Most people in America know the story of the first Thanksgiving, at least the Pilgrim version. But do we know it from the view of the host people of this land?
As a nation that prides itself on having been founded upon recognizing everyone’s inalienable rights, given to us by the Creator of all, it is high time that we recognize that it’s very inception might not have happened apart from God’s providence, which included the friendship and intervention of Native people like Squanto.
Although accounts vary, what historians seem to agree on is that Squanto had been kidnapped by the English Capt. Thomas Hunt and was eventually sold into slavery in Spain. Spending roughly a decade in exile and apart from his family, people and land, he was eventually able to return to his beloved home. But when he arrived, more heartbreak awaited him. An epidemic had wiped out Squanto’s entire family and village.
When the first Pilgrims arrived near the shores of Squanto’s homeland about two years later, he walked into their settlement and startled everyone by greeting them in flawless English, “Welcome.”
Within a short time, Squanto had apparently been able to transform his feelings of hurt, betrayal, and extreme loss. Somehow he found the strength and willingness to help the very people who had previously captured, enslaved, and deported him. He taught them to hunt, to plant, to fish, and to love the land that many of the newcomers would later pillage. But a sadder fate awaited Squanto yet. Just a short time later, while guiding and interpreting for the pilgrims, he contracted smallpox and died. In the end, he paid the ultimate price to assist these wanderers from another land.
Despite his unjust treatment, he chose to be an instrument in God’s hand, helping to preserve the poor, hungry, cold, and struggling band of Pilgrims who had left their home to find a better life in the “New World.” (It was only new to them, not to Creator God or its original inhabitants)
Squanto’s assistance and advocacy for the vulnerable Pilgrims is the hidden story of Thanksgiving. Isn’t it high time we begin to honor the forgiveness, sacrifice, and loving care of Squanto and the many Native people, without whom the scraggly and rugged individualists would most likely not have survived?
As God’s Word instructs us, we should “give to everyone what is owed to them,… if respect, then respect, if honor, then honor!”
Leave a Reply