This assessment of Thanksgiving, however, is as far from the truth as the Hallmark-esque images of food, family, and football or the hagiographic portrayal of Pilgrims and Indians eating wild game and succotash in harmony around a table. European immigration to the Americas is a complex tale, and we do everyone a disservice when we leave out certain parts that make us uncomfortable or tell a one-sided story. The story of European settlement in North America, in some ways, could well be a story of the seven deadly sins pouring out of England and Europe and finding their way across the Atlantic. But, at the same time, we must admit that the seven deadly sins would have found friends in North America. In other words, the seven deadly sins didn't come to America only to happen upon unsuspecting innocents. There is plenty of evidence that stealing, pillaging, killing, cannibalism, and subjugation of other people took place in the Americas long before the Pilgrims or even Columbus landed.
But Thanksgiving is not about pointing fingers. It is not about who did what to whom and when. Thanksgiving is about acknowledging God to be good and the overflowing fountain of all good. It is about acknowledging the fact that any good we experience in this life is undeserved. The history of Europeans and Native Americans is sordid because we are all sinners. It would be nice to bury our sins in the past, but our histories cannot hide who we are. History, however, is not all bad. It is filled with instances of good overcoming evil, of people coming together in unexpected ways to work together for good. We find this to be so because God is sovereign in history. In such instances, it is right and good to pause in celebratory thanks to the One who brings light into this dark world.
This the Pilgrims believed. After a harsh winter in which almost half of them perished and after a good harvest later that summer, they paused to give thanks. Here is Edward Winslow's account of it in a letter dated December 11, 1621.
Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it not always be so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we wish you partakers of our plenty.This was a remarkable occasion. Nearly half of their company had perished. Their corn harvest was good, but their barley was only so-so, and they had lost their peas. I dare say many of us would not look upon this occasion as worthy of several days of rejoicing and feasting. But there they were rejoicing, feasting, and sharing. Rejoicing in the goodness of God, feasting on His plenty, and sharing with their neighbors they might have been at war with had it not been for God's providential care. This is the heart of Thanksgiving.
Puritan theologian William Ames, who was familiar to many of the Pilgrims, wrote, "The right of thanksgiving requires, first, a knowledge of God's blessings; second, an applying them to ourselves through faith and hope; third, a true esteem of them with fitting gratitude." The only finger pointing in thanksgiving is to God in acknowledgment of His underserved grace and blessing. In thanksgiving, Ames wrote, we "honor God for all the things we have received. If we simply accept the good things we have received, resting in them or glorying in ourselves, or ascribing them only to second causes, thanksgiving is spoiled." But that First Thanksgiving was not spoiled because these Pilgrims chose to thank God for what they had and share in His goodness with their Wampanoag neighbors with whom they desired to live in peace. And because it was not spoiled, we have this almost anomalous moment in our American history in which Pilgrims and Indians, who otherwise would have been at war, stood rather in gratitude to God and to one another.
Descendants of European immigrants and Native Americans alike can point to a sordid past of injustice, blood-lust, rape, land-grabbing, slavery, and any other stepchildren of the seven deadly sins, but Thanksgiving has nothing to do with these things. Those who truly have thankful hearts acknowledge all good to come from God who is "the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17), and they, furthermore, receive that good with the intent of sharing it with others.
The goodness of God is all the more remarkable because of our history. We deserve nothing but evil because of our sin and the miseries our sins have caused. Yet God is still willing to show mercy to us. But we must remember that God sent His Son into our history not to condemn us but that by believing in Him we might be saved. It is because of Christ, especially, that we can rejoice and give thanks, for because of His redemption and His satisfaction for our sins, we can know that all things will work together for our salvation. There is nothing wrong with mourning over a history of violence, but realizing that there is mercy for all offenders gives us all the more reason to rejoice in thankfulness to God.
Note:
There are two books that I think are worth reading to gain a more balanced assessment of Thanksgiving and its origins. The first is James W. Baker, Thanksgiving: A Biography of an American Holiday; the second is Robert Tracy MacKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History.
