Deconstructing Thanksgiving Myths

Here in Virginia we are very conscious of the hijacking of the Thanksgiving tradition by the Pilgrims in New England.  Yet the myth that the tradition began in New England continues to this day as school children color pictures of puritan garbed colonists instead of the attire common in colonial Virginia.  Andrew Sullivan posted about this myth making.  I particularly like the last portion that gets down to the real founding principals of the Massachusetts colony which remain alive and well in today's Christian Right:

Akim Reinhardt debunks some of the tales behind our "modern, secular, national creation story": One example:

Any meal the Puritans might have shared with the Wampanoags was not the first
American Thanksgiving. Based on European harvest-home feasts, not Indian rituals, earlier examples include: 1578, Martin Forshiber’s Thanksgiving feast after his third Atlantic crossing to Canada;1598, Don Juan de Onate’s Thanksgiving feast on the banks of the Rio Grande after crossing the Mexican desert and before beginning his terroristic campaign to subdue the Pueblos;1606, Samuel de Champlain’s harvest feast in Quebec; 1619, Thanksgiving feast at Berkeley Plantation on the Chesapeake, with the Virginia Company decreeing that day (December 4) an annual holiday.

But, like any creation myth, the narrative serves a purpose:

Through it, [Americans] tell themselves that the United States was founded upon liberty and friendship. The Puritans were seeking freedom. The Indians welcomed and helped them. Things might have gotten very messy later on, but it all began with the best of intentions on both sides. ... After all, that’s a lot more comforting than telling yourself it began in a firmament of religious zealotry, colonialism, slavery, and genocide.

Truth be told, America has a very brutal and rapacious history - and it all conveniently gets white washed away far too often.  The godly folk don't like to be reminded of things like this:

"In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them."

"It may be demanded...Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion? But...sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents.... We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."

-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana