Stephanie, nice slap down. I’m sure he was mostly joking, though.

There is no reason to believe that the 1621 ‘letters’ were faked, the role of Thanksgiving in the 19th c. and later period post hoc nicification of anglo-native relations notwithstanding.

I mean, seriously, if you think the last few pages of Mourt’s relation was faked to make the colonialist-native relationships look good,try reading the first few pages to see how long that hypothesis lasts. I recommend the originals of all these sources, not the Wikipedia version. Bradford is a bit of a slog, but Mourt is a fast read.

Conflating the 17th century meaning of “Thanksgiving” with the feasting as though it (the days of prayer declared after a bad weather event, massacre, burning of witches, whatever) abysmally incorrect. The same word is being used in utterly different places with utterly different meanings.

In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared â??A Day Of Thanksgivingâ? because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.

Cheered by their â??victoryâ?, the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.

Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of â??thanksgivingâ? to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts â?? where it remained on display for 24 years.

The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre.

Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War â?? on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.

Source.

You are quite right that Thanksgiving is not a ‘harvest festival’. It is, and has always been, a celebration of Native American genocide. It was only when that became no longer acceptable to speak of openly that the ‘harvest festival’ mythology and the 1621 letters were drafted to cover up the truth.