Samantha Vuignier/Corbis via Getty Images I recognize it as a chance for my family to come together as survivors, pretty much in defiance.A postcard from 1912 depicts goodwill and cooperation between Native Americans and colonists. вЂњThanksgiving tells a story that is convenient for Americans,вЂќ Keeler said. Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux who lives in Oregon, observes Thanksgiving with her family but doesnвЂ™t think of it as a national holiday the way the rest of the country does. Many Native Americans have long marked Thanksgiving as a day of somber remembrance.

War exploded in 1675, years after Massasoit and Bradford died and power fell to their successors.

The arrival of new settlers prompted a fight for land and rising animosity. Up to 25,000 Englishmen landed in the New World between 16, after a plague drastically cut the native population by whatвЂ™s believed to be more than half, he said. Abraham Lincoln officially declared Thanksgiving a national holiday by proclamation in 1863.Д®arly European colonizers and Native Americans lived in peace through a symbiotic relationship for about 10 years until thousands of additional settlers arrived, Pickering said. It showed вЂњtwo communities that are diplomatically connected coming together,вЂќ said Richard Pickering, Plimoth PlantationвЂ™s deputy executive director. Still, it is said to be the inspiration behind the now traditional annual gathering and a testament to the cooperation of two groups of people. ThereвЂ™s no evidence that the 1621 feast was called Thanksgiving, and the event was not repeated for at least a decade, experts say. Winslow said Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people, contributed five deer to the dinner. There was a вЂњgreat store of wild turkeysвЂќ to be eaten, as well as ducks and geese, wrote Bradford, who was the governor. Venison headlined the meal, although there was a healthy selection of fowl and fish, according to the Pilgrim Hall Museum, which cited writings by Plymouth leaders Edward Winslow and William Bradford. вЂњIt takes so long to get somewhere, that once you get there you stay a while,вЂќ she said. The nearest village of native Wampanoag people traveled on foot for about two days to attend, Wall said. The festivities went on for three days, according to primary accounts. The English likely ate off of tables, while the native people dined on the ground. They most likely ran races and shot at marks as forms of entertainment, Wall said. No one knows exactly what prompted the two groups to dine together, but there were at least 90 native men and 50 Englishmen present, according to Kathleen Wall, a colonial foodways culinarian at Plimoth Plantation. After the Pilgrims successfully harvested their first crops in autumn 1621, at least 140 people gathered to eat and partake in games, historians say. The Wampanoag Indians who attended the first Thanksgiving had occupied the land for thousands of years and were key to the survival of the colonists during the first year they arrived in 1620, according to the National Museum of the American Indian. Here are five things we know about the first Thanksgiving:

Pilgrims first thanksgiving