This Video Shows Why Everything You Know About Thanksgiving Is Wrong

November 25, 2015 / Franchesca Ramsey

Editor’s Note: Since the video was first published, the author has made an addendum correcting some of the language in the video that suggests that Native Americans are no longer around today. You can read her addendum here and find out more about why all racial justice work must address settler colonialism and the myths and untruths that come with it here.

Do you know why the US began celebrating Thanksgiving, what the first one was like, or even where the turkey comes from?

Chances are, what you think about this holiday is all a lie. But don’t worry – with MTV Decoded, Franchesca Ramsey has the truth about Thanksgiving and why we all believe so many myths about it.

She proves a good point about how insulting it is to Indigenous people for us to keep telling these mythical versions of what happened between them and the Pilgrims. And, in usual Chescaleigh style, she’s pretty damn hilarious while she’s at it.

We hope you enjoy this insightful history lesson.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

Speaker 1: I’m thankful for my kindergarten class who made these wonderful crafts to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2: After the Native Americans helped the pilgrims survive their first winter in American, the Puritans invited them to share the first Thanksgiving.

Franchesca: These are adorably wrong.

Speaker 1: A five-year-old made that.

Franchesca: Based off of the lies you taught them. It’s not your fault these are full of half truths and propaganda.

Speaker 4: I thought the Native Americans and pilgrims were besties or whatever?

Franchesca: At best, the pilgrims and the Wampanoag could be described as “political allies.” By the time the pilgrims showed up not only were two thirds of the Massachusetts tribes wiped out by European slave owners and diseases, the pilgrims were constantly at war with the Indigenous people and routinely tortured them.

Speaker 2: What about Squanto, the Native American who learned English to help out the pilgrims?

Franchesca: Actually, he was a slave that was hauled off to Europe and learned English so he could escape.

Speaker 5: But they did celebrate it every year right?

Franchesca: Not exactly. The next one was sixteen years later and unfortunately, it was because the Puritans were celebrating the massacre of the Pequot tribe. Back then Thanksgiving was also for families, specifically murdering them.

Speaker 6: Okay, we get it. History is awful, the Puritans were terrible, and now we have to let our children know that the holidays started with tons of killing. Happy?

Franchesca: We actually have everything wrong with the Thanksgiving myth. They definitely didn’t wear these buckle hats, didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, and as for that turkey…

Speaker 5: Not the turkey.

Franchesca: More like venison, fowl, and eel.

Speaker 1: Oh!

Speaker 4: Who cares about how this stupid holiday got started anyway?

Franchesca: Exactly. In George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving proclamation, the settlers aren’t even mentioned not even one. Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated national wide until 1863 until this guy (shows a picture of Abraham Lincoln) declared it a national holiday during the Civil War to bring the country together. That’s why all of our foods are from the 19th century.

Speaker 1: So Lincoln came up with the whole Indian/Pilgrim story?

Franchesca: No that myth didn’t catch on until the 1900s after we had fought and killed all the Native Americans. And then we put it in the textbooks as fact because: America!

The food is really good and if you ignore all the terrible history like the murdering, the raping, the pillaging, it’s still kind of a good holiday.

Speaker 5: So the Mayflower is a lie?

Speaker 2: Why do we eat cranberry sauce?

Speaker 5: What about stuffing?

Speaker 4: Is Black Friday really just a capitalist conspiracy to get poor people to buy things so we can’t truly live out a populous revolt?

(Everyone speaking over each other)

Franchesca: I’m never telling you the truth ever again.

One historical narrative says the pilgrims were all firing their guns when the Wampanoag tribe just showed up presumably to find out why the white folks were shooting up the place, which is a question that we still ask this very day.

To learn more about this topic, check out:

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Franchesca “Chescaleigh” Ramsey is a graphic designer and video blogger based out of New York City. With over 100k subscribers on her two YouTube channels, Chescaleigh and Chescalocs, she and her videos have been featured on numerous style and entertainment blogs and news publications including MTV, The New York Times, Essence.com, and The BBC. In January 2012, Franchesca had her first viral video “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” which accumulated 1.5 million views in 24 hours, 6 million views in a week and over 9 million views to date. Follow her on Twitter @chescaleigh.