Facts of ‘Turkey Day’ -- 1621

  Facts of ‘Turkey Day’ -- 1621

 

The traditional US Thanksgiving pageant and meals honor a party in 1621 when the Mayflower Pilgrims “entertained and feasted” the neighboring Indians who had helped them with their first crops and brought them venison and other food during the year.

 So, here is what those same Pilgrims wrote about it.

  

INDIAN GUESTS

 At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among 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 they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor.... [1]

We entertain [ the Indians ] familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us. [1]

  

CORN, CORNBREAD

 We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas; and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings.... [1]

(These colonists often made cornbread, too.)

  

TURKEY

 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 fruit of our labors. [1]

They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. [1]

 great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many. [2]

 great flocks of turkey, quails, pigeons and partridges [3]

  

FRUITS in the colony

 Here [when in season] are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc.; plums.... [1]

walnuts, chestnuts, small nuts and plums..... gooseberrries and strawberries.... Better grain cannot be than the Indian corn, [3]

 

 CRANBERRIES, PUMPKINS, GRAPES AND NUTS, SWEET POTATO,  etc

 These also grew in the area at that time, or were added to the menu later because they were found in the American Continents.

  

GIVING THANKS

 These Pilgrims on this occasion seemed to be most interested in thanking the neighboring  Indians for all their help. Customarily, when Pilgrims planned to thank God, they made a formal religious occasion. Still, Winslow’s letter has eight grateful mentions of God, so perhaps God was not entirely ignored in this event.

God be praised ... by the goodness of God ... it has pleased God ... on our behalf give God thanks ...  God provided better for us ...  by the blessing of God ... when it pleased God ... by the blessing of God

 

[1] Letter from Plymouth Colony leader Edward Winslow, 1621 (read in my LJ)

[2] Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647 [written 1640-1651]. Bradford was the Governor of the colony at the time of the celebration.

[3] Letter from William Henton in November 1621, who arrived just after the famous celebration. He describes the food that grew wild in that area.

Here are many other primary sources (that is, first hand accounts ) about that colony.

http://mayflowerhistory.com/primary-sources-and-books/

 

PS about Turkey Day - some inaccuracies in traditional pageants

The facts of the 1621 celebration are in my last post. Here's a few things the school pageants etc get wrong. 

1. The pageants don't have enough Indians. Actually it was 53 Pilgrims entertaining 90 Indians. 

2. Turkey wasn't the only meat. There was an assortment of fowl -- and the Indians brought venisons.

3. Costumes may be more iconic than authentic. Critics please tell me, what DID they all wear, and what is your evidence?

4. School programs sometimes use modern fully-popped popcorn rather than authentic half-popped corn. And they use modern formica tables instead of wood tables hewn with axes. (Not enough trees in the school yards, maybe, especially not on repeated years.)

So, why did those Indians help those Pilgrims? (Plymouth 1621)

So, why did those Indians help those Pilgrims? (Plymouth 1621)

The Indians' leader, Massasoit, may have had calculated political motives.

For that whole first winter, Wampanoag Indians watched [the English settlers], trying to figure out if they were a threat or an opportunity. But, to keep their options open, Massasoit of the Wampanoags assigned Tisquantum to work with them, to analyze them, to keep them alive if he could. [....]

[Disease and devastation] had left a huge gap in the Wapanoag Confederation. Other tribes were already feeling out for weakness -- and now a new power had just . . . dropped in. An entirely new piece of the equation. These folks were ignorant and, left to their own devices, would just die off -- but if that happened, the whole Patuxet region would be open, and SOMEONE would take it over.

If Massasoit could keep these Pilgrims alive, they could be enough of a power to keep other tribes away. Long-term, it'd be adding another factor to the political calculus of the region, but Europeans were already a reality and were clearly going to be a factor from now on -- Massasoit had an opportunity to introduce Europeans that were, in some sense, under his control, or at least, influence. They would be dependent upon him, through Tisquantum, which would give him both ethical and pragmatic influence -- they'd be grateful to him, and dependent on him.

The whole northern border of the Confederation was empty. And there were lots of other people -- Indian and European -- who'd be perfectly happy to take over prime land like the abandoned Patuxet village. There was decent farmland, great fishing, and good hunting right there. SOMEONE was going to move in there. From Massasoit's position, the best possible choice was a village of incompetent Europeans who were dependent on him. He could leverage their connection to the British Empire if he needed it, yet they weren't likely to be as big a threat, at least immediately, as a group of settlers who actually knew what they were doing.

So Tisquantum saved them. He helped them break into his village's storehouses, he taught them planting techniques that he'd learned from other Patuxet, like co-planting beans, squash, and maize, and also planting techniques that he'd learned in England, like fertilizing plants with fish guts and otherwise inedible fish. (There's no evidence that any Wampanoag Confederacy tribes did that -- only Tisquantum. And he'd spent a bunch of time in parts of England where they DID do that.)

Tisquantum was never completely trusted by Massasoit, especially as he became more connected to the Pilgrims. Nonetheless, Massasoit's expert political manipulation maintained peace in the region for at least fifty years.


Quoted by permission from http://xiphias.livejournal.com/544757.html?style=mine#cutid1
ETA: xiphias got his information from the book 1491, and "some names and dates and so forth, and a few other details, from Wikipedia."  

We ARE doing what the Pilgrims did

So our current US 'Thanksgiving Day'  (aka 'Turkey Day')  isn't spent much on religion and is mainly spent on food and sports. It also sort of re-plays the party that 53 Pilgrims and 90 Indians had in November of  1621 in Plymouth Colony. The interesting thing is, food and sports was what the 1621 party was about too.

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 fruit 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, among other recreations, we exercised our arms [guns], many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted....
 -- From a letter from Plymouth Colony leader Edward Winslow, 1621 
 

The LABEL 'Thanksgiving' was added -- by politicians -- after many years of people in various parts of the country having similar autumn celebrations, with the same main foods (turkey or fowl, corn and cornbread, pumpkin, grapes and oher fruit, and maybe cranberries). When the Pilgrims as a group thanked God for something, they made a special solemn religious occasion set aside for it: no distracting feast or games.

This article sorts it out.    http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/the-father-of-thanksgiving-how-william-bradford-started-an-american-tradition-17152/