The True History of Thanksgiving
By Contributing Writer Dianna Greenwood
For four hundred and three years we have been taught the simple tale of the “First Thanksgiving” in which the Pilgrams gave thanks for a bountiful harvest and celebrated with the Wampanoags who were their friends. This is a heartwarming story but is not true in its entirety. There are winners and losers in history and the winners write the historical record to favor their version of events but that is not what was done by the original Pilgrims, instead other writers later did it. This is why an examination of the historical record utilizing original documents is so important. There is limited information on what is generally known as the First Thanksgiving so it is important to look at other events which may have taken place that would lead to two groups of people coming together to celebrate. But it also begs the question, was the Pilgrims celebration really the First Thanksgiving.
There is only one historical account of this event written by Edward Winslow in one paragraph of a letter to a friend back in England:
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
This celebration would have been known as a Harvest Home and went on for three days not in November but sometime between September 21st and November 9th of 1621 (Plimoth Patuxet Museums n.d.). Part of the celebration would have included firing guns, and this would have attracted the attention of the Wampanoag people who may have thought a war had broken out.
We have no actual information on why the Wampanoag joined the feast nor what actually happened in those three days, but we do know that for the Wampanoag it was most likely a diplomatic mission because their people had been decimated due to diseases that Europeans brought over, and this left them vulnerable to other rivals such as the Narragansetts. The Wampanoags would enter into treaties with the English that would last for approximately 50 years until King Phillips War in 1675 forever changed the balance of power between the European settlers and the Native Tribes. In fact, in the spring of 1621 the Wampanoag people and the colonists had entered into a treaty of mutual protection. Unfortunately, due to a language barrier, the treaty would favor the English colonists and ignore the Wampanoag’s governing system.
However, what we do know, based on the Winslow account, is that the Wampanoag people with their Sachem (leader) Massasoit join with the Pilgrims in this feast and then go out and kill 5 deer bring them back and share the food with the Pilgrims during the feast. We also know that the modern day Thanksgiving dinner is quite different from what the Wampanoag people and the Pilgrims would have eaten. Through Winslow’s journal we know that Governor Bradford sent four men on “fowling” mission to obtain some type of birds to eat for the feast and because they were celebrating the first autumn harvest there would have been an abundance of vegetables on the table such as onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, and corn. Corn
in those days was not cooked the same way as we do today but instead make into porridge that might have been sweetened with molasses. Fruit would have been in abundance as well because in that region there are blueberries, cranberries, plums and grapes. The cranberries would have been eaten like berries rather than how we do it today which didn’t begin until about 50 years after this feast.
So, if the first Thanksgiving isn’t a Thanksgiving but instead a Harvest Home celebration then why do we consider it the First Thanksgiving? Well in the mid 1800’s, the story of this first celebration resurfaced, and it fascinated modern Americans of the time. Paintings and stereotypical images of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags began to appear during a time when Manifest Destiny was in place as the United States was expanding westward. Then Sarah Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a popular magazine at the time, led the campaign to create a National Day of Thanksgiving which occurred in 1863 during the Civil War. Now there had been calls for National days of Thanksgiving and prayer before but nothing similar to what Mrs. Hale was doing. Through her persistence and work the myth of the First Thanksgiving was created resulting in a loss of historical accuracy for future generations.
This loss of historical accuracy and cultural context isn’t the only loss, as time passed the holiday focused more on nostalgia and family and less on religion. The idea of a thanksgiving in those days was to thank God for the bountiful harvest that would sustain them through the winter months. It consisted of prayer and fasting. Many other colonists during this era also had Thanksgiving celebrations such as the settlers in Jamestown, the Englishmen who explored Canda in 1578 and the French Huguenots who settled near Jacksonville, Fl in 1564.
The First Thanksgiving in Plimoth (sic) has many myths associated with it, but at its heart, it is a day of giving thanks for bountiful harvests and gratitude for the blessings that have been bestowed on us by our creator. That is ultimately the true meaning of Thanksgiving and while not all people share in that belief because of atrocities that occurred after that feast, it is a day to be grateful for all that has been accomplished, for the beauty around us and for the relationships we have established.
