This Land Is Their Land

September 1, 2019

In celebration of a peace and mutual defense agreement, a Wampanoag delegation led by Ousamequin visited Plymouth during fall 1621 and celebrated what became known as Thanksgiving. In the U.S. mythology, that event was immortalized as the moment when American Indians ceded the New World to Euroamericans. To modern Wampanoag and other American Indian peoples, the day is viewed as one of mourning. Silverman (history, George Washington Univ.; Thundersticks) situates the origins of the Thanksgiving tale within the scope of Wampanoag history, beginning prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims, to illuminate why they would have allied themselves with the floundering Plymouth colony in the first place. The relationship between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag grew quickly strained, leading eventually to the devastation of the tribe during King Philip's War in 1675. Although that event saw Wampanoag nearly erased from history, they continue to express their identity and agency to this day. VERDICT Silverman's reconstruction of the world of the Wampanoag provides fascinating insights for both general readers and scholars into the early years of the colonization of Massachusetts, situating not only Thanksgiving within the nation's history but also the tragedy of King Philip's War.--John R. Burch, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin

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September 16, 2019
George Washington University history professor Silverman (Thundersticks) deconstructs the “Thanksgiving myth” in this revealing study of the 1621 gathering at Plymouth colony between Puritan colonists and Wampanoag Indians that inspired the holiday. A confederation of local tribes, the Wampanoag had recently been decimated by an infectious disease brought by Europeans (Wampanoags credited the epidemic to supernatural causes) and were under threat from their rivals, the Narragansett. Wampanoag chief Ousamequin entered into a “mutual defense pact” with the Pilgrims, Silverman writes, and brought 90 men to the colonists’ fall harvest celebration in order to help cement the agreement. But an influx of settlers in the decades following the 1629 establishment of Massachusetts Bay Colony led to increased tensions and occasional outbursts of violence between natives and Pilgrims, setting the stage for King Philip’s War in 1675. That brutal conflict shifted the balance of power in the region so dramatically, Silverman notes, that the Wampanoag were nearly wiped out over the next two centuries. Silverman sketches the Wampanoag story up to the present day, giving voice to such tribal activists as Frank James, who declared Thanksgiving a “National Day of Mourning” in 1970. This lucidly written and convincingly argued account of the most “American” of traditions deserves to be read widely.

October 1, 2019
An impassioned, deeply knowledgeable history of the "first contacts" between the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the English and Europeans, this time told from the Native side. A scholar of Native American, Colonial, and racial history in America, Silverman (History/George Washington Univ.; Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America, 2016, etc.) first orients readers toward what the landing Pilgrim scouts at Cape Cod in November 1620 would have actually seen in the environs: evidence of an undeniable Native civilization. As the author shows, the Wampanoag Indians had already adopted horticulture (maize, beans, squash); created a system of governance via individual sachems (chiefs), inherited through the male line; and established proprietorship of the land stretching back generations. Moreover, there had already been a history of violence between the Natives and the shipboard European explorers for at least 100 years, as the explorers often lured the Natives into unfair trade, which often led to violence, and spread fatal diseases that decimated their population. "The ease of some of the Wampanoags with the English," writes the author, "suggests that there had been other more recent contacts than surviving documents report. At Martha's Vineyard, thirteen armed men approached the Concord without any fear, as if they had experience with such situations." Throughout this well-documented, unique history, Silverman offers a detailed look at the long, tortured relations between the two and captures the palpable sense of overall mourning after the aftermath of King Philip's War and the attempt to annihilate (and assimilate) the Wampanoags--and their incredible ability to transcend the dehumanization and prevail. Ultimately, the author provides an important, heart-rending story of the treachery of alliances and the individuals caught in the crosshairs, a powerful history that clearly "exposes the Thanksgiving myth as a myth rather than history." Silverman also includes a helpful "Glossary of Key Indian People and Places." An eye-opening, vital reexamination of America's founding myth.

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Starred review from October 15, 2019
Much of how non-Native Americans imagine the first Thanksgiving is wrong. Most importantly, the alliance between Wampanoags and pilgrims was not forged in a political and historical vacuum, as portrayed by generations of pageants. Focusing on the Wampanoag and their Native American neighbors in New England, historian Silverman (Thundersticks, 2016) repositions the Wampanoag-pilgrim relationship within the region's history and brings its complexity to life. New England had already been disrupted by European visitors when the pilgrims arrived, and the Wampanoag, devastated by a mysterious plague, allied themselves with the newcomers to survive in the region's complex political and economic ecosystem. This relationship persisted for half a century, even as the immigrants became rapacious colonizers. Instead of the first Thanksgiving, which Silverman presents as a minor event, the pivotal moment was Metacom's War (1675-76), an attempt by a desperate coalition of Native peoples to push the English out of New England. They failed, but so, too, did later English (and American) attempts to erase the Wampanoag from the region. Linking this history to a present in which New England Indians observe a Day of Mourning on the third Thursday in November, Silverman's highly recommended work enlightens as it calls into question persistent myths about the origins of Thanksgiving.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)