The Pilgriims

Right, so here’s the goddamn thing about the Pilgrims, those relentlessly pious bastards who apparently invented Thanksgiving and sensible footwear (neither of which is entirely accurate, by the way). You picture them, don’t you? All solemn and black-clad, stepping off the Mayflower onto Plymouth Rock with a profound sense of destiny and, presumably, remarkably dry socks after that oceanic clusterfuck of a voyage. The reality, as is so often the case with history, was likely a far more… well, shitty affair.

First off, the Mayflower. Let’s not romanticize this tub. It was a cramped, leaky, disease-ridden deathtrap. Think of the worst Ryanair flight you’ve ever been on, multiply the discomfort by approximately six months, add the constant threat of drowning and scurvy, and then imagine sharing that delightful experience with a bunch of zealots who probably spent their free time loudly judging your questionable moral fiber. It wasn’t some majestic galleon gliding gracefully across the Atlantic; it was more like a floating latrine powered by hope and a fair amount of desperation.

And then there’s Plymouth Rock. This iconic piece of geological real estate. The very spot where freedom (for some, eventually, after a whole lot of unpleasantness for others) supposedly took root. Except, here’s the kicker: there’s bugger-all contemporary evidence that they actually landed on that specific rock. For all we know, they could have stumbled ashore on a muddy patch of seaweed or tripped over a particularly grumpy crab. The rock itself only became a big deal about a century later, sort of a historical afterthought, a convenient symbol conjured up when people started feeling all nostalgic about their supposedly heroic origins. It’s like claiming your legendary night out started at that specific sticky patch outside O’Malley’s – plausible, maybe, but hardly gospel.

Now, about these Pilgrims themselves. We’re taught this sanitized version of events, this heartwarming tale of religious freedom and peaceful coexistence with the indigenous population. Bollocks. These were a bunch of hardcore separatists, so uptight they probably considered smiling on a Sunday a mortal sin. They weren’t exactly arriving with open arms and a basket of artisanal cheeses for the locals. Their primary goal wasn’t cultural exchange; it was to create their own little theocratic bubble where they could be as judgmental and joyless as they damn well pleased, free from the perceived corruptions of the Church of England. Which, you know, good for them, I guess, if your idea of a good time involves public shaming and the constant fear of eternal damnation.

And the whole Thanksgiving myth? It’s this lovely narrative of Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down for a harmonious feast. Which, while a harvest gathering did happen, was likely more of a pragmatic alliance born out of necessity than some heartwarming display of intercontinental camaraderie. The Wampanoag, bless their cotton socks, probably saw these newcomers as a potentially useful buffer against other, less friendly tribes. The Pilgrims, meanwhile, were probably just grateful for the free grub and the chance to not starve to death during their first brutal winter. The subsequent centuries, with their relentless westward expansion and the systematic screwing-over of the Native American population, tend to get conveniently airbrushed out of the Thanksgiving story, don’t they? It’s like celebrating your lottery win without mentioning the crippling debt you incurred buying the tickets.

It's this weird American tendency, isn't it? This need to take these messy, complicated historical events and sand them down into neat little parables. The Pilgrims become these paragons of virtue, their arrival a glorious dawn of freedom and opportunity. When the truth, if you really dig into the primary sources – those tedious, spidery-handwritten documents that nobody actually reads – is far more nuanced, far more… well, human. Full of fear, prejudice, desperation, and the occasional moment of surprising, albeit probably begrudging, cooperation.

You start to think about the sheer, unutterable contingency of it all. The fact that this whole damn nation, with its sprawling suburbs and its obsession with oversized pick-up trucks and its baffling electoral college, hinged on this relatively small group of deeply weird individuals surviving a truly awful boat trip and then managing to eke out a living in a completely alien environment. It’s almost absurd, the sheer improbability of it. Like imagining the entire future of astrophysics depending on whether one particularly hungover intern manages to correctly calibrate a telescope on a Tuesday morning. The weight of it, the sheer, almost unbearable is-ness of it all, the way that this one specific, rather grubby, set of circumstances unfolded in precisely this way, and not some other infinite possibility… it’s enough to make your head spin, isn’t it? All those other potential timelines, the ones where the Mayflower sank, or the Pilgrims decided to become goat herders in Spain, or the Wampanoag just told them to bugger off back to Europe. The vast, branching, unlived lives…… and here we are, stuck with the slightly sanitized, deeply problematic, and ultimately rather strange legacy of a bunch of religiously intense English people who probably smelled faintly of unwashed wool and existential dread. Happy Thanksgiving, you magnificent bastards. Now pass the gravy.