10 Things You Should Understand About The Origin Of Thanksgiving

November 24, 2016

10 Things You Should Know about the Origins of Thanksgiving

10 Things You Should Understand About The Origin Of Thanksgiving

We learn about this most important of American holidays even before we are old enough to walk. Gathering the family together over a feast of turkey, pumpkin pie and other delicacies is one of the defining features of American life. As we grow older we learn about the holiday from our parents and from our schools. We learn that Thanksgiving dates back to the earliest days of our nation, indeed to the days before we were even a nation. We learn that the first ever Thanksgiving took place to celebrate

the first harvest at Plymouth on the fourth Thursday of November 1621 when Pilgrims sat down with the Native Peoples who had helped them to survive their difficult first year. How much of this comforting and traditional story is actually true? When we look back at the historical facts is there really an unbroken timeline from the first Thanksgiving to today? Was the first Thanksgiving even considered a Thanksgiving by those who sat down to the feast and did they eat the same types of food that we eat today?

Our modern traditions tend to gloss over some of the more uncomfortable (and interesting) aspects of the origins of Thanksgiving in favor of creating a comforting story. Here are 10 things you really should know about the origins of Thanksgiving.

10The First Thanksgiving Was A Harvest Festival Not A Thanksgiving

The original gathering was a harvest celebration.

9What We Consider the First ‘Thanksgiving’ Was Not The First Event Of Its Kind

Not 1st!

8The First Thanksgiving Was Not Celebrated With Turkey And Pumpkin Pie

No pumpkin pie!! The horror!

7The Settlers Who Celebrated The ‘First Thanksgiving’ Were Not Pilgrims

No pilgrims! What?

6The Settlers Wore Somber Black Clothes At The Feast

Black was in!

5The Settlers Almost Certainly Did Not Invite The Local Tribes To The Feast

In the popular mythology of the ‘First Thanksgiving’ we learn that the settlers shared their feast with their native friends as a means of thanking them for the help they had been given over the previous year. The truth appears to be somewhat less savory.

While the settlers and the local tribes had a tenuous acceptance of each other’s presence the relationship was not warm. The oral history of the Wampanoag (the nearby tribe) tells that when the settler men tasked with gathering fowl for the feast started to shoot, the Wampanoag thought it was possible that the settlers were preparing to raid them or even start a war. The tribe decided to investigate and a large group of 90 men went to see what was going on. When they found that the settlers were celebrating rather than preparing for a fight they decided to join in. They went hunting and brought deer back to the feast. The Manataka Indian Council claim that it is likely that, rather than the settlers feeding the native tribesmen, that the Wampanoag actually provided the majority of the food.

Of course oral history is notoriously inaccurate and we should not attribute any more accuracy to the Wampanoag accounts than we do to those of the settlers. It is, however, interesting to see another perspective.