Last Thanksgiving, I wrote a post about the first Thanksgiving, you can read that here. If you’ve read it then you probably know that the first Thanksgiving certainly wasn’t what we learned about as kids in school. It was very different. You may be wondering, why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Or did they eat turkey and pie at the first Thanksgiving, like we do today? Or why does the President pardon a turkey each Thanksgiving?
We all know the basics but the first Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly what many of us think it was…
1. The Native Americans (Wampanoags) and the Pilgrims weren’t exactly friendly at first – When the pilgrims first arrived in Cape Cod, they were extremely unprepared. They weren’t prepared for the cold New England winters and they didn’t bring nearly enough food. Things got pretty desperate pretty quickly and the Pilgrims ended up robbing corn from Native American graves and storehouses. Even with the stolen food, their lack of preparation left half of them
2. European explorers brought diseases that wiped out the Native population – essentially these deaths allowed the Pilgrims to settle in Plymouth. These Europeans explorers who sailed to New England in the early 1610s found thriving communities along the coast. And no room for themselves to settle. However, by 1620, when the Mayflower arrived, the area looked abandoned because of diseases wiping out major portions of the Native populations.
3. The great harvest feast (that we now call Thanksgiving) was cooked by 4 women – The food that was prepared for the 140ish Pilgrims and Native Americans to feast upon to celebrate the first successful harvest was prepared by four undoubtedly stressed women. All other women that made the journey on the Mayflower had died by the time fall rolled around that year. As mentioned above, the pilgrims landed in Nov of 1620. The first Thanksgiving was in the fall of 1621. That first year was rough, to say the least!
4. The peace between the Pilgrims and Natives was more about rivalries and politics than blessings and friendship – Thanks greatly to the diseases from those pesky European explorers the Wampanoag found themselves in a weakened state. Alliances with the pilgrims gave them a leg up on their rivals the Narragansetts. Not only that but the Europeans were valuable trading partners for the Wampanoag and other Native Americans in the area. They traded things like steel knives and axes for beaver pelts, which in the beaver-rich New England, was readily available to the Wampanoag who considered the pelts essentially worthless.
5. Squanto (or Tisquantum) was the most important/interesting guest at the first Thanksgiving – Squanto, an English-speaking Native American of the Patuxet tribe, was largely responsible for enabling the Pilgrims to survive long enough to celebrate their first harvest. Squanto had quite a story, starting in 1614 when he was kidnapped by English explorer Thomas Hunt. Hunt brought Squanto to Spain, where he sold him in the city of Málaga. He eventually traveled to England and from there returned to North America in 1619. Sadly, he returned to his native village only to find that his tribe had been wiped out by an epidemic infection. Squanto was the last of the Patuxet.
He played a key role in brokering peace between the pilgrims and local tribes. Then, naturally, he helped the pilgrims grow their first harvest. Just keep in mind that considerable mythology and legend has grown up around Squanto over time, largely because of early praise by Bradford and owing to the central role that the Thanksgiving festival of 1621 plays in American folk history. Squanto was less the “noble savage” that later myth portrayed him and more a practical advisor and diplomat.
6. The harvest feast lasted 3 days – This celebration was not just a single day event, no; it took place over three days. I guess the pilgrims were just that stoked about their first harvest being such a success. Just think of those poor women preparing 3 days’ worth of feast! And most of today’s classic Thanksgiving dishes were not served or even available in 1621. (see # 8 & 9) They were added to the menu sometime after 1700.
7. It wasn’t actually a ‘Thanksgiving’ – You see, that meant something completely different to the pilgrims. To them, a ‘Thanksgiving’ was actually a period of prayerful fasting, and the word certainly was not used in any historical documents from the time. Later when letters from the day were published, it was called the “first Thanksgiving” in a footnote, and the name stuck.
8. There was absolutely no turkey or pumpkin pie, for that matter – We know there was wild fowl, and that four men brought back enough to feed the company for a week. It’s likely that the fowl was crane, duck, goose, or swan rather than turkey. While wild turkeys were available in New England it is unknown if they were served at the first Thanksgiving, and it’s pretty unlikely. As for the pumpkin pie, that would have been a little difficult to make without butter and wheat flour for the crust. They also had very little sugar, no cranberry sauce, and no sweet potatoes.
9. Venison was the main course – It was written that the Wampanoag arrived with an offering of 5 deer, making venison the main course of the meal. We can also assume that since this was an autumnal harvest festival that they dined on what they had harvested. During this time that would have been vegetables such as, onions, lettuce, beans, carrots, spinach, cabbage and perhaps peas and corn (in the form of cornmeal). And so, they dined on venison and fowl, as well as, fruit and wild game. While the rest of the feast is unknown, historians’ surmise that it would have consisted of easily accessible seafood such as fish, lobster, and mussels.
10. They had
11. The first Thanksgiving remains a mystery – there just isn’t much information about the first Thanksgiving. There are only a handful of surviving documents available to historians. We don’t even know, for instance, if this was an annual event for the pilgrims and the Wampanoag. In any case, it became a New England tradition and was officially made a federal holiday by Abraham Lincoln in a proclamation in 1863.
12. The peace between European settlers and Natives was short-lived – Things were peaceful for a good 10 years until additional settlers began arriving. Not just in New England but all over the east coast of North America. We are talking staggering numbers here; about 25,000 additional Englishman arrived in 12 years. Sadly, a plague (brought by European settlers) cut the native population roughly in half.
13. Most Native American nations see Thanksgiving as a day of remembrance and mourning and not a day for celebrations – About 54 years after the Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts King Philip’s War began when Massasoit’s son, Philip (Metacom) waged war against the colonists of New England. The war lasted a mere 14 months but it completely changed the face of New England. Some Native Americans chose to fight for Philip, while others sided with the colonists and some tried to stay out of the fight altogether.
The colonial forces eventually triumphed but the cost of
Native Americans continue to gather each year in Plymouth for a Day of Mourning to both reflect and remember at the statue of Massasoit. Hoping that Americans will never forget but sadly it seems the general population has.
More on King Philip’s War and Massasoit and his son Philip to come on Saturday!
14. Why the President of the United States pardons a turkey – Each Thanksgiving, the President of the United States ‘pardons’ a hand-selected turkey, sending it to a farm to live out the rest of its days. However, contrary to popular belief, President George HW Bush was not the first president to grant a turkey pardon (in 1989).
According to the White House, the tradition dates all the way to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, when his son Tad begged him to write a presidential pardon for the bird meant for the family’s Christmas table. Tad argued that it had as much a right to live as anyone. Lincoln complied, and the turkey lived. A thus began the tradition of the turkey pardon.
In any case, I hope that everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving has a very happy holiday but do remember that not everyone sees this day as a day to celebrate. *stepping off my soapbox now* Enjoy time with your family, friends, and loved ones.
Resources
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollykayt/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-first-thanksgi-82xx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/pardoning-the-thanksgiving-turkey
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Did You KNow Thursday: 14 Things You May Not Know About The First Thanksgiving –
Very good info. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon).
I’ve bookmarked it for later!- calator.tel
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy reading it later!