The last time I wrote one of these, I talked about my family fighting in the Revolutionary War. There are some good stories to share from that, and it was fun to write. So with today being Thanksgiving, I want to talk about two groups of ancestors that I am proud to be descended from. The first group is people that were Pilgrims, and the second group is my Native American heritage.
My 13th great grandfather, Richard Adams, and his wife Mary Carver are listed on the registry for Mayflower Births and Deaths. John West was the father of my 9th great-grandfather Col. John West, who became the second Governor of Jamestown. This family also is responsible for the land that has become known as West Point. My 10th great grandmother Anne Claiborne (166), and my 8th great grandmother, Mary Burgain (1695) were born in Jamestown. And my 10th great grandmother Elizabeth Yeardley died in Jamestown in 1636.
Captain John Clay came to Jamestown, Virginia aboard the "Treasurer," in 1613. A soldier in the British army, John gained the rank of Captain by the age of 21 and was sent to Virginia to control problems developing in the area. Clay, known as, "The English Grenadier" was put in charge of the fifty Musketeers aboard Captain Samuel Argal's ship, the Treasurer which was sent to protect the settlers in Jamestown. Captain Clay eventually became sympathetic to the cause of the settlers and resigned his military post.
Perhaps the best way to transition between Pilgrim's and Native American ancestors is looking at my 9th great grandfather Simon Willard. In some biographies, I have seen him argued to be the most important single individual to the founding of Concord. Simon made friends with the Native American's and learned to speak their language so that he could do business with them. He is recorded as a very honest man, who never cheated them, and they trusted him; so there was never any trouble between them, and that led to the naming of our town because the settlers lived in peace and harmony and "Con-Cord" with the native people. In negotiating for the land that would become the town of Concord, one thing that he did was make sure that the Native American's could keep their hunting rights which were very important to them.
My Native American heritage is a bit less firmly rooted than my connections to Jamestown. There are many instances where we appear to be tied to this people group, but we do not appear on the registries or rolls, in essence, I can't prove it. Such is the case with my 5th great grandmother Mary Short, a Cherokee woman who was so named because she was of a diminutive stature. However, we do know that her husband, Nimrod Brewer marched on The Trail of Tears with her. He sent three of his sons ahead to buy land in Missouri, but 10 family members still died on the journey.
Alabeth Freeman is another such case. I believe the history that says she was of Choctaw descent but I cannot demonstrate it conclusively. The story is that she went from Missouri to register in Mississippi. However, when she was prepared to sign up, the military man in charge was evidently drunk and in a rather boorish mood, as such she left before registering, quite offended. She does appear on MCR 7113 filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs though. She and her husband Aaron were among the first 10 homesteaders to settle in Douglas county Missouri.
The one connection that I do not remotely question is my 13th great grandmother. The Princess Matoaka. She died as Rebecca Rolfe, but is best known as Pocahontas. Her father was chief Powhatan of the Algonquin tribe. The story of her saving John Smith is legendary. But she also became the first Native American to convert to Christianity. This was not necessarily the peaceful conversion some would mythologize it to be. She traveled to England where she did meet King James I and the royal family. However, she died while preparing to return to America.
It isn't popular today to really celebrate Thanksgiving that much. We take the day off and overeat, but it seems more and more like we are more interested in the holiday sales than in actually giving thanks. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that we've decided to revise our understanding of the historical context of the day. In some circles, we are now considered to be celebrating the oppression of indigenous people groups, and if that were so that would be quite wrong. I say revisionist history because it ignores the role of Tisquantum in helping the colonists survive. True, it might not have been the fairy tale version of Thanksgiving that lives in our cultural mythology. Neither of these simplistic narratives really paints the full picture.
The second reason the holiday might be struggling is that the nature of this holiday is innately religious and distinctly American. Neither of those things seems to be all that popular to celebrate being in this day and age. The idea was that you were going to thank God for the bounty he had blessed you with. I'm unaware of another society that has created a holiday specifically for the purpose of being grateful. But today I am very grateful. I am grateful for the good Christian gal I have in my life. I am grateful to have enjoyed the day with my family and a fantastic feast prepped by my sister. I am grateful for the job I have been given that lets me live and even enjoy some extras. And I am grateful that my ancestors came together to celebrate this day. My heritage is a mixture of the two parties at work for the first thanksgiving, and I am thankful for that blessing. I am proud to be an American, to live in a land where I can openly be grateful for the blessings God has given me. And I am proud of the heritage I have from those that came to this land and those that welcomed them.
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