The First Thanksgiving
| Date | 1621 |
|---|---|
| Location | Plymouth Colony |
Thanksgiving in the United States can trace its origins to a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition.
Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them. Squanto had learned the English language during his enslavement in England. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit had given food to the colonists during the first winter when supplies brought from England were insufficient.
The Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days after their first harvest in 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, the Plimoth Plantation vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time."[1] Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a Thanksgiving observance, rather it followed the harvest. It included 50 persons who were on the Mayflower (all who remained of the 100 who had landed) and 90 Native Americans.[1] The feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the New World (Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna White), along with young daughters and male and female servants.[1][2]
Two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth. The Pilgrims, most of whom were Separatists (English Dissenters), are not to be confused with Puritans, who established their own Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Shawmut Peninsula (current day Boston) in 1630.[3][4] Both groups were strict Calvinists, but differed in their views regarding the Church of England. Puritans wished to remain in the Anglican Church and reform it, while the Pilgrims wanted complete separation from the church.
William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation wrote:
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they can be used (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.[5]
Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation wrote:
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. 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 ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we 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.[7]
The Pilgrims held a true Thanksgiving celebration in 1623[8][9] following a fast,[10] and a refreshing 14-day rain[11] which resulted in a larger harvest. William DeLoss Love calculates that this thanksgiving was made on Wednesday, July 30, 1623, a day before the arrival of a supply ship with more colonists,[10] but before the fall harvest. In Love's opinion this 1623 thanksgiving was significant because the order to recognize the event was from civil authority[12] (Governor Bradford), and not from the church, making it likely the first civil recognition of Thanksgiving in New England.[10]
Referring to the 1623 harvest after the nearly catastrophic drought, Bradford wrote:
And afterwards the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving… By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine now God gave them plenty … for which they blessed God. And the effect of their particular planting was well seen, for all had … pretty well … so as any general want or famine had not been amongst them since to this day.[13]
These firsthand accounts do not appear to have contributed to the early development of the holiday. Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation" was not published until the 1850s. While the booklet "Mourt's Relation" was summarized by other publications without the now-familiar thanksgiving story. By the eighteenth century the original booklet appeared to be lost or forgotten. A copy was rediscovered in Philadelphia in 1820, with the first full reprinting in 1841. In a footnote the editor, Alexander Young, was the first person to identify the 1621 feast as the first Thanksgiving.[14]
According to historian James Baker, debates over where any "first Thanksgiving" took place on modern American territory are a "tempest in a beanpot".[14] Jeremy Bang claims, "Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land."[15]Baker claims, "the American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence."[14]
Nevertheless, President John F. Kennedy, in an attempt to strike a compromise between the regional claims, issued Proclamation 3560 on November 5, 1963 stating, "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united them with their God."[16]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Julian, Sheryl. "History is Served", The Boston Globe, November 20, 1996
- ↑ Johnson, Caleb. "Women of Early Plymouth". MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
- ↑ Banner, David. "Boston History – The History of Boston, Massachusetts". SearchBoston. Archived from the original on March 15, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
- ↑ Kennedy, Lawrence W. (1994). Planning the city upon a hill: Boston since 1630. University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-0-87023-923-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Bradford Of Plymouth Plantation, p.90.
- ↑ "Let's Talk Turkey: 5 myths about the Thanksgiving holiday". The Patriot Ledger. November 26, 2009. Archived from the original on November 14, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2014.
- ↑ Mourt's Relation Or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. 1865. Retrieved 7 November 2014. Search this book on
- ↑ Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, pp. 120–121.
- ↑ Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, pp. 135–136.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Love, William DeLoss. The fast and thanksgiving days of New England, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Cambridge, 1895
- ↑ Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 142.
- ↑ Winslow, Edward (1624). "Good Newes from New-England: or, A true relation of things very remarkable at the plantation of Plimoth in New-England … Together with a relation of such religious and civill lawes and customes, as are in practise amongst the Indians" (PDF). MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved November 28, 2013., original at [1]
- ↑ Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, p. 132.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Baker, James W. (2009). Thanksgiving: the biography of an American holiday. UPNE. p. 273. ISBN 9781584658016. Search this book on
- ↑ Bangs, Jeremy (September 2005). "The Truth About Thanksgiving Is that the Debunkers Are Wrong". History News Network. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
- ↑ "John F. Kennedy XXXV President, Thanksgiving Proclamation, Nov. 5, 1963". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
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