Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong

Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
Blame school textbooks with details often so abridged, softened or out of context
that they are rendered false; children’s books that distill the story to its most pleasant version; or animated Thanksgiving television specials like “The Mouse on the Mayflower,” which first aired in 1968, that not only misinformed a generation, but also enforced a slew of cringeworthy stereotypes.
It’s been taught that the Pilgrims came because they were seeking religious freedom, but that’s not entirely true, Mr. Loewen said.
But it wasn’t until the 1830s that this event was called the first Thanksgiving by New Englanders who looked back
and thought it resembled their version of the holiday, said Kate Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth.
While it is true that a day of thanksgiving was noted in the Massachusetts Bay
and the Plymouth colonies afterward, it is not accurate to say it was the basis for our modern Thanksgiving, Ms. Sheehan said.
It’s kind of coming here against religious freedom.”
Also, the Pilgrims never called themselves Pilgrims.
Not to rain on our Thanksgiving Day parade, but the story of the first Thanksgiving, as most Americans have been taught it, is not exactly accurate.