The Wampanoags

Who are the Wampanoags and what do they have to do with Thanksgiving?  Before I get to the answer, I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and remind you of what the holiday is all about. 

For some of us, it is all about turkey and football. So before you plant yourself on the sofa after that second helping of Pumpkin Pie to watch your favorite team pounce upon their opponents, stop for a moment and reflect back to what this holiday really means.

September 6,1620 is when it all began.  When the original 100 passengers aboard the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England to Virginia, they had no idea how they would be thought of almost 400 years later. (Yes, I did say Virginia, which was their original destination, but they landed at Cape Cod). The trip took 65 days in rough and stormy seas. Miraculously 99 of the original 100 passengers completed the trip alive.

So here we are almost 400 years later and what have we learned about the holiday.  For most of us, it is just a four-day weekend or as I used to call it the four "F's"  Food, Family, Friends and Football. Why have we forgotten what the real meaning of the holiday is all about?

The early settlers, who later called themselves Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution.  Many of them did not survive that first cold bitter winter season. However, they did persevere.  At the end of their first year, with their first successful harvest completed, they decided to celebrate with a feast. 

The Wampanoags were the first known inhabitants of Massachusetts who taught the settlers how to grow and care for their crops. They were responsible for the Pilgrims survival that first winter and subsequent seasons.  Some of them spoke English because they were originally captive slaves of the British. They were later released on the mainland after they used up their usefulness.

Although the celebration took place annually, it did not become a holiday until 157 years later.  It was President George Washington who decreed it to be celebrated on December 18 from 1777 on.  

It was not celebrated on the last Thursday of November until 1863 when President Lincoln changed it at the urging of a woman named Sara Hale who had found proof 17 years earlier that the original celebration occurred on that day. The first Thanksgivings were days of prayers, not days of feasting. 

Little did the Pilgrims know how much the holiday would change and fall prey to commercialism when in 1939, at the urging of the National Dry Goods Association, President Roosevelt would move it back one week to allow an additional week of shopping before Christmas. 

The American people were so totally confused by the change of the date that in 1941 legislation was signed making Thanksgiving Day the fourth Thursday in November from that day forward.

Therefore, as you start to carve the turkey and dig into the sweet potato pie and stuffing, stop for a moment and look around the table.  Look at the faces of your friends and relatives. Look especially, in the faces of your children and grandchildren and say a prayer for all that we have. 

If you don't believe that this is "one nation under God", it should only take one look at the faces of the ones you love to know that a divine spirit has guided the path of America from that first Thanksgiving festival almost 400 years ago until today. 

While you are at it, say a prayer for all our brave young men and women of the armed forces who have defended and are defending us today, so that you can be with your family enjoying the freedom we so dearly cherish and sometimes take for granted. 

Thanksgiving should be a time of reflection and prayer, not just turkey and football.  Then say thank you for the DVR. You can always watch the game when you get home from Grandma's house.

And, don't forget the Wampanoags.  If they hadn't helped the Pilgrims survive that first harsh winter we might not be here today.

As Paul Harvey says, Now you know the rest of the story.
Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving and God Bless America.

And, that is my opinion.

Michael Solomon

Author of "Where Did My America Go?"

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