Since 1970, Indigenous people and their allies have gathered in Plymouth, Mass. on the fourth Thursday of November. This day, also the federal holiday of Thanksgiving, is known there by another name: National Day of Mourning. Those in Plymouth hear speeches, hold a protest and mourn for the millions of Indigenous people who died due to the genocidal tactics of European settlers.
Thanksgiving is a holiday that creates a false narrative of American unity. It puts forth the story that the pilgrims and the ‘Indians’ formed an alliance and ate food together, everyone was happy and nothing bad ever happened. National Day of Mourning serves to combat this narrative and recognize the genocidal history that Indigenous people like myself have inherited. The goal of National Day of Mourning (educating people on the truth behind Thanksgiving) is a noble one, and one I wholeheartedly support. However, I do have questions about the holiday’s usefulness.
There are countless articles out there about the “true history” of Thanksgiving. They detail how the first feast between the colonists and the Wampanoag people was not an actual feast, how the first alliance between the two groups fell through quickly and how the colonists overran Indigenous people until they were slaughtered in King Philip's War. These articles are factually correct and serve the same purpose as National Day of Mourning. Yet there is so much more to the Thanksgiving story than the initial interaction between Indigenous people and white colonists.
Thanksgiving was technically first celebrated as a United States holiday under George Washington in 1789, which was meant to unite the new nation after the end of the Revolutionary War. This was discontinued under Thomas Jefferson, who did not like the religious overtones of the holiday. The next time Thanksgiving comes up in the American canon is under President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln, in 1862, declared a national day of thanks, which was continued by the presidents who succeeded him.
Before Lincoln ever made Thanksgiving a national holiday, a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale had been lobbying for the creation of a day of thanks for over a decade. Hale wanted Thanksgiving to be a uniting holiday between the north and the south in the years before the Civil War. She believed that America needed to push slavery to the back of its mind by “putting aside the sectional feelings and local incidents,” uniting under the holiday in the name of being “American.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, when the Confederacy split from the United States, it instituted Thanksgiving a year before Lincoln did.
Thanksgiving was finally established as a permanent national holiday by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Roosevelt had issues with Thanksgiving being the fourth Thursday of the month, as he felt that the lateness of the holiday shortened the amount of time that families could Christmas shop. He tried moving the date of Thanksgiving to an earlier day but was met with ire from many states. In 1941, he codified the fourth Thursday of November as the Thanksgiving date, conceding to pressure.
When National Day of Mourning combats the Thanksgiving narrative, it is not just combatting inaccuracies about the original celebration and the subsequent genocide. It is fighting against centuries worth of capitalistic narratives, the idea of slavery as something to be ignored, and the belief that being “American” is above historical fact. What makes it worse is that the last point has become reality. Thanksgiving has transcended any and all of its historical background in the American lexicon. When people think of Thanksgiving, they think of turkey, cranberry sauce, family, football, pumpkin pie and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. They don’t think about King Philip’s War.
The joy Americans feel with Thanksgiving is largely separate from the painful history of the holiday. This isn’t a good thing. As an Indigenous person, I carry with me the trauma of genocide every day of the year. By making Thanksgiving a day of mourning, Indigenous people double down on the pain and anger. That isn’t healthy for me. The joy that Thanksgiving brings me by being with my family, eating good food or playing with my cousins is something I can feel alongside the pain. Some Indigenous people choose not to celebrate Thanksgiving at all, and there is nothing wrong with that. The joyous memories I have for Thanksgiving are not universal within the Indigenous community. However, I wholeheartedly condemn Americans who use the joy Thanksgiving brings them as an excuse to ignore its harmful history. This history is universal for all Americans and everyone needs to grapple with the discomfort that it brings. Holding both awareness and happiness around Thanksgiving is what America should do instead of choosing ignorance.
National Day of Mourning centers education without also centering joy. I am choosing to center both. I hope others choose to do the same.
