Regardless of where you stand on the question of admitting Syrian refugees into the United States, there is a certain undeniable irony in watching this heated political debate unfold during Thanksgiving, a national holiday centered around (symbolically, at least) concepts of gratitude, benevolence and coexistence.
The main protagonists of the Thanksgiving story — the Pilgrims — were, after all, refugees themselves. Among the roughly 100 passengers who set sail aboard the Mayflower in 1620 in search of a better life, about a third were members of the radical Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church. The group had illegally ceded from the Church of England in 1607 and fled religious persecution, heading first to the Netherlands and then on to the New World.
Although aiming for an area near the Hudson River, the ship ultimately landed on the shores of Cape Cod in what is modern-day Massachusetts, where its passengers founded the Plymouth Colony. The first winter was a rough one: nearly half the colony died from starvation and inadequate shelter.
But, as the story goes, the group acquired crucial agricultural advice and survival skills from the area’s native inhabitants, and by the fall of 1621, had managed to scrape together enough food to at least marginally sustain themselves. The colony famously celebrated a harvest feast with members of the Pokanoket tribe , an event considered the basis for today’s Thanksgiving holiday.
Of course, the arrival of the newcomers didn’t bode too well for the Pokanoket’s, part of the larger Wampanoag Nation, whose population was rapidly decimated, largely due smallpox and other diseases imported by the colonists.
As left-leaning comedian John Oliver noted recently on his HBO show Last Week Tonight, it was really the only influx of refugees in American history that had a significantly detrimental impact on the people already living here.
“Every generation has had its own ugly reaction to refugees … And those fears have been broadly unfounded,” he said. “In fact, there was only one time in American history when the fear of refugees wiping everyone out did actually come true, and we’ll all be sitting around a table celebrating it on Thursday.”
A bit of food for thought as you gather for your Thanksgiving feast.