Thread by @EzhmaarSul

Threadly Reminder that the mainstream narrative on #Thanksgiving is completely false.

The Pilgrims were first attacked by the Indians; not the other way around. The Pilgrims always sought to maintain peace.

Let's look at this story through the life of Myles Standish.

Standish was an English mercenary hired by the Pilgrims to be their military advisor. He was not a Puritan himself.

He was a landowner in England who had fought in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War.

The Pilgrims originally wanted John Smith, but he was too expensive

Captain Standish and his wife, Rose, thus became some of the few non-Dissenters on the Mayflower voyage. Standish was one of the 41 men who signed the Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower anchored on November 11, 1620. The Pilgrims numbered 100 individuals.

On December 11, 1620, Standish led an expedition of 18 men to shore.

It was during this expeditions that they made their First Encounter with Indians.

A group of Indians attacked them in the night without provocation. They were driven off without casualties.

The Pilgrims decided to settle in Plymouth Bay in late December, and the first winter is now legendary. Of the 100 pilgrims, 50 settlers died, including Standish's wife, Rose.

There were continued sightings of Indians, and Standish organized a militia in February of 1621.

The Pilgrims finally made contact with the Indians in March of 1621 when Samoset, an English-speaking Indian, arrived as envoy of Massasoit, the chief of the Pokanoket tribe. A treaty of alliance was signed between the Pokanoket and Plymouth colony.

The Pokanokets were often preyed upon by stronger tribes like the Massachusetts and Narragansetts, and they saw the Pilgrims as an unlikely ally.

Squanto replaced Samoset and became a close friend to the Pilgrims; teaching them how to survive in the New World.

The first violence broke out between the Pilgrims and Indians when hostile Indians led by Corbitant, a rival of Massasoit, took Squanto captive, intending to kill him.

Standish led a nighttime raid to rescue Squanto. Although two Indians were shot in the fighting, none died.

In November of 1621 an envoy of the Narraganset arrived in Plymouth with a bundle of arrows wrapped in snakeskin.

Squanto translated: this was an insult and a threat of war.

The Narraganset and Massachusetts now saw the Pilgrims as friends of Massasoit, i.e., their enemies

In March 1623, as more settlers were arriving in New England, Massasoit warned Plymouth Colony of a plan by the Massachusetts to wipe out Plymouth Colony.

Standish initiated a pre-emptive strike; killing the leaders of the Massachusetts plot with the help of the Pokanokets.

Standish cut the head off of the leader of the plot and brought it back to Plymouth. The brutality of the action scattered the Indians for several years.

He continued as Plymouth's military captain, but sought a quieter life after marrying his wife, Barbara, in 1624.

A half-century of peace was maintained between the Pilgrims and Indians - until the death of this first generation. Standish died in 1656. Bradford in 1657. Massasoit in 1662.

Peace would be broken not by the Pilgrims, but by Massasoit's son, Metacom, also known as King Philip.

King Philip's War was a Race War. King Philip intended to kill all of the white men in New England - a complete reversal on the peace maintained by his father.

Philip was not Massasoit's chosen successor, but his elder brother died suddenly, allowing his succession.

Ironically, the violence began with murder of an Indian by Indians. Josh Sassomon, an Indian convert to Christianity, learned of Philip's plans and tried to warn the Pilgrims.

Sassomon was killed by Philip's partisans. The murderers were caught, tried, convicted, and executed.

Even though the jury was made up of twelve Englishmen and six Indians, Philip used this trial and execution of his men as pretext to launch a war of all-against-all, as Chief of the Pokanokets and High Chief of the Wampanoag Confederacy, against all English: men, women, children.

More than half of the 110 towns in New England were attacked. Twelve were completely destroyed. However, this war also saw the birth of "New England" as an identity, as the various colonies needed to band together to form a militia capable of resisting Indian attacks.

As is often the story in the early wars in the New World, the tide was turned by Indian allies.

King Philip went south with his army, seeking to enlist more Indians for his race war. Unfortunately for Philip, he entered the territory of his long-time rivals, the Mohawks.

Rather than join Philip, the Mohawks ambushed and obliterated his army. Philip escaped, but events had turned against him. His allies abandoned him, and the Colonists gained ground.

He was eventually hunted down and killed by a raiding party led by Josiah Standish, Myles' son

In another irony, King Philip was shot by John Alderman, one of the Indian members of Standish's hunting party.

I post this thread because American history is often taught as "Thanksgiving, then 1776" skipping over the 150 of diplomacy and conflict in the years in between.

This leads to many people to uncritically accept ignorant and anti-white narratives about the Pilgrims "stealing land" and "murdering Indians" when it could not be further from the truth.

The Pilgrims fled religious persecution. They wanted peace and harmony, not war.

Every incident of violence in the history of the Pilgrims was initiated by Indian aggression, and the Pilgrims maintained peace with the Pokanoket for fifty years.

So, next time someone caterwauls about Thanksgiving, tell him to shove it up his ass.
And remember Myles Standish.