instructions from Berkeley Co., which sponsored their expedition, and discovered that the first order of business was to drop to their knees.

"Wee ordaine that the Day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for the [plantation] in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God," the order read.

But unlike the religious-freedom-seeking Pilgrims, initially befriended by Wampanoag Indians who taught them to farm and fish, the Virginians at Berkeley and at Jamestown -- the earliest British settlement in the colonies -- were a bit more antagonistic with the Powhatans.

When the dandies and fortune hunters of Jamestown first encountered the Powhatans eating roast oysters and wild strawberries on the beach, the colonists chased them off and devoured their food, according to local historian Pat Butler.

By 1622, the Berkeley settlement was wiped out in a massacre by Native Americans.

"No matter how imaginary or romanticized, the Plymouth story is a comforting story of harmony with the Indians . . . which may, in fact, have been the only moment of harmony before they killed them all," said James C. Kelly of the Virginia Historical Society. "In Virginia, in fact, what they were most giving thanks for was having survived the Indians. It never had the same PR possibilities."

That's not to say that New Englanders, having seen the nation's cultural conservatives steal an election, are going to let them steal our tradition of cultural harmony and celebration of diversity without a fight.

Carolyn Travers, a historian for Plymouth Plantation, has heard it all before. She drolly ticks off a list of other claims to the first Thanksgiving in the United States: the explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1541 in the Texas Panhandle. French Huguenots in 1564 in Florida. English settlers and Abenaki Indians in 1607 in Maine.

"There are so many early Thanksgivings, Berkeley is not the first by any stretch of the imagination," she said. "It's a silly claim. Historically, Berkeley came before us. Tell me why it's important."

What is important, she says, is that the Pilgrims' three-day feast of turkey, venison, fish, squash, pumpkin and cranberries captured the fancy of a young country of immigrants searching for a sense of identity. What better image, she said, than that of a pious, hardworking family gathering with "restrained revelry" with friends and Native Americans to give thanks, play games and share in the fruits of its labors.

"When immigrants began arriving who were not from England, the Pilgrims got presented as: These are the people you should turn into. These are the real Americans," she said.

As for Virginia and its all-male Thanksgiving: "People trying to go out, get gold, get rich and get out is not an attractive image," she said. "It's not necessarily the person who you wanted to be descended from."

To be fair, that Pilgrim "celebration of diversity" and harmony with their neighbors did not last long. But at long last it may soon be no longer illegal for Native Americans, "barbarians," to enter the city of Boston without the accompaniment of "two musketeers."

It was a symbolic move, but an important one for a city that prides itself on diversity, according to Mayor Thomas M. Menino: Yesterday, the mayor asked the Legislature to repeal the 1675 Indian Imprisonment Act, the Colonial law authorizing the arrest of American Indians who enter the city of Boston.

The law, enacted during the bloody conflict known as King Philip's War, has not been enforced for centuries. Armed guards no longer stand at the outskirts of Boston, as the law has stipulated for nearly 330 years, on the lookout for Native Americans who might seek entry into the city. Indians in Boston are no longer required to be escorted around town by two musketeers. And yet, the Legislature has never gotten around to taking the law off the books.

[...]

The law was enacted during a conflict that began as an Indian uprising in which hundreds of colonists were killed, and ended with the deaths of thousands of American Indians and the virtual elimination of several tribes. Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, whom settlers called King Philip, was shot and killed 14 months after the war began, by an American Indian paid by the English.

His death effectively ended the war in southern New England, fully opening Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to colonization, though raids continued elsewhere until the American Revolution.

The law reads, in part: "We find that there still remains ground of Fear, that unless more effectual Care be taken, we may be exposed to mischief by some of that Barbarous Crew, or any Strangers not of our Nation, by their coming into, or residing in the Town of Boston."

It provided for a guard to be posted "at the end of said Town towards Roxbury, to hinder the coming in of any Indian, until Application be first made to the Governour, or Council if fitting, and then to be admitted with a Guard of two Musqueteers, and to be remanded back with the same Guard, not to be suffered to lodge in Town, unless in Prison."

It is hoped that Menino's action will help bring to an end the ancient Indian curse of the Big Dig.