Logan Tueller

First Thanksgiving

Part 1:

The first reading was the most similar to what I learned in elementary school. I remember hearing about the Wampanoag helping the pilgrims and having a 3-day feast and it first became a holiday with Abe Lincoln and was observed as a religious holiday in 1623. While this is the version of the story I heard first, it was written for kids and I found that the third article was the most similar to what actually might have happened. The third article was not written specifically for kids and had lots of data and date on the topic which helps prove their version. As a kid, schools teach a more child friendly version of the history of the holiday but in actuality, things actually happened differently. The kid version has the stereotypical Indian characters to make it more understandable and the pilgrims wore all black and what the feast consisted of. From what I know now, the evolution of the holiday to how it is today, was mainly caused by football teams deciding to play thanksgiving games in order to attract veiwers since everyone already had the day off and then the Macy’s day parade on every Thanksgiving day during which they started sales to kick start holiday shopping

Part 2: These interpretations are very similar to what I have come to know as Thanksgiving’s history. The Indians were treated poorly throughout history and the pilgrims didn’t have surplus food to throw a feast, they had been in a famine since they had arrived in Plymouth rock and were lazy, stealing people who wouldn’t work to grow food. I found the first article to be the most compelling because it referred to the governor, William Bradford, and his book about the foundation of the first colony. He went on to explain how the puritans were too entitled to work and as a result starved until they got rid of the commonwealth socialist government and started a system of free trade were everyone was given land and could trade their good for others. Richard J. Maybury was the other of the first article. After delving deeper into the author, I found out that Mr. Maybury has written a series of books (22 to be exact), which focus on economics, history and law. I feel as a well-established author, Maybury is a reliable source because he has written other books about history and should have a good idea on how to gather old information and summarize what happened. Rush Limbaugh stated in his article that the pilgrims had no idea what to do when they got there, couldn’t feed themselves, make houses, keep warm or defend themselves. Limbaugh is a well known politician who pulls a lot of reputation behind his name, he seemed to talk more about how modern thanksgiving is and not about the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving. The next two authors, both of which I could not find their names at the top or bottom of the article, had interesting things to say about the switch from socialism to a free trade which we still see in America today. The socialist commonwealth prevented anyone from getting anything they needed and they were limited to what was necessity.