The actual history is the Pilgrims and the native peoples got along great and the native americans were invited to the feast. That is the actual history.
Except it kind of isn’t.
The actual history is that the pilgrims got their butts handed to them the first 6+ months they arrived and only survived because they had the dumb luck to land in a village/town left abandoned by Native Americans following an epidemic. The settlers fought with Native Americans off and on until several other Native American nations (who were eventually supported by the French) turned on each other.
One of those nations said “Hey, these guys have guns and they’re slaughtering us because we don’t, how about in exchange for peace and combining our nations, you protect us?” And the settlers said “Um, nah, we don’t partner with people who aren’t white. Let’s do a ‘separate but equal’ thing where the center of your society is never more than three days away from us and you teach us how to use the land in exchange for protection when the war hits our doorstep?” The Native Americans almost passed on the opportunity as being so close all the time hobbled them (they were very nomadic and traveled to follow food and good weather), but ultimately accepted because they felt they had no other choice and they really thought the guns were quite cool. So they stayed and taught the settlers stuff and the settlers sort of kept them safe when it was convenient to do so.
Finally, fall came, the settlers were pretty well set up, so they decided to celebrate by firing their guns in the air. The Native Americans heard the shooting, thought there was an invasion on the settlers, and came with their warriors to support them. When they arrived, the settlers said “no, we are good, we are just celebrating our good harvest and Reformation day.” The Native Americans didn’t believe them because shooting guns in the air to celebrate seems implausible and stupid. They thought they had struck a secret pact with another tribe, so they stayed on the outskirts and ready to battle for 5 days.
By that time, their leader was wondering where the warriors were at, so he came down and heard the stupid-settler-gun story. He was alarmed and met with the leaders of the settlement, where he said “yo, guys, having a big feast using stuff that should be saved for our incredibly harsh winters is pretty dumb... You shouldn’t do that.” The settlers said “MYOB” and asked him to leave. Then the leader returned saw his hungry men who had been sitting on the outskirts for 5 days because of a war they thought was coming and so he went back to the settler’s leaders and asked if they could eat some of the feast too, seeing as they were allies and hungry and such. The settlers said no and turned them away, to which the Native American leader said “I insist” and was rebuffed, so he said “listen, the only reason we are here is to save you and we think this shooting guns into the air story is pretty stupid, plus we aren’t set up as well for winter because we were helping you... So we are going out to hunt some animals to bring to this feast and be back in a day and you’re going to let us feast with you to prove we are still allies or we are going to have problems.” They sai
The settlers said “ok fine whatever” and allowed a handful of Native American leaders to sit in the vicinity of a party held only for the settlement leaders, that they were begrudgingly invited to and allowed them eat the food they brought for themselves and some corn. An overwhelming majority of people, both settlers and Native American, were not a part of the celebration because they were very much segregated and settlers didn’t invite women and children to many parties anyway. By the end of the party, which lasted a few days, everybody got pretty drunk and co-mingled as happy drunk people so often do, before everybody went to their separate villages and ride out the winters alone, segregated as before.
Ultimately the Native Americans were right as we broke our treaty with that nation in favor of another nation who traded beaver pelts for corn (which would basically be like trading a bar of gold for a stick of gum) and that Native American nation wanted to protect the settlers who would make such stupid trades, so they teamed up to fight the other nation, which retreated from the area. Then the settlers realized that pelts for corn was a dumb trade so they fought that nation too.
When the landscape became a like hopelessly confused game of Risk where Native American nation vs Native American nation vs Settlers vs French vs other small random advisories, the settlers said “hey remember that peaceful meal where we all got hammered and had a good time? We should do that again sometime” and the Native Americans said “Nah, we’re good, you all stink.” Settlers said “ok, fine, be that way” and... Well... We know what went on from there.
Ultimately, Thanksgiving became a thing because of The Reformation and non Catholics were pretty bitter they were required to skip work for church 150ish day’s a year... So they created Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is more a middle finger to King Henry VIII and the Catholic Church, less of a “Native Americans are great, let’s party with them” kind of event. Well, truthfully, it was a middle finger to King Henry, then we didn’t celebrate it for awhile, then we did, but we called it something else and it was about being thankful we pushed the British out, then we didn’t celebrate it for awhile again, then Lincoln decided to celebrate it formally during the Civil War to celebrate the North’s successes in the war vs the South... Then it became a means to antagonize the south. Then we started to celebrate it after The Reconstruction to remind the south of their place, then we really started to celebrate it around WWI as a means of boosting national pride, then we really REALLY started celebrating in and around WWII for the same reasons.
So really, a lot of Thanksgiving is rooted in spite, LoL.
