Thanksgiving—A different Perspective

Usually, when we tell the story of Thanksgiving, we stand on the deck of the Mayflower or the Spanish galleons, scanning the horizon, looking for hope, looking for land.

But today, I want us to get off the boats, walk up the beach, go into the tree line, and turn around. I want us to look at history not through the eyes of the ones arriving, but through the eyes of the ones who were already here.

The history of our country is a complicated testimony of times when we got that right, and times when we got it tragically wrong.

The Native Americans welcomed the foreigners to their lands. Though they had no familiarity with the Bible, still their welcome reminds me of the directive given to Christians by the writer of the book of Hebrews (13:2): “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” and Paul’s advice to the Roman Christians in his letter (Romans 12 18): “ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” 

I want to look at four specific moments—St. Augustine, Roanoke Island, Jamestown, and Plymouth—and ask: What were the Native American men and women thinking as they watched those sails pop up on the horizon? Let us look at what transpired, not with guilt, but with empathy.

St. Augustine: A Hospitable Curiosity

I want to start here in Florida; my home is just a few miles from the earliest permanent European settlement in the U.S.: St. Augustine.

It is 1565. The tribe of Native Americans around what would come to be called St. Augustine was the Timucua. And the name of their chief Seloy.

Now, put yourself in Chief Seloy’s sandals. You see these massive floating fortresses arrive. Men come out in heavy metal armor, sweating in the September heat. What was the Chief feeling? Perhaps curiosity mixed with caution. Chief Seloy did not attack. In fact, he did something that reminds me of the gift of hospitality we see in the New Testament. He gave Menéndez, the Spanish leader, his own “Great House,” the council house of the tribe, for shelter.

The Timucua tribe watched the Mass of Thanksgiving by the Spaniards, strangers kneeling before a cross. They showed hospitality; invited the newcomers to eat and welcomed them. Why? Well, the Timucua were smart. They had enemies (the French were nearby; other tribes were aggressive). They saw these Spanish soldiers as potential allies.

But I expect there also a wariness on their part. The Spanish modified the Great House. They dug a trench around it. They turned the house of hospitality into a fort.

Within months, the relationship soured. The Spanish demands for food became too heavy. They had overstayed their welcome. But that first moment? That first Thanksgiving in the New World? It was defined by a native spirit of generosity. They took a risk with the stranger.

And that challenges me—do I take risks on strangers, or do I lock my doors?

Roanoke Island: The Lost Trust

Further north, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, was the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke. Its story happens from 1584 and 1590.

The tribes there were the Secotan and the Croatoan. When the English first showed up in 1584, the Native Americans were incredibly friendly. Chief Granganimeo of the Secotan tribe welcomed them. He took them to his village. There is no record of a Thanksgiving type celebration, but the Native Americans showed the colonists the type of hospitality we associate with the biblical imperatives and the holiday today.

A second group of colonists arrived at Roanoke Island in 1585, and things quickly changed. There was a theft—a silver cup that went missing. The English accused the Native Americans. When the cup was not returned, the English burned a village and destroyed their corn. We can imagine the feeling then. Betrayal. Confusion. Anger.

More settlers arrived in 1587. They stepped into a world where the well was already poisoned. The local tribes were not looking at them with curiosity anymore. They were looking at them with anger.

Governor John White left the 115 settlers at Roanoke and returned to England for supplies needed in the colony. After a three-year delay, he returned and found the settlement abandoned. It looked like an orderly departure, with no sign of attack. On one of the main posts of the defensive wall, stripped of its bark, the Governor White’s party found the word carved in capital letters: “CROATOAN,” the name of a tribe and a nearby island. The fate of the Roanoke colonists is not known. The disappearance of the colony is one of the most haunting moments in American history.

Jamestown: The Power Struggle

Now we go further north to Virginia, 1607, Jamestown. This is the land of the Powhatan Confederacy. And the Chief, Wahunsenacawh (whom we call Powhatan), was no simple villager. He was an Emperor. He ruled over 30 tribes.

When the English landed, Powhatan was not afraid; he was calculating. He looked at these Englishmen—who did not know how to farm, who were drinking salty water and dying of dysentery—and he did not see a threat. He saw incompetent children. Or, at best, he saw a tool he could use against his enemies. The feeling here was superiority mixed with pity.

There is a famous speech attributed to Powhatan, addressing Captain John Smith later. Listen to him: “Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war?...We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a friendly manner."

As Jamestown expanded, the English stopped asking and started taking. It reminds me of how we sometimes treat God’s creation and His blessings. We grab and grab until the relationship is broken.

The Powhatan people fed the English during the winter, saving their lives multiple times. And yet, the English settlers grew in number, there were conflicts and deaths, and the settlers eventually pushed the Powhatan people off their land. The tragedy of Jamestown is that the native heart offered a hand, and eventually, had to raise a fist.

Plymouth: The Desperate Alliance

Finally, the story we know best: 1621, Plymouth, the Wampanoag people, and their leader, Massasoit; in Massachusetts today.

There are paintings of Massasoit sitting at the feast we regard as the first Thanksgiving. He looked serious and regal. But I wonder, what was he feeling? Just being nice and at ease? No, he had feelings of desperate necessity.

Just a few years before the Pilgrims arrived, a plague, brought by European fishermen, had wiped out 90 percent of the Wampanoag people. Their villages were empty. Most victims lay where they died, by this time their bones bleaching in the sun. Meanwhile, their enemies to the west, the Narragansett, were untouched by the plague and were ready to invade.

So, when Massasoit saw the Pilgrims—these people with guns and cannons—he did not just see new friends; he saw a lifeline for his people, thinking something like “If I ally with them, their firesticks will protect my people from the Narragansett. I will help you grow corn (so you do not die), and you will help me fight my enemies (so I do not die).”

So, sitting at that “first Thanksgiving,” he hoped for the settlers to be allies, a transaction sealed with a meal. And for 50 years that peace held, the longest peace between settlers and natives in early history, because it was built on mutual need.

Conclusion: The Ministry of Reconciliation

So, where does this leave us? We have seen hospitality in Florida, betrayal in Roanoke, calculation in Jamestown, and alliance in Plymouth. The Native American experience of the Thanksgiving celebration was not simple. It was a mix of hope, fear, generosity, dissappointmen and survival.

We must be honest about how this story ends. If we freeze the frame at the early Thanksgiving tables, we miss the tragedy that followed.

Despite those initial moments of hospitality—Seloy sharing his house, Granganimeo opening his village, and Massasoit sharing his corn—the relationships did not hold.

Over the next two centuries, the lands of the Native American peoples were seized; the Spanish in the South and West, the French along the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, and, after winning its independence, the new nation of the United States eventually claimed all the land from coast to coast—through broken treaties, diseases, bloody battles, and displacement to reservations—fueling the insatiable hunger for land by a determined people with superior numbers and weapons.

This is the shadow behind the Thanksgiving feast. When we look at the history of the holiday  from the Native Americans’ viewpoint, we see that the tragedy when both peoples stopped seeing each other as human beings, made in the image of God, and saw instead an obstacle.

While we give thanks for the land we live on, we must do so with humility, acknowledging the tremendous cost paid by those who were here first.

As Christians, when we look at this history, we should not feel guilty, because guilt does not fix anything. We cannot go back hundreds of years and change our history.

This Thanksgiving Day, take a moment to remember those Native American hosts—Seloy, Granganimeo, Powhatan, and Massasoit—by doing what they tried to do at the beginning: Open the door of your hearts. Share the corn. And treat the stranger as a friend.

Today, you have people in your life who are “the other,” like the Native Americans were to our ancestors. They may be people who vote differently, people who speak differently, people who look different.

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

“ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).