This commentary is by Judy Dow of Essex, executive director of Gedakina and an educator for the last 38 years.
I take serious issue with a recent VTGOP e-newsletter released to supporters just before the Thanksgiving holiday by the Vermont Republican Party chair, a former state representative from Essex Junction, Paul Dame.
In it, Dame writes a sickening Thanksgiving letter to honor the 45 Pilgrims who died that first year, not the estimated 50 million-plus Indigenous people who died and lost their land to uninvited guests that some call invaders.
As Dame puts it, “Despite some of the revisionist history surrounding the first Thanksgiving, there is one thing that seems indisputable and well-documented. That first day of Thanksgiving came after many pilgrims had died after a rough and brutal winter.”
For many Indigenous people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by the theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation.
As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.
I’m the executive director for Gedakina, a multigenerational program that helps Indigenous women and their families self-determine a good path in life. This includes educating all students about another perspective, the Native American perspective, usually the untold story, the one that is seldom heard.
As an Indigenous woman and an educator, I have made it my life’s work to help tell another perspective of our textbook history.
What is it about the story of “The First Thanksgiving” that makes it essential to be taught in virtually every grade from preschool through high school?
What is it about the story that is so seductive?
Why has it become an annual elementary school tradition to hold Thanksgiving pageants, with young children dressing up in paper-bag costumes and feather-duster headdresses and marching around the schoolyard?
Why is it seen as necessary for fake “pilgrims” and fake “Indians” (portrayed by real children, many of whom are Indian) to sit down every year to a fake feast, acting out fake scenarios and reciting fake dialogue about friendship?
And why do teachers all over the country continue (for the most part, unknowingly) to perpetuate this myth year after year after year?
Is it because as Americans we have a deep need to believe that the soil we live on and the country on which it is based was founded on integrity and cooperation? This belief would help contradict any feelings of guilt that could haunt us when we look at our role in more recent history in dealing with Indigenous peoples in other countries.
If we dare to give up the “myth,” we may have to take responsibility for our actions both concerning Indigenous peoples of this land, as well as those brought to this land in violation of everything that makes us human.
The realization of these truths untold might crumble the foundation of what many believe is a true democracy. As good people, can we be strong enough to learn the truths of our collective past? Can we learn from our mistakes? This would be my hope.
Many Indigenous people like myself are now finding the courage to speak out. We often get cross-examined for telling another perspective of the textbook history at every turn.
Remember, this textbook history was written with one perspective in mind — that of the colonists. Change must happen. There is “danger in a single story,” as the author and novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie emphasizes, and it is not revisionism to share the other side of the story.
We must find a balance somewhere near the middle and embrace it; we must stop excluding another perspective of history. It is not revisionism to include a perspective that is often left untold; it creates a balanced story and something closer to the truth.
As Mr. Dame continues, “Despite that grim statistic, the resolve of the remaining pilgrims is something that can inspire us generations later.” Mr. Dame, something we can aspire to is striving for inclusion not exclusion in history telling.
We must know the past if we are to understand the present, and if we understand the present, we can direct the future in a more equitable way for all.
