To the editor:

As Thanksgiving approaches, I’d like to talk about Thanksgiving truthfully.

As an educator’s son, I hear firsthand about what’s being taught about Thanksgiving. Progress has been made. This progress isn’t enough.

The colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were once home to the Massachuset, Niantic, Nipmuc, Narragansett, Nauset, Pequot, Mohegan and Wampanoag peoples. These people are still there.

The Wampanoag people had contact when the colonists kidnapped Squanto in 1615, and returned him in 1619. He later interpreted between Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader, and the colonists. Squanto died in 1622 of smallpox. Massasoit made overtures of peace as the colonists and their tribal allies all but exterminated the Pequot people between 1636-1639. Massasoit passed on leadership to Metacom, his son. To further gain domain, the colonists disarmed the Wampanoags by legal decree. As the colonists spread smallpox among those people who’d helped the Pilgrims earlier, Metacom led the Waubnake Confederacy against the colonists fighting in the Metacom, or King Phillips War of 1676-79. At war’s end, Metacom was captured, tortured, murdered and shown as a colonial war trophy. His family and people became slaves.

The Wampanoag people later uncovered a 1680s colonial decree celebrating thanks to all those who exterminated the Indians. They came forward with this in 1970. Currently, one group of Cape Cod Mashpee Wampanoags can’t be recognized by a government they predate. Teachers, please teach this version of Thanksgiving, not the one I unlearned.

Mike Ford,

Lawrence