10-Oct-2006: A Short History of Thanksgiving in North America
Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada. The second Monday of October. A quiet family day. My eldest
brought his girlfriend and her daughter to visit and feast. They went home with my son's favorite dish that his mother makes: pumpkin pie. So,
all was happy and well, even though the main topic of conversation was my son's intention to deliver an ultimatum to his employer today.
He expected to get let go as a result. (And, an email this morning confirmed that that was, indeed, how they reacted.) But, he's a grown man,
now 24, and he will figure out what to do next.
Which brings me to my point for this article: when my eldest came home with cutouts and stories about Pilgrims and Captain John Smith in early October
of his first year in school, my
wife, Ann, was incensed. Why are they teaching American traditions instead of Canadian ones? she wanted to know. She called the school to
complain, and discovered that the teachers had never heard of Martin Frobisher's celebration of Thanksgiving when he landed in Newfoundland
in 1578. This was the first celebration by a European of that holiday in North America. French settlers, who arrived in Canada during the 17th century,
held their own celebration of thanks, which included a feast that was shared with Canadian First Nations folk.
In 1879 it was declared a national holiday by the new federal government and celebrated on November 6th, until,
after the World Wars of the
20th century ended and November 11th declared a day of remembrance, it was moved to the second Monday of October.
The American holiday is a different kettle of fish. It was first celebrated in 1621 after the Plymouth Rock settlers survived their
first year in American and had a good crop the second year—thanks to the help of local natives who taught the new arrivals
basic survival skills. George Washington declared Thanksgiving to be celebrated on November 26th. This
was later amended by Franklin Roosevelt to be the fourth Thursday of November.
An interesting note: the 2nd celebration in what was to become
the United States was held in 1641—to celebrate the institution of a "scalp bounty" and a bounty on Natives captured for
the slave trade. Subsequently, the practice was to capture and sell into slavery any Native American over the age of 14 and to slaughter the rest. Thanksgiving
was celebrated in New York City by using Native American heads as soccer balls in the streets. Now
I have never attended a public school in the United States so I don't know if that part of the story about Thanksgiving is ever told to American youngsters.
In fact, when I was doing a bit of research on the web I came across several web entries that claim that Thanksgiving is an invention of the settlers in Plymouth,
Massachusetts.
Are we supposed to forget that a festival of giving thanks and celebration of good crops existed long before Frobisher or the Pilgrims,
and is part of the heritage of
almost every country in the world, including the North and South American Natives? According to the popular American perception, as presented by
Made-in-the-USA television shows and movies, these other cultures and festivals simply don't exist—at the least, never mentioned. If Americans want
to believe that, then it is their loss, but if Canadian teachers try to perpetrate American myths in Canadian classrooms, I hope everyone of them
runs into someone like Ann. Believe me, she will relentlessly hound them until they start mentioning our Canadian stories—even if they are presented as
a footnote in the telling of the great American tradition.