The Collegiate Whirlwind

Ah, Thanksgiving!

Few things rival the smell of turkey in the oven, the allure of cranberry slipping down a spoon, or the crackling of an open hearth inviting everyone inside.  Relatives gather and pretend to like each other for the sake of good food and tradition, though everyone knows Uncle Francis will make some awkward sexual comment to Aunt Bernice, and Grandpa George will fall asleep in his soup again.  Dinner prayers bulldoze through the griping and whining of the nephews, and when everyone opens their eyes, the new baby has a carrot in her nose.  Despite this, the spirit of thankfulness usually prevails.

Few people I know have a serious gripe with Thanksgiving, and despite the slightly sardonic opening, I hold no qualms with it myself.  What gets me isn’t the holiday itself — it’s what came before.  Primarily, the images invoked involve cutesy scenes like you might find in kindergarten coloring books, complete with smiling squaws and gentlemanly pilgrims, stroking their Abe Lincoln beards and tipping their hats politely.  You half expect Barney to waltz into the picture and break out in a charming rendition of “I Love You, You Love Me.”  But that’s not the case.  Oh, no.  Not by a long shot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence here.  I realize that mistreatment of the Indians is common knowledge (frankly, if this surprises you I’d recommend you crawl back under the rock you came from and resume beating your head against it), but the extent to which brutality pervaded the early years of colonization genuinely shocked me, especially in light of the sugar-coated view we’re presented with today.  Imagine being at a bank and seeing Dora the Explorer walk in.  After getting over the initial shock of seeing a cartoon in real life, you’d probably crack a smile.  She’s cute.  She’s innocent.  She’s sweet.  Now imagine that same Dora pulling a rocket launcher from her backpack and screaming, “Give me the ****ing money or I’m gonna blow your heads off!”  It’s that contrast between the too-perfect presentation and the harsh reality that really packs the punch.

Let’s zip back about 150 years before our happy, magical feast and take a gander at what good ol’ Columbus was up to.  The short answer: no good.  Shortly after the initial introduction to Native Americans, Columbus decided that they’d make excellent slaves.  Nice guy, huh?  Well, it gets better.  One of the slaves they captured was “wounded seven times and his entrails were hanging out. . . . Since it was thought he could not be cured, he was cast into the sea.  But keeping above water and raising one foot, he held on to his intestines with his left hand and swam courageously to shore. . . . The wounded [native] was caught again on shore.  His hands and feet were bound more tightly and he was once again thrown headlong.  But this resolute savage swam more furiously, until he was struck several times by arrows and perished” (30).  Events of this nature were not uncommon, either, and they persisted for the next 150 years.

“But Stephen, Columbus was Spanish, not English,” you might astutely observe.  True, but when the other Europeans saw Columbus dragging Native Americans across Europe for fun and profit, they thought it’d be cool to join in.  By the time John Smith and his buddies landed in Virginia, Native Americans had been trafficked across Europe as slaves for quite some time.  Smith, along with everyone else, assumed the Native Americans were brutal savages.  Violence was assumed to be their nature, and Smith braced for “the fury of the savages” when their supplies ran low (34).

And that’s exactly what they got!  The Native Americans waited until the settlers had nearly perished from starvation, then struck with brutal efficiency!  They pilgrims were expecting an attack, and they roused themselves, hoping to defend what little they had left.  But, alas, the Native Americans had discovered a horror greater than anything the poor Englishmen could have ever expected!  The ground quaked, and trees splintered  as a giant robot tore its way through the wilderness, piloted by none other than Pocahontas (rumors state that Arnold Schwarzenegger was co-piloting at the time, but the description was vague and the transcript of his accent seemed slightly off).  They had nothing to stop the PilgrimKiller4000 as it spewed volley after volley of hot death!

. . .

Or not.  Though that would have made a great movie.  Rambo-hontas.  No, never mind.  That would be terrible.  But all Pilgrim-splattering mecha aside, the Indians responded to the settler’s plight by giving them food.  They saved them.  And how were they repaid?  With lots of love and hugs, right?  Not quite.

The next year was even worse.  People were reduced to eating dogs and rats.  In one extreme instance, “[o]ne [member] of our colony murdered his wife , ripped the child out of her womb and threw it into the river, and after chopped the mother in pieces and salted her for his food, the same not being discovered before he had eaten part thereof” (34).  It even got to the point where they killed and ate one of the natives. 

Oh, wait, excuse me.  I meant to say “one of the savages.”  Because, you know, it’s the natives who need to be civilized.  Not the Europeans.  They’re good Christian settlers, destined by God to bring order and tranquility to the backwards society that had . . . um . . . saved them.  Right.

I suppose this gives us even more to be thankful of, if you think about it.  If I had been in the shoes of the Native Americans, I would have been sorely tempted to walk into their camp with a hot, succulent chunk of venison, juices smeared all over my face, marveling at how delicious it was.  Or I would have busted out the PilgrimKiller4000.  Regardless, we’re very fortunate that the very people we were trying to civilize were civil enough to let us live long enough to be Thankful for anything at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade or drag down Thanksgiving.  I just think it’s important that we remember what really went on.  It’s easy to lose sight of the importance and the symbolism behind the turkey.  Maybe it’ll put things into perspective the next time your little cousin swipes a slice from your tray.

 Takaki, Ronald.  A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.  Little, Brown and Company.  Boston, New York: 1993.

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