The Economic Importance of the First Thanksgiving

Alison Malisa
3 min readNov 17, 2021

It Was a Potlatch, an Indigenous Economic System Later Outlawed in the United States and Canada

“The First Thanksgiving-1621” by Karen Rinaldo

Thanksgiving Symbolizes a Gift Economy

Thanksgiving, or the coming together by different kinship groups to share abundance, is essentially a potluck. Although the modern American potluck was indeed recently outlawed and then once again legalized in Arizona, apparently for food safety reasons, its Native American relative, the potlatch, has a far more culturally and economically complex and significant history. In spite of borrowing heavily from Indigenous methods of agriculture and self-governance, the potlatch, a major feature of many native economic systems, was destroyed, disrespected, and officially banned from 1884–1951 by missionaries and government agents who considered it “a worse than useless custom.” It was seen as wasteful, unproductive, and contrary to ‘civilized values’ of accumulation.[21] (Wikepedia) As far as European participation in a gift economy went, Thanksgiving was an anomaly, a demonstration of what could have been.

So what was a potlatch? It is complex. Wikipedia says:

A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,[1] among whom it is traditionally the primary governmental institution, legislative body, and economic system.[2]. A potlatch involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to demonstrate a leader’s wealth and power. (Wikipedia)

Written in 1938, during the official ban, an article by an H.G. Barnett, titled The Nature of the Potlatch describes these uncivilized values:

“Virtue rests in publicly demonstrating and disposing of wealth, not in its mere acquisition and accumulation.”

The desire to display wealth, sometimes referred to as conspicuous consumption, is certainly mirrored in our modern “civilized” economy. The action that follows is what demonstrates the level of cultural maturity. One option is to attach and identify with the wealth by keeping it, growing it, and bolstering a sense of safety and security amidst a rising tide of self-perpetuating fear and insecurity. The other option is to redistribute abundance and reaffirm one’s strength as being derived from the group, and one’s prosocial role as being in service to the well-being of the group organism. It is an interesting point of reflection to consider the legacy of cultural virtue we perpetuate when calling together our friends and family to feast.

While it might serve as a great social status boost to display one’s wealth, it was only a source of esteem if the display was for purposes of redistribution. That is, after all, what gives a government power, our faith that the government’s power exists to benefit the common good. (When that trust falters, a large military budget does the trick. While supposedly existing to protect wealth, armies uphold power when accountability for public good is weak or challenged.)

Barnett continues with his prosocial point about what upheld hierarchies in a potlatch economy:

Accumulation in any quantity by borrowing or otherwise is, in fact, unthinkable unless it be for the purpose of an immediate re-distribution….He therefore makes an expenditure of wealth in accordance with the esteem in which he is held or wishes to be held; that is to say, in accordance with the status he holds or presumes to acquire. This is rather a close measure of his own self-esteem, or will tend to become so, for he cannot long support his own self-esteem in the face of the dis-esteem of his fellows.

Esteem was held according to the good you can do for the collective, rather than the “cargo” you’ve successfully acquired for yourself. Interesting.

While Thanksgiving shows us what could have been, perhaps it can also hint at what might be. As we enter into the week of Thanksgiving with everything just a tad more expensive and politically tense around the table, what can we learn from Indigenous cultures, who also inspired the checks and balances inherent in our proudly American contribution to democratic government? Particularly, what can we learn about economic redesign that, rather than hoarding and infinite growth, incentivizes peace, prosperity, regeneration, and wellbeing for all?

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Alison Malisa

EconoWitch||Stirring the pot of Economics Education & Research 4 Peace, Prosperity, Regeneration, and Wellbeing for All. Prosocial||Nature||Salutogenesis