The “Truth” About Thanksgiving? (B1-B2/v32122)

Family member at the table:  And I’m thankful for my kindergarten class who made these wonderful crafts to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Grandfather figure at the table:  After the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter in America, the Puritans invited them to share the first Thanksgiving.  – [All] Awwww!

Lead Narrator family member at the table:  Oh, these are adorably (paper rips) wrong.

Family member:  A five-year-old made that.

Narrator:  Based off of the lies that you taught them.

Family member:  Excuse me?

Narrator:  Oh, it’s not your fault, these (American history text books) are full of half-truths and historical propaganda.

Younger family member:  I thought the Native Americans and the Pilgrims were, like, “besties” or whatever.

Narrator:  At best, the Pilgrims and Wampanoags could be described as “political allies.” By the time the Pilgrims showed up, not only were two-thirds of the Massachusetts tribes completely wiped out by European slave owners and diseases, the Pilgrims were constantly at war with the indigenous people and routinely tortured them.

Grandfather figure at the table:  But what about Squanto, the Native American who learned English to help out the Pilgrims?

Narrator:  He was actually a slave that was hauled off to Europe and then he learned English so that he could escape.

Family member:  But they did celebrate it every year, right?

Narrator:  Not exactly, the next one was 16 years later and, unfortunately, it was because the Puritans were celebrating the massacre of the Piqua tribe. Back then, Thanksgiving was also for families, specifically, murdering them.

Mother figure at the table:  Okay, we get it! History’s awful, the Puritans were terrible, and now we have to let our children know that the holiday started with tons of killings. Happy?

Narrator:  Well, we actually have just about everything wrong with the Thanksgiving myth. Definitely didn’t wear these buckle hats. Didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. And as for that turkey…

Family member:  Oh no, not the turkey.

Narrator:  More like venison, fowl, and eel.

Family members at the table:  Geez! Oh!

Younger family member at the table:  Who cares about how this stupid holiday got started anyway?

Narrator:  Exactly. In George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation, the settlers aren’t mentioned, not even once. Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated nationwide until 1863 when this guy (Abraham Lincoln) declared it a national holiday during the Civil War in order to bring the country together. That’s why all of our foods are from the 19th century.

Grandmother figure at the table:  So Lincoln came up with the whole Indian/Pilgrim story?

Narrator:  Nope, that myth didn’t catch on ’til the 1900s, after we had fought and killed all the Native Americans.  And then we put it in textbooks as fact because, America! But, the food is really good and if you ignore all the terrible history, you know, like the murdering, the raping, the pillaging, still kind of a great holiday.

Various family members:  Hmmmmm…

– So the Mayflower is a lie?

– Why do we eat cranberry sauce?

– What about stuffing?

– Is Black Friday really just a capitalist conspiracy to get poor people to buy things so we can’t truly live out a populist revolt?

(everyone talking at the same time)

Narrator:  I am never telling you the truth ever again.

One historical narrative says that the Pilgrims were off firing their guns when the Wampanoag tribe just showed up, presumably, to find out why the white folks were shooting up the place, which is a question that we still ask this very day.

1. Are you familiar with the Thanksgiving holiday celebrated in the US?
2. What are some of the foods and activities generally associated with American Thanksgiving?
3. Do you think the origin stories of cultural celebrations should be historically accurate or is it the holiday that really matters most?

Video script and vocabulary