How to enjoy Thanksgiving without the mythology that whitewashes history: Nancy Kelsey

CLEVELAND, Ohio - This November, like every year of my life, I’m celebrating the holiday known as Thanksgiving - just not in the same way many of you are.

As a half-Indigenous woman, whose Anishinaaabe ancestors have lived in the Great Lakes since time immemorial, my feelings on the holiday are complicated. Especially since the other half of my DNA comes from my Salvadoran immigrant mom, which simultaneously makes me a first-generation American. And, like many first-generation families, eager to enjoy and embrace American traditions, we adopted Thanksgiving but made it our own with a turkey sandwich with a tomato-based sauce) and other Salvadoran staples.

Last year, I spent the holiday with my Native family in Western Michigan. We shared in a veritable feast at my cousin Margie’s house on the lands the Kelseys have called home since before first contact with colonizers. There was turkey, many sides, desserts and frybread, a common Native addition to the occasion.

There was no mention of the mythological Thanksgiving story about Pilgrims and Natives breaking bread to celebrate a harvest. Because that’s not what the day means to us. My family, and other Native families like us, gather to share in a feast and delight in each other’s company.

Native people have different ways of observing the day. There is no singular right way to observe it. All Indigenous Peoples are grappling with the aftereffects of colonization in the best ways we can. I have Native friends who do not even call the day by its name, to strip it of its power. Some Native People, like the Wampanoag - who first encountered European settlers at Plymouth and are at the center of the Thanksgiving myth - regard it as a National Day of Mourning. Mourning for the Indigenous lives lost in genocide, the dispossession and forced removal from homelands and the many perils that subsequently befell Native people, from boarding schools to broken treaties to loss of language and culture.

If you have read my columns before, then you have already seen this message: How non-Indigenous Peoples view Native People today is directly correlated to the stories and depictions of us that you have been exposed to, whether or not they are accurate. The perception of the Thanksgiving myth is a perfect example of why this is so harmful.

It centers on a gathering in which the Wampanoag Peoples shared their land, food and knowledge of the environment with English settlers, who may not have survived if not for Indigenous knowledge. Still, the harvest gathering did not include the Wampanoag. At least not immediately. They happened upon the feast and joined in with foods of their own.

Wampanoag elder Anita “Mother Bear” Peters said this in a 2021 interview with NPR: “Our prophecies told us that the pilgrims were going to come and that if they came in a peaceful way, all the different colors of humans could come to this country and make the best country in the world. But if they came with weapons in their hands, we were going to have many years of hard times. And they were going to try to wipe us out,”

For the next 50 years the Wampanoags’ efforts to maintain peace with the English and a neighboring tribe was continually tested by encroachments on their land and the rapid spread of disease that decimated their population. In 1675, a bloody war erupted, further diminishing the number of Wampanoag.

The optimist in me knows there are those non-Indigenous folks who will want to reflect on a more accurate telling of history. And there are great ways to do that. There are no spokespeople for a whole race, including Indigenous people, so here are a few of my suggestions:

Teach your children the complete story of the date known as Thanksgiving - including the Wampanoag’s account - and the story of Indigenous People after European contact. The National Museum of the American Indian has great online resources available for all age groups.

Designate someone in your family to write a land acknowledgment to read before your gathering, both to recognize the first peoples of the land on which you stand and to tell a more complete story of the true Thanksgiving. A good starting point for this is , though you should cross-reference it against other sources. Additionally, remember to note the thriving present-day Indigenous Peoples who live in your area.

Indianz.com ,

Read and watch stories about and by Native People from sources like the Reciprocity Project Visionmaker Media and NDN Collective to name a few.

Give to Indigenous non-profits such as the American Indian College Fund, National Indian Education Association or local orgs like the Lake Erie Native American Council.

Most importantly, don’t relegate your learning about Native people to one month or holiday. And please don’t be a passive ally - join in uplifting our stories and movements year-round.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, take some time to reflect on the powerful words of Wampanoag leader Frank B. James, who was uninvited from a Plymouth gathering in 1970 for wanting to speak these truths:

“History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man.”