As you read Bradford’s description of The First Thanksgiving in Chapter XII (p. 154), who is the ‘they’ in that opening line? Who is gathering and why? As you answer, consider sharing also if this report of the event via Bradford aligns with the stories…
As you read Bradford’s description of The First Thanksgiving in Chapter XII (p. 154), who is the ‘they’ in that opening line? Who is gathering and why? As you answer, consider sharing also if this report of the event via Bradford aligns with the stories…
As families around the country prepare to gather with family, eat turkey and perhaps partake in some Black Friday shopping, they might be surprised to learn how much we don’t know about the origins of the Thanksgiving.
Nearly all of what historians have learned about one of the first Thanksgiving featscomes from a single eyewitness report: a letter written in December 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the 100 or so people who sailed from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. William Bradford, Plymouth’s governor in 1621, wrote briefly of the event in Of Plymouth Plantation, his history of the colony, but that was more than 20 years after the feast itself.
According to this account (elements of which continue to be debated by historians, especially regarding the presence and role of Native Americans), the historic event didn’t happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today—and it wasn’t known as Thanksgiving. In fact, it took place over three days sometime between late September and mid-November in 1621, and was considered a harvest celebration.
“Basically it was to celebrate the end of a successful harvest,” says Tom Begley, the executive liaison for administration, research and special projects at Plimoth Plantation. “The three-day celebration included feasting, games and military exercises, and there was definitely an amount of diplomacy between the colonists and the native attendees as well.”
Just over 50 colonists are believed to have attended, including 22 men, four married women—including Edward Winslow’s wife—and more than 25 children and teenagers. These were the lucky ones who had made it through a rough entry into the New World, including a harsh winter during which an epidemic of disease swept through the colony, felling nearly half the original group. Some 78 percent of the women who had arrived on the Mayflower had died during the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children. “For the English, [the first Thanksgiving] was also celebrating the fact that they had survived their first year here in New England,” Begley points out.
The Plymouth colonists were likely outnumbered more than two-to-one at the event by their Native American counterparts. Winslow’s account records “many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men.” Massasoit (who was actually named Ousemequin) was the sachem (leader) of the Pokanoket Wampanoag, a local Native American society that had begun dealings with the colonists earlier in 1621.