115 words.
That is all that is recorded about the first Thanksgiving, from November of 1621, written by Edward Winslow to the sponsors of the Pilgrims in England.
In that single paragraph, Winslow wrote that in order to celebrate the harvest, he sent out some men to hunt. They brought back fowl and the American Indians joined them for a three day feast.Even though, contrary to popular opinions, Winslow and the Pilgrims never formally invited the American Indians.
Upon this small slice of narrative, Americans have built one of the most widely loved holidays in the nation.
Benjamin Wetzel, associate professor of history at Taylor, said the holiday as it is today is not even something that the Pilgrims would have approved of.
“The Pilgrims actually didn't believe in holidays in general,” he said. “They didn't celebrate Christmas (or) celebrate Easter, because those things weren't in the Bible.”
He said that Thanksgiving to them was more about the actual act of giving thanks to God for their harvest. It wasn’t until three years later that an actual celebration occurred that they began to hold every year in 1624, celebrating rain after a long drought.
In reality, Thanksgiving did not even begin to be celebrated as a holiday until the documents were recovered in the 19th century, Wetzel said. It gradually spread from New England to the rest of America and it began being celebrated nationally in the early 1900s.
“There is nothing wrong with Thanksgiving — celebrating it — but it's nothing like what the pilgrims would have wanted us to do, and it's based on very limited sources,” Wetzel said. “So when we dress up as the pilgrims, we're actually not really honoring what they would have thought of as something that they wanted to do.”
With these historical facts in mind, it begs the questions: What should Thanksgiving really be about?
Jeff Groeling, the department chair of communication at Taylor, summed up the idea in a few words.
“Gratitude is what it should be about,” he said. “But we treat it more as just a chance to not work or do school for a few days and that’s the only reason we really look forward to it anymore. Really, we should look forward to it as a chance to honor God by having a special day to give Him our gratitude and celebrate his generosity to us.”
Julie Borkin, assistant professor of Communication at Taylor, weighed in on the matter.
She talked about how important it has been for her to see things from the perspectives of others, especially around issues where she has less expertise.
“It's about the identification around a goal, and then we can kind of go, ‘Oh my goodness’, you have just made me think differently than I've ever thought before. But I'm willing to keep listening,” she said.
Borkin said that Americans have the unique opportunity to reframe the narrative of the inaccurate story of Thanksgiving that has been told for generations. While this will not happen immediately on Thanksgiving, it marks a time to start to have intentional conversations about it.
Within this, she encouraged people to remember ways of being inclusive of those who may have little to be thankful for in the face of grief or poverty.
“So, we can't undo history, but we do have an opportunity, and I'm going to say it as an opportunity, rather than responsibility, to consider who can't be grateful and how I might have even contributed to that.”
This exhortation is a good reminder of the way that Thanksgiving has been misconstrued in history, and how this generation has the opportunity to reorient the holiday. Borkin, Wetzel, Groeling and even the Pilgrims would encourage Americans to make Thanksgiving a celebration of gratitude for God’s provision–not a false retelling of a small event from over 300 years ago.
