Thanksgiving 2024 Versus 1692

I’m not sure how many people sit around the Thanksgiving table pondering their 17th-century ancestors, but this year, I can’t help thinking about mine, Thomas Hinckley. Now, before you start picturing some Thanksgiving Hall of Fame plaque in my dining room, let me clarify. Hinckley wasn’t exactly a household name, even in his own day. But his story, the last governor of the Plymouth Colony, offers a lesson we desperately need in this current moment—one about leadership, sacrifice, and the fine art of knowing when to let go.

Thomas Hinckley, for those who don’t have an ancestral claim to Plymouth Rock (or a willingness to bore their family with colonial history over pie), was the guy who looked at his beloved, struggling Plymouth Colony in 1691 and said, essentially, “We can’t go on like this.” Facing economic hardship, political irrelevance, and the overbearing shadow of the English Crown, he made the almost unthinkable decision; he gave it all up. Merged Plymouth with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Let go of his title, his authority, and the independence that the colony had cherished for 71 years.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I struggle to relinquish control of the TV remote, let alone a colony. Yet here was Grandfather Thomas, realizing that holding on wasn’t helping anyone. Merging with Massachusetts Bay brought stability, military strength, and a shot at something greater. It wasn’t flashy or popular, but it worked. The guy even stepped aside as governor without making it about him. Imagine that.

So here I am, centuries later, getting ready for my family to come and break Thanksgiving bread, wondering what old Thomas would think of us now. Today. Thanksgiving. What would he make of a world where clinging to power seems to be the only play in the handbook? Where compromise feels like a dirty word and relinquishing control is seen as weakness? My ancestor’s choice feels like it’s from another planet—where leadership wasn’t about Twitter followers or mic drops, but about actual stewardship.

It’s tempting to use Thomas Hinckley as a way to wag my finger at modern leaders. But then I remember the real point of his story, knowing what you can control and what you can’t. Thomas Hinckley couldn’t stop the tides of change—or the English Crown—but he could make a decision about how to navigate them. And maybe that’s where we all come in, as individuals in this messy, divided moment. On this day. To take a moment and recognize what has been lost, and let that go, and focus on what we can do moving forward.

This Thanksgiving, I’m trying to take a page from his book. I can’t control the news cycle, which right now I don’t follow at all, or what some politician tweets at 3 a.m., but I can decide how I show up in my own little world. I can draw that line in the sand, hold it steady, and commit to what’s right in front of me: my family, my community, my actions. Change happens one person at a time, one choice at a time, one well-timed relinquishment of the metaphorical remote at a time. (You’re welcome, family.) We are not without agency. Our forefathers made sure of it. It’s now about knowing how and when to use it.

So here’s to Thomas Hinckley, the governor who gave it all up for something bigger. And here’s to us, trying to figure out when to hold on and when to let go. If we can get that balance right, maybe—just maybe—we’ll save this place one human at a time. Please pass the gravy.

Happy Thanksgiving fellow Americans. Every single one of you.