The Mother of Thanksgiving

This message comes from Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Hey. It's Rand. We know that as we head into the holiday season, there are always a lot of think pieces about what it all means, especially Thanksgiving. And when we started looking into it, we found a story we had actually never heard before. We first ran the story last year, and we think it's very timely now. We hope you enjoy this THROUGHLINE Thanksgiving tale. Our good ancestors were wise Even in their mirth We have standing proof of this in the season they chose for the celebration of our annual festival, the Thanksgiving. The funeral faced month of November is thus made to wear a garland of joy. Let me tell you a story of Thanksgiving, the traditional one. In 1621, when the English colonists, now known as the pilgrims, were newcomers to this continent There was a major feast between the Wampanoags and the English of Plymouth. That's a very real event. The event that's now called the First Thanksgiving. The suggestion is that the two parties got together for this feast out of innate friendship. It's this odd little frozen in time fantasy moment of folks getting together and eating, but you don't really know why. This is Elizabeth James Perry. I'm a member of the Aquinnawampinag tribe of Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard. And I'm an artist, and I'm an exhibit consultant as well. She says that when the English first arrived, they Were small in number. They were newcomers, and they were struggling badly because they weren't necessarily all farmers back where they came from either. All these Englishmen are trying to do is survive. The Wampanoags outnumber them by a factor of, at minimum, 20 to one. So the Wampanoags are the bosses here. This is David Silverman. I'm professor of history at George Washington University. And he's also the author of the book. This land is their land, the Wampanoagadians, Plymouth Colony, and the troubled history of Thanksgiving. David says remembering this meeting is just about friendship and gratitude. Actually Robs this very real event of all of its historical context. Now let me tell you another Thanksgiving story. This one happens more than fifty years later. In June 1675, the indigenous Wampanoag people of what is now Southern New England were on the brink of war with the English colonists of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the descendants of those pilgrims. Metacom, a Wampanoag chief, met with Rhode Island's attorney general. What he said was, you know, when my father A chief named Usa Mequin. Met your ancestors the Plymouth colonists He was a great man, and you were a little child. And he gave you land to live on, more land than we, the Wampanoags, have today. He …