The convergence of Native American Heritage Month and Thanksgiving brings up troubling historical contradictions. We hear the narratives of a wholesome shared feast to celebrate a successful harvest, but these contrast with darker stories of betrayal and loss. The reality of our country’s Native American Heritage is much more tangled and rich than the simple dichotomy of these two stories, and there has been a surge of newer titles taking a more comprehensive look at this shared history.
For those interested in exploring the history of Thanksgiving, “This Land is Their Land,” by David Silverman delves deeper into the history of Thanksgiving, the Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag Indians.
Another, more expansive, book is “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History,” by Ned Blackhawk. Moving beyond the Plymouth colony, Blackhawk examines pre-Columbian times and the battle and treaty strewn history that came after Columbus. In the history Blackhawk shares Native Americans were not passive victims of European colonization but active agents in the events that unfolded on this continent — and as such they were (and are) integral to the ultimate shape our nation took.
Another source of information is our online resource, “American Indian History,” a collection of articles and summaries that pull on primary sources to present a picture of our past and present. Here you can read about one of the most profound but overlooked influences on early America, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy included five tribes (a sixth tribe joined in the 1700s) in what is now the northeastern U.S. under the “Great Law of Peace,” each tribe maintained its own leadership and control of local issues, but the “Grand Council of Chiefs” gathered to make consensus-based decisions on common issues. This confederacy is believed to be the oldest democracy in the world.
Several of the ‘Founding Fathers,’ treated with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy during the French and Indian War. Both the structure and the strength of this confederacy impressed George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and heavily influenced the creation of our constitution. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy also influenced the actual shape of our country because they controlled access to the Great Lakes region — the primary issue of the French and Indian War.
According the 2020 Census, Native Americans make up 1.1% of our country’s population (this measure is arguably problematic, to read more about the history of government imposed tribal registries and all the problems and inequities associated with them, take a look at “The Indian Card,” by Carrie Lowry Shuettpelz). The contributions of Native Americans and their tribes to the formation and continuing story of this country far outweigh the relative size of their population. Later generations of Native Americans have gone on to serve in the U.S. armed forces, including the famous Navajo Code Talkers, whose Navajo language-based code in WWII was never broken.
Here are a few other things we can thank Native Americans for:
- The names of well over half of our states and countless other landmarks;
- The survival of many early Americans, including the Puritans and the feast that eventually came to be known as “The First Thanksgiving;”
- Kayaks and canoes;
- Founding principles of environmental policy;
- Unique stories and culture that have become part of our national identity;
- Corn, potatoes, chewing gum, squash (including the all important pumpkin — imagine if you had to carve a turnip instead of pumpkin for Halloween), and beans — to name a few of our staples (is chewing gum a staple?);
- Sign language;
- Tobacco;
- Asprin;
- and Turkeys — seriously, Europeans didn’t have turkeys before they came to America!
This is just a partial list. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of Native Americans, take a look at this list of additional resources.
