Cod & Sea Bass Day

Beyond the football and the stuffing, a little background to this national holiday

Two years ago, I published one of my first ever essays explaining all the reasons why, despite our many domestic problems, Americans’ exceptionally privileged geography is our greatest blessing and why we should all be thankful.  Since then, I have reflected on that essay several times in my head and realized, as my writing skills have matured, that this essay is cold comfort to my friends and any other readers overseas.  That is why this year, I thought I would write a reflection for Thanksgiving appropriate for both Americans like myself as well as my Polish, German, and Lithuanian readers.  It’s time to dive into what Thanksgiving is all about.

For many years, Americans have been taught the history of the dinner we celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November (a date enshrined by Congress in 1941) through a romantic lens transforming a rugged struggle for survival on the frontier into a warm and joyous feast incorporating both English settlers (pilgrims) seeking religious freedom and local natives offering them a warm welcome.  The pilgrims in question were the Puritans, a hardline Protestant sect who rejected the authority of the Church of England thus became social outcasts in their home country.  Deeply frugal and resolutely opposed to sinful activities such as drinking, gambling, and even the theatre, the Puritans were thus mocked by the leading English playwright of the era— William Shakespeare.  Having suffered from decades of discrimination, a group of 102 Puritans decided in 1620 they would take their chances establishing a new English colony of their own near other established colonies in Virginia where they could be free to live as they pleased.

Unfortunately for these Puritans, stormy North Atlantic weather blew their famous ship Mayflower off course, forcing them to land on a peninsula now known as Cape Cod, far to the north of temperate Virginia.  Eventually they settled further west of Cape Cod, where the seas were calmer, in a settlement now famously known as Plymouth.  Even worse for the new settlers, the Mayflower reached land in November, just as a harsh New England winter was brewing.  With no time to construct proper shelter and running low on food, the Pilgrims’ first winter turned catastrophic as half died from exposure, starvation, and disease.  Indeed, what’s more surprising than their suffering is that 57 of the Pilgrims survived such adversity at all.  Instead of becoming historical icons, the Pilgrims of Plymouth could have easily ran into Andre Linoge and followed the path of Roanoke.  What comes next is where history and mythology begin to diverge.

You see, the Wampanoag tribe, who lived, hunted, and farmed the land now known as New England back in 1621, had for several years been suffering, on top of regular tribal wars, from disease and slave raids caused by European traders and explorers.  Hence why Squanto, the Wampanoag figure most associated with the thanksgiving of 1621 shocked the Puritans of Plymouth by communicating with them in English.  Squanto had already been a slave sold in Europe.  Captured in his teens by slave traders, Squanto was shipped around Europe before returning home in 1619 to find his family and village wiped out by disease.  By the time the Plymouth colony was established, Squanto proved himself a crucial liaison between the English and the many feuding tribes, including the Wampanoag, who lived the area.  By that autumn, while accounts differ how they agreed to come together, some 90 Wampanoags and the 52 remaining English settlers did indeed enjoy the autumn feast together not for one Thursday evening— but for three whole days.

However, the goal of their alliance stemming from the feast was not a romantic gesture of gratitude and friendship— it was a survival pact necessary in a harsh environment where resources were scarce and the threat of tribal warfare omnipresent.  Furthermore, while Turkey was on the menu for the feast, the predominant cuisine was more on the lines of seafoods such as cod and sea bass along with red meats venison and duck.  In fact, without the work of Philadelphia author Sarah Josepha Hale, it’s highly likely that Thanksgiving dinner would look quite different.   Squanto fell ill and died a year later, severing the Puritans’ connection with the natives.  While popular mythology is based from Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday of prayer and remembrance for the losses the nation had been suffering for more than two years, Thanksgiving is now remembered by the descendants of the Wampanoag as Act 1 in a series of broken treaties, forced migrations, and cultural ruin.

Indeed, every nation carries its own sin, and for the United States our original sin is the tragic fate of the hundreds of Native American tribes who had lived here for millennia before

European colonization.

However, despite this tragic history, I will resolutely oppose any attempt to “cancel” or dramatically alter our Thanksgiving traditions.  Not only is Cancel Culture the ultimate slippery slope with no truly just endgame possible, but we also have a duty to remember Lincoln’s original purpose of thanksgiving: a time of reflection for what we have lost and gratitude for what we still have.  And this message applies no matter our nationality, surviving Native American nations included.  Thanksgiving is part of our fundamental essence, and any drastic change throws it all into a state of confusion and ruins the sense of comfort we all deserve.  And in today’s era of toxic social media algorithms and sensational news, I believe we all, no matter where we live, have a duty to be thankful for all that is good in our lives. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!