The Pilgrims — a boatload of incompetent religious nerds aiming for the Virginia colony and ending up in Massachusetts — arrived in fall, utterly unprepared for the harsh New England winter and would have all died out had they not be aided by the Wampanoag indigenous people who helped the invasive illegal aliens survive.
The Wampanoag had just endured a horrible pandemic brought a few years earlier by English explorers that eradicated completely the Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet with no survivors. Wampanoag from nearby helped the Pilgrims utilize now-vacated structures and facilities and use food supplies to survive the winter.
The Pilgrims arrived in 1620 — exactly 400 years ago. A year later, 1621, they celebrated what would become the First Thanksgiving, thanks to food supplies the Wampanoag brought to supplant the meager harvest of the Pilgrims.
This 399th year after the First Thanksgiving, as the descendants of Europeans prepare to celebrate a recreation of that first feast in the midst of a pandemic, hoping that we will not eradicate ourselves before Christmas, is somehow a poignantly appropriate observation of the holiday.
Perhaps next year, on the quadricentennial, we will have more to celebrate.
The Pilgrims — a boatload of incompetent religious nerds aiming for the Virginia colony and ending up in Massachusetts — arrived in fall, utterly unprepared for the harsh New England winter and would have all died out had they not be aided by the Wampanoag indigenous people who helped the invasive illegal aliens survive.
The Wampanoag had just endured a horrible pandemic brought a few years earlier by English explorers that eradicated completely the Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet with no survivors. Wampanoag from nearby helped the Pilgrims utilize now-vacated structures and facilities and use food supplies to survive the winter.
The Pilgrims arrived in 1620 — exactly 400 years ago. A year later, 1621, they celebrated what would become the First Thanksgiving, thanks to food supplies the Wampanoag brought to supplant the meager harvest of the Pilgrims.
This 399th year after the First Thanksgiving, as the descendants of Europeans prepare to celebrate a recreation of that first feast in the midst of a pandemic, hoping that we will not eradicate ourselves before Christmas, is somehow a poignantly appropriate observation of the holiday.
Perhaps next year, on the quadricentennial, we will have more to celebrate.