By Dee Jae Cox
The history of Thanksgiving, like many historical events, is convoluted. American schools teach that in 1621, the Wampanoag people supported and joined the English Colonists for a Harvest Celebration, as the settlers struggled to prepare for their first long winter in Plymouth Massachusetts.
Most Indigenous people have a much different perspective of that event. For them, Thanksgiving is often a day of mourning, the beginning of genocide and the subsequent theft of their land.
When I was about nine years old, a neighbor boy by the name of Ricky Morales, (Everyone called him Chunky Monkey,) grabbed my basketball and claimed that the ball now belonged to him because “possession was 9/10ths of the law.” I had no idea what that meant. The ball belonged to me. I told my father, whose sage advice was to “go steal it back.”
Ignoring that option, I decided to confront the problem. Knocking as hard as I could on the door of the yellow house, a woman I presumed to be his mother, answered. Before she could speak, I said, “Chunky Monkey stole my ball and I want it back.” I wasn’t sure if the disturbed look on her face was because of my accusation or the fact that I had called her son, Chunky Monkey. She called him to the door and there he stood holding my ball under his arm.
“Did you take her ball?” his mother asked. “No.” He replied. “It’s my ball. Possession is 9/10ths of the law.” Her eyes narrowed, “And who possessed this ball before you took it?” He shrugged without a verbal response. She took the ball, handed it to me and closed the door. I heard her begin to yell at him and I felt a sense of accomplishment.
Later when I learned what “Possession is 9/10ths of the law” actually meant, it occurred to me how much of our history had operated with this sense of entitlement. It’s not a formal legal doctrine, it’s a proverb that means physical possession of an item often gives the possessor a stronger claim or presumption of ownership.
Land has historically been taken and claimed merely through possession. State by state, settlers moved across North America claiming lands that were already occupied by Indigenous people. Most Americans know that the 9/10th rule is how the United States came to exist. Take possession and claim it as your own.
Celebrating the acquisition of a country through the 9/10th possession rule does not make for the ideal holiday. Thanksgiving was not even recognized as a national celebration until 1863 when magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, led a campaign for it to become a national holiday. In the midst of a Civil War, President Lincoln, sought to do what most great leaders do, find a way to bring unity and peace. In an effort to celebrate gratitude and unity, he agreed to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Rather than the celebration of the 9/10th’s rule of taking possession of other people’s land, President Lincoln’s intention of recognizing gratitude and unity is what should be remembered and honored. In times of painful civil discord, such as what Americans are once more facing, let’s be reminded of what a great leader once said.
“It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving… And I recommend to them that… all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”
—- President Abraham Lincoln.
