Thanksgiving, the getting together of family and friends to laugh and share memories that the whole group can not help but smile at. Mounds and mounds of food will leave the whole family with full stomachs and tired eyes.

However, many forget, or lack the knowledge of, the story behind this holiday. If someone were to think that the whole story of the first Thanksgiving was as simple as Christopher Columbus voyaging over to the New World, and the Pilgrims, big belt buckles and all, sitting down with the Indians for one big feast, that person thought wrong.

The Manataka American Indian Council (MAIC), an assembly that exists to preserve and protect Manataka, which is known as the Place of Peace, said that this event did take place, but it only took place once.

According to the MAIC, a group of English explorers landed in the territory of the Patuxet Indians, and the explorers rounded them up, then set sail back home, leaving behind smallpox for those who managed to escape boarding the ship. Only one of the Patuxet survived, and was the Indian who Columbus met when the English landed in Massachusetts Bay. What is known as the “First Thanksgiving” did occur after this. With the years that followed, the new settlers murdered 700 natives in just one day, being unarmed men, women and children alike. The colonists attacked village after village, these “thanksgiving” feasts being held after each massacre. Boats headed back to the ports of New England carrying 500 enslaved Native Americans at a time.

This brutality is what Americans celebrate every year, unknowingly. Thanks to Christopher Columbus, the “discoverer” of the New World, the holiday known as the blessing of the harvest is celebrating the deaths of thousands of Native Americans, and the conquering of their lands that English settlers unrightfully took.

While the event known as the “First Thanksgiving” did happen, it was not the first. According to The Jacksonville Historical Society, a non-profit organization in Jacksonville, Florida that maintains an archive of historical events open to the public, with tens of thousands of documents, photographs, rare books and architectural artifacts relating to Jacksonville-area history, Spanish conquistadors were exploring the region now known as Florida, soon after Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.

Eventually the Spanish created a civilization, and in 1565, more conquistadors landed to settle. Upon landing, they were greeted by the Timucuan Indians, Native Americans who occupied the village of Seloy.

The Spanish set up a makeshift altar to celebrate the first Christian Mass on American soil, and shared this moment with the Native Americans in attempt to spread Catholic faith. Afterwards, the actual first Thanksgiving took place in celebration of  safe arrival of the Spanish and as a welcome to their land. The “first Thanksgiving” in Plymouth took place 56 years later.

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving for the right reasons, but praise yet another historical figure that society blows up to be a great being. In reality, however, Christopher Columbus is nothing better than a murderer who pillaged and plundered in order to receive kudos for something that had already been done.