Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims set aground at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. Their first winter was devastating. Weakened by the seven-week crossing and the need to establish housing, they came down with pneumonia and consumption. They began to die -- one per day, then two, and sometimes three. They dug the graves at night, so that the Indians would not see how their numbers were dwindling. At one point, there were only seven persons able to fetch wood, make fires, and care for the sick. By the spring, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. The Pilgrims obviously needed help and it came from an English-speaking member of the Wampanoag nation, Squanto. Squanto decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive. He brought them food and skins, taught them how to cultivate new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He educated the Pilgrims on poisonous plants, medicine, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival.

The harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one and the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast. The author of The First Thanksgiving states, "This was not a day of Pilgrim thanksgiving." Instead, she writes, "This was pure celebration." This is the type of subtle statement that often occurs in reading about the Pilgrim's first thanksgiving. It is not based on factual history, however. One can only guess at the motives of people who write such things, but statements like this appear to be motivated by a desire to rob the event of any religious meaning.

It is quite true that the word "thanksgiving" is not used in referring to the feast. Much is made of this by secular authors who attempt to reinterpret the Pilgrim thanksgiving. But the only letter that we have telling us about the first Thanksgiving praises God for the harvest, makes reference to the "goodness of God" in providing for them, and says that the feast was held so that they "might after a special manner rejoice together." That sounds like a Thanksgiving feast to me! The event occurred between September 21 and November 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (September 29), the traditional time for English harvest homes. The settlers asked Squanto and the leader of the Wampanoags, Massasoit, to bring their immediate family and to dine with them. The English had