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| Wampanoag people have always held many seasonal thanksgiving ceremonies. But there is a big difference between these ancient and ongoing celebrations and the Pilgrims' first harvest festival which led to the establishment of the National holiday now known as Thanksgiving. For Wampanoag people, this holiday evokes painful feelings about the consequences they are forced to endure for European settlement and the establishment of America. Children in elementary classrooms learn that the Pilgrims had the right to this land. This is a distortion that deprives Wampanoag people of their history and ignores the devastating events that followed. Listen as Wampanoag people describe their own thanksgivings and the national holiday called Thanksgiving. |  Photo Courtesy Plimouth Plantation, Inc. |
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| "The way that I try to explain Thanksgiving to
teachers is that there are many thanksgivings, it is not just that one day. As for the
first Thanksgiving, it wasn't necessarily that they (the Pilgrims) invited our ancestors
to eat. It just happened that it was a time when the leader of our people was coming into
their (the Pilgrim) village on business. So they invited the men to stay and partake in
the feast. -- Tobias Vanderhoop |
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"Wampanoags are a fishing, hunting, and planting
people. There was always enough bounty for feasts throughout the year. With four distinct
prolific seasons, the Wampanoag harvested different types of food each season. The animal,
fish, bird, and plant relatives of the Native people have life cycles and migration
patterns which make this possible. Thanksgiving is a commitment to all living things we
accept as food to sustain our lives. More important than a feast or occasion, Thanksgiving
is a concept from ancient times." -- Ramona Peters |
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| "The irony is that these people's (Pilgrim's) religion
even forbid them to sit down at a table and break bread with 'heathens,' with
non-Christians. You see all these wonderful little picture books of little Indian children
and Pilgrim children eating and smiling at each other. It just would never have
happened." -- Jessie Little Doe Fermino |
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| "This is a time of celebration for you-- celebrating
an anniversary of the beginning for the white man in America -- a time to look back, a
time of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back at what happened to my
people." -- Frank James |
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<< Before 1620 | Survival >> |
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