There is a saying among the Lakota that
when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, they fell on their
knees and prayed, and then they fell on the Indians and
preyed.
Perhaps it is not surprising that the stories of
this country’s founding are awash in error. As Napoleon reportedly
said, “What is history but a fable agreed upon?”
So much
fabrication has been woven into the coming of the Pilgrims and
their dealings with the native people they encountered that it’s
hard to separate fact from fiction. Here are some facts: The
Mayflower first landed on Cape Cod on Nov. 11, 1620, at a place
that would become Provincetown. When that landing site proved to be
unsuitable, Robert Coppin, the Mayflower’s pilot, moved on. In the
middle of winter, on Dec. 16, 1620, he sailed into a harbor the
Indians called Patuxet. Though no 17th century sources mention
landing on a rock, that’s what the Pilgrims called it: Plymouth
Rock.
We have all been taught about the first winter for
those pilgrims, so fierce that only 52 of the original 102 remained
alive when it was over. The history books also teach us that the
Indians helped the settlers survive to another winter by teaching
them how to plant corn, squash and other vegetables. Here’s another
fact: Some historians say now that Patuxet was rich in the graves
of Indians, and that by grave-robbing clothes and tools, a few
Pilgrims were able to survive.
The Wampanoag were the
first Indians to meet and speak with the Pilgrims. An Abenaki named
Samoset, who spoke English he learned from fishermen who visited
the coast, introduced the settlers to a man named Tisquantum, also
called Squanto. He had been taken to England as a prisoner and
spoke fairly fluent English. Though usually portrayed as violent in
drawings and paintings, Squanto met the Pilgrims in peace.
The first modern image showing the Indians and settlers enjoying a
feast in harmony did not occur until after the so-called Indian
Wars were settled — long after Plymouth Rock was founded. By then,
ancestral lands were being colonized by settlers and exploiters,
and Indians were considered “vanishing Americans.” That may have
made them safe enough to become an integral part of the Pilgrim
story of happy collaboration.
A stanza from the poem by
Felicia Hemans (1793 – 1835) about the landing of the Pilgrims
goes:
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where
first they trod!
They have left unstain’d what where they
found –
Freedom to worship God.
Perhaps a
century later, an Indian poet might have written:
Hau,
call it stolen ground,
The soil where first they
trod!
They have left a stain over all they
found,
And took our freedom to worship God.
The
indigenous people of what was to become New England had little to
be thankful for after the Pilgrims claimed their land. Many died of
smallpox, measles and other diseases to which they had no immunity;
others died at the hands of the settlers. Their villages were
burned to the ground and their women and children sold into slavery
or murdered. Bounties were placed on those who survived, and soon
hunters and trappers showed up at the trading posts collecting
money for their “redskins.”
In 1863, President Abraham
Lincoln, at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s
Lady’s Book, set aside the fourth Thursday of November as
Thanksgiving Day. In 1941, Congress passed a joint resolution
making the fourth Thursday of November the official holiday of
Thanksgiving. It was not until the 1960s that Indian activists
began to gather at Plymouth Rock on Thanksgiving Day — not to give
thanks, but to protest the modern-day treatment of native people
and a national holiday based on fiction.
These days,
native Americans can be grateful for our remarkable ability to
endure. The assumption that the so-called “vanishing Americans”
would cease to exist has proven to be dead wrong. Though some might
have wished it, we have not faded from history; in fact, we are one
of the fastest-growing segments of society.
In South
Dakota, where I live, almost every rural county has plummeted in
population over the past 10 years. But in the counties containing
Indian reservations, the population has grown.
So, a race
of people that numbered just over 200,000 people at the turn of the
century now numbers more than 2 million. It’s quite a
comeback.
Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He is the editor of the Lakota Journal in Rapid City,
South Dakota.
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