Thanksgiving Day is the most treasured holiday in the United States.

Work comes to a halt as families gather, eat turkey and count their blessings. A presidential proclamation sanctifies the day.

Thanksgiving Day celebrates the Pilgrim colony�s survival of their first winter in New England after they arrived aboard the Mayflower in 1620. In reality, the English colonists were able to avoid starvation because the Wampanoug nation generously shared their corn and meat with the newcomers, and taught them useful wilderness skills.

In 1621, Gov. William Bradford of Plymouth proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving�not giving thanks to the Wampanougs, but to his colonists and their omnipotent God.

Bradford�s spin: Christian colonists had staved off hunger through their own courage, efforts and devotion. This mixture of arrogance, impudence and rudeness stands as an early example of "Eurothink."

For European colonists, people of color�no matter how much they helped�didn�t deserve recognition or mention.

Gov. Bradford and those who followed in his footsteps also cast the first Thanksgiving as an example of fellowship by claiming that Pilgrims and Wampanougs shared bread, turkey and other treats. The English, so this version goes, invited the Native Americans to dinner. Since the English classified Indians as inferiors and infidels, if invited the kindly Wamp-anougs were probably asked to serve, not share, the food.

As the English gained military strength, they rejected friendship. One night in 1637, without provocation, Gov. Bradford, as commander of the colony, dispatched his militia against his dark-skinned neighbors. A devout Christian who saw his colonists locked in mortal combat with heretics, he sent his soldiers to conduct a surprise assault on sleeping men, women and children in a Pequot Indian village. Gov. Bradford used these words to describe his night of fire and death:

"It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and stench thereof. But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they [the Massachusetts militiamen] gave praise thereof to God."

Gov. Bradford appears in U.S. history texts as a hero who helped the Pilgrims survive. The popular Dictionary of American History summarized his rule in these words:

"He was a firm, determined man and an excellent leader; kept relations with the Indians on friendly terms; tolerant toward newcomers and new religions. ..."

Another U.S. textbook hero, the Rev. Increase Mather, the Puritans� minister, called on his congregation to give thanks to God for the attack "that on this day we have sent 600 heathen souls to hell."

The Mayflower, renamed the Meijbloom (Dutch for Mayflower), also continued to make history. In May 1657, it carried a crucial message to Amsterdam that their new South African colony needed supplies. Sailing from Africa the Mayflower became one of the first ships to carry enslaved Africans to the West Indies.