Pile up the mashed potatoes, grab an array of dark and white meat, take a bit of Grandma’s goopy green bean casserole to be polite, and a dollop of cranberry sauce for color. Now, smother it all in piping hot gravy. Thanksgiving is here and a healthy helping of gravy sure can make it easier to swallow the romanticized reinvention of history that has come to define this holiday.

Every Thanksgiving comes with a certain level of apprehension. Will there be enough turkey? Did you remember everyone’s food allergies? Is Grandpa going to bring his late-life love interest?

Anytime you get the entire extended family together it’s sure to be a colorful event. Maybe Uncle Tom will get drunk too early and break out some dirty jokes at extremely inappropriate times. The one he told last year about the alligator and the prostitute was a classic.

However inappropriate, it’s far more entertaining than Grandma’s racist ranting about the liberal loons wreaking havoc on America as she blows smoke from her Marlboro out her nose.

Behind the hullaballoo though, there is a great American tradition. One mythologized as a testament to the resiliency of America’s first settlers. It’s often remembered as a supreme act of pragmatism. A moment when Pilgrims and Native American’s came together in harmony and settled an agreement to peacefully co-exist.

It’s a nice story from which to build such a great and enduring cultural custom. But as often is with American history, the true story is far more nuanced and much less laudable.

Typical lore explains that Squanto, a Native American leader of the Patuxet tribe graciously taught the Pilgrims all they needed to know about the land they occupied to sustain themselves through the brutal New England winters.

In celebration of a successful harvest the year after their first harsh winter, the pilgrims held a feast at which Squanto negotiated a peace treaty between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe, a tributary of the Patuxet. All parties would share all they had, and the people of earth would co-exist. Everyone agreed and they feasted on fowl and grain, of which the Indians provided the majority.

This is more or less all factually true, but it’s more gravy than the meat and potatoes of the story.

What most American history books leave out is that Squanto was one of the last remaining members of the ravaged Patuxet tribe. Those that weren’t massacred or sold into slavery were mostly wiped out by small pox and disease.

With no concept of “land ownership,” the natives had welcomed the new settlers to harvest the bounties of the earth as they had for hundreds of years. In typical American fashion the pilgrims took, exploited, and destroyed whatever lay in their path to prosperity.

The terms of the treaty were conveniently forgotten almost immediately and the massacre of the Native people continued. Fueled by rigid puritanical fundamentalism, the years following the mythologized first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock were marked by unrelenting bloodshed and indiscriminate murder at the hands of the colonists.

Two years after the fabled first celebration in 1621, a colony elder was chosen to give the ritual Thanksgiving sermon at Plymouth. In it, Mather the Elder gave special thanks to God for the plague of smallpox that wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag Indians who had been the main cause of their survival in the New World. Apparently a delusional holy war to root out evil in all of its incarnations took precedence over a faux treaty with their charitable benefactors.

Thanksgiving today has become a revered occasion for family and friends to congregate and give thanks for the countless blessings they enjoy. It’s truly an occasion far removed from its morbid roots.

With loved ones gathered near, good food and bountiful drink, it might be askew to deride the tradition itself for it’s dark beginnings 400 years ago. But it must be recognized that while some see turkey, parades and football, for many citizens Thanksgiving is an annual reminder of the ruthless persecution of their ancestors.

The rest of us, regardless of skin color or ancestry would also do well to recognize this fact of history. Realizing the truth about our country’s origins is vital to Americans’ conception of themselves and how they purport their position in the world.

As you sit down to eat this Thanksgiving, it’s worth wondering whether the holiday’s remorseful genesis overshadows the benefits of its later embodiments. Ask your family and friends. If nothing else, generational differences should make for an interesting discussion before you flip on the TV for some football and recess into a tryptophan induced coma.

And if Grandma starts to dial up the racism, just politely ask her to pass the gravy.

Kyle Mianulli ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in philosophy, political science and journalism