Thanksgiving was a week ago. But anyway…

When the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock 388 years ago, they were full of sick and hungry souls. While remarkably only one had died on board, which was balanced by a birth, about half of them died from disease and hunger within their first few months on the land of what is now the United States. When Squanto found them in the autumn of 1621, they were in a pitiful state, their English crops having failed in the new climate.

Luckily, Squanto spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them, regardless of the fact that his only experience with Europeans in his native land had been their slave traders raiding his village — our history books expectedly neglect to mention this. Squanto and his tribe, the Wampanoags, still showed compassion, not because the Pilgrims reciprocated — in fact, also left out of our textbooks, they believed that Squanto was a heathen, only offering help because he was an instrument of God, who used him to save His “chosen people” — but because native Americans were givers.

Thus Squanto and his people, as we learned in our early days of school, helped the Pilgrims survive, and this is what we should have given thanks for last week — although turkey, football and family were likely what most thought about on what has become an overly romanticized and commercial Thursday.

But while giving this thanks — which I do not contend that we should forego — we should also consider what our history books compel us to ignore. Just as many Americans now think of a commercialized Christmas as a day to give and get presents rather than a day to give thanks for the birth of Jesus Christ, our thoughts on Thanksgiving are quite narrow and miss much of the story.

So let us consider that the Pilgrims and all of those who followed brought devastating diseases that wiped out and made a minority of the people who were once an overwhelming majority in this country.

Let us consider that nearly all of those natives who did not succumb to disease were either killed in wars or forcibly relegated to reservations, which represent the starkest possible opposite to their previous relationship with this country’s land.

Let us consider the hundreds of broken contracts that were made over “firewater” and peace pipes.

Let us consider, above all, what this most celebratory of holidays means to the meager number of native Americans who are left in the United States that was taken from their forefathers.

Of course, I recognize that I may be too late for Thanksgiving, but Christmas is just around the corner. It too is a holiday that has lost its meaning. So enjoy the eggnog, the gifts, the family, and “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” but, as should have been done on Thanksgiving, don’t forget to think a bit on what the holiday is really about.

— Steve Adams is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Annapolis, Md.